Likestarlings

Writercity (prologue...)

Rain

Form

Teeth on the

Edges of a store front; slip

Off, para

Chute to gutters. Imation

Italian. Pasta (spaghetti chorizo, rocket salad, clam, mushroom, arrrrr

Abiata, spinach, white wine, gurgled together in vessels bought in Bombay,

Through White

Chapel streets), cappuccino,

Melts.

The owner scratches his head, fingernails like

Hooks,

Staring blank on Old Street.

Cloth covers flap. Tarpaulin trees.

Gray clouds move in ships.

Blue bursts.

A baby's yowl oils to

Motion.

***

The menu card leaning

In a tall flute glass

Flowing a tall stem with

Leaves proud as eyes. The door

Hinges, wind

Blows the menu away. I

Mime pushing away with my

Hand, the menu

Flops

Back

Towards

Me.

***

- A white Jamaican, brov!

-You seen an American in a kilt?

-Don't know if I wanna see that. Men's dresses. Them don't float my

boat.

-I told 'im to gimme a wet smoochy big slob of a kiss!

-Tellin ya baby, yes you're a pain in the arse!

***

This is my London day these winters. Cold rain, summer far away. Imitation books. Fly on the wall. Coffee mind. Mind mind why do I spend so much time in my head mind mind? Little that happens on these rainswept streets pulls me out of mind. Mind. Taking 26 or 388, from four to six, through Hackney road from Shoreditch cauldron (things always happen here) empty houses bricklayed houses little chimneys little sidestreets shut shop shutters puerile 'east is the new west' signs what happens in mind steel trains on rock tunnels council estate vulture shine endless fried chicken shop shine kensey fried dixie fried perfect fried Brooklyn fried almost fried eastwest fried Alabama fried Mississippi fried Dallas fried Charlie parker fried chickchickchickchickchicken yes yes yes storefront black barbershop stripclub leaning pole gleaming cockney scheming buzzzzzz canal pretty houses oh so pretty houses warehouses arty farty houses and then that beautiful truly lovely madly beautiful gaswork dinosaur gaswork by Haggerston by Broadway market and then 'Mare street Well street' on the bus voiceover and then through endlessly ethnic Hackney central then when it happens-

Two vested blackskinshimmering boxers sparring in front of Hackney town hall

Watched on spied on shopped on eagerly white bloke blooming a pink umbrella

-there is a grim glorious beauty that swathes east London in chromatic light

***

Someone scribbled this onto the rock crust of bus-seat:

            'lisen to this. Fuck sake the fucking train came straight away so we didn't have time
            to swap cigarettes and I didn't give his oyster card back, what a piss take, and he's
            going on holiday for three weeks on Monday. God in hell! Lucky I love him Innit
            loooove!?'

Everyone's literary in this literary city. A beggar outside Budgens under the Mile End bridge reads his book on Auschwitz flicking me a sick stare. I love it.

***

Two Jamaican men on a bus by Trelawny estate:

-I was calling ya!

-I didn't hear ya!

-I was calling ya!

-I went to da funeral...dem say da sun shine ya know?!

***

St Mary of Eton church. Bustop. West African man, with lilt of Hackney on his lips, approaches me with a card for a Christian conversion. He starts his bible beat. He ain't blastin like a boombox. He speaks with certain gestures, eyes contractable-'there's nothing wrong cheerin for Chelsea, being in a pub. You go through experiences, good and bad, mostly bad, and then you become the truth. There's a reality. No wrong thoughts, no wrong convictions, no wrong deeds. Coz the reality is the cemetery. Grave after grave. Talented people. So you gotta know the truth. There's nothing wrong.' And then he smiles, teeth glaring. I shake his bearing, slipslide into bus. Climb steps. Seat in a window. Watch the spurs of hair glisten like glass on his head.

***

This is Knife capital. Everyday in the local papers, kids killing getting killed. Yesterday someone said there's a bloke who heads into a pissoir in London fields, afternoon, sunshining lido swimming, people playing sunlit beauty. He steps in at the wrong time. A guy with a mask stabs him for the fun of it. Blood shimmering dead. My hood, this is.

Dog tears off man's face...

***

Nightime endless parties. Hackney wick Dalston empowering church passing clouds all of it slipslide makeup man hipsters too cool too cool and the best music in the world surely this must be-funky funk Latin Cuban Balkan Turkish Indian drumnbass jazz motherfucka top that shit! eternal melting pot magnet. This the real deal. Inside warehouses, electronica rages like a tornado, people gear up n shake, a Nigerian Belarusian demonwoman growls through conch shells make foxwolf noises like foxes at night in Clapton foxing like baby strangles raping, she sings she sings a bass guitar back vocal sampler shaking doubling tripling her voice fox becomes loaded leaded in hackney wick canal backing empty nightmagenta sky she sings she growls she makes animals incubation tribal trancelike spiritual shaminations I hear the shake of ancient forests in her voice amen omen we sail into nightships unaware...

Bus. Tomorrow to write again. Writercity...