The Regime

I look unsightly.

Fig. A

I need to make fundamental changes to my life-style. In a consequence free world I would dine daily on duck, steak, cheese, bread, cream and wine. Flagons, hogsheads of wine. I would be drowning myself in a butt of Malmsey on a weekly basis. And quite often that is exactly what I do dine on. As a consequence I might refer you to Fig. A.

Note the quivering jowls, the fish-belly eye-bags, the mortal horror in the eyes, the forehead as scored and striped as the Nazca plain. The cobbler's -thumb of a nose. Note also I've taken the photo at a flattering angle and filtered it through handsomising monochrome. I don't even have the courage to face up to the full horror. I'm not a man who routinely inspects the contents of his handkerchief. 

As of bank holiday Monday I am changing my lifestyle. I am entering what I call "The Regime". I shall be eschewing all of the foods that I crave and I shall be living off steamed vegetables, fish, brown rice and knocking the booze on the head. Happily this coincides with an interval of more than usual poverty, so its for the best in every particular.

I need to be thinner. I need to be fitter.

After all, the way politics is going I might need to start fighting other men over loaves of bread or the last onion in the shop so I better get into peak physical condition.

I'll be walking a lot more too.

Fuck you Translink. Fuck you Winemark. You'll both be seeing a lot less of me. As, I hope, will you all.

Vintage Idiots Look you now, over yonder At far reaching oceans of grey Cross yourself and cross the water Long's the night, short is the day Landing here at none too distant shores Shift the shingle up the beach Behold your dark inheritance The poisoned chalice within reach And I looked and I saw and i knew that it was bad That smell as old and stale as time These vintage idiots never had The chance to dream, to reconcile In the last days, in the dark days When your eyes were full Of distance, space; of memory Dreams left unfulfilled What were they, those secrets? The peaks you thought you'd scale To prove you'd really done it To prove you hadn’t failed And I looked and I saw and i knew that it was bad That smell as old and stale as time These vintage idiots never had The chance to dream, to reconcile Well you never did fail us Kept us all afloat in the chaos Old age creeps; the sneak, invidious Turns us all to vintage idiots But you kicked its arse with crippled legs And live on strong inside our heads Our hearts, alas, already full Of useless love to offer you

Gainsbourg

Gainsbourg I am for Appolinaire and Stephane Marllarme, I am for Rimbaud, the one that got away, Baudelaire, Jacques Vache and Boris Vian, Mine's a slower suicide than Thomas Chatterton's, One more pastis, one more gitane, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Verlaine, Guarding my modesty, girding my loins, With the kind of profile you see on Roman coins, A Jewish Russian Frenchman, but you cant see the joins, Everybody knows me, from Descartes to Desmoines, I staged a little riff on Bach called "Je'taime moi non plus", The Vatican banned it and that was quite a coup, In terms of sales specifically, cause, between me and you, Anyone outside of France thinks that's all that I do. I am of the infinite In the Champs Elysée, Strumming on a harp and drinking holy wine all day, The women here are beautiful but lack a certain grist, I find I'm more a gourmand than an ornithologist, You would think a canon was a pretty heavy thing, But my canon moves the angels, god wants me here with him, So while I serenade the seraphim with celestial song, They know that down below is where I truly belong, My house is painted black like Goya's dining room, I find I'm thinking dirty thoughts in the blue of noon, One more pastis, one more gitane, Again and again and again and again, They used to call me Lulu its nothing to shout about, I like the ladies but I'm never quite devout, In the movies I never come up trumps, Who casts a villain wearing women's ballet pumps, I'm under-studied and I'm ill prepared, Hope you dont notice that my words are slurred, My fingers tremble as I flick the catch, And Marie Curie turns into ash, I'm always shivering though you couldn't call it cold, How's an "enfant terrible" get to be so old? One more pastis, one more gitane, Again and again and again and again, Looking out the windows at ticket punchers and mackem girls, I pull my trousers down and the tricolor unfurls, One more pastis, one more gitane, And again and again and again.

I fell out of bed

I don't know what you were thinking,
But then I never know what you're thinking,
Unknowable, oh so inscrutable,
And, lucky you, unfailingly beautiful,
I'll put you on a pedestal,
But doing so I must confess,
If I put you on a pedestal,
It's so I can see up your dress,

I fell out of bed,
Cause of all the ideas in my head,

I never thought it could happen,
That a healthy heart could be flattened,
I find I'm writing pop lyrics,
As a way to lift my spirits,
And I never thought I'd be writing,
Of the eternal feminine,
A treatise on gender panic,
With none of the swear words left in,

I fell out of bed,
Cause of all the ideas in my head,

We two sitting dumbly,
Trying to read each other's thoughts,
Shoving all my crosses,
Into your row of noughts,
You would think we were mummies,
Tongues torn out at the root,
A pair of fun sarcopha-guys,
Wrapped up in our bandage suits,

Throw your arms around the world

Got a lot of love to give you but I need to get a little back,
Make a lot of very poor decisions and I let my chin grow slack,
The world is way beneath me, I wear these gilded wings,
Can't keep it all together, sellotape and pins,
I know you want to take it further but I've always been a dozy sort,
Working without map or compass I'm always lost in thought,
Suspended in the mistral my feet don't touch the ground,
Like an old toothpaste commercial, heaven bound,

Throw your arms around the world.

You know that I'm intoxicated, or my inner ears gone wrong,
Can't keep from keeling over, can't keep my trousers on,
The day is way beneath me; mundane, quotidian,
I'm basking in the warmth of your reflection,
Standing over the precipice, the abyss looks into me,
The way it coughs and stutters, I'm not sure what it sees,
The world is way beneath me, no thoughts of suicide,
You're not on earth forever, enjoy the ride,

Throw your arms around the world,

What is a man?

Slugs and snails,
Breath that's stale,
Hard bitten nails,
On wandering hands,
He lies when he smiles,
And he smiles with his eyes,
And his smile is a mile,
Of broken ground,

Tell me if you can,
What is a man?

Knows what he wants,
Nose out of joint,
As he presses the point,
Home or away,
Running on empty,
Water-logged, sedimentary,
The chain handle tempts me,
To flush him away,

Tell me if you can,
What is a man?

She's pricked and pinned by Cecil Beaton,
He masks her face to find the beauty within,
She thinks love is eating or being eaten,
And the deepest part of a man is his skin

Get me back on my knees again

Gonna tell you a story about a man named John,
Camp old nonsense like a "Carry On",
A much better painter than Paul Simenon,
But sagging like wet dough,
Self-absorbed like a shop-soiled Tampax,
As grey and distance as a telescope with cataracts,
Keep your bum-bags but ditch your anoraks,
Feed him beer, watch him go,

Now I'm defeated babe,
Get me back on my knees again,

Gonna lend you some money, buy up your goodwill,
Cause he has more money that you ever will,
Has a gun in his pocket and fingers in the till,
And a ring on every finger,
His eyes are hollow and his lips are full,
Skin like savlon, hair like wool,
Been nailed more times than a Papal Bull,
Did I mention he's a singer,

Now I'm defeated babe,
Get me back on my knees again,

A modern fantasist, like a tumour on a tin-can,
Arrivest archivist; post-modern bin-man,
Flash Harry in a dirty mac,
Lock up the doubters, Johnny's back,