bought the hometown tickets in a flurry of activity followed by breakfast in the hometown. on this belly did nuggets of elusive funghi reveal themselves finally. that night our plans were hatched our halloween designed our excitement stirred. . . . by the end i had crashed so heavily there was a dent in the side of the mondeo to show for it.

it takes time to overcome selfdoubt. i can convince myself things that become unconvinced in seconds flat. fall on my face asking the wrong questions desperately aware that opinions are just that and can change with the drop of a hat.

i take all the routes that lead to her in my own mind. and when i find her i shudder at my loss. i shiver at the recollections her walk can awaken and those that her features recall to me.

are my guts out? . . . who will tell? . . . what have i kept for me? . . . can i hold back an expression? . . . and, if not, are my guts out?

to see that cassette broken and chewed. its handwritten scrawl telling me something i forgot or tried to. is it dead? can it be fixed? and i muse that time destroys old formats like old memories and that dust is our pathetic sentimentality.

these memories haunt me now throughout the night. in the morningtime i hope to refreshingly peel away that layer and put on the clothes of new futures. i don't glance at certain areas of my bedroom. i know what i can think there. what need for photographs of pastlovers?

sunrise sunday morning. boots in stray fields. country lanes and cigarettes. scouring the local land for autumnal manna. luscious pastures filled with beligerent bovines, chased back over the barbed fence. almost shot at on the m.o.d. training ground.

in the swirling heat and fantasy, the lucid lighting and the liquid lyrics, the sway and the bob we all centred upon this angel of sound. our widened eyes, our breathless awe we tried and failed to find the words. instead dropping to the ground huddled beneath these bodies concern and strange mystery my sister blacking out to the beauty of the occasion.

can't admit i'm wrong. desperately aware of my folly. know that it exists as true as the sun and the stars. can't apologise. wish i could explain my weakness. stubborn as the sea and the rocks. out here engulfed in solitude and stranded on my raft i seek retribution. i lost long ago. me and mephistopheles.