Showing posts with label conversations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conversations. Show all posts
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Friday, 14 October 2011
Oct 13th Dream Journal Entry / Conversation With A Woman At A Train Station
There is a particular road that keeps showing up in my dreams. It’s on the side of a hill and it swirls around it. The road is paved with cream colour stones. A row of red bricked houses runs along both sides of the road but I’ve never seen any people. I always pass the road on a double-decker bus. I sit on the left hand side on the top deck and peer out the window onto it.
As soon as I see this road I know I’m dreaming.
Most of my dreams involve some form of transportation. I’ve steered a huge wooden ship through a sleepy ocean, I’ve been a passenger on a plane (in-aisle-eight) and I’ve gone on road trips across deserts with talking coffee cups. But usually I’m either on a train or waiting for one.
I wonder why there are so many transportation services in my dreams when I have the ability to teleport.
Last night I dreamt I was on a platform of an old fashioned train station. The railway tracks were made of rusted steel and thick brown wood which ran across a sea of black pebbles.
I sat on the gravel floor of the platform next to an old woman in a baggy red coat. We were the only people around. The wrinkles in her face were thick like lightning bolts stuck in the sky. We started talking but every time I asked for either her name or what she does for a living her voice and the weather would distort.
This is what she said.
Should’da got a taxi. My father drove a taxi. He used to grow peppermint in the front seat and apricots in the back. He loved nature but hated cyclists. The sky kept falling into his hair. He was full of electricity and if it came with a bill my mother was paying it. The world could have turned off and my mother would have stayed on. She didn’t die, she just stopped running. She walked out of her body for a cigarette and didn’t come back. At the funeral my father said we were sharing a house with too much fire. I only wore red from then on; I was trying to show my father what it felt like to look like him. That’s why I didn’t get a taxi I guess, I might have had to sit in the back seat with apricots.
As soon as I see this road I know I’m dreaming.
Most of my dreams involve some form of transportation. I’ve steered a huge wooden ship through a sleepy ocean, I’ve been a passenger on a plane (in-aisle-eight) and I’ve gone on road trips across deserts with talking coffee cups. But usually I’m either on a train or waiting for one.
I wonder why there are so many transportation services in my dreams when I have the ability to teleport.
Last night I dreamt I was on a platform of an old fashioned train station. The railway tracks were made of rusted steel and thick brown wood which ran across a sea of black pebbles.
I sat on the gravel floor of the platform next to an old woman in a baggy red coat. We were the only people around. The wrinkles in her face were thick like lightning bolts stuck in the sky. We started talking but every time I asked for either her name or what she does for a living her voice and the weather would distort.
This is what she said.
Should’da got a taxi. My father drove a taxi. He used to grow peppermint in the front seat and apricots in the back. He loved nature but hated cyclists. The sky kept falling into his hair. He was full of electricity and if it came with a bill my mother was paying it. The world could have turned off and my mother would have stayed on. She didn’t die, she just stopped running. She walked out of her body for a cigarette and didn’t come back. At the funeral my father said we were sharing a house with too much fire. I only wore red from then on; I was trying to show my father what it felt like to look like him. That’s why I didn’t get a taxi I guess, I might have had to sit in the back seat with apricots.
Sunday, 9 October 2011
A Londoner In Worcester (Oct 7th 2011)
My train back to London was at noon the next day. I checked out of my hotel at ten and went for a walk around town. The sky was red that morning. A red sky is meant to be a sign of rain but the sun stayed out.
Walking past a medieval Cathedral and then a M&S supermarket, I noted the queue for the self service check out and then the free wifi sign outside the coffee shop next door. I wondered how I’d explain this to someone living seven hundred years ago. I pictured myself standing there holding an i-phone and showing it to a man in a black gown and an iron mask.
Outside London people talk to you in the street; this takes some getting used to. I was sitting on a bench and a woman with a face like a rotten carrot came up and sat beside me. Her arm was in a sling and she reeked of alcohol. The conversation went like this.
Her - Hello, you have great teeth.
Me - Oh’, thanks, was I smiling? I didn’t notice.
Her - What do you do?
I thought about this for a moment before answering the question.
Me - I’m a poet.
Her - A poet? How’d ya do that then?
Me - I write poems and travel places to perform them.
She looks at me blankly.
Me - Even I think it’s weird.
Her- Oh’. I never met a living poet before. Do all poets have teeth like that?
Me - I don’t know... some of them wear capes though.
She doesn’t laugh.
Her- How can I find out more about your poetry?
Me - The Internet... look up Raymond Antrobus.
Her – Don’t know nothing about the internet.
Me – I rarely meet a person who knows nothing about the internet. Well, unless I tell you a poem now you may never get to know.
I opened my notebook and read a poem I’m currently working on.
Afterwards she smiles and I notice she has about five teeth in her mouth. They look like yellow dices.
Her – I like the bit about not being able to stand on top of a mountain without feeling like a cloud is shitting on ya. I’m a bit like that. If I could sing or write poems I’d enjoy my own company a bit more.
A man comes over with a face like a rotten potato. He reeked of alcohol.
Man – Careful mate, she fancies you.
Woman – oh’ shut up!
I check my watch.
Me – Alright, I’ve got to catch my train now.
I got to the station half an hour early and start writing this into my journal.
Disclaimer: All people in Worcester DO NOT look like rotten vegetables.
Disclaimer: All people in Worcester DO NOT look like rotten vegetables.
Upcoming Shows (last of the year before flying to South Africa)
October 14th : Rail Road Cafe' (Hackney) w/ Captain Of The Rant & Rachel Rose ReidOctober 15th : Little Lamp (Brighton) w/ Richard Tyrone Jones
October 16th: Stratford Unitarian Church
October 19th : Gallery Cafe' w/ Adam Kammerling & Anthony Anaxagorou
October 20th : Chill Pill @ The
Albany w/ Dizraeli, Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger, Poetikat, Mr.T
October 21st : Mixed Messages @ Mekan w/ El Crises
October 25th : Passing Clouds w/ Rafeef Ziadah
October 27th: The Horse and Groom (Shoreditch) w/ The Ruby Kid plus Guests
October 28th : Open The Gate, Reel Rebel Radio w/ Inua Ellams, Malika Booker, AnthonyAnaxagorou etc
October 29th : Keats House w/ Benjamin Zephaniah, Patience Agbabi and Jordan Westcar
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