Just an Angry Neighbour

I didn’t choose these songs. Or perhaps I did, but not in any way I can explain.

One appeared, then another.

Somewhere underneath all of them, movement. Not progress.

A river doesn’t ask whether it is making progress.

British children are born knowing all Beatles lyrics. It’s the law.

But something new hits a nerve from time to time.

Just an angry neighbour in this loveless town. Indeed so.

Sometimes the whole town feels loveless.

Then Shakespeare turns up. As he does.

I beweep my outcast state. Of course I do.

Of course he does.

Four hundred years before LinkedIn and rejection emails somebody understood the feeling of standing outside the party wondering why everybody else’s life appears to be working.

Because we had skills.

Past tense.

Not have skills.

As though usefulness itself can expire.

I don’t know just where I’m going.

At least nobody is pretending.

The road carries on whether the destination has been agreed or not.

Then Broadway.

You promised me Broadway was waiting for me.

Everybody was promised a Broadway somewhere.

A career.

A marriage.

A book.

A house.

A woman. A man.

Then the sea.

All at sea again.

The sea keeps appearing.

Hastings.

Brighton.

Mud.

Salt.

The smell on your hands after touching something that lived in another element.

The sea doesn’t care whether you belong.

You enter it.

It holds you or it doesn’t.

Every week we follow.

Football understands repetition better than therapy.

Every week.

This could be the year.

This could be the season.

Then four-nil down after half an hour.

Never mind.

Next Saturday.

There is something magnificent in this.

Then coffee.

I love coffee, I love tea.

Why not?

Someone puts a cup in front of you.

For several minutes there is nothing whatsoever to resolve.

Then a pool room.

I met her in a pool room.

Of course you did.

People enter the way they do.

Unexpectedly.

Somewhere ordinary.

You look up.

There she is.

Afterwards the room is never quite ordinary again.

My love is your love.

One minute somebody is singing.

Years later you click a link and their face appears exactly as it was.

Young.

Alive.

Things will never be the same again. Indeed.

They never are.

Even when they look exactly the same.

Same house.

Same kitchen.

Same road.

Same song.

The listener has changed.

Which changes the song.

Then Sinead.

Sinead. Extraordinary.

No theory required.

Brighton Kemptown. Took my driving test here.

A song begins and suddenly there is a road.

An instructor.

Steering wheel.

Good times for a change.

Yes please.

Not redemption.

Just a few good fucking times for a change.

That would do.

Jackson town will do.

Look out Jackson town.

But I sleep with one eye open, my shoes always on.

Readiness to flee.

Some of us spend decades wearing our shoes in bed.

Just in case.

Then another old heartache.

I kissed you goodbye on the M109.

Places remember people even when people would rather they didn’t.

There are exits that still contain somebody.

Roundabouts.

Petrol stations.

Railway platforms.

Hotel rooms.

Then lovely Rita. No, not that one.

The word itself makes a noise.

Martello.

Something hitting something else.

Stir it up.

Which may be all anybody is doing.

Stirring.

Ingredients that were separate become something else.

Onion.

Garlic.

Pork.

Tomato.

Oregano.

Forty minutes.

Tom Waits.

Of course he does.

Feeling as faded as my jeans.

There we are.

Age without oldness.

Wear and tears.

Use.

Fabric softening because it has actually been lived in.

Maybe faded isn’t the same thing as finished.

Then Poland.

Tylko te dni, których jeszcze nie znamy.

Only those days we don’t yet know.

There are still some.

Both irritating and reassuring.

For Sara.

No explanation.

Some names don’t need one.

Maybe that is what these clips are.

Not favourites.

Not memories.

Tributaries.

No canon.

No correct order.

The river takes everything.

Mud.

Flowers.

Plastic bottles.

Bodies.

Sewage.

Even fish.

We are also in it.

Sometimes waving.

Sometimes drowning.

Then the current changes.

It always does.

Bitter.

Sweet.

Love.

Pain.

A song ends.

Another starts.

Tomorrow new songs will be heard and old ones forgotten.