Skip to main content

As you drive us to see Courtney Barnett in the driving rain

For Simon 

In another life we might have stopped at a point where the road widened
jumped out blessed whomever for our crops and the good that it would do 
danced a wild goodbye to the drought until our shirts were soaked
but instead we waved our fists behind the safety of your wipers  
until we found a small but significant role for water to play in this
but as we weaved ourselves north we came to see a weakness in it
and we began to wonder how it would handle our growing spirit 
and what it would do if it felt what we felt when we arrived
when the smooth heat of her electric guitar slid down our throats
and saw to it that rain was just there to cool our little patch of earth.

Comments

  1. Ah, cheers Tom! This just goes to show that neither wind, snow nor hail can stop rock 'n' roll :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Expert Analysis of Michael Fassbender's Running Style From the Film 'Shame'

Tom Wiggins: What are your first impressions of Michael Fassbender/Brandon's running style? Paul Whittaker: He's running nice, smooth and relaxed. He seems like he has a good amount of fitness and he is running well within himself in terms of pace.   TW: What improvements could he make to his running style? PW: The main improvement I'd make is his foot plant.  He lands heel first and this causes a 'breaking' effect when travelling forwards.  If he landed on his mid-foot/forefoot, this would be a much better for impact stress and propulsion going forward into the next running stride. TW: Regarding his speed, how many minutes per mile is he running? PW : I would say he is running approx 7-7.30 minutes per mile. TW:   What do you make of his stride lengths?  Is he overstriding/understriding? PW:  The actor is definitely overstriding in this clip.  It would help if his feet landed underneath and below his centre of gravit...

Norman MacCaig: Poetry Hero

I cannot say exactly when I first discovered Norman MacCaig.  It may have been at the beginning of this year, but could well have been at the end of last.  I found him through a tweet.  Six months or more is a long time on Twitter, and when tweets get to a certain age, they're as stubbornly elusive as a missing person who wants to stay missed. But I know the tweet was left by poet  Jo Bell , the director of National Poetry Day, and whose wonderful blog can be found  here .  The link she left took me to an enthralling 25-minute interview with MacCaig.  I liked the man instantly.  I replied to Jo by saying what how charming MacCaig was.  He had a warm sparkle in his eye that only Scots seem to have access to.  He epitomised charismatic.  Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled on the video, but it can be found  here .  Fast forward to yesterday.  I was sat in Stanman's Kitche...

Mr Pebble Pockets

I’ve called him Mr Pebble Pockets because if I don’t make a joke out of it I’ll cry.  It was about 10:30pm, I’d just got back to the boat from a late shift and I was waiting for my Deliveroo.  He was standing a little further down the towpath and staring at the water.  The night was clear and crisp and there was enough moonlight to see the shape of him: he was tall, late twenties and had a powerful sporty look to him.  He wasn’t crying, but he was shaking and he stood crooked.    Well, it doesn’t take a genius, does it?  I only came out to wait for a bloody curry.  Mother Florence bloody Teresa Nightingale springing into action, hungry and as tired as fuck and now having to stop this guy from jumping into the canal with an anchor for a coat.     I know now that the best thing to do was offer him a cigarette.   I don’t know why I didn’t.   I had the packet and the lighter in my hand. ‘Excuse me,’ I said.   ‘Ar...