12 THOUGHTS ON THE  LANGUAGE OF OTHERS

at London Contemporary Music Festival

                 

FIRST PART

1

I can hear her breathing.

The air running over her vocal chords,

Shaping the words like wet clay

Spinning on the wheel

To say something

I've not heard before.

I can hear her breathing

2.

I can hear her breathing

Just a single note does something.

Sound does something without thinking

Don't you think?

Just a single note.

3

I can hear her breathing

Just a single note does somethingng.

How do they feel about it: the hammers?

A striker’s mission in mid flight.

The piano: A wonderful infernal piece of furniture.

Kafka might dream it up

An embroidery machine of torture;

Tingualy might invent it

From an abandoned loom.

Break it up with an axe.

Cover it with flowers.

Put it out in the rain.

How do they feel about it: the hammers?

4

I can hear her breathing

Just a single note does something.

How do they feel about it: the hammers?

This looks comfortable.

Let’s sit down here.

Melody is an empty chair

Scratched into a square of orange paint.

It looks comfortable

5

I can hear her breathing

Just a single note does something.

How do they feel about it: the hammers?

This looks comfortable.

It's such a pleasure to touch her guitar strings

After the straight backed enlightenment logic

Of the keyboard.

Like ditching the wig

And growing your hair long.

Slouch required.

It's such a pleasure

6

I can hear her breathing

Just a single note does something.

How do they feel about it: the hammers?

This looks comfortable.

It's such a pleasure to touch her guitar strings

Do great songs need to be sung?

Or can they just be sold?

Great songs market a zeitgeist,

A territory

An empire in rise or fall

It’s Schubert one year and The Beatles the next.

Selling something that couldn’t be said

Is what a great song needs.

I can hear her breathing

Just a single note does something.

How do they feel about it: the hammers?

This looks comfortable.

It's such a pleasure to touch her guitar strings

Do great songs need to be sung?

                 SECOND PART

7

Perhaps it’s a bit early to talk about this,

But I love a coda.

It’s that moment of freedom at the very end

When all the work's done,

The astronet's been breached

And we can take off in the woosh

In the spaceship of our emotions.

Perhaps it’s a bit early.

8

Perhaps it’s a bit early to talk about this,

It’s the false ending now.

The curtain's down

And there seems to be nothing here

But the recordings.

Breakfast is over

But they're setting the table for lunch.

It’s the false ending now.

9

Perhaps it’s a bit early to talk about this,

It’s the false ending now.

Behind every song is a memory

Of another one

And a future

Waiting to be imagined.

If you dig into any song long enough

You'll find one or ‘the other’ place

To plant a garden.

Behind every song is a memory.

10 

Perhaps it’s a bit early to talk about this,

It’s the false ending now.

Behind every song is the memory

The only white noise on this recording

Is that reverb distortion

There,

Did you hear it?

The oblivion of Mr Black calling.

But no need to worry

It’s only white noise.

11

Perhaps it’s a bit early to talk about this,

It’s the false ending now.

Behind every song is the memory

The only white noise on this recording

If we were wood

We would be puppets wouldn't we.

But aren't we all sounding boards of a kind?

As if we were wood.

12

Perhaps it’s a bit early to talk about this,

It’s the false ending now.

Behind every song is the memory of

The only white noise on this recording

If we were wood

A dance

Danced by a man

With another man

While he is waiting to dance

With a women

Who is already dancing

With another man.

A dance.

D O   T H E  F L I P  by  A N D R E W  P O P P Y

Radio into television. Potato into chip. Do the flip. Wax cylinder into file transfer; Orange into pip. Do the flip. Big forest tree into concert hall walls and stalls; Thirst into sip. Do the flip. Incriminating white paper into flames that flit and forget; barbed though into quip. Do the flip. Princess into martyr; Choir girl into hip rock chick. Do goody two shoes into hypocrite. Do the flip. Pencil marks into sentence of death; Pointing finger into trigger click. Do the flip. Afternoon shadow into midnight chime; Shadow of a gunman into mid life crime. Do it. Arrest me some one do it, arrest me some one do it. Do the flip. I want you, I want you, I want you; desire into unzip. Do the flip. Cornflake packet into land fill site; Love action into drip. Do the flip.

Do the Flip; Shirt, skirt, dress, coat and hat, pattern into garment; fray into rip. Do the flip. Afternoon stroll into six month trip. Do the flip. Sea, sun, sangria into skinny dip; Sunshine into honey bee honey. Do the flip. Another toast, another round into public lavatory stall vomit, piss and shit. Do the flip. Sunday into Monday; the sleep of reason into thigh high boots, mask and whip. Do the flip. Belt into noose; insecurity into flipping out ; Bag of nails into wooden box; insecurity into insanity slipping out Straight man into comic; Straight man thrust up into, trust up in a lust jacket into personality split. Do the flip Best boy into screen idol; Looking up at the stars into face down on sun set strip Do the flip. Old blue jeans, old green dress into Gees Bend quilt. Bed into ship on an ocean of dreams, Kiss me Hardy, abandon ship, abandon ship. Do the flip. Kiss into hard prick; Kiss into wet, wet gash into swollen clit. Do the flip. The penis and the uterus; into plastic conduit via the new surgery. All change, sex change. You can call me Mister you can call me Miss. Do the flip. The time we spent together into memory fading; Promise into waiting, endless waiting. My ship is coming in, my ship, my ship. Do the flip. My string quartet into 808 bass drum’s glitchy click click click.

Do the flip. Sound into music; listening into something does that make it music Ligeti clocks and clouds into  Phil Jeck’s scratch and glitch and sniff. Do the flip. What I hear into what you see. What I am to me into what you want me to be. There’s no squaring it. Do the flip. Our work into their capital.  No future into bailed out bulbous pay slip; what’s my role in all this shit. Cast the stone or sit; I’m guilty let me sign for it. Do the flip Irony into cynicism. A role becomes the face that fits forever. Is there no escape A photo flip kit. A photo fit kit without an undo buffer. buffer buffer buffer buffer buffer. Doctor into patient, patient into priest into the moon beetle. A photo kit flip kit. Doctor into patient into the member for Lewisham east. Consider the moon beetle aren’t we all luna-tics. Do the flip. A childhood of endless scales, arpeggios, strettos and God knows you can never ever, never ever, ever know enough theory, but it all boils down into an Ableton click. Do the flip. Its been a pleasure to be rhyming with you but I must take a dip; an alchemical bath with somebody; to get beyond this moment to that place Where there’s a glass of something bubbling waiting for a sip. Im thirsty. Will you join me! Do the flip

COPYNG WITHOUT PERMISSION IS FORBIDDEN

‘12 Thoughts on the Language of Others’ and ‘Do the Flip’

are from the CD and performance  called ‘Shiny Floor Shiny Ceiling’

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