30day challenge: 10.

Day 10: Songs for when you’re happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad.

---

 

Music is my therapy, my saviour, the salve for my soul,

my sanity, my safe place, my green padded room,

the electrical current to jumpstart my heart,

the life raft I cling to when everything’s dark.

 

In short, without music I would have a full-blown case of the crazies.

 

Electronica is the flavour I listen to most because it’s such a broad category. It can cover everything from rage to bliss to chill to background sound to down and dirty barefoot dancing.

 

If I’m happy anything goes. If I need to get happy I’ll probably put on some Beastie Boys (always guaranteed to get me smiling), Mr Scruff, Axwell, Kraak and Smaak or this song by D*note.

 

Sadness would be a Massive Attack, Portishead, Radiohead or similar moment – something low, slow and throbby.

 

Bored is a weird one. I don’t understand bored. I’m changing this to just chilling out, which would be when I’d stream some house, or funk, or put on some chillout. Pool beats, laidback tunes, nothing too assaulting.

 

Hyped – to get hyped it needs to be fast and phat. Lots of beat and bass sprinkled with cheeky smiles, like MSTRKRFT, Prodigy, Underworld, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers.

 

Mad for me is similar to hyped – I need the musical equivalent of a punching bag. I need something to help me dump the rage, either through yelling at the top of my lungs or dancing like a crazyperson until I collapse. Karnivool, Birds of Tokyo, Prodigy, Pendulum.

 

This only scrapes the surface of my likes. If you want more there’s always my little musical playground at blip.fm I guess…

 

nnss nnss nnss.

heart

 

the world is poking

the little heart

inside my chest

 

collected teardrops

remain unshed

and pound my breast

 

my aura wavers

unsteadily

around my frame

 

i’m not sure how much

longer my heart

can play this game

i am

a shell, hollowed, spray painted grey

left with only breath. inert. glassy-eyed.

 

an ember, dulled by a layer of ash

buried under sand. fading. unnoticed.

 

tired, and empty, a powered-down machine

essential functions only. dim. blinking light.

 

removed, disconnected, sight without feel

everything is dull. boring. bland.

 

numbness, thorns, a hidden shadow corner

the apathy of daggers. aches. muffled.

 

i am disinterest. misery.

a walking dichotomy.

i am my own before and after:

 

i am my own before and after: my time laid bare delineated. photos of a me suspended there for all to look upon; my happiness of sometimes joy, my smiles of often painful hiding, blush of health and pallid grey - it sucks to be so on display.

life is not a disclaimer

 

life is not a

                 disclaimer

,an asterisk like a

    beautyspot of promise -

a thing to come

                          :addendum

 

life should be a

                       simile

  without

  the box

              ing-up of it;

a free-ly roaming thing

 

a horse

          gallo-

                   ping.

unexplained

unjustified and

                    unapologetic

why can’t i play?

why can’t i play with words today?   i’m stomping feet and pouting lips. i have things to say. why can’t i play? is this the way the deaf-mute feel? the stutterers, the foreign-tongued? the words don’t want to fit together and it shits me more than ever when i really want to build things with my lego words and can’t.   i want to play.

sigh.

sigh.
my brain is fried.
it tries to find
some kind
of sense,
but it relents
to foggy-
mindedness,
the boggy
pond of wot-the-fuck.
- i'm out of luck.
my mind won't play
today. i may
as well shut down,
release a frown,
embrace the crazy
(hazy as it be)
and free the freak
inside.
my brain is fried.

1 september

first day of spring.

today.

with the rain and the wind

and the grey, angry, pock-marked sea.

 

stand on a podium

raise a fist in the air,

declare:

“today is spring”.

 

(man and his boxes)

“this chaos, i box.

i label. i have dominion.”

bullshit.

 

nature can’t read a calendar

and doesn’t care to.

 

i’ll wait for my own spring.

when the warmth hits my chest.

shows me flowers.

makes me grow.

 

until then,

the next person to proclaim

“first day of spring!”

gets a kick up the clacker.

i know what my life is:

i know what my life is:

musical chairs

dancing around

watching others

find seats

when the music stops

 

i always miss

only just

and yet

by enough

to feel disappointment

a turning away

 

a directional change

a pile of what if

building

in the corner

on top of if only

as chairs disappear

atrophy

 

 

atrophy is not my friend

it’s time to end

 

isolation self-imposed

will kill the seed

 

trying to grow without the sun

is death before

 

everything has just begun.

this isn’t fun.

on a train

 

on a train,

unguarded moments.

 

humanity revealed in a sideways glance,

a ponderful stare into space,

a man engrossed in a book.

 

breathing, thinking, existing.

 

thought-clouds

like fog around heads.

 

silent synchronicity,

all perfectly still

travelling at 100kmh.

 

a common bond

of anonymity.

i am origami

i am origami.

fold. crease. fold.

unwrinkled paper

shrinking in size.

every fold. crease. fold.

creating a weak spot.

greasy fingers that

fold. crease. fold.

and leave a residue.

who folds?

who manipulates?

what am i?

box.

crane.

stick insect.

flower.

or just

a piece of paper

once smooth

now wrinkled.

blush

 

 

 

 

hope survives in me:

a pretty boy makes me blush -

a heart recovered.

 

feelings stir again.

no longer shying away,

hidden from more harm.

 

human spirit wins.

the capacity to love

has not been trampled.

downer

go to bed,

full of plans

for the next day.

 

wake up,

shy away

from doing anything.

 

how can

a mood change

so drastically?

 

where is

motivation

when I need it?

 

i hate

self-loathing:

a double negative?

 

i feel

new stirrings

of unhappiness.

 

i twitch

inside skin,

for what isn’t.

the muse

the muse has deserted.

gone on some loooooong trip

without me.

 

she better be gathering

good stories on the road,

 

like tales of lone travellers

who wander side-streets,

interesting meals in small cafes,

lost possesions, inner peace found,

luck, serendipity, passion,

photo opportunities and silent sunsets.

 

or at least, bring me back a t-shirt.

cummings is the man, kind)

You know, i was writing a perfectly nice blog but then i had a perfectly not nice thing happen to me and now I’m leaning on the vodka a little too heavily and cursing a little too heavily and heart is too heavily down, so here’s another of my favourite cummings poems that kind of fits the mood I’m in, as I didn’t post yesterday and I don’t want that to become a habit. And vodka and frangelico is the bomb people, the bomb.

 

this mind made war

being generous

this heart could dare )

unhearts can less

 

unminds must fear

because and why

what filth is here

unlives do cry

 

on him they shat

they shat encore

he laughed and spat

( this life could dare

 

freely to give

as gives a friend

not those who slave

unselves to lend

 

for hope of hope

must coo or boo

may strut or creep

ungenerous who

 

ape deftly aims

they dare not share )

such make their names

( this poet made war

 

whose naught and all

sun are and moon

come fair come foul

he goes alone

 

daring to dare

for joy of joy )

what stink is here

unpoets do cry

 

unfools unfree

undeaths who live

nor shall they be

and must they have

 

at him they fart

they fart full oft

( with mind with heart

he spat and laughed

 

with self with life

this poet arose

nor hate nor grief

can go where goes

 

this whyless soul

a loneliest road

who dares to stroll

almost this god

 

this surely dream

perhaps this ghost )

humbly and whom

for worst or best

 

( and proudly things

only which grow

and the rain’s wings

the birds of snow

 

things without name

beyond because

things over blame

things under praise

 

glad things or free

truly which live

always shall be

may never have )

 

do i salute

( by moon by sun

i deeply greet

this fool and man

 

- ee cummings

blip

 

I declare 

this week now gone,

should be wrapped

in a scented nappy bag

and unceremoniously

thrown in the bin;

 

the timeline

on which it stood

should be obliterated;

 

the parallel universe

in which it occurred

should be erased;

 

the memories

created from it

should be expunged.

 

Tomorrow

is the beginning

of life.

is

 

this is me:

waiting for might be

living in was

avoiding is.

 

i hate is.

confront, admit, realise

is, is just me

no one else.

 

now what?

comfort, warm, be

give strength to

me from me.

 

i hate is.

absence is

a fond heart isn’t

is: alone is me.

 

this is all i want to do:

drink tea

listen to music

swim in melancholy.

 

reality.

curl up under blanket

let the wind blow outside

the wind, is.

another from the vault

…another from my teen-angst files. Around the time I discovered cummings (no, …really? i hear you exclaim).

 

---

 

love

needs   :a new word the

old one has been beat

en to death or

 

has it just

had and en

ema

 

? become void

of meaning of

usage in its Real,

Sense lost

 

to a

love   less (

world turned their backs

on the un)

 

definable

definitive un--

ness

 

(do you love me yes)

 

conveyor belt

: do you love me yes

poor

 

love --

has fought

the constraint

of Understood

 

,become

the Heart

is the temple of Love)

is not

 

the mind the brain

the rash

-ional

 

(Love has not

one side

to put one’s finger

 

on;

is Truth

Love Is,

enter the blank here

blinking cursor

the blinking evil thing,

mocking my blinking brain derailment.

i have other things to think about

like (blink. blink. blink.) you’re putting me off.

stop it.

hands shut eyes.

i can hear you blink. blink. blink.

stop it.

like a puppy panting,

waiting for bones, or balls, or (blink. blink. blink.)

stop it.

i can’t think when you blink.

regurgitate letters, swallow words -

is that all you do?

make up your mind: in or out.

who controls whom?