Day in the life of a... (September 2020)

A darker perspective

-- Mountain high, all time low.

Surrounded by love. 

The treachery 

of the mind.

And to think

that the best days

are so far behind us.

--- The mercurial mix

of amphetamine sulphate,

Holsten Pils, treble

vodkas --- and the girl

from accounts. 

---- Did we really have 

to aim quite so high?

-- Apollo and Artemis

got lost somewhere 

between here and 

Leicester Square.

Meanwhile Dionysus

has got the landlord

in a headlock and 

is promising 'free drinks

for all' --- 

----- Bowie on the jukebox,

silence on the other end 

of the phone.

Mountain high, all time low.

Psychogeographical Meanderings - Brixton > Soho #4

Late night gig crowds flood out from the Academy. A young Bowie waves hello to his dreams. On the Brixton Road, bombing towards The Oval, an Olympic Couriers cycle courier nearly dies under the wheels of a huge haulage truck. The BMW in front had cut the courier up and he had to swerve out into the middle of the road. That was close...

Ignoring one-way signs and red lights is one thing. Cheating death is another.

Meanwhile, we stride purposefully towards where a carriage has pulled up outside an abandoned house. The batteries on the Sony Walkman fades, 'Because of you' by Kevin Rowland stumbles into silence. The tall figure of Mr Sherlock Holmes emerges from the fog...

The graffiti tags on the wall... RACHE

A change of batteries and tape 'Cupid & Psyche '85' melts into our ears. We can move on, as far as Holmes is concerned
- the case is closed.

Lockdown - Day #17

Torn old copies of the Eastbourne Gazette and Herald, smudged newsprint and yellowing paper stuffed under the seat of THAT seafront shelter. The ripped clothes and the naked body of a girl on the beach. It is Christmas Day and the Sussex Constabulary swarm over the cold windswept pebbles. Still remembered and still try to say a prayer for her on Christmas Day. Poor Nicole (RIP).

Another winter and THAT shelter is home to a different kind of tragedy. An old homeless man, regular visitor to Seaside off-licence, wrapped in differing editions of the Gazette/Herald, moves along the bench to a cold teenage boy. Raised voices, a misunderstanding, shouting and the youth runs away towards Langney. It was just a misunderstanding.

The pace always quickens when walking by... So, time to move on from THAT shelter. Seagulls pirouette above, the sun silhouettes them high in the Sussex heavens and the (at first tinny) sounds of a ghetto-blaster reach out from above the shoulders of a group of golden souls… 

“Run for the shadows, run for the shadows

Run for the shadows in these golden years”