Friday, February 17, 2006

piedras que el cardo seco morderia escupiendo

I saw you standing in Fritz-Foerster Platz. Your skin pale, your coat with clusters of badges. I saw the effort you had made, and I saw you smile, broadly. There were sparrows and there were crisp snowbanks over your shoulder. I saw you there and you were laughing with some boy who wasn't German but he might have been French. Or he might have been German after all, I don't know. I saw you lick your lips to save them a little from the dry winds. I could see your breath. Your laugh carried out all the way across the shadows of the buildings, cast on rough angles by the 4 o'clock light.

But we both know life aint as peachy as that little scene.

And that too much thinking can make you leak fear.
And that you're always breathing too fast, gettin' pent and gettin' wounded.

But, then, also: that you can't own situations, or people, or moments or hearts.
And that you gotta dance to the music thats playing, and just forget about that other show in that other bar.
Especially when that show is the same old band, playing the same fucking songs to the same old drunks in black jeans.
And when you've got absolutely everything you'd ever need to kick it.


Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Bookshop stories

1. A difference of opinion =

Australian Member of Parliament Danna Vale, Tuesday 14th February, 2006 - "[Australians] are almost aborting ourselves out of existence... Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time"

Customer at Oxford Street Books, Wednesday 15th February, 2006 - "Oh my God, SO many people are having babies these days, there's babies everywhere, don't you reckon?"

2. Way I was described by my friend Simon's mum when he asked her who was working at the bookshop today: "Turkish looking guy, about 30 years old"

3. Number of famous celebrities who came into the bookshop today: 0.