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What's in your Foxhole?


How big is your foxhole? I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Do you have a flag? How much territory do you possess? What are your boundaries? Are they in dispute? Are you a proud territorian
What's your story?
What the hell am I talking about?





Read below and decipher for yourself. 
There is no wrong answer. You can take from it what you will.




I can assure you though, it has nothing to do with actual foxholes, though thought it prudent to share a few images on the subject.

(Any ideas, feedback, discussion points welcomed).





This is MY Foxhole


The very flavour
In your favour
Is now your cross to bear
(sleeping dogs lie if bears will)
Hibernation arrives
If you hide away inside
And toss salvation to the pack.

Tell a story
Or stand firm
Rather than offer the heart
As flaws with embarrassment
Leave nasty welts
Red, tainted, impressions
To make a statement
A story
Of loss, pain, joy
What may be
The paragraphs are at least visible
Like black beneath the eyes
As persecution is drama
And without either
There’s no hook
To hang the hat
Or pity the self.

So slay the wanderers
And the Peacekeepers
And persist with charge and retreat
As crying foul never hurt you at least.
Make as much noise as possible
While the smoke trails
And the banners fly
As you prop up the mast
And claim your territory
With a purpose

And a wry all-knowing grin.







The poem was written in April 2013. I wrote over 300 poems that year. There's no particular reason I'm sharing this one with you now. Many will never see the light of day. The very best are saved for submissions. Then there are some that just need to get out there, and fuck waiting for publications to get back to me.




Famous After Death #2 - Nick Drake



     Nick Drake is almost as well remembered now as his peers of the time, such as Cream, Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills and Nash and singer songwriters such as James Taylor, Carole King and Bob Dylan.





The problem was, in the late sixties and early seventies, very few knew who he was. Certainly by the time of his premature death in 1974 at the age of 26, he had been forgotten.

Making those sorts of comparisons is a big call, but certainly many people have discovered Nick Drake in the past two decades and have fallen in love with his guitar playing and mellow tunes. It's also impossible to separate the personal nature of his music with the quiet loner who struggled with mental health issues. His third and final album, Pink Moon, was recorded in a hotel room with only one other person present, the sound engineer and friend, John Wood. It's a beautiful intimate recording and in my view, his strongest work.









Nick was born in 1949 to a upper middle class family who provided a musical upbringing. He was a bright student with an interest in sports, but by the time he went to Cambridge university he began to dissociate from education, especially after travelling to Europe and Morocco in 1967 where he experimented with drugs. Ultimately he chose to spend more time alone in his room,  listening to music and smoking cannabis.




He began performing in coffee houses and small bars and through a contact, met a producer who ultimately signed him to Island Records at the age of 20. The following year he released his first album, Five Leaves Left. Production was difficult however and reviews lukewarm.

He dropped out of his degree, moved to London and began work on a followup, Bryter Layter, 1970.





However his music did not gel with audiences of the time, despite Nick taking advice and going for a more commercial sounding album.

Disappointed he began to withdraw more and more. His producer friend moved to Los Angeles and Nick found performing live almost unbearable, such was his shyness, ultimately walking off stage mid song. He never went back.

His disillusionment with his lack of success soon lead to depression and he was hospitalised in 1971.

Though depressed and smoking too much dope, he wanted to make a third album but the Island label weren't interested. He decided to go it alone and with John Wood, recorded Pink Moon over two nights in October, 1971. He delivered the final result to Island who published it anyway, and though it sold less than the previous albums, garnered better reviews.








Nick's decline continued and he became completely isolated. He moved back in with his parents who tried to help him. He was hospitalised again for five weeks in 1972 and though did show improvement, continued to fluctuate with his moods. At times morose, he wanted to make a new album. In 1974, he contacted John Wood. They began work and some recordings were completed.

Wood said of this time that Drake was angry and bitter as so many people had told him he was a genius, (Wood being one of them) yet Nick couldn't correlate that with the fact that he had no success.

Whether deliberate or not, Nick died of an anti depressant overdose on the night of 24/25 November 1974 in his parents house. There was no suicide note and some believe it was accidental, much in a similar vein to Heath Ledger.




An retrospective compile of the three albums was released in 1979 but with limited sales, was deleted from the catalogue. However as the eighties progressed, many emerging artists cited Nick Drake as an influence and by the late eighties, the man and his music finally began to find its footing. By the nineties, Nick Drake had solidified his position in music lore.

All too late of course, for the young depressed man who died in his bedroom.








From Youth to the Void





Road Way Blisters

I was young
All that mattered
Were dreams and raised middle fingers
Tearing down all that existed
Without respect or understanding
Until there was escape.

 
It’s simply the path you’re on
The direction that the road takes
Is the life you make
The etchings state
Footprints on paper
Ink spots fading
And digital traces lost.

Editing is only possible
After tracks are laid down
Wrinkles in the sand
The teacher was only reciting
I/we discovered
And though I never listened
The only lessons that counted
Were the ones where I fell hard on my face.

Yet, I grew to seek answers
And wisdom
Expecting to find it in elders
And lyrics threading through sages documented
Buried below concrete
Trodden on within view
Yet the black falls
Before the day is full
And I’m left shouting into the void
Searching for …
(if only I knew …).

The same echo returns
Which shouldn’t surprise me
But it makes me feel tired and old
And realisation is a slow gut surge betrayal
Who knew it would come around this fast?

Blisters full
With red popping valley sunrise
Bursting hopes
Dispersing liberty.

And here we are.





More poems here


(Poem AJL 2012)


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