http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRGuRQk1t7k
Lonely People by Hawksley Workman
Writing this blog during the week is becoming harder and harder. I am really struggling with being functional outside of my work hours. Working midnights is making me lazy and giving me excuses not to write. I don't know if I am really tired of if I am scared of being tired at work. So I think I over sleep to compensate for my fear of this. I should be able to sleep from 9am to 4pm and get up refreshed but I don't feel it. Realistically it is 7 hours of sleep like 11pm to 6am as a normally scheduled person might get but it feels different. I would like to think it is just a reflection of the depressing nature of November especially now that we are under blankets of snow. Though I do not really know, I think it might just be an excuse for me to hide from the world. I have been more social lately though on the weekends, perhaps too much. It seems like there has been something on the menu every weekend for the last month or two. The next two weekends I have nothing planned, and plan on relaxing in my solitary nature. Used bookstore browsing, people watching, tea drinking and poem writing. Not that events like yesterdays wedding of a friend aren't fun because they are. As more and more of them get married, it will be easier for me to indulge in my solitary aspirations.
"Love is a ghost train howling on the radio......."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAW7rWjwwkg
Ghost Train by Counting Crows (Live Atlantic City, NJ September 2007)
I wrote the following this afternoon.
In The Honour Of Self
The snow has begun to accumulate
November shovels towards December
Winter and its hibernation are upon us
Days devoid of sunlight and its nutrients
We attend parties drowning in alcohol
Some of us know what we are celebrating
While the rest of us are just passing time
Until we can find someone to sleep beside
The person who is more than an excuse
When we are asked about them by friends
A mistake easily admitted after waking up
With our sex limp and greedily satisfied
Though we are quickly erect under covers
Slipping between consequences and actions
Satisfaction trumped by our relentless boredom
Again and again we take what is before us
In the honour of self there is only disgrace
Morals are abandoned in favour of more sin
Pleasure comes in small gushes and screams
Followed by a cold November basement silence
Foreign house sounds join a pounding headache
The band playing nothing sweet or full of love
All the noise is regret’s secret weapon against us
We know things are wrong and sex solves nothing
As Kathleen sings prior to Mr. Ritter’s folk medley
I listen to the music on another Sunday afternoon
When there should be more for me than this room
Not my ugliness transformed hideously by new shame
No wonder love does not reside in my mirror reflection
There is only a weathered face and its disappointments
A mind full of possibilities but a history full of mistakes
Those of youth are easily reconciled but repeated ones
They squeak like an out of tune violin in a grungy bar
Where we take our impression of beauty and break it
Piece by piece until there is no woman who can save us
Without being disgusted by our previous engagements
A filth unable to be wiped clean by our better intentions
Relentless boredom is life’s most dangerous state of mind
We are left slipping between covers without knowing why.
11/23/08
"Closed eyes, closed heart, now baby that ain't much of a start, some other time, some other place and maybe with a prettier face......."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LuICnFr-gs
Prettier Face by Hawksley Workman
Last week I finished reading The Inheritance Of Loss and now have moved onto The Secret River by Kate Grenville. The following is from it, a contrast to the poem above.
"The night became the best part of every day. Now they had a bed to themselves, she loved to curl around him, a candle guttering on the stool. Her breasts lolled out in a way that shocked and aroused him. She would peel a tangerine and feed him the segments slippery from her own warm mouth, and when they had done all the things with tangerines and mouths that could be done, and the candle had snuffed itself out in a pool of tallow, they lay together and told each other stories."
Lonely People and Prettier Face are from Hawksley Workman's new album Los Manlicious, which contains 13 songs but only 9 of them are new songs. Prettier Face, The City Is A Drag, Oh You Delicate Heart and Piano Blink are also on this year's earlier release Between The Beautifuls. This brings down Los Manlicious because as fans we already have these songs on a collection, so it is a little disappointing. Also the songs other than When You Gonna Flower and Lonely People aren't on the same level as the songs on Between The Beautifuls. Perhaps Hawksley was going after a different and edgier sound, to me it is not as appealing as the lush melodies of Between The Beautifuls.
Ghost Train can be found on Counting Crows debut album August and Everything After, a very good collection of songs. Each of which I have heard in many forms over the years, thus is the evolution of a live band.
Also the music of Kathleen Edwards was playing during my writing this afternoon, thus the mention of her in the poem and following that was a song from Josh Ritter. From time to time I like to include what I am listening to into what I am writing. Subconciously there has to be some influence.
Well I suppose I should ramble on as it has become Sunday night. Yes, all I want to do is sleep through the darkness and back into the light.
jr.
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