When Wednesday Wears Pink no-one criticises you but the one-armed star who misses by three feet, knocking if off the table in the run up to your exam, in a band of strangers who toasted the supposed tragedy while your friend caught the ball in one glove and followed you to the door with his knee on your back, muffling your words with a wet cloud of wet wool. those women who studied mathematics shout how good you are, and you don’t know why you keep on getting up to play the piano when you’re up there in the pit with the walls dropping inwards with each chorus of teeth-gritting faces who blow every note as though it was the last one that bit you. do not double the salt in water or they will call you soft by comparison, the italian lady in the curry house, the friend of the daughter of the burnt-out baker for whom you sing every monday night when he is not there. who is there on mondays? how do you manage? bezoar cheese is easier to handle. here, then. what have you done with your day? why don’t you write in your diary one paragraph of truth, i need my daily dose! before i light the stove. am i an editorial cartoon? or, more beneficially, you can throw the ball to the cow, say to her, your door is open, you can have all the water you want. which do you prefer? or are you just looking on as the lights go up? he’s seen too many people pull themselves into a knot after each large glass of wine (not you, the cow) and he’s not impressed by a rose coming into bloom, just like monkeys in a forest who claim to be custodians – can you remember the precise moment you became a kid in all the lives we live, they all say the devil works overtime when people go with their dogs to his farm sitting in a circle with bowls of kibble, but he won’t work with animals, he won’t even look at you, i promise. a toast to you giving his knees the drive. you score. and the big ball follows his plane and you watch it disappear into doglike darkness.
Soft Launch
This is track 10 from Soft Launch, 22 poems based on 22 music tracks each based on 22 loops of a single sample.