APAD #24: Gloss

I want nothing more than to rest the head
of my finger upon your cushion lips,
to lay there as we watch daytime sitcom reruns on TV

Neither of us laughing,
Neither of us minding that

And my finger so comfortable
that there is no way in hell it's getting up to change the channel.

[End. Short because I suddenly realised I had one minute until the deadline. Britains, go see "In the Loop". I laughed so much it hurt. GOODNIGHT]

Songs Every Indie Club Should Play Once A Week By Law Until I Get Tired Of Dancing To Them Which Would Probably Never Happen

1.


2.
Salt, Pepa and Spinderella by Johnny Foreigner

3.1901 by Phoenix (Free mp3 from the band's site)

4.



5.
An LCD Soundsystem song, of your choosing.

Do this, and I'll forgive all the boring ladrock. (Although really, if I were in a position to dictate global indie club playrules, I'd ban Rage Against the Machine and Pendulum. Seriously, guys, stop that) And then less enforced but wildly appreciated: M83, Spoon, Metric, Kenickie, Cut Copy, Art Brut and THOMAS TANTRUM.

Wouldn't all this make the world a better place? Yes it would.
[This post broke my blog about 8 times. Video embedding got scaled back a lot to save the post]

APAD #23: Life and How to Relive It

I like to think we write a new manifesto
Every time we leave the house
Every time we ditch work to play in snow
Every time we declared "Fuck tomorrow morning"
Every time we decided to do a second encore

- but really, all we ever did
was reiterate the rules of reverie and abandon
that we'd learned from midbudget movies
(So they could afford to have your favourite band's
dumbest song soundtrack the emotional climax,
But not so they couldn't afford not to desperately appeal
to my one man demographic)

Susan doesn't care for my philosophy.
"Why give a shit about being 'original' so long as you're having fun?"
I would wonder about this,
but a smile like that is near impossible to disagree with.
If she never takes up any dangerous philosophies,
we're all fucked.

[End. Written whilst listening to The Microphones and The Weakerthans. Title in reference to the not-as-good-as-it's-title (but then, could it possibly be?) R.E.M. song "Life and How to Live It"]

APAD #22: She Said She Needed A Murderer

We off roaded until we couldn't see a single thing
except fields and fields and fields and fields.
The sky here is so painfully empty and colourless -
We are the Europe of American art student fantasy.

We'd packed putty inside the seats,
coated everything in gasoline
and were told the remote would work from several miles away
(as if we wouldn't want to witness this).

So we open the doors (it sounds like a gun being loaded,
I'd preffer something less pertinent)
And take a few steps back, then a few more.
The cold, cold spring air grips our skin
and instructs us to hug each other.
So we do.

You ask (with your eyes) if this is really going to work and by way of reply
I hit the litte red cliche.

The roof blows open
and suddenly the sky is flooded
(just for a second)
and we are so so warm,
if we'd had our eyes closed
we would almost believe we were home
(as if we wouldn't want to witness it).

You turn to me as if to say:
"This is the most beautiful thing any man has ever done for me"
Except what you actually say is:
"How are we going to get home?"

[End. You're on your own with this one. I think it's my favourite of these so far but don't let that colour your judgement. Written whilst listening to: Girl Talk.]

APAD #21: Infinity, One Night Only

There seems to be a shop on every corner
Selling trackers and rockets
And an open freezer waiting
For a teenage girl -
(You wish she was tagged and easy to follow)
And when you look to the skies
and see another smoke trail,
You wonder how anyone could possibly be alseep.

There seems to be a bar on every corner
Full of boys with bass guitars,
A teenage girl waiting
For something to fall in love
to or with
You wish someone would sing your song
And make you feel warm inside
And when you get a little breathless
When the music we love
starts to test us
You wonder how anyone could not
want to scream (and scream joyfully)

A club on one particular corner
Full of kids with half spilled drinks,
An open floor lit up and waiting
For us to hit our targets.
Wish they'd play something you know
Make it easier to move
And then they do

And it's seismic and it's satsifying
And it's such a good feeling.
We lock eyes and we both wonder
How could anyone not be dancing

[End. Totally cheated, this is rewrite/reedit of a poem I wrote months ago. I'm sorry. I've got absolutely nothing right now. I've failed you, NaPoWriMo. Maybe tomorrow. On the other hand this is (for entirely personal reasons I suspect rather than anything to do with the quality of the poem) one of my favourite things that I've written, so. Bleh.]

APAD #20: One Worries About These Things

I no longer have bad dreams
about giant spiders
dead children
and nuclear armaggedon.

Instead I have nightmares
where I have gone mad
and am halucinating all of the above.*

But mainly?
Mainly I have bad dreams
where I cannot work out the plural form of
"apoclypse"
And resultingly have to rewrite large sections of poetry
with only 15 mintues to go before my self imposed
NaPoWriMo midnight deadline.

*Full disclosure:
I was also halucinating giant statues of Disney charachters
And fast food items.
But that doesn't sound scary, horrible or cliched
does it?

[End. One can only hope that tomorrow something interesting will happen for me to poem about. Alternatively, maybe I'll grow an imagination.]

APAD #19: The Sound of No Strings Swelling

Your heart keeps beating at the same speed it always has,
The rain falls as fast and as heavy as it ever did.
There's a vile little popping sound as your lips part
And an even worse wet whack when they re-engage.

No strings swell, no soft focus, no camera spin.
You let your eyes open and look up
at the triangular window, high above the door
hoping for the moon but all you see is grey
so you close them again.
And keep kissing and keep wishing
you could stop thinking about the phrase "bacteria transfer".

Hollywood has lied to us again:
Slow mo never kicks in when you need it.

[End. Written whilst listening to Saint Etienne.]

APAD#18: Some Silent Prophet Taking Comfort

When everyone I know and/or love is dead and/or gone
At least I will never have to wait outside Topshop again
Cursing the disgusting young beauties in my head
Whilst a sister or friend buys shoes.

When everyone I know and/or love is dead and/or gone
At least I will be able to stop pretending I tolerated
The bastards they hung out with when I wasn't there
The funerals will be spectacular, I assure you.
No one will walk away unscathed.
Except me: Still cussing inaudibly,
Some silent prophet, taking comfort where I can
Now that everyone I know and/or love is dead and/or gone.

[End. Written whilst listening to Destroyer's Watercolours Into the Ocean. Written in a single 4 minute burst except for the first two lines which I drafted in my head about eight hours ago. Not edited.]

APAD #17: Things That Need Naming #23

The feeling where you are:

Experiencing
(watching/listening to/reading/seeing)
art that you are certain you enjoyed
(loved/adored/lived for/took as your personal Bible)
just a few years ago when you were basically* the same person you are now
(13/14/15/16/17)
And finding, much to your horror
(dismay/shock/disgust/shame/sadness/nausea)
That you no longer like it all that much.

It's disorientating, is what it is.
*And you and I know both know that THAT
is total bullshit.

[End. First person to guess which film I should never have rewatched wins something.]

APAD #16: All Those Front Row Girls Got Nothing On the Blondestreaks of My Back Up Singer

Your hideous dyejob
is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen
And I try not to think about it when our set
really hits its stride
(when your voice mixing with mine sounds like nothing I can describe)
-albumtracknumber3/recent7"b-side/firstsingle/alt-classiccover/newsingle-
But inevitably I remember the look you gave me
after the first London show
(withthekidsshoutingournameswiththekidsshoutingOURnames!)
when we stumbled off stage and all collapsed onto each other in the van
And then I want to turn around,
turn down all these screaming teen girls
And sing to you and you alone.

[End. Being a love poem from an indierock frontman to the female vocalist in his band. Written whilst listening to Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer by AC Newman, edited whilst learning to No Turning Back by Gui Borrato. :)]

APAD #15: We Join Events Already In Progress

"... And what's more, no one else had the courage to do (eat) what I have done (eaten bread) today, nobody else stood up (ate) and did what was necessary (ate bread) for us to carry on doing what we have been doing (eating bread) since as long ago as we can remember. I did not undertake this task (eating bread) lightly, and only after serious consideration and consultation with experts in the field (bread eating)"

///Hannah is awesome and Miles love h/e/r/////++-11Dogbarking,thunderrrrr[[[
"Either eat the biscuit or put it on your crotch, those are your options" "Can I have a... One Up?" "BOO-DOOP!".///"It's a shaver"What?""You could move it around".----+Herhairchangescolour.--"Look at her crazy face"--- Probably something about herbreasts (magnificent). Annie'scrazy. Probably.

Probably.

"... This nation (kitchen) would not be what it is today (Wednesday) without the hard work (bread eating) of me (the bread eater) and people like me (people who eat bread). What we do (bread eating) is not pleasant, is not fun, is done without thought of reward. We do it (eat bread) because we must."


[End. Written at a party whilst eating pizza. Thanks to Cai and Hannah for providing some/most of the dialogue. Normal service resumes tomorrow, no more of this abstract bollocks]

APAD #14: All Systems Red (Man as Thermometer as Man)

(Notes from Poetcountry #2)

Michael wakes up and stumbles downstairs,
Somewhat (but only somewhat) surprised
to see The Young Poet
and their mutual friend Samantha interlocked -
But not, he thinks, intertwined.
(Although is that right? The Poet would probably know. And then use some weird similies:

"The two of them looked like a pair of sibling puppies
with no concept of incest, cuddling away a Sunday morning.
Samantha's sleeping breaths were the sound of a child creating the universe
and cooing in surprise when mankind turned out alright."

His eyebrows reach skyward as he catches his reflection on the microwave.
He should try this poetry business.)

Michael walks into his kitchen
and cannot help but notice the wooden
(mountain ash, he had been assured) floor
is splattered with a smattering of sick
and there are empty or nearly empty glasses on every available surface,
All accusing him of something awful.
"Well look now" he says to them "You aren't directly my FAULT,
just the end product of my IDEA"
(He's lying, he stole it)

He hears a stirring from the sitting room
As he himself stirs sugar into coffee
So he cusses at the kettle.
"Goddamnit that motherfucker knows I like Samantha.
I'll kill him if the hangover doesn't. Oh god
I hope they didn't do it on my sofa"
(Priorities come slowly to a man in the state that Michael is in)
((And don't come at all to a man in the state the Poet is in))
"I hope they didn't do it at all"

He hears laughter and he burns his tounge
and he hates, and he seethes -

Michael leans forward and opens a window.
10am Winter Morning Air (TM) rushes in
and knocks a sigh out of him.
He feels not entirely unlike a man who has just realised
that his credit card has been stolen
and then the theif has gone and ordered that
big white Talking Heads boxset that he'd been looking at
and lusting after
but decided he could not afford this month.

Michael does not think about Samntha's eyes as he drinks his coffee.
Nope.
Not even a bit.
Not even for a second.

Well. Maybe a little.
"Fuck"

He turns around to see Samantha looking all
lost-lamb-meets-giddy-teenage-girl-meets-too-much-tequila-twelve-hours-ago,
standing like a statue to his favourite kind of beauty
that someone kindly erected in his kitchen whilst he wasn't looking.

(She doesn't mean to but) she purrs:
"Coffee too hot?"

[End. You might want to go back and reread Boxticking before this (espescially as Boxticking has been edited a bit to fit with this one). I'm less sure about these now but I expect I'll come back to it again next time I've nothing real-world to write about. Written whilst listening to: Wilco. Edited whilst listening to: 2007 - The Year Punk Broke (My Heart) by Los Campesinos!]

APAD #13: Reduced Gravity

Every night we die at midnight,
So we all died ten thousand times
And for each night we slept alone
We lost a little of what makes us whole.

We sought comfort in sitcoms,
Sought comfort in books
about sensitive young men
confused by their cute female friends,

Screamed songs into the silence
about how much we were in love,
Whispered sweet nothings to sweet no one
And wondered why and how
(Wondered what Those Who Had Lost knew that we didn't)

Until we realised that the prickly heat in our chests is not shame
Until we realised that our bodies are ours and ours alone
Until we realised that we are less hopeless than we thought
We can stay up all night
And we can get by -
We can be weightless
for three seconds at a time.

[End. I got nothing]

APAD #12: Ten Possible Titles For My Poetry Collection (Lazy List Poem #7)

1. More Poems About Girls and Alcohol
2. Adventures in the Post-Teenage Wasteland: A Memoir in Poems*
3. POETRY IS DEAD//LONG LIVE ME.
4. These Are Not Poems*
5. All Of These Poems Are About You Yes You Yes You*
6. How I Survived The Pokemon Years
7. You and Me and What Facebook Did To Our Relationship
8. Everyone Dies At the End*
9. Nobody Dies At the End*
10. A Rope Of Sand - An Epic Historical Novel In The Form of 45 Pieces of Short Prose Poetry*

*I figure if I obviously lie in the title
People will have a good idea of exactly what it is they're getting into.
Writers owe the reader nothing.

[End. I'm too tired to be anything other than mildly amusing. Normal service resumes tomorrow, with a poem about girls or alcohol or maybe a sequel to yesterday's look into the world of the Young Poet. Who knows? I may actually use any/all of these as titles for things at some point. Written whilst listening to: Yet more Okkervil River, and some Art Brut.]

Quick Notes

1. You can get the new Dirty Projector's single for free here: http://www.dominorecordco.us/usa/news/09-04-09/dirty-projectors--free-track/ for the price of an e-mail adress and it's absolutely amazing. I listened to about 9 times in a row after I downloaded it. This is what your summer is going to sound like. [Well, this and Phoenix]

2. I now have that Google Follower box thing going on (I know one of you was having trouble Following me) so scroll way down on the right for that.

If you're looking for Saturday's NaPoWriMo Poem, it's beneath this.