Hearing Rikki Don't Lose That Number (Steely Dan)

 
Strolling home through a sudden 

rainstorm hot Sunday

August night, soon as drenched

as the skinny goth running to the lifts in

black lips and heels past the Spanish girl

in her silver coat and numb cigarette gaze  

Electric air infiltrates the blood, raises old wounds

along the road, an open door

inside, a warm room I would care to shelter

judging by the music playing there would be

a firm handshake, fine wines and elegant snacks

perhaps they had planned a barbecue  

As the music fades and my nose drips

you may guffaw in my face, and

choke on your vegetable samosa, but

please recall the eternal law that states:

'No one can hold a candle to the Dan'

Move Closer - Phyllis Nelson

 
The only song I ever

slow-danced

in public

to

It was worth it

Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley

 

On weekday nights when it got 

too quiet  

Alex the angry barman 

would strut towards the machine, somehow 

disable its need for money, and

select a batch of Elvis songs  

And when the first one came on, he'd be scanning

the few customers for signs of disrespect  

'There, that's proper music, none of 

your bloody punk rock nonsense'

The Love Cats - The Cure

       She's mouthsinging 

'wonderfully wonderfully pretty'

and all the rest and all the rest

to some gimpish boy, some callow youth 

of indeterminate haircut

and nylon tanktop ensconced in the corner of the bar

and he says 'how comes you know 

all the words to this old one?' 

I would now like to curl up and 

dribble in my basket please  

She - being the cat's mother of course - is 

a delightful creature that some fiendish lechers

shooting arrows from lustful eyes till crossed

embossed, and double-glazed in dreaming

of having her, with or without cream

  

After which I listened to Alone Again Or by Love

i) 

The maniac swirls on bright homeward streets

a sudden thaw from head to toe

infused with an unimaginable glee

his bursting mouth, screams an endless

whisper into hysterical night

cracking diaphragm 

inhaling icy wind

crunch of snow underfoot

 

And nothing has been this beautiful or funny

        levitation is a distinct possibility

lightness nestles next to blasphemous ascendance

to be born again on Christmas Day

who could have believed

who would have guessed, not me  

One step forward, one door opened  

ii) 

I call her name to the wide open night

I want everyone to know but I don't want 

anyone to know, what this means to me 

cannot be understood, understated or estimated

you are a slimy snake and a lucky saint

strawberries and blood and I can't breathe

swallowing whiteness, the sky tonight is white for me

and every song about a heart is meant for me

and ribs that crack with 

something called joy I read about

this must be the feeling called

With Barstool Blues by Neil Young playing in my head

One foot crooked resting against the wall

tracktop halfzipped on July evening

curiously excited that this night is our big goodbye

* my name is Neil I am a beatnik I do not wear socks *

It is symbolic of my liberation

and waiting for you ten past twenty past

risk a trip to the main road and think about 

buying a calming drink, a soothing elixir of superstrong fuel

no one would know no one would care

but inspect the hospital building and hurry back

in case you've arrived (you haven't)

 

They did say Ravenscourt Park didn't they

and there is just the one exit isn't there

and they did say seven o'clock

reconsult the A-Z crunched in my pocket where 

the hell are they, stop thinking stop thinking too much 

you'll become overwired

 

Learn to cloooose the mind of its ceaseless chatter

I am coooool now and cannot afford 

to display aspects of fret and fuss

I don't want no botheration round me

lighten up n tighten up, Neptune Titan stars can frighten ...

where are my jazz glasses

the Indian cousin took them to the Isle of Wight

we went with the pockmarked Austrian waiter

pretended to be spies

sniggering twerps of the highest secret order

and someone to ashamed to use the pee pee 

ate five Big Macs in the rain, and 

 

Someone must be watching me from those windows

dumb waiter whispering to myself

the very perspicuity of marsylph

and pacing in a 10-step radius gravel cage

scan the latest embarkees

for the bounching chestnut hare

I have the impertinence to call 'mine'

the temerity to define as 'girlfren'

although this definition is rapidly approaching its expiry date

and you are curiously excited 

- where is the park, where is the river, 

where is the stacked Welsh ladieees flat we are towards heading - 

 

You are undeniably elated

rampant with rocketing of the hormones

the light breeze wending and what is wending 

its way beneath your skimpy top 

and playing upon the ripening nipples oh pleeeeeeeeeese 

 

And it is curious because tomorrow 

there will be the biggest 

fattest nothingness you have ever known

Playing Hung Over as the Queen in Maida Vale by Godspeed You Black Emperor!

A misery goat of great  brooding sky about to bleed  skulks 

And the TermSlump siphens  the blood from the vital hemispheres this loose-leaved clue savaged heavy-lidded cube cabbage reaches for the artificial stimulants and  drags some sounds into the MacAmp menu: 

The plagued mantra of 'Milkman' the plangent mystery of 'Car'; the jaunty even raunchy 'Afternoon Delight'; the good humo(u)r man of 'Ska-Ra-Van'; and as the buzz kicks - 

Come up with limitless layers of 'Hung Over'

Whoever it was said: music hath alarums was right & in that vein, the bells thrill out  & in this nature, they are ignored - we hold our paradise within our skin, 

Within  our itchy immanent skins