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1. |
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Notwithstanding
Several attempts by many in the
Californian community to
Attribute the invention of
Performance poetry to their particular
Clique
Or the claims of those within the British poetic movement
To assign invention of this genre to
Those who are of different and divergent
Backgrounds
There remains a theory within the English departments of
Some major university establishments that the
Invention of performance poetry
Can be traced to the moment in June
1953
When Professor Zazzo Thiim
Accidentally sat on a harpsichord
While reciting the works
Of Lord Byron
Indeed
it was seen as the most whimsical and amusing moment of the
Basingstoke literary season
Mainly on account of the audience reaction
Sheer disbelief mixed with a
Fair amount of loathing
And the apparent embarrassment
Not only of Thiim himself but
Also the Mayor
And Arthur Miller
To whom the harpsichord belonged
There were immediate appeals for
A repetition of Thiim's ground-breaking
And harpsichord-breaking
Work
Indeed he was asked
To perform it on the radio
To general acclaim
And before the United States Ambassador
Who later turned out just to be
A man in a hat who happened to be passing
Performance poetry was born.
Thiim
Was astounded at the fact that
He had invented an entire new genre
He began writing his own verse
Which he would perform either
Sitting on a harpsichord
Astride a harpsichord
While playing a harpsichord
While lying on a harpsichord
And finally
While lying underneath a harpsichord
This lasted for
Six years
Until a colleague is said to have inquired of him
What is it with
You and all these bloody harpsichords anyway
He turned up at the next poetry event
With a mouth organ
Throughout this time not only did
Thiim write poems to
Fit in with his harpsichord-smashing regime
But he also began to dissemble
And play around
With the poetic form
Working in unison
With the University of Brixham
He began to look at poems in more detail
Than any other literary practitioner
Until he acquired a reputation
As a poetic experimenter
Poems were shot from cannons
Poems were jumped up and down on
One poem
Was whispered to the Queen
Who was asked to pass it on
She didn't
One poem
Entitled twenty three and a half seconds of silence
Was performed
As twenty three and a half seconds
Of silence
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2. |
Late Train
04:34
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Well I’ll just stand here like a lemon then shall I
Where’s that train you promised me
I’d really like to be on it
I got places I need to get to
And here is not one of them
Any old train will do
Any old daffa chaffa diesel puffer
Any old sad sack terribly slack single track clickity clack
Send a choo choo through without much ado
Where’s my train
I know it’s in your jurisdiction
It’s really not an imposition
Your timetable should win the Booker Prize
Because it’s a work of fiction
Just send me a train
I won’t name and shame your company
But your trains head west
And your website calls you great
And the info screen says you’re late
So that means
You’re great
And western
And a railway
I phoned the customer helpline
They said
What’s your login details
What’s your ticket type
Now dance for us fat boy
Dance for us
Bark like a dog
Woof
Woof
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
These calls may be recorded for training purposes
Trains that are meant to be in
After my train
Are arriving before it
How is that even possible
Did they fly over the top of my train
Are they magic trains
Zig zagging through the air like drunken dragons
I whistle
Kick my heels
I sip my bottled water
You know
Like they do in films
Is there a fault on the train
Are there operational difficulties
Has the buffet car run out of casseroles
Is there a weasel on the line
Is there some pervy bloke pleasuring himself in the vestibule
Has the driver’s head exploded
Because he’s been reading Will Self again
Has the train manager got struck by lightning
Mind you
He is a conductor
Whatever it is
You’re keeping it to yourself
Just like you’ve done with the train
The one that should be here
The one that I should be on
But hey
Stiff upper lip and all that
Oh why me
I just want my train
It’s driving me insane
I’ll change my life
I’ll never be the same again
I’ll be nicer
Kinder
Ever so emotive
Just send along that locomotive
Where oh where oh where’s the bloody train
Oh here it comes now
Looks kind of like a drunken hippopotamus
Shuffle shuffle
Shuffle shuffle
Take your time love
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3. |
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She sells seashells on the seashore
The seashore is
Littered with hundreds
Thousands of seashells
Turn around Sheryl
Look at them
Why would I buy seashells from Dee
When there’s loads of them just
Deposited by the sea
It’s for the tourists
She replied
I went to a café and asked
For a black coffee
Sat at a Formica table
The salt and pepper packets
Were kept in upturned seashells
From the beach
I asked
No the waitress said
From Sheryl
They’re hand picked and quality controlled
She brushes all the crud out with a toothbrush
They’re good seashells mind
Black coffee wasn’t it
Do you want milk with that
Absentmindedly
The waitress poured milk
In my coffee
And then an Argos delivery lorry pulled up
Blocking the view of Sheryl
Yet again
I thought it was about time I went and
Lived
Somewhere else
Oh yes
That sounds good
Yep
Here we go then
Ready
Yep
All right then
Not too bad not too bad
Honest is the best policy
Don’t matter if your car has been towed
Honest is the best policy
It doesn’t matter if you’re on the road
Honest is the best policy
Doesn’t matter what you’ve been owed
Honest is the best policy
Oh my god my car’s been towed
Have you ever been up to the big far north
Oh my god it’s cold
Have you ever been up to the big far north
I’d go but I’m getting too old
Have you ever been up to
Oh my
The tundra
You seen it there
It melts you know
It gets too warm
Don’t want it too warm up there
Honest is the best policy
Don’t matter if your car has been towed
Honest is the best policy
Doesn’t matter how much you’ve been owed
Honest is the best policy
If you’re standing in the middle of the road
Honest is the best policy
This is my ode
Watching the northern lights
Watching them
Watching the northern lights upstairs
I say Jack
Would you care for this dance
I know it’s getting late
But we’ve both been here for quite awhile
That makes us both losers I guess
We’re the last ones standing
I might go up to the bar in a minute
Ask for a nice cup of tea
No need to scowl sonny boy
It’s only a dance
Take my hand now
Honest is the best policy
Don’t matter if your car has been towed
Honest is the best policy
Doesn’t matter how much you’ve been owed
Honest is the best policy
This is my ode
Jack
Where are you going
What do you mean you’ve got a bus to catch
Just go outside
There’s a
Northern lights
Jack
Jack
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4. |
The Spottsville Monster
03:58
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I was forced to be a believer
We lost sixteen chickens and a goat
A strange howling in the night
And a huge figure
In the pasture next door
The Spottsville Monster
A lone motorist on Basket Lane
A hairy ape-like a thing caught in the headlines
It reared up with an evil intent
Next to some trees and a small thicket
The Spottsville Monster
Gun toting ape hunters eager for the kill
Sheltering from the rain
In a long-abandoned barn
A huge hairy midsection
Short muzzle
Pointed fangs and strange red eyes
That frighten them to the soul
The Spottsville Monster
Midnight howling
In the western Kentucky bottomlands
The females are shorter than the males but
They also possess beards
Stocky build
Furry breasts
Short dank hair
Were they just hairy people
The investigator asked
No
The Spottsville Monster
They can run thirty-five to forty miles per hours
The Spottsville Monster
An investigator once found a large tooth
The Spottsville Monster
Either friendly or malignant
Depending on the content of your heart
The Spottsville Monster
Were they just hairy people
The investigator asked
The Spottsville Monster
Entranced
I go a-wandering
Floating about the grounds of ethereal mists
She’s calling to me
She sings with all the beauty of the ages
Let us dance under the stars
Let us make these fools into gibbering wrecks
Just by being different
Or maybe
It was just local youths
With a discount coupon at the fancy dress shop
|
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5. |
Crumbs in Your Duvet
02:43
|
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Fortune the sun in my eyes
Where do you go from here
You’ve been hanging around my place
I thought I’d made myself clear
But you don’t want to move
You don’t want to go
Whenever I asked you why
You said I don’t know
What have I done this time
How have I cocked it up
What have I done this time
Why am I out of luck
You found me in your bed
Eating a box of crisps
Crumbs in your duvet
You always knew the risks
But you said I should go
You said I should go
Whenever I asked you why
You said I don’t know
What have I done this time
How have I cocked it up
What have I done this time
Why am I out of luck
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6. |
Off the Rails
01:48
|
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I heard a friend
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
I heard a friend
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
Surely I answered
That’s a good thing
Why
Let me explain
Rails are solid
And they hit
The journey is predestined
That we all must follow some paths
That our destination is unwavering
That we must not take a more interesting route
And that’s why it’s not the end of the world
That he has come off the rails
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
For he is living his life
Yes they replied
Yes they replied
That he was driving the OA47
From Woking to Guildford
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
Come off the rails
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7. |
So Happy
04:14
|
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I’m happy
I really think I’m happy
Listen to me
I’m happy
Oh I’m happy
So incredibly happy
I wake each morning and I’m
Happy
Oh it’s so good
I’m happy
Seriously happy
Very happy
You know with the way things are going
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
I’m happy
Yes why
Why wouldn’t I be happy
I mean
Oh when I’m happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laugh cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laugh cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
I think I’m happy
Pretty sure I’m happy
I mean I woke this morning and I thought
I’m happy
Happy with that
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Got to be really haven’t I
I’m happy
Why
Why wouldn’t I be
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Very happy
I’m happy
Very
Happy
It’s
There’s so much to be happy about
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Are you happy
Got to be happy
Just got to be haven’t you
Happy
Just be happy
Why can’t you be happy
Be happy
Just wish you’d be happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Be happy
Happy
Be happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Just be happy
I’m happy
Just
Be happy
Oh when you’re happy
Everybody’s happy
Everybody laughs cause they’re feeling so happy
I’m happy
Happy now
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8. |
Sparky 1
03:20
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When is the time
Where is the place
What shall we do
Look at your face
Where is this place
I think I’m lost
Where is this place
We are all lost
When is the time
Where is the place
What shall we do
Look at your face
I saw you dancing in
A nightclub way down south
You came over to me
A smile on your mouth
Where is the time
Where is the place
What shall we do
What shall we do
Morning in the city
There’s laughter in the air
I want to go with you
Anywhere somewhere
When is the time
Where is the place
What shall we do
Look at your face
What is this this thing called love
And why is it so hard to be here alone
Are you still dancing
I don’t feel like dancing
Does anyone anymore
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9. |
Sleep Deprivation
18:56
|
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Our lady star of the see
Subtle shift in gravity
Carpark on ancient truth
Holds its own on roots of truth
I’m sorry Stephanie
It’s the backs of your knees
Your ankles and pretty heels
Chased by French stick on wheels
What a hydraulic way to spend my time
And an attenuated bell to throw in polls
I’m throwing a postcode at your head
Squinting at palm trees and the failing light
Our lady star of the sea
Stranglehold on sanity
He thought he was from Kensington
The poor bastard
He was actually from
East Hunsbury
Silver screen
I saw it on the silver screen
God help us if it’s true
God help us if it’s true
Fifteen times I saw the world pass me by
Fifteen times just this week alone
It’s getting faster
I don’t think the sisters will be happy but
What can you do
It’s
It’s full of crows
Full to the brim I’d say
Not even enough room for a mint imperial
What’s some spilled nouns between
Friends and neighbours
A baker’s dozen is a butcher’s thousand
Remember that
We don’t want to be caught out use the metric system
Not in this climate
Sacrifice is plenty
Sacrifice is fine
Do the hokey pokey
As we drown them in brine
Chocolate button up your jacket potato young jostler
We have a long ride ahead of us
Steep landing sir Arthur
A penny dropped is one for the megabus
But lose a tuppence
And we’ll be standing in silk shoes from her until
Solstice
Dorian doesn’t believe in such nonsense
Brought from the brink no doubt but
A land of opportunity
Let’s just say
I won’t be putting any cream upon the wheels
Starving artists
Stretch my limbs
No contact
No contact
No contact
God is in the asking tank
Swim over to him and the details will become clearer
Always remember that
Especially when they try to break us apart
Swim along the dotted line
All the way to the asking tank
Please try and remember that
Please
And maybe on that day
After the fires
And spears
And glass
Being tossed into the eyes of
Unsuspecting youths
Maybe
We can gather and just say
We did it
We’re not sure what it was
But whatever it was
It was done
And arguably
We were involved
Frightening stuff
But then
So is everything
There’s never been a car
Goddo’s time
Remits to dog
Goddo’s time
Remits to dog
Goddo’s time
Remits to dog
Goddo’s time
Remits to dog
Too shabby for chic
But too nutty for smooth
It’s a
It’s a hodgepodge of DNA from
Various species
Including the elementals
Look a grassy
Also known as
Reality programmers
Steve
Steve it’s not necessary mate
It’s not necessary
It’s
It’s just not necessary
We’ll be okay
We’ll be okay
Carole will be back soon and
She’s bought eggs
We’ll be okay
Have
Have you seen how many birds
How many birds are in the garden right now
It’s
It’s twenty six
Twenty six
It’s unthinkable
I mean
I never
Even considered
Removing my legs
Not for some time anyway
Twenty six
It’s unfathomable
Destruction paves the way
We don’t
We don’t like to think about that
Destruction paves the way
But
But warm milk
Flows
Readily
From all
Major canals
Destruction
Stranglehold on sanity
Milk
In the canals
For the record
I never asked you to go
I just implied that
Maybe
Maybe we needed some
Some Bovril
But
The more I think about it the more I think
Maybe this is for the best
Maybe
The warmth
That surrounds me
Is simply a
Powerful
Immutable sense
Of hunger
Get off my fucking biscuits
Okay that one was really stupid
It’s a rainy night
Here in the city
It’s only me here in the studio
The phone lines are open but
No one ever calls
Though I can feel all those lost souls
The night shifts
The insomniacs
Looking at the rain as it rolls down their windowpanes
The empty streets reflecting the
Sodium glare of solitary streetlights
Scattershot neon
The dull overcast night sky stained brown
Here’s a sleazy jazz number
Plaintive
For the forgotten
A sad sack’s penetrating aching limbs
Sweat soaked chests
Sheets flung aside
The cool fingers of a night
A porcelain ghost
Drumming along with the relentless rain
A midnight poet awake at his desk
In a pool of light
On the thirty second floor
His words have all become meaningless
But here’s your jazz numberless fella
It’s a rainy night in the city
I purr into the microphone
Lull my listeners with inconsequential thoughts
Philosophy for the broken hearted
Here’s some more cool jazz
Cool fresh from the fridge
That might be open
Radio signals bounce and slide
Between the skyscrapers
I’m the friend in the corner
A scratchy crackle
A solitary bar hugging oracle
Bringing solace to the forgotten
Imagine such a life
Untethered by
Societal need
The need to belong to
To walk freely among the owls and the men
A life
Surrounded not by
Trinkets and
Letters to David Cameron but
To live freely
To live
Crawling upon astroturf
Wailing like some sort of mad
Evangelist
We don’t
We don’t scream we don’t shout we don’t
We don’t howl in frustration we
Simply look up and say
Vrrrrrr
Vrrrrrr
That’s that’s that’s all we do
And we wonder why
Why the ground crumbles we wonder why
Mountains
Spin clockwise
Upon the simple pull of a cord
Now a great great philosopher once said
Ooh boy howdy
That’s a humdinger
And you know I did I didn’t
I didn’t understand it at the time
It felt
It felt too alien I
I hadn’t lived enough I suppose but
You know you hear these things with the
With the context of
Of
Warm milk
Flowing through the canals and
You just think to yourself
My god
And we’ve fought how many wars now
Twelve
Four
It’s incalculable
But you know
Maybe just maybe
Frankly it’s
It’s useless to us
We can’t
We can’t weaponise it
We can’t eat it
We certainly can’t
Tie it into knots
And use it to
Pull boats and
Cattle across
Treacherous terrain
You know we eat
Oatmeal
For every meal
Seven or eight times a day and
And we’re just conditioned to think
That’s normal
Yeah but sometimes you just
You look up at
Look up at the stars
You just gaze
Longingly at
At the stars as they form images
Images of
David Hasselhoff and
Mikhail Gorbachev
You just
You just look at them and
And and
They infect you
They they they
They infect your mind like some sort of a
Mad parasite
It’s not ideal
You know we have to
We have to start somewhere I suppose
We have to live
And die
And birth
The young
From our
Mounds of pulsating flesh
And it
And with that there is a certain
Beauty
There’s a certain
Higher power that
That you can’t help but look towards and say
Oom bah
Oom bah hep
We know the way
To steppity step
And it’s
It’s something we don’t want
That maybe one day
When the dust settles
We’ll appreciate it
One can only hope
We can’t survive
On bread and
We need milk
Warm milk
Flowing through the canals
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10. |
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All I can jump are the fires you’ve lit
Yet you have the cheek to call me the arsonist
Would be the most amazing opening line of a poem
But the world I inhabit isn’t merely so melodramatic
And in any case I always wanted to start a poem with the word
Notwithstanding
I grew up in the suburbs
Lulled to sleep by sirens
And the electric flash from late night trains
And life was as beige as my dad’s Ford Cortina
My camp mannerisms coming across if anything
In our council estate as more an aspiration
To poshness
I was always pained by the fact that I was not a time lord
Nor a Pet Shop Boy
And looking back with the benefit of hindsight
I was probably just a pain in the arse
With a vivid imagination and a bizarre fascination with
Jammy Dodgers and Bob Newhart
You can avoid the elephant in the room as much as you like
But at some point
You’re going to have to clean up its droppings
And look what it’s done to the sofa
I went to the fair
And I saw a sign which read coconut shy
And I thought
I know how it feels
I was never interested in poetry
I remember my English teacher saying
Now I’m going to read a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
And all the way through the only thing I could ponder
As his silver tongue smoothed over Shelley’s surreptitious syllables was
What kind of name is Bysshe
I’d imagine myself regenerating
And having a whole new body
And then go home and explore it in great detail
Because it would have blond hair
And a nicer face
And I’d be so much thinner
And my personality would be much much much much much more outgoing
And maybe then Aaron would like me
And the stars would dance
And the universe implode
And I’d finally be me
Me me and the end titles would roll
The doctor
Robert Garnham
And the theme music would play
The school careers officer asked me
What I’d like to do
But I couldn’t say Neil Tennant
Because the position was already filled
Would I write a book
Or should I take to the stage
Forty years later I became a performance poet
And kind of did both
I told her
I wanted to work in a garden centre
I remember where I was
When the shuttle exploded
I have an alibi
That hum of energy
I took to be the hum of London
Reaching out to guide my nervous hand into its
Sweaty utopian embrace
Turned out to be the fridge
Standing in front of the mirror
No sign of a regeneration yet
The reason I’d spent so long in the closet
Was because I was pretending
That it was the Tardis
Through the distant crack of longwave radio
I’d hear electric storms on those humid nights
When it was so hot you couldn’t possibly sleep
But through the static would come Bob Newhart
And I’d listen to his button-down voice
And look out over the whole of London
At those voluminous clouds lit up within
With sheet lightning
And I’d wish that I were as brave as Bob Newhart
Because he was obviously also just a shy person
Who had somehow found his way of making people laugh
And who knows one day it might also happen to me
I went to the fair with my brother Jim
When somebody through a tomato at him
Now a tomato is soft when its wrapped in its skin
But this here tomato was wrapped in a tin
The kid next door was a pyromaniac
You can’t really sleep properly
When you think that the house is on fire
Gonna be another thunderstorm tonight
Now over to Bill with the sport
All the houses looked the same
Until dad slapped on a coat of beige paint
That matched the beige of our Ford Cortina
Parked the Ford Cortina against the wall
Oh no where’s the Ford Cortina
Oh there it is
They’re both beige
As beige as the suburbs
As beige as my ski jacket
As beige as the fifth doctor’s Edwardian frockcoat
As beige as my realisation that regeneration
Is a lifelong progression
As beige as the smoke rising from the neighbour’s shed
And I still adore the Pets
And Bob Newhart creases me up
Because he’s not showy
Or shouty
He’s just kind of beige
But beige can be hilarious
And wouldn’t you know it
I actually did manage to travel in time
Cause sometimes
I see old photos of me
And all I can do is jump the fires that I lit
Which would be
A damn good last line
Of a poem
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Croydon Tourist Office England, UK
Croydon Tourist Office came together from a series of music writing and production workshops at Epicentre Book Cafe in
Paignton, England.
The line up varies based on who is at the session or the gig, but the core members are Robert Garnham, Bryce Dumont, John Samuel, and Max Coulson.
... more
Contact Croydon Tourist Office
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