Parallel Life

I really shouldn't miss you so,
Its not like it was serious anyway
A fantasy world, where anything is possible
Where love, flows freely, and we loose ourselves in each other.

A soft foot, a smooth leg,
Skin thick with the taste of a thousand dreams,
A naked body, absorbed in fantasy
Ready to consume me whole.

Tie me in knots of thighs,
I'm a gift with an ankle bow,
A mess of enamoured emotion
Wrapped entirely in the purest of skin.

Faced with loving like a man
A boy shivers with delight
Surges destroy me from the inside out
Imploding into hopeless submission.

A distant wish to hope for,
A fictional day to live for,
A beautiful lady to love for,
A special feeling to lust for.


Reality check.


Get real.
Stay mired in reality.
Flit from mundane to mundane
And do not think why.

Sit in countless tube stations
Stand clear of the closing doors
I step off onto the station, home
With no-one next to me.

Limitless

An invisible love sits next to me
I lean on her shoulder
I sleep on my side.

Her mannequin face, a hybrid of
untouchable lips
and blind eyes.

Her skin is velvet, the most perfect
You've ever felt.
Well, how else would it feel?

For she is whoever I want her to be,
She is the love of my life
She is no-one.

The one I've never met
The one I never will?
The one others have claimed to be.

I have time to note
The passing of every minute
Slowly seeping away into the grass.

I sit and absorb the evening alone
These memories are my own,
The night has my full attention.

Broken Hope

So don't you try and tell me
That we all need love
Because it doesn't exist around here no more
Its floating like a dove,
In the wind.

Time to batter down the hatches again
The bell's gone, round one has just begun
I cant remember how it started
Something about its not working anymore, says mum
So i sneak out through the back door
Out to my new home on the street corner
I reckon they'll be finished by ten,
Both tired but neither none the wiser,

So don't you try and tell me
That we all need love
Because it doesn't exist around here no more
Its floating like a dove,
In the wind.

So the dust settles at last tonight
And it wont rise again until this time tomorrow
Debris scattered around on the floor,
Shattered glass, well I guess you reap what you sow
I'm loosing my sense of equilibrium
Neither one concedes defeat to the other
Caught in the crossfire of a lover's requiem,
Gotta run, from the endless complications,

So don't you try and tell me
That we all need love
Because it doesn't exist around here no more
Its floating like a dove,
In the wind.

A bloodstain on the carpet,
If it's not themselves, it's me,
What if I never come home again,
Cause right now I'm on my knees...

Central Park at Sunset

This place is haunted, I swear
I say with my back turned
To the shadows. There's a hostage
situation developing very quickly.
One mind seized in a hostile takeover.
by rotten, inverted nostalgia.
The kind that delights in reminding you
About who you left behind

There's a mysterious tall be-denimed figure
Hiding in the trees.
A bespectacled angel in a floral dress
Parts the grass in aloof grace

There's a lost soul in the bushes
Smiling shyly from the shadows
With feet that taste of nervous joy
and lips of rose that are desperate to be adored

There's a hazy hologram of silhouettes
Laughing on the horizon
An ancient sunset dichotomy
Years later, I'm still watching.

Still waiting.

Mixtapes

I was inspired to post this one up after seeing a mixtape post over at this blog here: http://sakuramab.livejournal.com/

I've always been sorta fascinated with the world of mixtapes - it's essentially how my dad got me into nearly all of the music I listen to today. Y'see, when I was about 13 or so, I listened to pretty much 3 bands - Green Day, The Ramones and Dr Feelgood. With a few odd exceptions here and there, that. was. it. It still beggers me just how limited my musical knowledge was! I hadn't even begun to start falling for my now-favourite band of all time, ever - The Clash! (shudders). By the time I turned 14, I had started digging up a few new bands - Queens of the Stone Age comes to mind - but otherwise, things were still painfully limited.

I'll be eternally grateful for my dad for doing this. What he started doing was taking loads of blank CD-Rs and burning random bunches of music onto them to create batches of mixtapes (yeah, I call them mixtapes even though they're CDs...I like the term mixtape a bit more :D) for him to listen to on long journeys to and from work (Which he frequently had to endure).

During the summer of 2006, whenever I was in the car with him, be it joining him going to work, or going out to race events or whatever, he would insist on playing these mixtapes rather than any CDs I had. And he would insist on one rule - no skipping tracks. If I'd never heard a song before, I wasn't allowed to skip it. I had to listen to it and give it a go.

What a revelation this was! The amount of bands I got into by doing this is endless. Chuck Berry, George Thorogood, Level 42, Thin Lizzy, The Clash, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Ruts...I literally cannot remember all of the bands exactly who I got into and have loved since then as a result of hearing them on Dad's mixtapes. The most famous example of this rule being used was when I happened upon Lizzy's 'Cowboy Song'. I've included it below for you to have a listen:



Listen to the intro. Really slow and quiet, right? The 14-year-old me instantly thought "what's this dirge?" and went to skip the track on. Dad refused..."no, no, give it a minute..."...he grins knowingly at me. I grudgingly let him play on...and then right on about a minute in, the riffs kick in and my face lights up - I'm instantly hooked. 'Man, what IS this?!' I am thinking! The irony is, nowadays I love the intro equally as much as the rest of the song!

So as a way of repaying my dad for a) having such AWESOME music taste and b) passing that all on to me, I started doing my own mixtapes for him on Father's Day. My logic being, every year you see those really corny Father's Day CDs - the 'World's Best Dad' ones. Now, I dunno about you, but my old man can take or leave Steppenwolf, Queen (or at least the clichéd tracks they put on the CDs), Deep Purple etc - in fact, these are frequently the bands he grew up loathing as a young punk rocker. His attitude to them has softened since - hell, he even digs Journey nowadays, although that's one music taste that hasn't bridged the generation gap in the Johnson family - but still, you get the point.

So instead, I make him my own alternative 'World's Best Dad' mixtape, comprising of some of his favourite tracks, plus songs of mine that I figure he will love. I've pretty much done it every year since 2006, with one year (think it was last year) being an honourable exception; I think I found him something up Camden Market, or perhaps in Rough Trade Records, instead. But this year, with the 'Haynes Dad Manual' hitting the shops, it's time to announce the return of the 'Alternative World's Best Dad Mixtape'! :)

I made the first mixtape of perhaps many tonight, with a few more to follow tomorrow on the day. Here's the listing of the first one:

1. Battle of Britain Theme - Ron Goodwin
2. Holidays in the Sun - Sex Pistols
3. Just Fade Away - Stiff Little Fingers
4. Burn Baby Burn - Ash
5. 1977 - The Clash
6. Walk Like An Egyptian - The Bangles
7. Could You Be Loved - Bob Marley & The Wailers
8. The Chinese Way (Live) - Level 42
9. Message In A Bottle - The Police
10. And Now For A Little Green Bag... - Steven Wright (Reservoir Dogs soundtrack)
11. Little Green Bag - George Baker Selection
12. Time is Tight - The Clash (originally by Booker T & The MGs)
13. Ain't Got A Clue - The Lurkers
14. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - The Ramones
15. Nervous In The Alley - Less Than Jake
16. Government Lies - The Submission*
17. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've?) - Billy Talent (originally by The Buzzcocks)
18. It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - REM
19. Stranglehold - U.K. Subs
20. Crash - The Primitives

I'll post up the next mixtapes when I make them :)

* - an amazing underground punk band based out of Deal, down in Dover on the South-East coast. Listen to their stuff here: http://www.myspace.com/thesubmission99