On the steps

I am back here
on the steps,

It is Autumn.

Not my town, no abode, no contact
Alone on the steps, as they pass
Features blur.

You could pick them out if you wished,
but I see no need.

I do not wish to meet these people, merely observe,
It seems lazy
And clichéd
To wonder where they are going, what they are doing, what they are thinking, how they continue, how they do not give in, how their families are, how they fuck, If they make love, how they met their significant other, if they are happy in the way they love their lives, if they are happy with the world around them, if they are the world around them,
If it becomes them,
If we are linked,
If we are attatched,
When they disappear from view.

Perhaps their sobs were smothered as children,
Perhaps that’s why they do not spill,
On the pavement
As I watch
From the steps.

It's hard being a man, living in a garbage pail...

Grief (First Draft)

The lights clicked off, one by one by one. She ghosted through the hall without a sound. It was a walk she had made many times before, she could beat the lights now, or even make the walk in the dark if needs be. Once she reached the office, she slipped inside. The room was presented in cold grey stucco. On one side was a thin table. It had thin legs, a thin top and was also grey. There was a chair beside the desk, red, and another in the corner. The chair in the corner looked slightly cheaper than the chair in behind the desk, and was a little smaller. During the day she would often sit on the chair in the corner, but if she had the opportunity she would sit in the larger chair behind the desk.

She stood with her back pressed against the door for a moment. She did not sigh. After a moment or two she moved away from the door and approached the desk. At one side, hidden slightly from view, were several fleece jumpers. These were emblazoned with the company logo. She unfolded and spread these across the floor in the small area of floor between the desk and the wall, away from the door. Slowly, she laid out across the fleeces. Under the desk was a small book of poetry. The inside cover contained a hand written dedication. Each night she would open the book at the page with the dedication. She had not read the poems in side, there seemed little that these poems could convey which this opening page could not achieve. The writing was fairly elaborate, yet subtle. The f’s and g’s swirled majestically, sitting beside the other calm and understated characters. When she had first examined this page, little over a month ago, she had thought of the meanings behind the handwriting. It occurred to her that perhaps there was a strange synchronicity in the handwriting. He could often dart around with the most extreme and soaring majesty, then settle back into a life of weakness. The weakness was an odd phenomena. Since she had known him he had been a strong man, in behaviour and convictions. This had enveloped almost all characteristics of his personality, governing his friendships, work, pleasure and indeed his lovers. The weakness of his later months had always seemed, perhaps, a certain fate. Before a man like he could pass, a second sense ad perspective on life was needed. An acceptance if you will.

Over time the words themselves, and now even the handwriting had affected her less and less and now failed to inspire any feeling from her. It seemed more like a ritual.

After a few minutes the lights clicked off. The sensors were based on motion. Sometimes if she stirred in her sleep they would trigger and a flash of fluorescent light would wake her, but this happened less and less recently. It almost seemed like most things were clockwork. The sensors would not be triggered. She would sleep and awake at such a time, she could glide through the halls and into the toilets until the others arrived.

That night as she slept, she dreamt of a ballroom. He was healthy and they were dancing. There was no music. Just the sound of her dress brushing the sparkling tiles.

Start

An indigo sky pulsed over the waves. A screen of thin grey film over the windscreen due to the smoke slowly bleeding from the crumpled front hugging the trunk of a great oak. Its embrace encapsulated the warmth running through her chest, the splitting pain and warm sensation of what had passed seemed beleaguered to a sense of cutting scandal. The only section of the automobile still in tact and working order flipped down on cue to reveal a smile split centrally by a single trickle of dark claret.

50 songs for the year

Girls – Lust for Life
Arch M – 21st Union
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Killers
Shoes & Socks Off – Vice Magazine Has A Lot to Answer For
Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes
Atlas Sound (feat Stereolab) – Quick Canal
Future of the Left – Arming Eritrea
Los Campesinos! – The Sea Is a Good Place To Think of The Future
Matt & Kim – Daylight
Diamond Rings – All Yr Songs

Grammatics – Relentless Fours
Kindness – Gee Up
M. Ward – For Beginners
Washed Out – You’ll See It
Memory Cassette – Last One Awake
Deerhunter – Circulation
No Age – You’re A Target
Wavves – Mickey Mouse
MSTRKRFT – Heartbreaker (ft. John Legend)
Emily Neveu – My Cosmonaut Edit

The Twilight Sad – I Became a Prostitute
Nude Beach – Nude Beach
Lou Barlow – Take Advantage
Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard – To Be Objectified
Lightning Bolt – Sound Guardians
Pulled Apart By Horses – E=MC Hammer
Nodzzz – Is She There?
Jason Lytle – Yours to Keep
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
The Xx – Crystalised

HEALTH – Die Slow
KASMs – Male Bonding
Bob Dylan – Must be Santa
Calico Horse – Idiotheque (Radiohead Cover)
Mean Jeans – Steve Don’t Party No More
PENS – High In The Cinema
The Horrors – Sea Within a Sea
The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
Liars – Scissor
Hot Chip – One Life Stand

A Place to Bury Strangers – It is Nothing
Pre – Dude Fuk
A Sunny Day In Glasgow – Hybrid Moments (Misfits Cover)
Abe Vigoda – Wild Heart
Best Coast – When I’m With You
Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire
Johnny Foreigner – Some Summers
Dinosaur Jr. – Over It
Memory Tapes - Bicycle
Vomit Heat – Everything In Its Wrong Place

Zine

Matt and Kim Daylight Single (for musosguide.com)

Matt & Kim Daylight

However much you care to claim you’re love for obscure Sunn O))) instrumentals or Glenn Branca avant-garde freakouts, deep down, beneath that sheen of indier-than-thou mistrust, everyone loves a good pop song. It just so happens that Matt & Kim specialise in the afformentioned ‘pop’.
One part Beat Happening and one part the Wham! ‘Daylight’ has a hook that could snare even the most bitterly stubborn curmudgeon, topped off with a celestial synth line and stuttering drums, set to a plot of summer fun and perpetual immaturity. Matt Johnson’s call-response vocals to noone inparticular are filled with a sense of happiness and youth that cannot help but create a warm sense of the sheer delight and an overwhelming urge to baptize yourself in ice cream.
In the States Matt & Kim can be found on primetime tv, in commercials and all over the music press and it seems it’s just a matter of time before they find a similar fame this side of the Atlantic. On this evidence it seems the fame would be well deserved.