Suburbicidal Thoughts - JLG Clift

Suburbicidal tidal thoughts ride high as us tonight; no BPM on the tracks a glitch I suppose because the tracks play away just fine blue hues of drops to come and drops that have been that look like a skyline split in half by its own reflection in a water front or feature the sights catch my eye while discussing Hemingway and Kafka and Burroughs in equal measure with this guy I’ve just met but no matter how interesting the conversation is for some reason my eyes are still tethered to the cityscape sound’s reeling rippling as a razor of a thin red line scalps the writhing static of fluctuating colour tumbling with a rigid flail into the darkness the red line’s scalping has left behind.

Rinds from a half-eaten tangerines in grand reams look like ripped ribbons around the deck and a couple of cans of Fosters and Carlsberg’s; ejected seeds resting on the rim of the can at the back good shot but not quite in the black of the hole; looking up from this I see exams and Oxford reminders bound by twined tape to the mantel with reminders for this and that distributed evenly surrounding. Everything’s in its place and its place is everything. There was a family on the wall earlier but they fell and no one’s up them back up yet glancing down ears back I see the set still going hue by hue; no stars in the deep mauve of the sky tonight just sunset jets of a darker shade chasing strips of cherry red from the head of the sunset along with the purple until only the ash of the anti-colour remains. House bleeds black there’s a crack more like a clatter on the patio two forty-somethings doing nothing but drinking the woman’s heel sinking into the pure of the AstroTurf she stacks and with a crack a vase comes to a pile of pieces varnished by the veneer of the porch lights and the fairy lights barely glowing anymore beside the shards a dilapidated 20 deck trampled into the soil with some unwanted crudités and some foil coiled into chunks in the mud and the grass; down the path in the rows of flowers crumpled cans grow and glow louder and brighter than the plants the party reflected on their surfaces in distorts like fun house mirrors the party quivering from seeing itself but going on. There’s a conversation about children and futures and commendations on the torte that we apparently have to try but I meet these people’s drink induced enthusiasm with hedges faux pleasantries and after they’ve left earshot sighs. I’m not into drinking or tortes, I just get high.

There is a god.

We got the score, we’re in the room Munich’s on and before my mate’s set’s over downstairs in the dining room turned dance floor the game is gone the score’s been removed from the draw and the zoot’s rolled - it’s cold outside on the street near the secondary school we hopped the fence to cotch under a nice grove we saw in the distance we’re drunk and giggling and semi-stoned and the sudden urge to pick up my phone and call home comes and goes leaning on the willow high on the lowest trunk my mate on the highest branch his flannel shirt’s billowing in the wind about his torso like a blank flag; out of sorts briefly we discuss the girl he’s courting who sounds wonderful, better than the last from what I gather but this conversation passes quickly and we discuss other things and I think about the lost boys in their tree, and how free they were and the image of us right now in the greased reflection of the canteen door does make my mind stir with links between us and them – summer’s come around quick with a sickly speed as I smoke this ganj and it’s approach makes me think about the Falange movement but I don’t know why never mind soon enough in a plume of smoke that train of thought is gone too; tonight I keep thinking about where I belong every song every word every drink every bird I’ve chatted to tonight all the sights I’ve seen teeming in the serene suburban sheen of the house party on the quiet street the idea of placement perturbing nothing around but me and I get down, because the only thing to see is suburbia in its semi-detached display period houses tiled rooftops look like they’re fraying when the moonlight hits them they look like they’re splitting like they’re bleeding and I find myself inwardly pleading for more than what surrounds.

Why do I exist, what’s my place? On what mantle do I sit?  

I exist to get pissed and block doorways and spend my days chasing fiction waiting to be kissed by an inspiring pair of lips thumb outstretched hitching more than states, more like whole tectonic plates away from the path everyone seems to have a laugh on.

Roads less travelled bare such burdens but such wonders if you can plunder them successfully. That’s who I want to be, I want to be one of the lucky ones that not only plunders but whose mind and whose journey thunders into infinity I don’t give a shit about this girl back on the balcony rambling about her bracelet from Tiffany’s. People just aren’t seeing that all these brands are making the hands of language viral, transient, these lusty labels and tedious fables about an escapade at the shops or a stint of underage drinking at the Locke or whatever spiralling through the rooms making me feel weathered turning the rooms into tombs where the trivial thrives and brilliance dies.

 I’ve had an epiphany tonight, sights have changed but stayed and once the playlist’s been played by the morning where I’ve overstayed my welcome quite possibly I leave the house that seems to have been hollowed by the party lifted no wash no shower the beer cans still glowing among the trampled flowers that used to tower above the litter before people with a few pints of bitter in them came along.

We belong to belong in the world where labels, where sight, where earth, does not exist to cloud our vision and only the search for self-improvement persists in a world of no lows just highs and with no suburbia or city to block our eyes from the sky.

My phone goes.

“hey wanna get pissed again? There’s another party tonight”

 It’s sad that already I know what my answer’s going to be.

The feeling returns in the dimness of English daylight that I am doomed to have this suburbia cloud my sights for the rest of my mornings and my nights at this rate.

"sure"