V. Short Narrative

There was a young man who knew a girl and she was around the same age and were both very close friends, spending a lot of time together. One day, unprompted by anything, the man decided to ask her “Are you in love with me?”

After a short pause, in which she was stunned by the question and slightly embarrassed, she said “No.”

He said “Well then, I think you should keep away from me.”

And she did. They stopped talking, in effect stood back-to-back, no longer friends, no longer acquaintances, no longer anything; they didn't even see each other to speak. Soon they did not recognise each other on the street with the time they spent apart.

Ten years past. In their thirties, the girl soon marries, and not long after, the man, too, marries. One day, they past each other on the street, but this time the girl recognised him and she says: “You're – ”

To which he replied “Yes, and you're – ”

And she confirmed it was who she was.

After a short pause, she looked at him and said “You're in love with me, aren't you?”

To which the man replied “Yes.” And there was nothing either of them could do about it.

Hop Farm Festival 2nd - 4th July 2010

About 3 weeks ago I went down to Kent to the Hop Farm Music Festival. Me and my friend headed down to London, but we didn't know the way, with being Northerners, and we ended up walking around Waterloo Station with heavy bags in over 20 degree heat and when we finally found the coach station, we'd missed our coach by 20 minutes. It drove us mad because we walked past that road in the first place, and if we'd walked that way to begin with we'd have made it. So we were stranded in London. A massive city, never been there before, and with thoughts of sleeping rough.

Luckily, my fiend had a stroke of genius. He said we could jump a train to Paddock Wood, Kent (£14 each), and then get a bus straight to Hop Farm. And we did! It was a long journey, I tore a muscle in my left shoulder, and we were both exhausted. We were 3 hours late, but that didn't matter. We set up our tents after I'd collapsed into the grass. I couldn't believe we'd walked so far, and for so long, through London, and I was sweating and in pain and we thought we wouldn't even get there.

After we set up our tents, we walked down to the main field - still knackered - and saw Blondie. Had some drinks and then saw Van Morrison in the evening. It was good, considering how tired we were. In the night we sat in the grass at the small acoustic stage on the campsite. I lied down and was talking nonsense as I looked up at the stars, I think I was talking about reincarnation. I suppose it was interesting to hear me talk like that, though as people said sorry as they stepped over me, they must have thought I was on something.

Next day my shoulder was so painful. But we had to do what we came to do, which was get as close to the stage as possible to see Bob Dylan. We got to the main field around 12 or 1, and watched a guy called Johnny Flynn, then The Magic Numbers, and as each act finished, and people scattered to the toilet or bar, we moved forward, and held our place. Pete Docherty did an acoustic set. Laura Marling (who has sang in Noah and the Whale with Johhny Flynn). Mumford & Sons were very good, as was Seasick Steve.

By now were were quite close, and couldn't risk moving from our spot (not that we could without squeezing through). It was kind of claustrophobic, I sat down when I could. The heat was immense. There was warnings about covering up and drinking water. I had my hat and the t-shirt I'd bought was round my neck. Unfortunately, I'd left my bottle of water on the ground and someone had kicked it.

Ray Davies from The Kinks came on and was amazing and everyone wanted him to sing Lola, which he did last. Then we moved forward one last time as he finished and we must have been about 10 feet away from the stage. I was feeling too good and there was no room at all to sit down. It was ridiculous. I stretched my legs (and I think I kicked someone behind me) so the blood would flow properly - I didn't want to faint. Bob Dylan took ages to come on, there was a weird voice over talking instead of music as his roadies set up.

Then he came on. He was amazing. I'd seen him twice before, but this was the closest I'd ever been to him. And, as my friend said, the closest we will ever get to him. I think he is the best musician in the world, and always has been the greatest lyricist. He is a living legend and I couldn't keep my eyes off him - until camera began to block my view. A bunch of girls behind me were short and could't see and tried to look over my shoulder - which I didn't mind- until I felt a hand on my torn, left shoulder.

He began with Rainy Day Women (Everybody Must Get Stoned). It was hard to know what he was singing, because he changes the sound all the time, I still liked it, though. We all sang along to Just Like A Woman. At the end, he finished the set with Like A Rolling Stone, which sent everyone crazy, including myself, screaming the lyrics into the Kentish sky. His encore was Forever Young, which means a lot to me, not that it's my favourite Dylan song, but that it was the first Dylan song I heard, and I love that song. We all sang it the way he did on Planet Waves, and he sang it his way nonetheless.

Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

Just Like A Woman

Honest With Me

Simple Twist Of Fate

High Water (for Charlie Patton)

Blind Willie McTell

Highway 61 Revisited

Workingman's Blues #2

Thunder On The Mountain

Ballad Of A Thin Man

Like A Rolling Stone

Forever Young

Old Experimental Poem I Found

Conversations Overheard on a Train 17th April 2008

I wanna eat or suh 'un,
I'm gettin' paranoid now,
What time d'ya reckon
We'll get 'ome?

It was dead good
When I was werkin' on it,
I'm gonna get off the station at 'ome

Like Crosby or suh 'un.

If you get off at Aintree station
You can cross over and get the bus.

You know, er, signs –

It's twenty-past
No hasn't gone yet –

Don't notice it, do yeh,
When you're on the road,

Signs, you don't see 'em.

He had the most perfect bird whistle,
He's like a kid and he's twenty-two.

I had like four sugars,

Surprised I could wake up this morning.

Are we here?
The next one.

A replacement bus service is in operation.

No Sleep - Myth of Sisyphus

I'm listening to Blonde on Blonde on a warm rainy morning, after I cleaned the room and found about 7 socks under my bed. I love the rain, it makes a morning. I could do without it being so warm. I think I'm so warm because I've been moving about, and the hoover heated up the small room, but the window – as always – is wide open, and I think it's 17 degrees today.

I'm tired a little bit; I woke up around noon. I couldn't sleep again last night, it's probably the same thing I had about 2 years ago in Preston when I had a big manic episode that lasted about a month and I hardly slept or ate and I just got drunk and wrote. I wrote a lot of poems back then, most aren't that good, but I still have some in my collection now, which I'm still working on.

Anyway, I was crowded with thoughts and trying to write my first novel, which I couldn't do and it drove me mad. I kept looking into Naked Lunch and then into Catcher in the Rye, seeing how two very different writers can write so differently in the first person. I was stuck with this terrible terrible piece of writing I just couldn't have in the novel, so got rid of it, leaving me with nothing again, because I keep starting again. And back again 2 years ago, with my dissertation, which drove me crazy, and I re-wrote the whole thing at least 3 times. I thought, forget it, I'm not writing it simply because I'm actually not writing it. I was sat there staring forward, and then the bad thing happened.

There's a poem I've written called 12:24 am, in which I travel 35 miles to see a girl. I began to think about her. (Because it was written about a real person). I then found on my laptop old MSN conversations that had been saved somehow. I read over them and it was a terrible feeling. We were quite close. And now we're not. Thing is, at the end of the poem I write something about her going to Falmouth, this was our plan, to go together and do our Masters Degree down south, but we didn't. Now I've found out, not only is she getting married, but she has the same plan with that new guy. To move down south with him.

I wonder what would have happened if we had gone. I mean, the Masters I'm doing now has improved my writing so much, I'm much more well read, and I have some new friends. I probably wouldn't have any of that had I moved away because I would have been drooling over her all day, whining about her all the time like a lonely puppy. Such an idiot. Still, I was thinking about the other people I knew in Preston, and it depressed me to think it's been 2 years since I've seen them, and they're all split up anyway, since Uni finished and everyone went home. All scattered over England like seeds in the soil. One girl has gone to Australia. One guy is now in Canada.

I felt like doing a Rimbaud and quitting writing altogether. 60% of the time I don't get much enjoyment out of writing, it's just something I'm compulsed to do. However, people do say writing is a method of relieving stresses and things like that, maybe it's the writing that driving me crazy. I know I'm not going to quit, I'll always have the compulsion to write something, because I'll always think of it. I suppose I should get my poetry published and then my novel, and then I'll think about it.



I read over some of Albert Camus, who wrote The Stranger (L'tranger). This is one of his novels, in which he talks in relation about The Myth of Sisyphus. It is about the Absurd life of man, and the acceptance of the Absurd as something to support the idea of life or living a meaningless life. So, to accept your life is meaningless, you in effect, accept the absurdity of your situation, and thus you are free to be contented.

Sisyphus was a Greek myth who put Death in chains so no human had to experience death, which defied the Gods, and therefore, angered them. Death escaped from Sisyphus, and so he had to die. However, Sisyphus escaped the Underworld, but as the Gods were still angry with him, they punished him to push a large rock up a mountain, once at the top, the rock rolls down, and he has to start over again.

Camus uses this Greek myth as an example of the Absurd notion that life is, indeed, meaningless, but if you only accept that meaninglessness then you are freed to experience contented acceptence. Just as if Sisyphus would have acknowledged the absurd situation he was in, he would be have been fine. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

I think Camus also made three examples of absurd people, or “The Absurd Man.” The Lover, one who is a serial seducer like Don Juan. He does this because he lived a passionate life to the fullest, as he recognises life to be short-lived.

The Warrior is the man who sees life and death as one thing, and chooses action over contemplation; he wants to engage in human history and become something after life by laying down his life for what he believes in.

The Actor, one who becomes a number of different personalities to achieve fame. “Appearing creates being.”

Koumpounophobia

Those plastic things hooked in a line, from her throat – the V of her collarbone – down to her stomach, like a list of eyes the colour of a dilated pupil. She looks at me and smiles with her teeth, and her teeth look like buttons, and there is no way I could get any closer to that, she'll taste of plastic and I'll choke on her as if she is a button herself.

It's strange how quick she moves compared to me. I cannot move, I'm fastened to the hardwood floor. Her hands are by her side but I don't move my hands. I pretend I am in control and I look at her clothing and the pieces of plastic holding them together, which are looking at me – little eyeballs of a CCTV biologically inserted intravenously with nerve endings and wires and veins into her body.

She says something about unbuttoning.

I say something like I'm not entirely sure that would be appropriate.

She frowns and takes to the motions of unbuttoning her clothes, as I rub my hands together so as not to touch the plastic discs, which I imagine feel smooth between my fingers. Black like coffee, white like cream – or cataract of a blind eye – I can taste the plastic in my mouth as the first button is undone and it's like coins sliding down my gullet, more and more, choking me with the acrylic taste, right at the back of my tongue, touching my tonsils and scraping at the bitter taste buds.

I want to be sick, I say.

She says something like, Oh no, is it me? What have I done wrong?

I say, Of course not. But I cannot carry on this conversation because I've been trying to hold my breath. The talking has brought a quick release of carbon dioxide and the reaction of oxygen in my head sends me blind for a second.

I am now sitting down, looking at her face, my dizziness giving her four eyes like a button. She tells me I look pale. The rest of what she says is white noise from a radio. She is sitting so close to me that the buttons are almost touching my hand, and I'm frozen again. Don't move, don't move, don't be sick, don't be sick.

I tell her it's okay, I'm fine, I just felt a bit dizzy. And then I sit back into the cool leather couch. The buttons are undone, I don't have to look at her now – but her eyes, great big black buttons, just staring at me.

© 2010 Michael Holloway

Object of Dreams Mag - Haikus

I updated the blog because it was old and worthless. It still is, but it's much better to look at, like me in 50 years time.

I've been writing freelance for a small magazine called Object of Dreams Magazine, which is an arts, music, fashion and culture mag aimed at people around Liverpool. So I took it upon myself to call myself a Freelance Music Journalist, even tho I've written 2 small reviews for some bands and the magazine is only up to issue 2. Still, It's about getting yr name out there, regardless of money, and while I'm working my name into the arts scene, I'll be getting my actual writing out there.

Here's my review of the band Misery Guts: http://objectofdreams.wordpress.com/ and further down is the review of Dirty Tricks, which appeared in the actual print version of the mag.

Also, click here to see the actual print version of the magazine, and my small, edited review of Dirty Tricks on page 34.

To listen to Dirty Tricks click here
To listen to Misery Guts click here



Haikus I wrote last night:

The sound of yr voice
Is like heavy rain on me
It feels very wet.

and

Seagull on chimney
Sun burns thru clouds like fire
It stays 'til it goes.

Sophia De Mello Breyner

I found a note in one of my poetry anthologies for Sophia De Mello Breyner. It only said her name. It was a reminder just to read the two poems of her in that book, which I did back in 2006 or 2007 or whenever it was I made the note.

She was a Portuguese poet. She wrote these beautiful poems, which were usually quite short but powerful. They had these perfect one-liners that were quite brilliant, burning a poingiant thought in you, leaving you with a feeling not so dissimilar to sad, but with a certain power to it, as well.

I never knew she's died in 2004. A year before I was even in Uni. I only found out today. The one poem that sticks with me is Inscription.

Inscription

When I die I will return to seek
The moments I did not live by the sea.

Sophia De Mello Breyner

Based on a Short Story, I write Like DFW

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

My June - My Poems - In The Casa

I went outside 20 or 15 minutes before I had to read it and paced up and down in my suit, I liked how odd I must have looked. I talked to my brothers friend (who was also my friend when we were kids, I'd seen him once in 10 years). I got a cigarette off him and we talked a bit. Then he went in. Soon my sister came out, looking for me, thinking I'd done a runner. I told her to go back in. I got ready, mentally, and I went in and did it. Never been so scared.
Too bad I promised my friend I'd read out some poetry at an open mic night in the Autumn.

So I'e got back into my writing, and it helps that I've taken a month off work, and now I'm reading about 7 books at once. (Not including the 5 or 6 books of poetry).

The last poem I posted was "What I Remember of Sunday 16th May 2010." I took this, as well as fie other poems, to the workshop last week. We sat in the back room of The Casa and we talked about them (as well as my friend's extract of his novel). We both got good feedback, and I was glad about this, having put off submitting poetry for the past 9 months, which is silly, being more of a poet than a writer of fiction.

This poem, though, was interesting because it was the most prose-like piece of poetry out of the other convoluted, absurd pieces. It was like a diary extract. That was the intended effect, to just show the memories in such a mundane and simple form - a form I don't usually use.

However, I've been reading a lot of poetry, and putting some poems together for publiscation soon, and having come across T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, I realise what I want to do. I read The Waste Land when I was at University in Preston, but I didn't study it, so didn't know much about it. But I want to re-write my poem and try to adapt the simple diary-format into something not as weird and Beckettian as I do, but also not a pastiche of Eliot either, but to write a long (4 or 5 page) poem regarding one day in a strong poetic language, relevant to today.