Twenty Ten

I took a long holiday over Christmas and New Year, and went to stay with friends. It was the right thing to do, because I was physically and emotionally tired, and as soon as I got on the train to London I began to feel myself unfolding.

2009 was a moderately good year for me, but I feel very glad the first decade of the century is over. (Apologies to anyone who counts from one and not zero.) It was a hard decade for me, including the death of a child, the end of a marriage and, very nearly, the loss of my whole self.

We live and learn. And we love one another, the best we can.

Happy New Current Year, everybody.

Writ by his own hand this day,
St. Dwynwen's Day,
in the Year of Our Lord Ten Past Eight

Apollo 11

The perfect moon
Was huge above the sea
The surf was easy
Even on the reef
We were the lucky three
Who slid in our canoe
Through the flowers on the water
And tried to read the signals in the sky

We travelled with our necklaces of shell
The moon was waning
Through the nights and days
And how we dreamed of home!
But we couldn’t find the island
Where you trade the shells for feathers
We fainted in the sun’s reflected blaze

With cracking lips
I turned to tell my friends
The time had come for all of us to die
“She’s out a whole degree”
I told them as I floated
Checking readouts at my shoulder
“Re-enter at this angle and we’ll fry”

The go for override came up from earth
We took control
And we flew her with our hands
And how we dreamed of home!
We saw the South Pacific
As we fought to get her zeroed
Before the heat shield started hitting air

We came home in a roaring purple flame
And gave the mission
Back to the machines
We were the lucky three
The parachutes deployed
We were rocking like a cradle
As we drifted down in silence to the sea
Lyrics by CLIVE JAMES
Music by PETE ATKIN

Breaking the Silence

As he slips through the side door
And sits at the back
People say
"He has no right
To do it this way.
Shouldn't there be trumpets
And drummers
And banners
Red carpets and fanfares today?"

But what breaks the silence
Is mumbling
And coughing
And stumbling and finding a place.
The place to begin
My attempt to explain
Some things that I never
Intended to say.

Like:
Love wasn't something
I always believed in
And sex wasn't something
I always enjoyed
And dreams were like diamonds
More readily found
In the bit of a drill
Than the rim of a crown.


They tell me I'm happy
And damn it, I know that I am
That was the idea all along.
And I wouldn't complain
But it's hard to describe
A world in which so many
Big things go right.

Because finding the place
Where you're ready to start
Is the last thing you learn
As it all falls apart
It's the tearing away
Breaking down, letting go
All the things that I never
Intended to know.

When
Love wasn't something
I always believed in
And sex wasn't something
I always enjoyed.
And dreams were like diamonds
More readily found
In the bit of a drill
Than a fair lady's hand.

But what breaks the silence
Is not even words.
What breaks the silence
is
not
even
words.

Sounding Like Bagpipes

Happy bagpipe noises from Big Country, 1983.
In memory of Stuart Adamson, 1958 - 1991.

Singer and guitar player Stuart Adamson had previously been in The Skids before he founded Big Country in 1982 with his friend Bruce Watson, who cleaned the Royal Navy nuclear submarine fleet at Rosyth naval base.

He gave up drinking the day of Live Aid, and stayed dry for more than ten years. Stuart moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he formed a new band and remarried.

He relapsed after his second marriage broke down, and disappeared in November 2001 after watching Ireland play Iran at soccer, in an Irish bar in Atlanta with his AA sponsor. He was found dead in a hotel room in Honolulu, five weeks later.

I've never seen you look like this
Without a reason
Another promise fallen through,
Another season passes by you
I never took the smile away
From anybody's face
And that's a desperate way to look
For someone who is still a child

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

I thought that pain and truth
Were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with
Every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting
To grow flowers in the desert
But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

So take that look out of here,
It doesn't fit you
Because it's happened
Doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor
Come up screaming
Cry out for everything
You ever might have wanted

I thought that pain and truth
Were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with
Every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting
To grow flowers in the desert
But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

Adrian Mitchell 1932 - 2008

Adrian Mitchell died on Saturday. His poem, 'Human Beings' was voted the poem people would most like to see sent into space.

Look at your hands
your beautiful useful hands
you’re not an ape
you’re not a parrot
you’re not a slow loris
or a smart missile
you’re human

not british
not american
not israeli
not palestinian
you’re human

not catholic
not protestant
not muslim
not hindu
you’re human

we all start human
we end up human
human first
human last
we’re human
or we’re nothing
nothing but bombs
and poison gas
nothing but guns
and torturers
nothing but slaves
of Greed and War
if we’re not human

look at your body
with its amazing systems
of nerve-wires and blood canals
think about your mind
which can think about itself
and the whole universe
look at your face
which can freeze into horror
or melt into love
look at all that life
all that beauty
you’re human

they are human
we are human
let’s try to be human
dance!

Young Americans

According to BBC Radio this morning, Obama / Biden polled more votes than McCain / Palin in every demographic group except one.

The senior citizens voted Republican.

America is changing.

Do you remember
Your President Nixon?
Do you remember
The bills you have to pay
Or even yesterday?

Have you been an un-American?
Just you and your idol singing
Falsetto 'bout leather, leather everywhere,
And not a myth left from the ghetto?

Well, well, well, would you carry a razor
In case, just in case of depression
Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors
Blushing at all the Afro-Sheeners

Is that what they mean by a "post-racial" America?
Those Aladdin Sane t-shirts are extremely cool.

Ain't that close to love?
Well, ain't that poster love?
Well, it ain't that Barbie doll
Her heart's been broken just like you have.

All night!
You want the young American
Young American, young American,
You want the young American
All right!
You want the young American

Written and sung by DAVID BOWIE

Time To Buy The Girls A Puppy

A big thank you to everybody in America who took the trouble to enjoy their right to vote yesterday.