Day in the life...

Black Flame

-- I am reconciled.

Cold nights outweigh

the diminishing days.

-- Burnt out.

Like the black flame

in my charred

heart.

Day in the life...

And that was it...

-- Looking out the 

same window,

for all these years.

Horizons swept away.

Every day -- gone!

Journeys remembered

destinations forgotten.

--- Boarding the Metro

at Quai de la Gare... 

The tang of 

burnt rubber 

and last night's 

late hour,

sweeps the length 

of the platform.

The look on her face

betrayed nothing --

except her husband.

Day in the Life...

Long Island

-- We know the route.

Down the path, alongside

the empty house.

--- Footprints in the snow.

On top of the coal bunker.

On the garage roof. 

In, through 

the landing window.

The immersion heater

left on, ever since.

The smell of fresh 

radiator paint.

---- Radio 4 on 

in the kitchen.

Night broadcasts

silent bedrooms,

the Priory.

The inevitable,

hovering ---

A shadow over

Long Island.

* Langney is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words Lang and ey for 'Long Island'.

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.

The Bloke Whisperer

I set up The Bloke Whisperer in 2013*, ostensibly as way to help me articulate the agony and anguish I was feeling at the time. I was suffering from depression and anxiety. They were tough times but I finally managed to learn some strategies and techniques to help me cope with the difficult situations I was finding myself in. I've worked with numerous clients and helped them to overcome their own personal challenges. I wound activity down as other priorities took place.

However, in light of recent events, I have decided to re-ignite the business, with a very positive intent to help as many people as possible to grapple with their own personal demons. If you or someone you know would like a confidential chat over a coffee then don't hesitate to reach out: here

* I am aware that another business founded in 2016 also uses The Bloke Whisperer name. 

That's cool with me, it is more important to help people rather than get het up about such trivial things. 

x

Brighter Days

As I mentioned in a recent post, a friend of mine took his own life just a few weeks ago.

It came as a shock and yet... It most probably shouldn't have. Life is tough for everyone at some stage (and of course the range of problems can be extreme) but the truth is, we should at least be able to reach out. Whether it is to friends or family or professionals. We must reach out...

That's all I wanted to say today. I'll be back soon with more meanderings, vague recollections and daft anecdotes. But in the meantime, remember - Reach out!

Bringing dark thoughts into the bright light

As I have documented elsewhere, most notably here, I have had personal brushes with depression and it even got to the stage where I contemplated taking a final and fatal route.

That has changed, it is off the table now.

The reason is twofold:
1) I have found new strategies to cope with dark days (which still come by the way) and they help to avert tumbling into a whirlpool of morbid self-reflection.
2) A friend of mine recently could not find a way out of his own particular maze and sadly ended up taking his own life. Such a desperately sad loss. But it is a loss that must have a positive legacy and it will...

More to follow.

Solace from song

With the city on fire and the impending election of the bumbling sociopath in the UK. I can't help but wonder - what is the point of carrying on. 

These are dark days indeed and it is sometimes all too hard. But there is solace and it can come from the bleakest of places...

I give you...

Black Eyed Dog

A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more
A black eyed dog knew my name
A black eyed dog knew my name
A black eyed dog
A black eyed dog.

I'm growing old and I want to go home
I'm growing old and I don't want to know
I'm growing old and I want to go home.

A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more.

Nick Drake - Black Eyed Dog

Zero Hours

Twilight Gods,
choking
on the sticky bile of anxiety
turn in too late,
get up too early
and there is no way out of the maze
the exit has grown over
if ever an exit existed
the only sound is the
Minotaur
gnawing away
at the souls
of the
underpaid
& underfed
----
the terminal
unoccupied
AI leading
us nowhere
----
Zero hours
Zero days
Zero minutes
Zero breaths.

Albion Hotel

Bring me the keys

And show me to my room

Turn off the light

So that I can see the moon

I can hear the rain falling

Through the night

The gulls cawing

I can feel the tide calling

Through the night

Until early morning

I’m checking in

I’m checking in

I’m checking in

To the Albion Hotel

Bring me a drink

And leave it over there

Turn back the sheets

As you head back down the stairs

I can hear the rain falling

Through the night

The gulls cawing

I can feel the tide calling

Through the night

Until early morning

I’m checking in

I’m checking in

I’m checking in

To the Albion Hotel

Prepare my bill

& slip it under my door

give my luggage away

I won’t need it anymore

I can hear the rain falling

Through the night

The gulls cawing

I can feel the tide calling

Through the night

Until early morning

I’m checking out

I’m checking out

I’m checking out

of the Albion Hotel

©Andrew Franks 2014

For a live version of this song, click here... Albion Hotel live

Depression

I think I've been here before but I'll go again anyway...

Sitting in a cafe (preferably The Spartan on Grove Road), hovering over an hour old cup of tea, with a Marlboro on the go. Fringe down, gazing at Kafka's words, ushering in a new darkness and whispering on the chill breeze that blew from the Town Hall to the Library. It's ok to feel this empty and this hollow because life will fill me up with joy and desire. It won't ever be like this again.

Or so I thought.

Mark Fisher RIP

Sad news from the UK is the passing of Mark Fisher, cultural theorist and inspirational music writer. 

Fisher's influential K-Punk blog was widely admired and wide read. Fisher used a cultural theorist's perspective to examine underground and mainstream music, from his original fascination with Roxy Music and The Jam through to Burial, via Japan and Rufige Kru. He was also a founding member of Warwick University's Cybernetic Cultural Research Unit (with musician and label boss Kode9), and a lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths in London. 

In 2004, Fisher released Ghosts Of My Life, a book that covered a wide range of topics and shared his personale mental health struggles. The book also explored Fisher's ideas on "hauntology," which is a method/theory of understanding the world when culture has lost momentum at the "end of history." 

"Hauntology is a coming to terms with the permanence of our (dis)possession, the inevitability of dyschronia," Fisher wrote in a blog post in 2006. "I repeat, I re-cite: hauntology is the closest thing we have to a movement, a zeitgeist, at the moment (and one of the uncanniest aspects of it is the fact that there seem to be very few lines of explicit influence among the artists involved)."

Fisher followed up in 2009 with Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? Which argued that since 1989 capitalism had portrayed itself as the only valid economic-political system. 

His final book The Weird and the Eerie was published in January 2017. His loss will be keenly felt by many, not least for the that fact that the most recent book he was working on, had a truly mouth watering title Acid Communism. One can only dream...

A fund has been set up to help his wife and son. Please donate if you can.

Mark Fisher Fund