Love, Bills and Being - JLG Clift

I got stuck


Somewhere
Somehow
In some place
On someone
On something
In a ring
Among rings
On a bill
Among bills


Never-ending
 
Just beginning
Never winning
Just beginning
Never breaking
Just beginning
Always shaking
Just beginning
Never learning
Just beginning
Always yearning
Just beginning
Never seeing
Just beginning
Never being
Just beginning

Never slowing
Yet never going
Never newer
Yet never Older
Never to freeze
Never to smoulder

Never pleasured
Never pained
Never treasured
Forever waned

Always shallow
And always full
Always to swallow
Forever hollow
Like you were yesterday
Like you'll be tomorrow


Never done
But always over
Always playing
But never won
Never living
But still dying
Always trying
But never winning


Here I am
A man
Constantly 
Just beginning

 

Wander Years - JLG Clift

I wander those waning years sometimes still seeking sanctuary weak of will from the woes of this week from the traps of my today looking for comfort in my misremembered moments of a yesterday years ago now my hopes sewn like seeds invisible into the sands of that time all those trips all those breaks all those tissues all those peanuted ties all those plaid skirts that split in the summer and showed slivers of thighs slights we found so tantric accidental flashes that drove us manic; all those shirts we’d swear were half buttoned gullible gluttons gawping at something that was never there to stare at beyond the optimistic ogles of our mutual mind’s eye; all those tattered catholic crests sloping over our puffed out chests and their unimpressed and resting breasts; all those little molehills made by us into mountains that haven’t stood the test of time untainted; all those forbidden and always bitter beers that we swore blind were just what the day called for through our wincing on a winter-worn wall in November rain red brick straining against the grainy green of ever-growing moss in Whetstone near our school near my home as we made fun of everything we saw our eyes glazed and glassy after half a can our smiles wide our laughs loud our words blue and booming blooming nothing we meant really ever all of us 16 and never feeling fresher; all of us full of spirit all through the evening feeling splendid for the night fighting flirting hurting no one really just being just seeing the sights just trying to be at the right place at the right time with all the wrong girls who made us curl in our chairs and miss our stops because we couldn’t stop staring at them on those journeys home; the girls that kept us awake when we were all alone who we’d hope would invite us in like sirens singing and searching for ships and sea men; girls to share our sighs to bare their skin to us and bear with us through our muffled and misguided meanders their hands steering ours clear of our pre-mature mistakes letting us learn on their shifting curves constantly the girls steading our hands through the nervous shakes all those apologies all those scraped knees all those unrealised opportunities to walk them to their door afterwards all those glimpses all those glances over shoulders during snogs as we took chances at the gates between classes between sets homeless for the night to dodge our parents’ sight with all the saints to our side and a disappointing metal band strumming away inside in the dim in the dark under unlit street lamps in each other in memory now all this hides ground glass among grains of scorched sand and who we were resides with it all my fears; all those moments we felt were so timeless, aged and caged in those wandering years that we walked away from towards a future full of fears that my tears cannot turn away:

The degree to the dole to the sink hole of suburban decay to a depleting O-Zone and a diminishing ability to finish breaths without wheezing and that queasy feeling when I’m reeling with the wrong person at the end a room away from a subterranean tomb my teeth stained my mind feigned fractured waiting to see if rapture reaps me looking through my life for something to keep me in my body in my bed and finding only echoes of being 16 in my head until my mind’s gone and my mouth moves through the motions to maintain a movie refrain my dying words a nonsense quote barely heard by the nurse who doesn’t remember my name without the chart she so artfully checks every time she sees me; the name of a sled I never owned.

 A lie

to mask the ones I say are true the ones where there was actually a you to address the ones where you were actually there in that bus by my side or in my sight or staring with me 'stylishly' stoic in our black blazers or not caring to look back in your simple summer dress. I confess to all: none of you were ever there to address or to caress but I couldn’t take the empty so I placed you there to deter the distress I felt.

It doesn’t matter now anyway, because I’m alone in a bed with a place for a pan and time spans behind instead of ahead today; panic sounds panels come down shocks shock ticks tock my chest rises and drops my toes curl my teeth clench my head swirls and I see the ceiling and I feel the healing and I feel the heart beating the heat back into my fingers as the life I wish I hadn’t led this way lingers leaving me here with a leer the taste of today as bitter as those beers but worse but real; the room clears of the underpaid double shift leaving me alone again as they always do to sift through this terrible present but I can’t anymore so I press a button, feel morphine pump through my collapsoing core, and I wander back to the wonder years that never were, thumb to the button, never for the truth to occur again.

Kustoms

Trap trounces all sound pounding on ceaselessly people sitting drunken slurping smoke through pureys peacefully on the sullied bed spread the neon glare from the stuttering laptop screen the red of the YouTube logo lighting up the blue of stale plasticine on the desk with the single cigarette rising from it amber in the lime light of the kitchen purple in this one the logo the only thing not switching with the sound never changing the cigarette smoke is rising from the temporary lilac of its filter to the white of the ceiling rearranging itself from a stack to a flat packed mist reddened fumes collapsing into the cracked roof of the loud room in the loud house in the loud home on the quiet street the sleet of another drunken endeavour caking the driveway soles devouring the sludge tucking chunks into tracks printing puke into every nook and cranny every inch drying in like it was always meant to be there and all around the house party something's tearing something's breaking someone's taking something for nothing.

Go down.

See the boys are back in town if they ever left ghosts of Christmas past toasting to an impending success something to celebrate everything’s a clean slate all of a sudden when all’s going well all’s going up speaking to people I saw for seven years conversation wilted and wordless after a few sentences nothing in common numerators and denominators imperfect improper impossible stoned drunk stoppered and poppered and pissed in the soundless hiss of a subsonic bliss in the room of skinny jeans and statues earphones on words thoughts energy gone barely able to heave a breath out a little room across from the exit a little quiet in a house full of shouts and howls and sultry scowls into supposedly sexy selfies to be photoshopped tomorrow drawing attention to that crop top that was borrowed to bring out the best of the breast in you, I go on through cut past the old boy crew to find the new the warmth in the cold the gold in the mine of another suburban home pass around some home grown goods make conversation like normal people would make some jokes finish the smoke part ways for the time being the lack of care the feeling of being unknown gleefully freeing the organic taste waiting in my mouth reaching back to the rear to the throat from that last toke look to my left fling a fag into the sink after I drag the paper back to the full of the filter to the golden ring the eagle in ashes something else smashes somewhere whatever everyone’s too wasted to care the kitchen’s clearing I walk back upstairs.

Go up.

Look down the tiny tufts of leather torn from my tips by broken glass clear and fragmented unlamented lapping lacquer off the floor upstairs feeling spaced still no one speaking staring down the speakers cherry tinted orbs of rubber throbbing expanding contracting pursed between chapped lips painted peach below a roman nose and rosy cheeks and the glassy garlands of eyes straightened hair strained by the static of the balloon as it blooms in waves strands of hair pulsing softly vaguely as it does to her breaths and I think of black forests falling down and getting up again and again reanimating in vain falling back deflated to the white of the snow of the scalp the rubber ragged and sagging I watched it go from new to old and the night just keeps getting colder but only when the wind blows and I’m looking at an old dream and wondering where the times go the times never had the words never said the bed never shared the fears never to be tread upon just the words to be read about the maybes and the could’ves standing in the should’ves yet to become a would’ve still could be something more than a may-have-been standing with the will-have-beens taking in the stuttering synths taking in the scene the sheen of the screen engulfing my eyes reducing them to reflections nothing more just jewel-less visions and below me another bad decision mellows into snogging and quiet patters in the cloak room and but doesn’t matter and another glass clatters and I think about how hard the pieces are to see without the faults without the cracks perfectly pervious entirely empty just to cut just to grind just to break sound continues to shake the room and in the light I see the white of reality and the dark of what was never to be and the gap is so slight it bothers me because with all my might I might never be half the shadow of what I could’ve been so I keep going I keep going.

Go left.

And I’m a deft hand and a dumb tongue in the thwarts of everyone’s land standing on a mound of upturned rug at the tip of the landing handing the ladle on coated in the wash-away stains of a rum and coke too many along with a wealth of pilfered booze brassy drops of a dark beer or a light brandy hit the white of the rug from stainless steel with the grit of something or another on the base giving a twisted taste to everything it touches I pass it on after a swig and watch it go on through hands down the stairs towards the heartland.

Go down.

Reintroduce myself to half a room meet people who by some miracle know about my work before it’s even off  the ground two years ahead of time and over a beer I think about the future the crowd sinking and rising to the beat this one girl in a sailor hat lifted from a bedroom upstairs twerking so hard that she’s capsizing down to the tiles white on black I comment on a nice mac I see I don’t remember the name just the coat I look behind me see the butts floating in the kitchen sink look to the dance floor see more people just names just faces just thoughts from different places all here all steering themselves around the banisters and the sofas and the shelves and the seats I offer roles take on a couple of projects but amidst all of this someone interjects definitely different and I hear faintly her last step land on the tiles like snow falling from a leaf and melting into the freshly mown grass all in a microsecond the cold coming freezing and thawing back to water back to the root from the grey of a calm February sky nurturing the gathering fruit set to burst up bulbs of bright skinned flesh through the spring into the summer colourful things spreading out like the smoke from the bow of her mouth her fair hair the colour of the damp sand my feet found themselves on several summers ago the summer I never got to know the summer I spent free to feel ridden in and out by the undertow into the prolific placid of the Pacific horizon I met every morning from a sea view sofa a fawn fairisle throw about my shoulders; I used to get lost in her blue I always found something new there to stare at she was always fair and she was always aware but she didn’t care she was just happy that I was there not to mine not to hunt just to be and she always pushed me to be something more than just another tourist jumping off a ship and swimming back to the shore. She leads me to the dance floor gets me to dance even though I’m not a dancer but I am drunker than I was before I saw her; the room sounds continue to occur in a two two flow the sound waves stirring bodies around; I grab a glass of Buck Fizz and agree to go back home with her.

Go up. 

Say my goodbyes to a room full of glassy eyes and smiles have a hand hug hear someone drop another mug I give the collar of my coat a tug and we leave out into the cold that stays the music failing to play by the time we reach the road the playlist apparently shut down we get off the bus and the weather is fair for a February night the cold king no more the floor dry the atmosphere tame and tepid and conversation is refreshingly intrepid passed the All Saints where I have memories so embarrassing I feel slightly faint as we pass by remembering reluctantly the whos and the hows and the whys of what used to be way back when; conversation ascends into K pop and Japan foreign serial killers local sex offenders and the evil of pay day lenders and guilty pleasures no need for fillers no traffic in sight we walk through a set of hard red lights against the patchwork mauves of the night’s star littered canopy, I see a kite, green in the bare black of the barren winter tree like a leaf that’s bloomed too soon rattling above my head against nature but nurtured by the branches cradled perfectly stable we reach the roundabout and go about our ways she right I left but I’ll see her again I hope I’ll see her around again amidst the sounds of another suburban Saturday.

Go right.    

I get home smiling under the chrome and emerging cerise of the 4 AM sky. And with a sly sigh the door slithers shut and a gust of wind winds out.

Good night.   

 

Happy New Year - JLG Clift

"5"

This is it this is the time to change among the free range ravers cheering the guys and girls leering towards each other peering across through scarcely parting lips as the beats drip down from the surround sound in the dark of the rafters to the ground.

 The new year. A new year. Another year.

"4"

 This’ll be the one that you’ll ditch the beer and the blow this’ll be the one where you really go for it you know this’ll be the one where no foe will go unchallenged this’ll be the one where you kill it where you crush it where you own it where you tone it that’ll start once you’ve stopped zoning out in the peach paste of fresh puke and Teachers that you’re semi slumped in swigging from a bottle of gin with a girl at the back in the black off the floor no light no sight you touch you make out you go further it feels alright kissing strangers at midnight skipping songs sound like shredded kites in high winds you don’t know the girl you met her tonight but she doesn’t say no she’s like you alone so painfully free of someone to be with just trying to fit in because the lie feels better than the skin beneath the net of her YOLO shirt sweaty and stale and yours much the same cold and pale so frail for the fake of this frantic affection so desperate for some small kind of connection that her fingertips remain in red threading through the writhing hands raking shaking from the speed and the cold on the old of warehouse ground your own rhythm out of sync with the pumping sound that everyone else is dry humping too.

And resolutions repeat and records revolve and another year continues to dissolve. 

"3"

No one knows you’re not together forever not even you because you’re lost lying down concussed comatose ghosts in dank drainpipes on the edge black on white at the edge of a dance floor away from the roar of the real couples on New Year’s Night what a sight to see but what a thing it would be to feel something more than the undoing of zips and the mush of loose lips and the flesh you grip as you tip back into the tar down to the ground the thud of your head splitting inaudibly fluids running white red and clear steering and stirring through the cracks soaking into the black the grit and grain and the stains on the hard of your bed and still the resolutions in your heads go on the strobes shifting white to blue to red your shadows spilling into each other in the light your actions out of sight your thoughts on loan with your hearts so you don’t start to feel alone.

And nothing is resolved and you greet another groin and the meat still feels cold.

"2"

The resolutions rendered amid quaking bass and drunken mistakes the solutions you make to combat all the pollution in your life the scalpel that shreds through all that social strife created to make sure you can do what you tell yourself to do this time find that girl get that grade make your life something more than simply something surface you swear you’ll search for the deep for the raw for the real you say you’ll feel better than before to yourself in a storm of roars from the ravers on the dance floor who all agree that this year will bring more than the one before but with the grit in your back and the gash in your head and the sleet of another loaner on that rescinding boner all you feel is the slack of another lived summer cumming to nothing and the fear.

 The New Fear. A New Fear. Another new fear.

"1"

This is it this is the time to change rising from climax re-joining the free range ravers cheering the guys and girls leering towards each other feeling strange and estranged peering through parting lips as the beats drip down from the chorale of sound in the dark of the rafters to see the girl from the ground. But you never do and are left standing alone. Pink strobes turning to blue.

"Happy New Year".