life

The fast food stop

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My meeting in Bloemfontein ended at 4pm

Later than I wanted it to

It was a 4 hour drive home

Northwards to Johannesburg

The November air was muggy and oppressing

I was worn down

As an introvert it’s tough showing your game face all day

As the afternoon progressed

So did a thunderstorm

I watched it build on the horizon

Above the highway in front of me

I was listening to an audiobook of The Brothers Karamazov

Engrossed in it

And as Ivan made his three visits to Smerdyakov

I watched the lightning start to fork down onto the flat plains

Seeming to almost hit the highway straight ahead of me

It was a surreal site, observing it from a distance

Pretty soon Smerdyakov was confessing

And I was in the midst of the downpour

Even inside the air conditioned car

I could feel the temperature drop

By 7pm I was half an hour from the Johannesburg ring road

But I needed to eat something

It was growing darker

I turned off at a roadside fast food petrol station stop

One I knew well

The ground was wet from the storm

The damp still in the air

Everything in a seeming state of lubricated crystal clarity

Like the feel of your eyes after tears have subsided

I went in

The fast food tables were all empty except for one

A mother with her daughter of around four I guess

I sat three tables away from them

Looking out at the parking lot

I ordered a burger and five minutes later it came

But any sense of calm was disrupted by the woman

She was on the phone the whole time

Arguing to someone about some relative

She kept repeating the same things over and over

People tend to do that when they’re upset

The girl sipped a chocolate milkshake

The mother seemed oblivious to the child’s existence

I don’t think she’d even looked at her for the entire time I’d been there

I gazed out of the window

At two cars filling up with fuel

But not really looking at them

I was thinking of Smerdyakov, guilty all along

“Oh fucks sakes!!”

It was the woman

Suddenly she had jumped up and shouted

The chocolate milkshake had tipped over

And had spilled out over the floor and spare chair

The brown puddle was growing

Clearly an accident

“How the hell did you do that!!” she shouted

The girl started crying

Trying to issue some sort of apology or explanation

One of the two

The woman angrily grabbed her handbag and keys

And marched out towards the door

Without even looking back at the girl

Who was still crying

Clutching a fluffy brown toy she ran after her mother

In hysterical tears

Outside the mother had shoved the girl in the car

She continued to should

With much gesticulating

And hand pointing

The girl was still in tears

I was so distracted I didn’t notice the waitress

Standing next to me

She too was looking out at the car

She had the kind of face that seemed to know one or two things about the world

Then she looked over at their table

With the chocolate milk tipped over

On the floor

“What a mess” she said

“Looked like an accident” I replied

“I wasn’t talking about the milkshake” she said

By now the blue Toyota they were in

Had sped around the corner out of sight

I paid the bill and slowly walked out

Into the cool evening air

The last purple of daylight was fading in the east

And the lonely sound of the highway dominated

Forty minutes later I was on the ring road highway

I thought of the girl

Hoping that somewhere out there

She was in her bed and fell asleep

At peace

The Six

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It’s 16:47 on a Tuesday afternoon

I’m sitting alone in the window seat

Of the Golden Fleece

On the Norfolk coast

People walk past in the lane in front of me

There’s an old couple behind me

Talking non stop

About life, happiness and themselves

Another couple sits in the other corner

They havent spoken at all

Why do some couples look so miserable

Most of the noise 

Comes from the young rowdy bar staff

Seagulls hover outside

Hoping for a chip or two of luck

More people stream in

I always notice couples

When I sit or travel alone

So many couples

All playing out

Their attempts at happy ever after

Some seem to be doing ok

In that endevour

By appearances at least

Nobody ever finds the one

As Bukowski said

But maybe some get close

And I sit here

Gazing out

With these all too familiar feelings

In this all too familiar scenario

I keep telling myself

That as long as the dice is rolling

The six is still in play

But that six sometimes seems some way off

I wonder 

Not for the first time

Whether I owe the universe something

Some cosmic debt 

I have to pay off

I gaze back

To the couple in the corner

The woman’s face looks more forlorn than ever

I drink my Amstel

In this sad corner of this ramshackle pub

And I think 

Let the dice roll

Showing Too Little

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They laugh

And they drink

In this place that doesnt know

If its pub or cocktail bar

Lost souls 

Well on their way

To booziness

Bloatedness

Bad, fumbly sex

Definitely on their way 

To nowhere

This screwed up world

That leaves us grasping 

For bad jokes and bad beer

And forced overly loud laughs

Because our daily lives are killing our souls

Facebrick finishes

And metal chairs

Style parading on tiptoes

As the 397 goes past

In the Loughton Friday night

I’m sipping a cheap San Miguel

Waiting for Leon to come back

Accepting yet again

That loneliness is my natural state

That I was meant to walk through life

Observing from the edges

Staring into the distance

Noting the odd splash 

Of washed up liquored conversation

Feeling too much

Showing too little

Country Kitchen

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I sit alone as the sun sets 

On a mild but sunny day in June

And I think about

A country kitchen

In a house in the countryside

The kind of kitchen that transcends ages

The classic and timeless type

Cast iron pots on the walls

Every sound amplified in rich textures

With big barn doors

Leading out to a herb and vegetable garden

And I’d cook delicious meals in it

For my woman

While sipping and savouring 

The finest Provence Rosés

And after dinner we’d sit outside

In the garden

As the birds sang their final tunes

For the day

As the world transitioned from day to night

And we’d make quiet reflective talk

Or bask in the comfortable silence

That only those truly close can enjoy

All the errands of the day done

And the taste of the meal still in our mouths

What is life but to embrace the tranquility

Of a quiet moment

And what is life 

If one cannot dream a dream

But that country kitchen

With the smell of the herbs drifting in 

In the early evening

With that polished cement flooring

That turns colder as the night seeps in

It’s the dreams that keep you afloat

As you fight the muddy reality 

Of the day to day

The violin

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I was in someone’s house the other day

And they had this old vintage violin

Just sitting there

Like an ornament

I wanted to pick it up

But I dared not

It looked quite expensive

And all that

But it did make me think

That I’d never held a violin in my life

In terms of talent I could be the greatest violinist

In the world

Probably not

Definitely not

But I’d never know

Would I

And then I thought of all these parallel universes

Looking at us

Doorways and pathways untravelled

Talents unfound

So much of of life is just

Reaching out to something in front of you

And hoping it works

Following some perceived north star

While seas crash around us

We come into this life

And throw the dice

And hope for the best

Living in mud huts

While the ghosts of mansions

Cast shadows all over

When it comes

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She came and sat next to me at the bus stop

She must have been 90 or so

And started making conversation

I was never one for small talk with people

But I was interested and attentive

She joked about drinking too much sherry

About the blonde boy across the road

She spoke about football

And the weather

And how she never looks at bus times any more

“They’ll come when they come”

Another old lady came and sat and I was relieved of talk duty

We all got on the bus together and that was the last of the talk

I watched her three rows in front of me

Some condition made her head twitch just a bit

And yet what I felt for her was a sort of envy

She’d done her innings

No one relied on her or expected anything of her

Anymore

She was free to stare death in the face and smile with a sherry

It will come when it comes

As it all rushes by

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Sitting on the concrete promenade

At Thorpe Bay

The sun setting to my right

Casting a glow over the seafront buildings

And the large new ferris wheel

In the distance

The weather is ok

A rarity

Spring seems shy after a brutal winter

This weird place I’ve called home

For the last year

Is fast coming to an end

Everything changes all the time

But with me

Maybe it’s a little too constant

I’m alone

As I usually am out here 

In this place

But I look down along the beach

And see an old paddling boat

Filled with sand and shells

The same one my daughter played in

Two weeks before in this spot

And I think if how

I’ll probably never bring her out here again

Why am I nostalgic?

I don’t know

It’s funny how us humans can make anything home

When I first came here I sort of hated this place

It was the middle of summer

Lobster people crawled out of the woodwork

Traffic mess

The constant smell of ice cream and fish and chips

Screams from the amusement park rides

Seemed to carry for miles

An image sticks in my head

A few hundred yards from where I sit now

The height of summer

A rugged looking old man stood on the concrete promenade

And played some equally rugged notes

From a saxophone

While a woman sat on the edge

Legs wide open

Revealing whatever you wanted to see

And swayed, beer in hand, to the music

In the background an old yacht had fallen on its side

And lay prone in the water

That’s Southend for you

There’s charm, but you have to be creative about it

There was always this sense 

Right from the beginning

That’s I’m not at home in this town

Or city

Whatever

And I never was

But familiarity has its charm

Certainly to me

But that’s my problem

I hate goodbyes

And here I am

Another goodbye to another place

This one a solitary journey

That precious few saw precious little of

I look down the seafront

I think I can almost make out the shape

Of the Royal Hotel

I can afford to take a few minutes more here

No one’s waiting for me

And here I am

Taking it slow

As it all rushes by

Mizzle on the A127

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Driving through the mizzle

On the A127

Trying to understand all of this

And the train of time 

Rolls on relentlessly 

As I struggle to keep up

Closing my eyes

Through this darkest part

Recognising the long night

I’ve been in

Confronting the imposter 

Within

Thursdays at the Rising Sun

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Thursdays at the Rising Sun pub

On a corner of Cloth Fair

Weeks of working towards a stressful strat day

Had left everyone worn and weary

And with that feeling of post-battle comfortable lazy lethargy

A harsh downpour of rain had passed and the sun had come out

And the Smithfield world dazzled

And the air smelled strangely pure and clean

Thursdays at the Rising Sun pub

Sometimes they could be a little dreary depending on company and mood

But not today

It was payday in late May and summer was coming

And we could feel it in the air

Our favourite bar lady Hanna warmed us with her smile

And her drinks

And the way her hair covered the left side of her face

Which I always found so alluring

And Tom from Data and Insights was here

Things were always better when Tom was around

All the good nights seemed to happen when he joined

So it goes

As it went from dusk to dark the music went from pop to Motown

As Tom told cycling stories to increasingly loud laughter

I leaned on the bar talking garbage to Rebecca

Making fun of her height and her accent

Which she seemed to like

We were all tired

But we drank on

Tired and relieved

Was better than wired and stressed

For once we felt like people who’d actually done something

Who’d achieved

The laughter got more hysterical and the music got under my skin

Tomorrow would be unproductive

The next few days would be, but who cared

Particularly then

Walking to the station with the usually serious, quiet Paul

As he rambled about some story about our CEO

I could relate and I laughed

Because I’d thought the same thing

He was amusing himself just as much as me

And I stared at the three towers of the Barbican

Looming over us

Like life reminding us that it was there

That tomorrow was there

Against the backdrop of brutal repetitions of this life

Some majestic triumphs of humanness

Shine out of the strange paradoxes

Thursdays at the Rising Sun pub

Some were better than others

Egg on mince

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Confronted by reality

You sit in your underwear at 10:30am

Eating left over mince with eggs on top

Remembering what you said

And the jokes you tried to make

All seeming a little less funny today

Slightly shaky, slightly confused

Were there not things you needed to do?

A tap drips

You see your reflection in the kitchen door glass

You stare back

You wonder

What you’re doing

With your life