OF COURSE AND THINGS

Of course and things through dreams of death in cathedrals and back alleys...
Mother prays from a background pew as a priest holds a knife above my prostrate self...
Father watches as I bone a woman against a brick wall beneath a gutter drips rain water and cream onto my head...
floating between intermittent groups and Thursday’s collection of baggage on the outskirts of a vast urban sprawl...
the brow of a giant hill overlooking the past, the future, all the way down I every direction, with only the clothes I have on for the journey to my destination, wherever I terminate...
brought to my knees

SUPPLICATION

- accumulate
- money
- ego
- nothing

AMEN

AN OPPORTUNITY MISSED

'We're going to the Hillgrove,' he said of himself and the woman'd come all the way from Italy to be with him when he collected the belongings he'd left behind at the weekend.
'Nice pub,' I said.
'You ever go there?'
'Not anymore,' I said.
'You barred?'
'No.'
'Oh,' he said, disappointment in his voice. 'I thought you might have a story there.'

FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

We met in Kino’s. She was there before me.
I put my bag on the chair opposite where she sat and said, ‘I’ll get myself a drink,’ she already had one.
Whilst ordering coffee a man in a skirt came up beside me at the counter.
Back at the table I fiddled with the chairs and my bag before sitting down. I was nervous. I hadn’t seen her over ten years when I’d driven her to Benidorm where I bought a case of Spanish brandy took me two weeks to drink.
‘I usually use next door,’ I said nodding towards the Arts House.
We talked for two hours until after winding down the last twenty minutes we said goodbye and a brief hug.
‘Keep in touch,’ she said.

Saturday we left about nine-thirty arriving Gunnersbry Lane and parking by the sports ground at five to twelve.
From the tube we joined the march at Piccadilly and for the next five hours: walked to and from Hyde Park; stood listening to speakers, a brass band and Show of Hands; perused stalls; bought badges; picked up radical left wing papers and pamphlets; and mingled at Speaker’s Corner.

Sunday I paid for Saturday. Stiff, and up an hour later than planned forgetting to put my watch forward missing the first half of the Archer’s omnibus.
Afternoon on the allotment: planting; weeding; planning; sun; difficult to leave.

FREE HAND 230311

Why hasn’t it taken so long to come to my senses?
Omnipotence, denial, idealisation…shields against the onslaught of reality…a moments hesitation…
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She was speaking to a customer as I went in, and continued making his coffee saying that if she had a day off she didn’t know what to do with herself so preferred to be working. When she’d finished with him she started making my drink without asking.
No words passed between us until she said, ‘You busy?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘How about you?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
We said more but the exact words unusually elude me as mostly I remember to the syllable the conversations I have and report.
Then I said, ‘What days are your busiest?’
‘Monday and Tuesday,’ she said. ‘For most people it’s the weekend but for us it’s the beginning of the week.’
‘Lunchtime or what part of the day?’
‘Lunchtime,’ she said. ‘Working people…’
‘…who aren’t around at the weekend.’
She smiled.
She put my drink on the counter, turned, went to and rang up the cost on the till, came back and said, ‘Two pounds,’ and held out her hand into which I put two pound coins.
'Thank you,' she said.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Have a nice day,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Bye.’
I opened the door with my free hand.

MORE THAN NOBLE 230311

Where do I go from here?
There are places I can and can’t go depending on what I have and haven’t done up to this point. Experience provides structure through opportunity and limitation.
Such delicious time spent indulging my self-loathing and self-disgust. It makes me feel alive, ploughing this fertile furrow, mining this rich seam, this narcissistic feast, the quality of which has changed recently: it doesn’t last as long but it’s deeper, more profound.
Life isn’t infinite, nothing lasts forever. My appreciation of what I have received leads me to focus my previously self-centred efforts on working to contribute to the life of others and the benefit of the greater whole.
Noble sentiments?
According to Melanie Klein creativity is an act of reparation resulting from anxiety about imagined damage done to the life-giving good object. It emerges from the depressive position in which the individual recognises the object as incorporating what it previously perceived as unconnected good and bad parts. The subject’s mind, having internalised this whole object, can now contain conflict rather than defend against difference through splitting and projection, which leads in turn to discriminating thought and freedom of choice rather than kneejerk reactions and right-wing ideologies. Concern for the welfare of the now whole other is because the subject comes to know that the bad object it hated and wanted to destroy is also the good and loved object. It isn’t hard to see how guilt would arise at this realisation.
Throughout our lives we can return to the paranoid/schizoid position at times of stress and personal threat resorting to primitive defences, in degrees dependent on earlier emotional successes, to ensure our survival.
Achieving the depressive position is the beginning of separation from the object, of becoming independent beings coming to know our own minds. If we fail to make this developmental move in a substantial way we are stuck in dependency which in later life can manifest as (and I’ve taken some leaps here) seeking refuge in drugs and alcohol to escape our difficulties and to sustain our infantile wish to be merged with another.
Dependency is acted out by resorting to and remaining on the bottle. We can witness creativity and self-destruction (an envious attack on the object that gave and nurtured life) on Stokes Croft, which taken in its entirety is a whole object: all life is here, depressingly and otherwise.
So these sentiments aren’t noble, an act of redemption and an acknowledgment of the divine in Stokes Croft.

ADJACENT PARTS 090311

ADJACENT PARTS

I’ll exchange your spine for my bladder, he said
- You’d split a cat
- Depends how big you are, she said
- Bath’s better
- Painkillers are good, morphine’s especially the one, he said,
- Battlefield medicine’s the one, he said, what it’s all about, not the pharmaceutical medicines
- Indeed, she said, landing on the fucking shore, you’d look a right cunt if you didn’t
SNORTING LAUGHTER
- Good skills, man, show lots of love and get others to do it with really sharp knives
(THERE SHE IS, CROSSING THE ROAD, SHE’S WEARING THE BLUE COAT GOES WITH HER HAIR)
- You’ve got to look like a homeless guy
- That’s your excuse, she said
- Usually I’d be hanging around in a suit today
SHE CAME OVER TO THE TABLE WHERE WE BOTH NOW SAT
-You want your change?
- (singing) ‘What a wonderful world, what a wonderful world, like lemon drops, somewhere over the rainbow, what a wonderful world, (singing) ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo
- There you go, she said, putting her tea on the table in front of her
- Thanks

WE CHATTED A WHILE

‘Can you do me a favour?’ said the man sitting down opposite.
‘How much do you want?’ I said, not wanting a long preamble to the bottom line.
‘Well, I’ve got,’ he said counting the change in his hand, ‘about two eighty and I need fifteen for a bed at the hostel.’
‘Oi,’ said one of the men round the adjacent table, ‘Fuck off,’ to the man asking us for money.
‘I’m just asking,’ he said, ‘I’ll be gone in a minute.’
‘I’ll give him a pound,’ I said to her. ‘Have you got one too?’
- I felt a bit anxious, irritated he’d interrupted us, keen to get back to our conversation, annoyed at the man saying ‘Fuck off,’ what did she think and want?
We each gave him a pound and he said, ‘Thanks.’
‘Go on, fuck off.’
‘I’m going, man,’ he said now tucking his shirt in by the door.
‘He must be cold,’ she said, ‘not wearing a coat.’
‘Travelling light,’ I said, embarrassed at a glib comment about someone asking for help and being told to fuck off.
‘That was a bit hostile,’ she said, ‘wasn’t it?’
'I know,' I said. 'He was asking us for help not them.'

A NEED GREATER 140311

A NEED GREATER

Coming in the top entrance he was standing outside his front door shopping bags on the floor around him. She was next to him.
‘They’ve taken my front door mat again,’ he said after we’d said ‘hello’ to each other.
‘How many times is that?’ I said.
- she went back out, to get more shopping, I imagined (literally) –
‘Ten,’ he said, putting a key in the lock.
‘That’s a drag,’ I said.
I got in the lift had arrived and as the door closed laughed to be friendly – a nervous laugh, felt a little creepy, demanding even - when he said, ‘They probably need it more than me.’

MEETINGS WITH FOUR (OF THIRTEEN)

MEETINGS WITH FOUR (OF THIRTEEN)

I hadn’t seen Four for a while then he got in the lift where I stood against the back rail as we made our down to the ground floor.
‘Hello, haven’t seen you for a while,’ he said. ‘How are you?
‘I’m well,’ I said. ‘Though I was ill a few months over Christmas.’
‘What was it?’
‘Flu,’ I said. ‘Well a virus of some sort that included a heavy bout of flu kept me in bed a few days. I had three months of it,’ I said. ‘Took me that long to shake it off.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘One of the cleaners came to work with the flu and gave it to everyone else, though I didn’t get it, but I don’t know why people come in when they’re ill.’
‘No work no pay, is it?’
‘Yes.’.
‘That’s why then.’
‘Hmm,’ he said.
Outside it was windy. I’d known it would be.
Four put his hand to his head, said, ‘I’d better hold to my hat or I’ll lose it.’
‘I love the wind,’ I said. ‘Getting blown about…’
‘Hmm,’ he said or something.

In the lift on the way back a little later Cee with a bucket and mop.
‘Still windy out there?”
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I love it.’
‘Hmm,’ he said.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ I said reaching the front door to the block Four was holding open for me from since I passed the last lamppost on the right.
‘You’ve just missed the lift,’ he said. ‘But it’ll be down in a minute.’
‘Thank you,’ I said again.
Through the door I expected him to follow but when he didn’t him holding it open for me was extra special.

070311

BANDANA MAN 070311

Wellian rang.
‘You at home?’
‘I’m in a shop on Stokes Croft,’ I said. ‘You wanting coffee?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I haven’t got any money.’
‘You want to come up to mine?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Shall I meet you there or on Stokes Croft?’
‘Stokes Croft,’ I said. ‘If you walk up I’ll finish here and we’ll go up to mine.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
The man leaning on the counter reading a paper was shooed off by the man serving when I made to pay.
Outside the shop I saw Wellian standing by the lights the other side of the road. I was surprised because he usually walks slowly and I expected to have to wait for him.
Back at mine I made coffee.
‘I’ve just dropped my bike off,’ he said.
‘Who’d you get?’ I said and he said, ‘Bandana Man.’

050311

SOMETHING IS MISSING 050311

Something is missing. There is an absence at the heart, in the words.
The position is schizoid.
What is shown does not reflect what lies in the mind, evidence of discomfort, vanity, a cover-up.
So what is missing?
Part-object relating takes a part and calls it whole. Whole-object relating takes the parts as a whole. The latter unlike the former puts two and two together and suffers the consequences.
When I first wrote about where I live and the people I share it with it was to be connected. Now I find myself writing to distance and hide, to create a false self, to ingratiate, to make out.
The role of the artist, as I see it, is to make work that penetrates, exposing relationships between whole objects while resisting the urge to rationalise and soften the blow. Being an artist isn’t fun, it is work.
What is missing is memory of this and the power to remember.
Yes, I can read your thoughts...because
I am human too.

010311

QUESTION GO

‘See ya,’ she said as I left the laundry after putting my washing in one of the washing machines.
The lift’d stopped the floor below mine before arriving and the door opening to let me in and showing a woman holding an empty laundry bag.
- irritated, I don’t want no trouble -
She followed me walking out the lift on the fifth floor.
The man’d been talking to CT, and pointing at the laundry times on the wall, held the door as I pushed it open and gestured me in.
- all the years I’ve lived here, shared the lift, passed him in and out of the block, not a word to each other since I said, ‘Hello,’ and he didn’t return it, now this…
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Morning,’ said O sitting on the bench.
‘Hello,’ I said.
At the washers I said about the full right-hand machine, ‘That yours?’ to the woman’d shared the lift.
‘Yes,’ she said.
She emptied the machine and put her clothes in the extractor. I filled the machine.
The causal racism from others I’ve experienced in the laundry came to mind. It could be mine. I felt some relief when O said, ‘You want the dryer?’ to the woman.
‘This one free?’ said CT to me of the machine I hadn’t used.
‘Yes,’ I said.
He put one dirty cloth in and went to the storeroom where I expected he’d get more, at least I hoped, because one cloth a wash seems a lot for a little. It wasn’t something I’d find out.
‘See ya,’ said O. ‘Bye,’ I said, leaving.
On my way to the lift, at the double doors, I wondered if I might’ve stayed longer in the laundry, had a chat, I heard voices from the laundry and let my question go.

SATURDAY 260211

WANTED

Coming out of Ashley News taking a couple of drinks form a small bottle of water I’d bought because I knew I’d need to wash down a couple of solpadeine in town, I saw a young woman and young man crossing at the end of City Road on their way down Stokes Croft.
She looked at me, I looked away, and when we were about passing she said, ‘Excuse me,’ and stepped in front of me.
‘Yes,’ I said, thinking, ‘Clear complexion, a line of blue eye shadow above blue eyes…beautiful…’
‘Do you know if there’s a greasy spoon nearby?’ she said.
‘You’ve been up there? I said with a slight nod of my head.
‘Yes.’
Turning towards North Road I said, ‘There’s…no, that’s gone…oh, yes, er…if you go down the subway through the roundabout and come up opposite, straight over?’
‘Ok,’ she said.
I spoke to him as well as her even though it was she had asked me.
‘Ok,’ I said, ‘there’s a café, “The Flipper” I think it’s called, that might be a greasy…’
‘Thanks,’ she said smiling.
I watched them walk off then turned, made my way down Moon Street.
‘I could have said, “You mean double egg and chips greasy?” to clarify what she and they wanted.

In Broadmead, sitting on a bench in the Hub.
‘It’s something,’ he said, ‘a sermon while you’re shopping.’
He’d sat down the other end of the bench being careful of the small pool of rain water was there.
‘Do you mind?’ I said.
‘No, no,’ he said turning to me, white hair, hands resting on the top of a walking stick.
In the middle of the Hub a man holding a bible, raised voice proclaiming…’Jesus…there is no religion but Jesus…know Him…’ Two men walking round him offering leaflets to passersby, most of whom declined unlike me…
‘There used to a man down there,’ he said, pointing the direction of Tesco.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But he’s more animated…’
‘And louder,’ he said. ‘But I still didn’t understand a word.’

On the way home I made to check the menu in the café I’d directed the young couple to wondering if it was a greasy spoon. But I didn’t get that far because before close enough I saw them sitting there in a window seat heads close, talking, and to avoid being seen by them I went back the way I’d come.

STANDING

Mrs Throat was standing, with two other women, on the white line runs down the middle of Stokes Croft. Traffic passed in front and behind them and they appeared unaffected by its proximity…
…three women…
Mrs Throat on the left. On the right the oldest of the three, her hands in the pockets of a thigh length camel coloured coat open, flapping in the breeze. Between these two, can of White Ace in one hand, shoulder length hair blowing gently into her red face, the woman who looked in charge…talking.
‘She stands in the middle of the road,’ I thought of Mrs Throat from behind the glass where I sat watching. ‘She with women. She stands for things that make her shout.’

FAIR EXCHANGE

The writer came to my flat. We stood on the balcony. He smoked a cigarette.
‘Wow,’ he said, ‘this is incredible. I’ve never seen Bristol like this. Everything looks different from up here, what an amazing view.’
‘It is isn’t it,’ I said and pointed. ‘That’s the back of Cromwell Road, you wouldn’t think it’d be there.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘you get the sweep of Gloucester Road,’ he said, ‘how it curves,’ he said. ‘And there’s Stokes Croft and Rhadika,’ he said, ‘I like that.’
We stood on the balcony.
After a short while I said, ‘What is it you want?’
He told me what he’d done the last few years, a potted history, how it led to what he was doing and what he planned the next few years.
As I watched and listened, ‘This is a performance,’ I thought, ‘just for me, between the two of us.’


CREEPY

‘The usual?’ she said when I arrived at the counter.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
Sit down. Take out notebook. Start writing.
Outside the Arts House I’d taken a leaflet said, ‘DEFEND PUBLIC SERVICES,’ from a young man walked in after she’d brought me my coffee and had a brief chat about the night before.
The young man walked up to the counter, ‘You have expensive cakes here,’ he said. ‘Have I got enough for a cake and coffee?’
Stop writing. Get up. Walk to counter.
‘I’ll buy you a cake,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen you outside talking to people, giving out leaflets.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Which one do you want?’
‘What have you got?’
‘We have these just in,’ she said, the woman serving, bringing form under the counter into view a clingfilm covered sponge cake.
‘I’ll have a piece of that,’ he said.
‘How much is it?’ I said.
‘Two pounds,’ she said.
Pay her. Walk back to table. Sit down.
Later, ‘That was nice of you,’ she said, ‘buying him the cake.’
‘Felt a bit creepy,’ I said.

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

Double take.

Take One.
It’s him. He’s back. In town. Been over twenty years since the last time I saw him when he was walking out the saying, ‘If you don’t want it here,’ he said, ‘I’ll take it somewhere wants it.’
Now he was standing outside the further of the two charity shops at the top of the subway exit comes out opposite the Flipper fish bar the Broadmead side of James Barton.
Flat cap; shades; grey beard. I’d know that chin and nose anywhere.
What’s he doing back in town?

Take Two: THINK OF ME
Walking to the flats from direction Ninetree, close to one of the flowerbeds near the entrance coming toward me three neighbours: Throat/Throat’s girlfriend/Throat’s brother.
I wondered if she’d look at me, say hello, or at least nod, after our few and significant exchanges the three months Throat’s been away in hospital. More than nothing she turns and bows her head away from me as we pass.
Later reading I heard coming from outside the flat:
‘…slash me. Rape me. Make me cut my hair. Then tell me you don’t want me…’ – his low rumblings punctuate the fluctuating volume and intensity of her voice – ‘so what? So fucking what you cunt? You sleep with me and then your off to score because you’re using again, you cunt…oh yes you are, we know what’s your first love, don’t we?..don’t you fucking lie…’ – responsibility – ‘…you don’t know what it is, you cunt…so what, so I slept with a few people I went out drinking with, you weren’t around, not like you…oh yes you did, just because I’m not the fifteen anymore…’ – rumbling muttering – ‘…fuck off, beating me even when I had a child in my arms…’ – ‘…yes you did, go on, you know you want to, go on, twist it, go on, tighter, you know you want to…’ – muttering – ‘…yeh, that is you, you cunt, you want to do something but you’re too frightened…fuck off, look at me, fucking look at me: scarred, short haired, raped up bitch. That’s what you think of me…’

FOLK CLUB

Folk Club at BD’s last night. Four of us throughout the evening including the D who wanted to hang with me before her girlfriend arrived on their way back to Denmark. She’s gone to the bus stop to meet her and I’m feeling irritated, my space about to be invaded.
The D sits. The D reads. The D talks.
We have discussions. We go for coffee.
They’re back, I hear them come in. I’ll be careful what I say and do so I don’t give my game away…
Mentalizing is inferring a person’s mental state from their behaviour. Mentalizing is an imaginative, intuitive, and rapid emotional reaction to the mass of information each of us is subject to at any one time.
But not everyone can mentalize. Without this ability emotional regulation is impaired leading to relationships characterised by impulsive and unpredictable behaviour lacking in empathy – the state of mind this indicates? You work it out…

GAVE 090211

She spent two hours painting me as I sat for two hours in mostly the same position but reading the first hour writing the second.
She painted with oils on a canvas had, what was meant to be money-making erotic art which had failed to sell and that she’d bought on the cheap.
‘You should have a camera filming you,’ she said, when she found out what I did for a living during a discussion on the importance of arriving on time.
I told her what had happened…
‘What time’s it open?’ said the woman closest me of the two with children in pushchairs.
‘Eleven,’ I said.
‘It’s eleven now,’ she said, ‘and there’s no one in there.’
‘They should be along in a minute,’ with little faith it being true.
‘We’ll come back later,’ said her friend. ‘Shall we?’
They left toward town.
‘Wonder if they’ll be back?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But that’s what happens when you say you’ll be somewhere at a certain time and then you’re not.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you get given what you gave.’

MORNING

Lift floor wet. Mopped.
Out at the fifth floor. Fifth floor, from lift to laundry, wet. Mopped.
No caretaker. No one in the laundry. Except me.
It’s quiet. A note on my right hand machine: SORRY - OUT OF ORDER.
One machine is enough.
Wash done, extractor for all, dryer for all but trousers for which I want no shrinkage.
Folding my dried clothes standing at the folding table where the bench used to be overlooks the city. The sound of washers on spin. Sunlight through the four south facing windows of the laundry. Hot air rising from vents on rooftops.
The D texts: I’ll be in between half 3 and 4. My train leaves at 12.12 from leeds. You around or am I busing it?
Reply: You’re bussing it. You want me to meet you somewhere?
Reply: Bus stop in town? So you can carry a bag? Bout 4ish? You not got a car?
Reply: yes got car, rather not drive. See you at bus stop 4ish
Reply: Cool, ok

CLEANING

The D’s back on Tuesday so I’ve been cleaning.
Cleaning all the china in the bathroom.
Cleaning the kitchen.
Cleaning her room. Putting clean sheets on her bed and a clean cover on her duvet.
When she get’s back, as we walk from the bus stop, where I’ll meet her, to the flat, I’ll apologise, say, ‘Sorry, I didn’t have time to do any cleaning.’

PHONE CALL

Her phone rang. She answered her phone.
‘Oh, hi Kate, yes,’ she said. ‘Look,’ soon after, ‘my phone’s fucked…yeh…just saying in case it cuts out…yeh…doesn’t hold a charge and cuts out without warning…yeh…I spoke to her yesterday and apparently Olive’s she’s not being buried til Friday…no, not this Friday, next Friday…I know, but that’s…yeh…yeh, I know but that’s what happens…I visited her every week…yes…now they…yes, every week, and now they say I only did it for what I’d get…I know…I know, but that’s not why...no, no...Kate...yes, but now they all want a piece…yeh, exactly, that’s what I think…it’s all about them…look, Kate, I’m gong to go now because my phone…yes…I don’t have much charge and I want to save what I’ve got and I should be there about half hour…yes, is that okay?...good, I’ll see you then…yes, ok…bye…yes, ok…yes, bye…bye.’

SHE’S COMING THIS WAY

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Crossing.
Crossing the road.
Crossing the road to get to the Here shop.
Halfway across.
Halfway across the road on the respite island from where I see her coming towards me.
She is wearing a coat with the hood pulled up frames her face, our eyes meet…
…our eyes meet, a faint smile from her, tentative, exploratory, what with our history, a flickered smile back, I barely felt it, I hope she got it
- since we talked I’ve seen more of her -
…drop off, then down Stokes Croft, Moon Street, Brunswick, bottom of the M32, Wade Street, Great George through the estate, Cabot toilets, the post office, Pret for coffee and a read, Portland, Brunswick, Moon Street…
…top of Moon Street, she’s coming this way