while listening to hammered hulls

<first thoughts>
this is the now this is the moment
we are /n/ sitting here now and tomorrow
and the next /o/ day we start to become
someone new we hope against all hope
/f/ come on now do you really believe
change is /a/ possible soon come
certainly it will /u/ soon come
sure it will roll them /l/ out
standing on the edge roll them out /t/
going down to the crossroads
throwing /w/ the dice or die
by another man's plan /e/
switch it up now change it up break it
up and /w/ don't look back you can't
stand to go /e/ on like this
so better start to /r/ stand to better start
standing up for fear of /e/ falling down
we understand you're nervous and scared
hang /o/ on to that then hold it now hit it
and let it go /n/ or you'll still be standing on the 
razor long time /c/ come let's bring it on home
in 100 days check /e/ in again this time next year
sensational optimism for next april 14
play /e/ careening again in memorial
of who you /g/ used to be and don't be sad for
what you had don't /g/go there too late
just be glad for who you are /s/ what a homily
what a hominid what kind of a holy are we
<only thoughts>

We were children in a garden

a treacle sponge pudding

'mind you don't burn your mouth' 

Robin Trower on Rock Goes to College

pudding in a bowl in the dark

the black and white portable tv balanced

on the back room shelf while

their news or soaps are on in the front

pudding with a moist sponge and sticky sauce

I didn't know much about him

a Great British tradition with retro charm

but hungry for music, any music

feathery textured no custard thanks

boiled or was it steamed in a can, lick

hadn't thought much of recent episodes but

fish face Trower's loving every moment of this

'why don't you turn the light on in there?'

lick the spoon, maybe he's for the older brothers

I didn't know how you could be the singer

when the band had someone else's name

Daydream was the highlight, golden syrupy notes

coming through the tinny tiny speaker

comfort food music memory leakage in the dark

All these moments lost in time

Clash - White Riot (car radio 1977)

It’s a mighty long way from the long hot

summer of silver jubilee police and thieves

filth and fury but hearing this come on the radio

blew my tiny skull above the trees.

so I know exactly where I first heard this as I

psychically travel back to find the place even

if it appears here 40 years in the future

but perhaps all time is ever-present

aka the block universe theory

do you really believe that of course not

to be continued...

like a crystal owl (after patricia lockwood)

dissolving stars warm aural womb axis jewel of
pitch blown-glass hooted crystal owl containers
gay umbilicus made in her own throat flopped of
gauze stretch the hot ghost place let it flow
motionless upper uphill teach it tricks on the
floor dissolving stars uncurled teach impossible
words rich into a dry riverbed unchanging axis
flexible revolving nameless see what that voice
see what aerial language listening at the height
it could become lie down tenuous lie down pitch
in a normal way on the nameless floor pitch let
it flow heaven let it flow pitch uphill at the
height into various blown-glass woman discovered
totally alone see what toss it see what play
with it tricks see what audience could become
motionless against a background paused valuable
unable to resist against background of hot ghost
dissolving listening language clutching herself 

Angine de Poitrine

  
         When they                       I started off
        announce a world                confused, then became 
      tour, I hope they               happy, and now I'm a     
    clarify         which           triangle.        This is the    
   world.           My dog             sound           of licking      
    taught me         advanced        a 9 volt          battery. 
      calculus      after             Finally        a use for
           hearing this                 my pineal gland  

            Definitely                    Imagine you
        hiring these two                are in the 1950s and
      to play       at my              you are      allowed to       
    abduction.      I used            show them        them one      
   to walk           normally           music video        from the
    before             watching         future. My         4-year-old   
       them,        now I walk        daughter and      I have found 
          in microsteps                    our favorite band       

            My 10 minute                      I finally 
        drive to work now               found what the 0.01%
      takes          exactly            remaining     bacterias      
    27 mins            and 53             are doing      when I use             
   seconds.             So glad         bleach        for cleaning.         
    my grandma's       cat              First time   I've been
       recommended    this             proud to      be human
        to me in a dream                    in weeks
            
          I put this                       I played it on
        on a loop in the                my phone     to a 
      gym and        ran on           homeless guy    and he       
    the treadmill      for hours        lives with       me now. 
   in the wrong         direction.        Finished           watching      
   My shoelaces          tied them-          this for        my first           
      selves        and I don't            time and        can now 
        even own shoes                       speak Braille   

Peak-End Rule

 - Look, these are all my old records

- In this barn?

- Yes, they've been here for decades. This is a rare copy of Last Train Home by the Undertones. Even Peel never heard it

- In this freezing barn on the top of a hillside?

- Yes and this is the original of Stinks of Locker Room Pride by Hole

- I don't think

- I used to buy so many singles. K-Hole 3000 by Kraftwerk, with The Speaking Calculator on the B side. Haven't heard that in ages

- You really believe this pile of crumbling artefacts 

- I wish I had a jukebox to play them on, a proper old school Wolitzer

- Take my hand. Look at this view

- It's like that painting The Natural Heart by Friedrich Wilhelm Richter

- Your fingers are like icicles. I can't see your breath

- Why are my priceless records in a barn at the top of a mountain though

- It's more of a hill. And it's time to go now

- Wait. I want to sing one more song

My Year of Earworms

The repetitive, intrusive thoughts
What is and What Should Never Be

The stuck song syndrome
Royals, The Underdog, Roar, Soul Bossa Nova

Associated with anxiety and depression
Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing

Mein Jahr der Ohrwürmer
Somewhere Only We Know

It didn't make any difference if I liked the song
Yellow Brick Road

Scritch that cognitive itch
Just Can't Get Enough

The twenty fourteen to fifteen season
Sun In My Morning
when Happy was inescapable, when
earworms were a constant presence

Typically benign, neutral-to-pleasant
Siberian Khatru, Gigantic, Where's Captain Kirk?, Dat

A form of involuntary cognition
We Have All The Time in the World
Your Brain on Music, wired to ruminate and reflect

Just a normal part of how our brains process music and memory
Kick Over the Statues, Seasons (Waiting on You)

When feeling dreamy, bored, or nostalgic
Baby Don't Change Your Mind
associated with a wide range
Wake Up, The Mayor of Simpleton
of habitual behaviours and compulsions

Gusanos, tarlo musicale, keep a list
Ghost Town, Moonlight Shadow

Involuntary cognition
What Goes On (VU), Iko Iko, Africa, Be My Wife

Catchy structure, repepetititive
The Only Living Boy in New York

Dallamtapadás, korvamato, make a list
Buffalo Stance, Lola, Johnny Remember Me, Radioactive

An involuntary intrusion, difficulty shifting focus
Sunday Mornin' Coming Down, Champagne Supernova (not that version)

Have you tried chewing gum?
Take Me to Church, Crush, Let Me Roll It, Dexter Main Title

It could block the sub-vocal rehearsal component
Poker Face, Kracked, Hollow Talk

Vers d'oreille, make a list
All the Young Dudes, I Dream of Jeannie, Total Eclipse of the Heart
no rhyme no reason, stuck stuck stuck

Mental amplifiers randomly popping into your head
I Shot the Sheriff, Eternal Flame, The Best Day of My Life

Persistent or distressing earworms
Only Girl (In the World), Are you Ready for Love, Get Back

Acting as intrusive, unwanted thoughts
You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties
fragmentation is related to working memory differences

Ørehænger, kulağakaçan, make a list
Who's That Chick?, Galvanize, Them Heavy People, Linger

A subtype of obsessions
Japanese Slippers, Hilary, Mean To Me, Roy Walker

The worrisome Ohrwürmer
Alice the Camel has Five Humps, Shoehorn With Teeth

Se me ha pegado, neural loop
Not So Manic Now, Land Ho!, Rather Be, Irk the Purists

Musical imagery repetition, auditory cortex
Marks To Prove It, Good Times (not that one), I Got the News

Seasonal variations
Mistletoe and Wine, All I Want for Christmas is You

They say earworms lasting more than 24 hours may be caused
Delilah, Parklife, Dreamy Days
by cancer metastasizing to the brain

Memory rush

A calm summer's day. Mid-20s, visiting 'home'.
You stopped off, as was your habit, at
a second-hand record store and
spent your last twenty, as was your habit,
on a haul of Steely Dan LPs in excellent condition

No one picked up your phonebox call, so you
caught the bus, trudged up the road.
Where the hell were they? You told them
you were coming. 

                Let myself in, killed
the alarm, made a drink and
put my new vinyl acquisitions on
the old turntable.

Opened up the sliding doors
found the old football, kicked it up and
around the back garden
in the wild sunshine, Can't Buy a Thrill,
Countdown to Ecstasy blasting loud
from the old turntable. Where
the hell were they? 

Now then now then (1977)

I swear I first heard
Oh Bondage! Up Yours! one Sunday
afternoon when it was played
on BBC Radio 1

I was in my bedroom; I went cross-eyed
my heart briefly stopped, I'd never
encountered anything so
electrically-shocking

And it was introduced most
enthusiastically by
Jimmy Savile
I heard it in my bedroom I swear

Your Ace from Space

witness this portly grey-headed fellow
plugged to his latest playlist
entering the lift at his local tube station

white-bread suburban old school reggae enthusiast
earphones generously leaking as the doors close
and the next song starts at full volume

the little kid standing next to him looks up
grinning and starts jigging along to the tinny hiss

rumbled 

I never was much of a dancer

Come to think of it
which I obviously have nothing better to do
what with lying here waiting to die

The last time I danced
in public may have been in Turkey
I had a tooth abscess jfc and ffs
every bite was a dice with death

A group of misfits retired to a bar
a 'Rose for the lady?' man chanced his luck
and I actually bought one, as a joke, as a
kind of joke, to ingratiate myself

We all knew I wasn't serious
I'm not a serious man, but
it broke the ice at least

And the next thing you know
we're inside, two beers and
one rose down with the
poison briefly at bay, and a gruesome

Middle-aged knees-up is occurring
as Everybody Needs Somebody to Love
plays, dignity is cast aside
the English are giving it their all 

And that, for what it's worth
which is nothing, may be the last time
I danced in public 

Fleeting thoughts concerning footwear

Some years ago I read an article about
John Cale which mentioned the
then 65+ year-old was sporting silver trainers

And I said to myself, when I'm 65 I'm gonna
wear silver trainers
maybe walk upon the beach
how you gonna like that

    Will they be Converse
    will they be Puma
    you'll have to wait and see

And once, at Barons Court underground
    station, some young Asian lads
         complimented me on my trainers
               which were kind of silvery actually, and 
               it wasn't in a sarcastic way.
                           I was flattered since
                I was about 35 and then they shuffled
         off and chatted about how their man
     Osama bin Laden was showing America
a thing or two, and this was well before 9/11

In a different age, I may have adorned
both feet and body in silver (a moment of profound
alignment from a synthetic being)

Trainers (UK) = sneakers or tennis shoes (US), do I have to explain everything

It's (sometimes) good to be alone

Minor episodes come back to me
in random patchwork
that last morning in Chicago:
head out for an early walk
gather some final air
visit unfound doors. I was
over the I-90 when the drama hit

Never had a clue
about anything much
certainly not about spiders
and/or kidsmoke, but it
still sent powerful signals to my crust

The way it rose up and up
        relief or resolution
        mystery or mystique
        before overcast deflation
then time to head back
towards Old St. Patrick's and
one last breakfast with you

Elvis is in the chaiiiir

             💉💉💉Anaesthesia

D R I L L

↳ zZZZzzzzTT! Dr Looming 

[high-speed turbine] can't hear the radio now

(((( 🦷 )))) remember when, no not now

“Irrigate with NaOCl... watch the apical seal.”

........ tap ..... .... tap ... ....

jsssst focus on the music

< ℵ > Dr Gulping ( glub glub )

... caaww in a traaah ...

       Isolation (Rubber Dam)

° open wider ° he's 

WIDER. Dr Lumen 🥼

[ ⎶⎶⎶ ]

~ pink rubber snakes ~

sliding into the 🕳️

skritchole... suck dont choke

{ % % % }

“Working length confirmed at 21mm.”

pls don't say Fuji 9 ⚕

third fkn time I've been here

wha  can  oo  see

doon  too  me

       < 🌀 > Cavity

∆ ∆ ∆

burnt clove & ozone. ♱𝔅𝔦𝔱𝔢 𝔐𝔢´ཀ`

—|—|—|— ( hum: mmm-mmm-mmm-mm-baby )

( numbness spreads like white ink in water )

0101010101001 dont know where to focus

[ 💉 ]   grip  💺

“Engaging the canal orifice.”

. . . . . . (((( 🦷 )))) . . . . . . . . .

( distorted vibration ) heavy breathing

... w-ooo-rd ... s-ay ... all up in my face

~~ { 𝝈 } ~~ can't even hear Elvis

... we can goo ooon ... don't even like Elvis

       Extirpation

(( 🔊 )) Old Doc Lumpkins 

       whine—EEEEEEEEEEEEEE—pop

☠️ NERVE DEPARTURE ☠️ nubniss, numbness

       “Paper point is dry.”    oh baybee

√ √ √          cheaper to take it out

and sealed. ~~ 600 for this

       s-picious mmm

       Irrigation 💧💧

[ ⊞ ] ... caaar gaa waah...

~~ [ 𝄢 ] ~~  very intimate

trap trapped, <got to go>

       biting down on a ghost.

reconfiguring of dental facial 🦷

aethetica 💀 Nearly done

<back to the office>

| ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎ (˵˘ ³˘… |

Spinning out

I had a solid job all right just a student summer job
and I drove my little (brown hatchback) car okay
the car my father figure bought me but I drove to my job
which I found every day also Saturday for the overtime

I suddenly wanted £££ and it was a job I could understand
fill in the forms add up the numbers steal the stationery
stare at the girls get the rewards
you scummy summertime creep
singalonging to the radio in your brown pop-pop car

Some days he needed the (legal) powders on account
of failures of nerve then one last Friday spent
his dough on a new (vinyl) release and danced
around his bedroom in that big white shirt

With grease in his hair dervishing to Gut of the Quantifier
now as my mind goes back to those few minutes of
genuine spinning delight I still feel affection
for that lost little loser all so small in le grand ensemble
but he had that release & he felt free for those five minutes

Lemon Tree by Fool's Garden, which only reached #26 in the UK

All the corny classics were playing
on the hotel dinner playlist, and
later there'll be a display of cultural dancing

- 'We really should have gone into town.'

- 'So tired though.'

- 'I know, it's exhausting doing nothing. Oh I used to like this one.'

I listen intently, confusion falls upon my grizzled features
and ... nothing - 'What is this?'

- 'What is this! You know all the songs, that's what you always say.'

I knead my chin in a hopefully amusing way.
- 'It's catchy, sounds 90s, maybe not British. I give up.'

- 'Ha ha! Gotcha, I win!' gloating

- 'So what is it then?' annoyed

- 'It's Lemon Tree. You must know Lemon Tree.' nodding along, humming along

- 'With all due respect, what the hell is Lemon Tree?' playfully cross

- 'This is Lemon Tree. Everyone knows it.' smug

I didn't know Lemon Tree

Deathbed floatation tank #2

The last big night out, still
10 years older than present company

From bar to bar
cocktails and Ubers
the young(er) ladies in
their summer dresses

                   Zooming round
                   Trafalgar Square as the radio played
                   Cake in the Ocean
         it sounded good to me
         in that time and place

You weren't with me
            you were never with me
                   on such occasions

Deathbed floatation tank #1

'I never was much of a dancer', now
let's go way on back go way on back to when
was the last time I danced
in public. It may have been Leap Day 2012
at that pub near Farringdon where we all met up

I arrived with the Australian girl, but
it was the last time I saw her. She
ended up in Finland. Anyway after
many drinks old Beatles songs were
blasting out loud for those who
cared about such things. I seem to recall

A chair was wielded, in jest not
anger, and old spinach head was mocked

I stomped and shook
to You Can't Do That like a... like
some teenybopper. I was briefly free
of the bonds, I wanted to tear my hair out