An ode to feeling this way

This is a song about having an anxiety attack.

An ode to feeling this way

Come to me, squeeze me.

Place your hands on my hips and inflict pain on me.

Remind me, too, of the night scent of strawberry smoke.

I get it occasionally.

Drink with me, Lonely.

Don’t need a barmaid, or barman. Poison for my company.

Take my control, being and shape:

turn me an aberration when skewering me.

Fingers delicate over and under the spinal cord,

playing out something grotesquely.

And what is this wave, but helplessness

And what is this sensation, but a falling

And what is this place, but my own hell

Muscles twitch but don’t get to anywhere,

feel the air like beetle antennae.

Heart rattles its bars, brain throttles the jailer, captives

I’m taking down with me.

A vibration in wires of veins and arteries into paralysis,

detuned ethereality.

Soul a rag. Eye burned yolk. Magnesium teeth tighten.

I’m my own enemy.

Damned pain: pain of the joyful act with the absence of joy.

A repetition zombie.

And what is this wave, but encasement

And what is this sensation, but landing

And what is this place, but my own hell

No one can reach into me and release the screw and I want to sleep longer

When I used to stand in-between a graveyard and a library

For National Poetry Day, I've written a new piece.
I wrote it quickly and it was enjoyable to put down.
This is something more clearly autobiographical than a lot of the Greville and the Tombstones tracks. I might well return to this style again.

But don't panic. However stripped back, it still is Greville and the Tombstones and if it came with a tune, it would be played on by an accordion.

When I used to stand in-between a graveyard and a library:

I remember standing, recalling latest songs in my head

From Thursday TV shows,

Re-running action from 24bit games,

Freeze framing a girl I noticed in the library earlier,

when I held a book with a fuchsia cover.

Always in blank winter light, my breath would cloud in the thin shelter.

I stood with barely more than one thing to be.

In my shapeless, black fleece jacket, I’d kick Doc Martens' scuffs at the pavement.

Fingers blushed from the concrete air.

The weight of my hair drawn in a swoop over my right eye as I invented

fantastic proposals I would definitely turn down.

Others were creating beauty so I didn’t need to bother.

My shapeless, black fleece turned feathers.

I figured I would tend the graveyard in the harshest conditions,

knowing that others wouldn’t be able to make it on such days.

Though they would often want to.

My hair is white but not like how Moses’ hair is white

Peggy Shaw by Alfred Cheney Johnston

This is:
My hair is white but not like how Moses’ hair is white

I’ve always been fascinated by Moses’ hair:

Did it really turn white up on the mount.

From conversing with God, way up there?

I’m not sure it happened like this.

I’ve got white hair but I don’t count,

God’s number amongst my contact lists.

The Almighty took silence.

I got white hair waiting for the voice.

I don’t live in a deep forest, but I don’t care

Of angels who cannot see for the trees.

Conversing with burning bushes, they’re

Hollow acts setting fire to themselves.

I’ve got white hair but I don’t believe

In burnt angel shaped cinder memories.

My angels have combusted.

I got white hair from their settling ashes.

I’ve often wondered: Did Moses’ staff of prayer, 

Struck on the coast to set his people free,
Really split and part the deep Red Sea?

That conversing with waves to get over there

Wasn’t just part of the orbit naturally?

I’ve got white hair but separating a sea

Was not as hard as between you and me.

My lovers have drowned.

I got white hair from the salted air.

My gods silenced themselves.

My angels burned themselves.

My lovers drowned themselves.

And I got white hair.

But not like how Moses got white hair.

Every ticket is a loser

This is not an allegory. There are no hidden meanings. No riddles to be solved are here. Greville and the Tombstones are not enigmatic. We are not Travis. Sorry, I mean this one.

This is a song about going to any common and garden circus and seeing what is going on at the circus.

Apart from the part about the two-handed lady. That is definitely about someone.

Carnival Strippers (1976)

This is:
Every Ticket Is A Loser

In the rafters, the incandescent light

Of my lonely self. People’s lives on brighter screens

Far from the life I lead, the screams of skeletons

who are equals And some beyond thin.

Some really beyond my pale skin.

Want to know how it must feel,

To bare a smile like old paint peel.

No matter the times it turns over, it says the same.

Magic 8-Ball: ‘Ask me again’

So I head out to this circus of tents,

Under slumber sky, forwardly drawn to naked lights

Far from the life I lead,

 the delights of skeletons who are equals

And some beyond thin

Some really beyond my pale skin

And the ringmaster says:

Roll up! Roll Up! Every ticket is a loser.

Enter, Enter! It’s the only show in this town!

Only thing at all around!

See stripper carnival girls shake up and down!

And a fine-suited lawyer in make-up of a clown.

Visit Freaks n’ Geeks in their side-show home!

You can brush their teeth with a spider leg comb.

Watch the contortionist held in chains on high!

Suspend belief that self-made wings will really fly

And the ride operator says:

Roll up! Roll Up! Every ticket is a loser.

Hit the target with each throw: win a prize!

A fish in a bag of water.

Step right up to the Hall of Mirrored View!

Rows of unblinking eyeballs focus back on you

Hurry, board the glo-coloured Ghost Train!

Half-vapour regrets tied down on tracks prayin’

Sorry, the Tunnel of Love is out of bounds!

Closed until notice, that is, it can again be found

And the Fortune teller says:

Roll up! Roll Up! Every ticket is a loser.

Come close so you may know your future.

Feel my hot, wet breath.

Put the tin chip into the coin-slot cabinet!

Watch a mechanical man judder round in it.

Stand in awe at the belittlers and liars!

Witness audacious back bending on tight wires.

Walk in unease of a two-handed lady wonder!

One candy floss is another’s knife of a murderer.

And the candy floss is poisoned too, people eat it because it's sweetly vacuous.

Roll Up! Roll up! Join this circus!

My lonely self sees nothing is first what they seem

Far from the life I lead, this is a shriek

 of greased skeletons.

And some beyond thin.

Some really beyond my pale skin.

You stole my heart, Jeanie

Friend and artist, Jeanie Laub, has drawn this beautiful scene of underlying tension, inspired by one of my earliest pieces for Greville and the Tombsones, You Stole My Heart (I'd Like It Back From Your Thieving Hands).


You took my heart,
I did not give it,
You could’ve had part,
But that wasn’t your game.
You’ve got it caged,
Somewhere very secret,
So I’d like it back,
From your thieving hands.

By Jeanie Laub

This interpretation of my words is heart stopping for me.

I am so very lucky to know Jeanie and have her inspired by, and be inspiring to, me.

You can see more of Jeanie's gorgeous and affecting art on Jeanie's website.

The Wishing Tomb (full length)

Who would read The Wishing Tomb Pt.1 and Pt. 2 as a single piece? Who could?

For those brave enough, here is:
The Wishing Tomb (full length)

Really could have done with anyone getting out of anything alive.

Watch dust motes trickle on a sun shard stream, all is in vain.

Consider the jewel of a breath, consider the paltry matter a bauble.

Screw the tap but know congealing blood tumult laps in the darkness.

Disturbed coil of cobalt night unwinds into the settling blonde wheat field.

Spirit, fragile as water film tension, gently heaves top the twilight lake.

Time leaves Fate softly suffering and bubbling in its wake.

The distress is warm. Warm on the body.

Fresh shine washes on the back. On the front. Pressing from above.

There is never any comfort in endings: Endings are snapped continues.

I thought this was a lacquered stop, but it is perfectly permeable despondence.

I thought this was the bottom, but it is a Mezzanine.

Thunder barrel clouds cut, lightning bolts lash on the scene.

The immenseness outside this chamber creaks but remains unseen.

Wretched is this monument to my muse of Tragedy, sculpted by familiar hands, ruined to stone.

Still is this tomb which weathers against all under an electrocute sky: place of my grief.

  

Like the light bulb buzzing at the end of a long windowless corridor,

I flick into and out of life.

At once solace and direction and panic and confusion.

Come for me, flee for me.

Nothing but a glint of a glimpse of a moth’s fluttered glance.

A magic tempts another.

Settle yourself at the feet of the tomb, it’s a long way to travel,

Rest here in the tranquil.

Loss is worshipped when it chooses a glitter form

As ruin can fool as warm.

Listen to the orbit of the moon, each mare introduced

Save, don’t be seduced.

I say of my loss: do not let these snake hips of mine distract you,

Left hand believes in poetry:

Fingers like reeds yielding to an evening breeze,

Conducting sign of the Cross,

All the while a forked tongue lashes at your collar bone,

Tasting the salty nape.

Daylight is fading now, or is it the night thawing from the sky,

Either one, it is welling with trauma.

The limp, searing and relentless inevitable

washes like Shore surf, rattling pebbles.

This naked mortality is flat out, glittering on the cold table,

snapped continues

The pillars speak soft: overwhelmed, dear boy, simply overwhelmed,

It’s alright: we comprehend.

And even if we do not and it is not: it matters you not.

Be lured, be repulsed.

To this tomb both as adversary and testament to motion.

Wishes walk no further: Place of my grief.

God's Councel

@laubjean and @tellthee tweeted this week with images which were for me.

They are emotive, beautiful and are special to me and I want to share them here.

by Jeanie Laub

by Jeanie Laub

by Jeanie Laub

by Jeanie Laub

by @tellthee

by @tellthee

The translation of the script is:

IT IS DESIGNED IN GOD'S COUNCEL,

THAT ONE MUST EXIT FROM THE BELOVED ONE HAS

Das Wunschgrab von Greville Tombs Der Tragödie zweiter Teil

Joyfully, @tellthee has translated Greville and the Tombstones work, "The Wishing Tomb Pt. 2" into the better German language for Greville and the Tombstone tracks.

This is: Das Wunschgrab von Greville Tombs Der Tragödie zweiter Teil

 

To read the original, here it is.

 

photo by @tellthee

 

@tellthee goes to great efforts on the translations of my texts and I am more grateful than, ironically, I can find the words for. I am very appreciative of all @tellthee does to promote the work of the band. #thereisnoband #thereistellthee

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hymn for the Church of Crows

I decided to try and write a hymn, this was the result. I'm not sure how many school assemblies will pop it in their hymn sheets after Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace. But, then, this is Greville and the Tombstones so I'm not that fussed. This is for the congregation of the Church of Crows.

This is:

Hymn for the Church of Crows:

Knocking at the church door:

“I want to talk to you about Jesus”

I’m not waving here.

I’m not waving.

My patched up prayer is leaking.

 

They say my body is a copy every 7 years.

But each copy is slightly more imperfect.

I am not already damaged enough?

 

Jesus, why am I tested,

When I’m set up to fail?

Told not to touch temptation,

then it’s placed on the tip of my finger?

You know,

I’m going to ask Satan for the answer.

 

Preacher at the church door,

I want to talk to you about Jesus.

I’m not waving here.

I’m not waving.

My patched up prayer is leaking.

 

In this church yard I’ll soon turn quiet.

Under letters of stone, my life done.

Can I not live what life remains?

 

Jesus, why am I living,

when life isn’t too fair?

Told to be pious, devout and pure,

then reward me when I’m boxed under?

You know,

I’m going to ask Satan for the answer.

 

Through stained-glass windows,

I want to talk to you about Jesus

I’m not waving here.

I’m not waving.

My patched up prayer is leaking.

 

Cruel gloom exists as our executioner.

After my Judgement comes a verdict.

Will my defence to the jury be read?

 

Jesus, why have I faith,

When you don’t believe it?

Jesus, you don’t get my situation

Jesus, I think maybe Satan may be kinder.

You know,

I’m going to ask Satan for the answer.

The Wishing Tomb. Pt. 2

It is a little known fact that Chris Rea's seminal rock record Road To Hell was in two parts.
It could be listened to separately or conjunctively.
The first was a Americana gothic piece of  Middlesbrough horror, the second a straight laced rock beat.

The Wishing Tomb Pt. 1 was the gothic horror.

This is The Wishing Tomb Pt. 2. This is the beat.


Minnie Mouse by Julia-Green

This is:

The Wishing Tomb Pt. 2:



 

Like the light bulb buzzing at the end of a long windowless corridor,

I flick into and out of life.

At once solace and direction and panic and confusion.

Come for me, flee for me.

Nothing but a glint of a glimpse of a moth’s fluttered glance.

A magic tempts another.

 

Settle yourself at the feet of the tomb, it’s a long way to travel,

Rest here in the tranquil.

Loss is worshipped when it chooses a glitter form

As ruin can fool as warm.

Listen to the orbit of the moon, each mare introduced

Save, don’t be seduced.

 

I say of my loss: do not let these snake hips of mine distract you,

Left hand believes in poetry:

Fingers like reeds yielding to an evening breeze,

Conducting sign of the Cross,

All the while a forked tongue lashes at your collar bone,

Tasting the salty nape.

 

Daylight is fading now, or is it the night thawing from the sky,

Either one, it is welling with trauma.

The limp, searing and relentless inevitable

washes like Shore surf, rattling pebbles.

This naked mortality is flat out, glittering on the cold table,

snapped continues

 

The pillars speak soft: overwhelmed, dear boy, simply overwhelmed,

It’s alright: we comprehend.

And even if we do not and it is not: it matters you not.

Be lured, be repulsed.

To this tomb both as adversary and testament to motion.

Wishes walk no further: Place of my grief.