FOR RAUL

It's hard to say what it's really like, this thread that runs through my life. It was anchored there by my father and has spooled out behind me ever since, one of only a very few constants.

I could maybe liken it to a hunger, a thirst but then it is one that can never be fully assuaged. One feeds off scraps for the most part with only the occasional feast to remind one of the delights of the high table. And am I the consumer or the consumed? The gnawing inside reminds me of who I am and where I came from, the tug on the thread recalls a father's hand.

As it plays out horizontally into my past, the vertical movements trace highs and lows, more troughs than peaks it must be said and only rarely constant.

A love affair, then? Of a kind, maybe. But there is a certain lack of sudden intensity, of infatuation, it is certainly more comfy, old slippers than fuck me shoes. They share a lack of perspective even though, in this respect, they are polar opposites. One looks at a lover and is blind to their faults or, measuring them in the balance, finds they are out-weighed. This thread though is more a fault line, limned with disappointment, treachery and betrayal. Drawn with mostly honest endeavour and on a shoe-string budget.

Do the highs and lows follow my mood or do they define it? More the latter I would suspect. Even though my life is to a large extent independent of it, the thread forms a backdrop, an undercurrent, the base from which all other peaks and troughs must be measured.

A sad indictment maybe but right now, I find I do not care in the slightest. My senses are filled and today I shall dine on greasy chip butties.



The Blades are back.