‘Feelin Jazzy’

feelin jazzy, concert thursday at 8, it said, i wanted to walk over and smash the sign to pieces.
I’ve seen it a hundred times before, an elderly woman waits at a bus stop, too nervous to sit, anxiety hangs over her and forces her face to drop. A bus arrives, there is a movement of people, it startles her, she moves to the bus as fast as she can. The moment becomes too much, it overwhelms her, she can’t work out if this is her bus, people push around her, the bus fills up. She realises it isn’t her bus and when it leaves she’s left in a state of shock, looking this way and that, eventually backing to the shelter and hovering over a seat once more.

they come & they sit & they drink coffee

They come and they sit and they talk and they drink coffee and beer, this I understand. But why the fuck was I here, alone, on my birthday. Alone through choice, but drinking and eager for fun, in self-imposed isolation.
The music thump thumped some disco Latin vibe, produced in a west London sound studio. It doesn’t make me angry or self-conscious, I suspect I despise these people, but I feel as if I’ve broken free, at least for now, for this moment. The tides will change later, tonight, the hard liqueur will undoubtedly follow, and I’ll make eyes with and attractive girl and stare her out and she’ll feel unsure, but find me alluring none the less. I’ll get naked and drink hard booze in the shower.

empty

I sat and poured myself another drink, a distant noise sounded, a crowd cheering perhaps or a machine a digger or drill, other than that silence and when it stopped only silence. The noises began to appear one by one as though the whole world was slowly awakening, birds in the distance, a car engine firing up, the rustle of leaves in the warm breeze. Birds, closer now, as the message spreads across the valley floor from tree to tree. A clap of thunder from an aeroplane passing high overhead. A shovel dragged across concrete, a dog barking and in the distance a city, far away, I had to focus to hear it, but it must have been there all the time, even in the silence. The birds sang all around now and I could see the sea through the dispersing mist of heat.

Sitting, waiting, contemplating, trying to work out how to fill this void. Undistracted, not looking for a distraction, not looking for an escape, a way to pass the time without knowing, my life seems filled with these moments, that pass without your control, is there another way to stay in control. To sit and think about the time as it passes and make plans for things you’ll never do, is this wasteful, or preemptive or just shit.

Beautiful American man

To sit in a café and smile at a pretty girl and have her smile back, you never say a word to one another or see her again, but surely that is harmony.
An African-American man on business far from the US, he drinks his tea with milk and shuffles his papers and looks around him with an open, inviting smile on his face. He nods at the passing patrons, he answers his phone when it rings “yes sir” in warm jest, he shuffles his papers and banters with the waitress with a warm open smile. He arranges to “catch” a ride back when his meeting is cancelled until tomorrow, he offers his seat to a waiting lady as he prepares to leave, he drinks his tea fast and dons a backward cap and baseball jacket of an American man on a trip from the office.

i see

I see a man on a TV screen, with slight glasses and a mid-thirties smugness that comes of material success. I see a man walking towards me, he pretends not to notice me and expects me to move for him, but I don’t and we collide and I lean in with my shoulder to exaggerate the impact and he turns and spreads his arms, but I don’t look back or stop or apologise.
I walk past a stall selling foot long twisted sweets coloured brightly in blues and greens and pinks. An old woman sits drinking beer and sucking hard on a cigarette, her face wrinkled and old and bitter. I feel my body tensing and I clench my teeth.
I see a group of Chinese tourists walking slowly and looking around with their cameras and smiling and my body calms and I smile.
I see a fat man in a burger shop taking a bite, a woman screams at her baby. I cross the street, but look the wrong way and a car breaks before me. I walk faster; a man sits in a doorway with a needle filled with blood. I walk faster still and my body tenses and I grit my teeth and my eyes fill with tears.