Shades of Shoreditch

Let grief be a fallen leaf

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

William Blake

London

It is almost impossible to miss the eyes.  Amongst the passing crowds, I see all shades of life.  The tide ebbs and flows and there are those who seem to swim fast and well and those who look to drown.  

On a Shoreditch morning little stirs at first, and then, as shutters roll and traffic coughs, the cooking fires are lit and tables set; sweepers flick out the dust and bags and boxes accumulate on the kerb and in the gutters.

Doors open and shut.  Figures meet.

Then retreat into some kind of leafy blue security.

She is still there.  On the corner.  I wonder what she sees.  What she likes?  What she could be wishing for?  Or am I being too intrusive?

All around there are insides, and outsides.

In sides are not exclusive.  I can see them.  I am not excluded, so long as I keep my distance.  Life persists.

Though sometimes it seems that the inside is a lonely place:

Unless your own company is enough?

The out sides may be just as lonely, with a need to make contact:

To stand outside, to talk away:

To walk quickly on by, ignoring the myriad messages, the courting couple painted into the doorway:

Or to ignore the lies fired at us from all around:

Pairs.  Or couples.  Friends.  Or lovers.  

Happy couples?

Unhappy couples?

Hapless pairs?

In mono:

Or is this in stereo?

Whatever.  Wherever.  We/they parade.  We are observed.  We want to be seen.  But walls have eyes:

The whole world is watching:

Whether we like it, or not:

In an empty room:

Or on the busy street:

And those doing the watching are being watched back:

With that wariness that goes with our instinctive caution. We are not as far removed from the wild as we think:

Characters in a painted scene, subsumed into an unreal reality:

Innocents, like children, ignorant of the greater picture:

Until we come face to face with two dimensions:

Caught sightlessly in the slightly blurry depths of our graininess:

Frayed by uncertainty:

Or framed by the herring-bones of our anxieties:

Or, perhaps, trapped inside our reflections, mummified by doubts:

Until (if we are fortunate?) age begins to allow us to unravel (in comparison with youth):

And we stumble into the cracks between the paving stones, head scarves, shawls and plastic bags protecting us against the unwanted:

And in the meantime, she is still there, on the corner, in her shrouds, her eyes signifying life, seeking solace perhaps, consuming the cruel world around us as the noisy vortex rips past unconcerned.....

I wish her love.

*****

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet

I see her walking now,

And away from me so hurriedly

My reason must allow.

That I had loved, not as I should

A creature made of clay,

When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose

His wings at the dawn of day.

On Raglan Road

from a poem by Patrick Kavanagh

As sung by Luke Kelly

********

Let grief be a fallen leaf

At the dawning of the day

*****

With thanks to Simon Ellingworth for his inspiration 

and to Michael for his company

Berkhamsted 647 and other numbers....

Phobile Moans?

Recently adrift on't Continent, I could not but help noticing others.  There are many.  More now than ever before.  And it seems that most have grown an extension to their limbs, ears and mouths.  

Hi, gorgeous.....

I make no bones. About phones. I, too, have one (that makes three? Ed)

But it is Your Biquity that alarums, per happen?

You talkin' to me?

Dr John Cooper Clarke may not be everyone's (sic), but he has what some may call wit, and what others may determine as intelligence. In a conversation with Tim Jonze, for the Grauniad, he once said: The adoption of mobile phones is probably the moment I truly drifted away from technology. At first people said they admired me, as though it was some sort of principled position I was taking. I thought, yeah, you’re admiring me now, but further down the line it’s going to be, “Who the fuck do you think you are to not have a mobile phone?” And so it proved. Their love soon turned to hate.

Arrest my case.....

Hello.  Hello.  Hello.....

In the same piece, Clarke maintained: People’s natural skills have started to atrophy due to technology. I get asked, “What do you do when you’re out of the house without a mobile phone and you get lost?” Well, I don’t get lost. As long as you’ve got a tongue in your head, you’ll find your way. People have stopped talking to other people.

Although, perhaps, he is not absolutely right? People have not stopped talking to other people? They are, instead, either talking to everyone, whether we want to hear it or not:

Or, maybe, they are talking to no one, far away, rather than to you and me who are here and would be happy to share a beer, and talk:

Or they are exercising their opposable thumbs in texting affections, afflictions and theories of the universe to opposable chums, or mums, or bums.....

Or they are checking their incomings:

Wondering why the train is late:

Or..... Whatever.....?

Don't get me. Wrong. The mobile phone is a marvel. A marvellous thing. In the days when the only phone we had was a black bakelite contraption firmly rooted in the hall (Berkhamsted 647) it was not possible to take it for a walk, nor, strangely, could it take photographs:

It didn't help us check our hair:

Nor settle an argument:

I told you we were in Prague....

And of course even the early mobile phones were absolutely no good for recording what we ate:

Nor for telling the family back home that everything is going well:

Even if it isn't really:

I am indebted (A friend in need/Is a friend in debt) to the good Dr Clarke, not only for his contribution to the penultimate episode of The Sopranos (Chickentown), but also for his insight into dementia (he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's). As he has been oft quoted (Is that a variant of Ofwat? Ed): - It is hard to laugh sometimes, but it isn't always wrong: - There are three benefits of Alzheimer’s; one, you get to meet new people every day; two, you can hide your own Easter eggs, and three, you get to meet new people every day.....

So, a propos of very little:

I wrote the songs that nearly made

The bottom line of the hit parade

Almost anthems, shoulda been hits

Songs like… Puttin’ off the Ritz

Some enchanted afternoon

Twenty-four hours to Levenshulme

Dancin’ in the daylight, singin’ in the smog

You ain’t nothin’ but a hedgehog

So close and yet so far

Do you remember the way we are

I’d like to get you on a speedboat to china

From an idea by George Steiner

Ain’t no blag – mama’s got a brand new jag

She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister

Not to leave out twist and whisper

Brand new leopardskin pillbox glove

Baby you and me we got a greasy kind of love

"To prove there are tunes to go with these titles, here's a little clip from You ain’t nothin’ but a hedgehog."

You ain’t nothin' but a hedgehog

Foragin’ all the time

You ain’t nothing but a hedgehog

Foragin’ all the time

You ain’t never pricked a predator

You ain’t no Porcupine

I Wrote the Songs

John Cooper Clarke

Dr John Cooper Clarke

"Imagine the Titanic with a lisp?" he says. "Unthinkable."

(You gotta larf?  Ed)