It's Not Good Enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to lose sleep over personal banking\nIt’s not good enough to set records for continuous wanking\nIt’s not good enough to hold on to the familiar without a thought \nTo fetishize the mundane and accept your lot\n\nIt’s not good enough\nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to lay basking in silent hope \nIt’s not good enough to simply be able to cope \nIt’s not good enough to let our ambitions slip away \nWith the ring of an alarm to herald a new day\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to live in a constant state of repetition\nIt’s not good enough for monotony to permeate your condition \nIt’s not good enough to accept that this is just how it is\nAnd the best we can do is simply sit here and exist\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to pay astronomical sums for a grubby flat\nIt’s not good enough to set up your home with a mangy cat\nIt’s not good enough to deflect the loneliness around you\nWith a veritable budget petting zoo\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to wait for the flooding of success\nIt’s not good enough to hope to silently impress \nIt’s not good enough to expect life to provide \nTo fall into place, to get onside\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to cling to the nearest single person\nIt’s not good enough to give up on the act of conversing\nIt’s not good enough to form a relationship predicated on fear\nOf being alone for another New Year\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to stay in with a greasy takeaway \nIt’s not good enough for the weekend’s highlight to be match of the day \nIt’s not good enough to lay in a pit of filth of your making Carbon monoxide slowly suffocating\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to spend your night in a browbeaten pub\nIt’s not good enough to spend your night in a sticky floored nightclub \nIt’s not good enough to pull a moustachioed munchkin \nWith the bleach blonde hair and the oompa loompa skin\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to ply yourself with drink \nIt’s not good enough to take a piss in the kitchen sink \nIt’s not good enough to always pick up the cans on the way home \nWith the same flimsy excuse - “when in Rome”\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\nIt’s not good enough to stay working the same old job \nIt’s not good enough to prostitute your dignity for the sake of a few bob \nIt’s not good enough to contract the mediocrity of the new town \nAnd finally let the bastards grind you down\n\nIt’s not good enough \nIt’s not good enough\n\n[[Next|Link 19]]

Back in the confines of your room you open your first can of the night. You switch on your laptop and spend hours endlessly refreshing Facebook and Twitter in the vain hope that someone will contact you. But they don't.\n\nYou try to pull together something edible from the sparse contents of the kitchen but lethargy gets the better of you and you opt for a microwave meal instead.\n\nYou'll touch yourself later. The highlight of the night.\n\na [[Bachelor's Banquet]] indeed...

You wake up. Without choice, as always. This has been the year of unknown ceilings and this is just the latest in a long line. This time you find yourself contemplating the intricate patterns enshrined around the edges of this Glasgow tenement room.\n\nThis is not your room.\n\nThe body beside you stirs. The familiarity of a friendly face gives way to the shock of a body exposed, never before seen in it's natural state. \n\nFuck.\n\nYou share a brief smile before the sickness rises up inside you. You jolt up, search the house for a bathroom before spewing violently into the bowl. \n\nWelcome to your [[Quarter-Life Crisis]].

But you have some coping mechanisms at least. \n\nWithin the dark confines of your psyche there are ways to relieve the pressure and gain some respite from the overwhelming existential dread that seems to follow you around.\n\nYou live in a physical world.\n\nYou must learn to care for yourself physically in order to help yourself mentally.\n\nYou can either...\n\nTake to the streets of Glasgow, running the weight off your shoulders amongst the shadows of the high rises. Experiencing the camaraderie of the [[Jogger's Nod]].\n\nOr\n\nFind yourself floating away the stresses of existence - [[Regarding The Bath]].

Whatever you try you still can't seem to shake loose from the overwhelming mass of the question.\n\nThe question.\n\nWhat am I doing here?\n\nYou attempt to wrestle with the weight of expectation you have placed on your own shoulders. The ambition that you feel and the history you must maintain. But why are you here at all? What have you to offer the world? What is your place in the ever expanding fabric of the universe?\n\nYou calm yourself with a realisation - you at least are part of something. You are the next piece in the rich tapestry of history woven throughout the ages.\n\nYou belong here. Because you are here.\n\nYou may not be sure of anything else in the world but there is one inalienable fact, an indisputable truth - [[I Am My Father's Son]].

The phone rings. You start to daydream.\n\n[[You Answer|Link 11]]

The phone rings. The daydream gets more vivid.\n\n[[You Answer|Link 12]]

The phone rings. The daydream takes over.\n\nThe phone rings.\n\nYou dream of being afflicted by [[Hitler's Moustache]].\n\nOr\n\nYou dream of coming back to earth as the [[Jesus of Possil]].

You leave work at the call centre and embark upon the long walk home. You take a detour down Sauchiehall St, hoping you'll bump into someone you know. Someone who will share a drink with you. \n\nThe hipsters crowd outside the bars, filling their lungs with smoke. They are interchangeable. They seem to lose their shape, to merge, combining into [[An Unremarkable Shade of Beige]]. You watch in horror before the horn of a taxi snaps you back into reality.\n\nYou pick up your usual 6 pack of lager in Lidl and make your way home. \n\nYou don't meet anyone that you know. But then again, you didn't really expect to.

Secret Magician\n\nI filled out a questionnaire \nTo see if I was depressed \nHad trembling in my hands \nOr tightness in my chest\nI circled some numbers \nTo quantify the pain \nDescribed my abstract feelings \nQualified my disdain\nDiscussed the fear of failure \nThat weighs heavy on my back \nThe man I’d like to be \nAnd the one I’ll have to hack\n\nMisanthropy, in human form \nThe irony, not fully worn \nI’ll protect myself from thoughts that sear \nI’ll make myself just disappear\n\nWe numb ourselves \nWith bottles of wine \nTo make us ignorant \nTo the passing of time\nTo quiet of souls \nAnd quell our ambitions \nTo shield ourselves \nFrom our human conditions\nWe consume poisons \nThat make us feel sick \nLay prone, abusing \nA flaccid dick\n\nMisanthropy, in human form \nThe irony, not fully worn \nI’ll protect myself from thoughts that sear \nI’ll make myself just disappear\n\n[[Next|Link 16]]

Regarding The Bath\n\nThe showerhead regards me with suspicion \nAs I lower myself into an unfamiliar position \nThe temperate water rises to envelop me \nAn archipelago of bubbles convenes around a knee\n\nA single flame flickers from a lonely tealight \nMy last line of defence against an encroaching night \nMy mask of masculinity slips, if only for an hour \nAs the room’s scent is permeated by exotic flower\n\nMy hands wander and explore, in nooks and in crevices \nUnexplored areas of my given premises \nI impassively observe my swollen stomach \nThe upturned hull of a submarine sunk\n\nFlaps of skin more prevalent and pronounced \nAge crashing my party - unwelcome and unannounced \nWaves of disgust crash and then recede \nDoubt spouts and grows from an inconspicuous seed\n\nI emerge from the watery cocoon in which I lay \nResembling a wrinkled prune, as my mother would say \nI wrap a coarse, dry towel taut around my flank \nAnd give my appendage a reassuring yank\n\n[[Next|Link 17]]

You sip gently on your beer.\n\nSurrounded by friends and strangers, you ponder why you feel the way you do.\n\nSleazy's is rammed (as it always is at the weekend) and you look around at the faces of everyone there. Some familiar, some not. But all eliciting some kind of joy, some kind of pleasure, of being part of the social dance.\n\nYou wonder what has occurred in your brain to leave you unable to make that connection between the situation you are in and the happiness you should feel.\n\nYou know. You know that whatever happens in life, whatever fortune falls your way, whatever joy is received will not fill you up. It will be a fraction of your being and it will be overshadowed always by what you lack. \n\nYou know that whatever happens from here - [[It's Not Good Enough]].

You step out of the bar into the brisk Glasgow air. Revellers spill from every bar, all walks of humanity participating in the constant battle to stave of the meaningless of life.\n\nYou turn the collar up on your jacket and begin the walk home. Mogwai on your earphones.\n\nWhatever you are. At least you're a realist.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe End.\n\nLive album available from https://kevinpgilday.bandcamp.com/

Dear Green Place\n\nOh dear green places of Glasgow\nYou welcome tramp and child alike\nProvide a refuge from the brew\nAllow a battalion of students to ride a bike\n\nBrilliant green scars across the anonymous grey\nIslands of beauty not yet swept away\nA place to write, to think and to dream\nAway from the malaise of the estates and the schemes\n\nOh dear green places of Glasgow\nRelics of Victorian splendour\nOur true collective birthright\nOur entwined pasts you render\n\nFrom Kelvingrove’s herbaceous border\nTo the Lama of Tollcross\nFrom Bellahouston’s wide open spaces\nTo the swans of Hogganfield Loch\n\nOh dear green places of Glasgow\nAgainst the harsh winter you stand resolute\nIntrepid explorers conquer your vertices\nAnd transform your snow covered hills into chutes\n\nVivacious flowers bloom in intricate arrangements\nUnder the nourishing cover of the Botanic’s containments\nYoung children frolic\nEarnestly chasing the leaves\nWhile the teenagers push their boundaries\nDrinking Bucky behind the trees\nOh dear green places of Glasgow\n\n[[Next|Link 2]]

The phone rings.\n\n[[You Answer|Link 7]]

Notes From A Quarter-Life Crisis\n\nStranded in a sea of unharnessed potential\nPounded by waves of the existential\nCrisis\nLooms from one minute to the next\nPraying my faulty wiring will soon be fixed\nA man-boy without a compass\nOr even a clue\nLost in translation between a where and a who\nTortured by the twin evils of ambition and sex\nWith girls in floral dresses and NHS specs\nI suspect\nThis disease is not easily cured\nA lifetime of uncertainty due to be endured\nMy sense of self goes up in smoke\nBursts into ashes\nRevealing a lonely man hiding behind beards and moustaches\nA studied impression of post modernity\nA fully paid member of the hipster fraternity\nAn eternity\nOf ironic distance cruelly awaits\nFor those of us to cool to engage with our fates\nWe sit around maintaining an invented identity\nPersona through the fractured prism of non-entity\nMy true nature shadowy and elusive\nI can be myself but that’s not exclusively\nThe case, for without a trace, this face becomes replaced\nWith another just like it\nIncrementally erased\nExistence through a haze and a perpetual erection\nPeppered with snatched moments of emotional connection\nIntrospection\nPermeates every pore, every cell\nConstant analysis is making me unwell\nI can’t tell\nWho it is I’m supposed to be\nWhat’s a mask of convenience and what’s really me\nSo I send up this flare of transgression\nAnd confession\nWhile practising my patented, wistful expression\n\n[[Next|Link 1]]

The piercing ring of the phone penetrates your post-coital nap and wakes you with a startled groan. You answer, lying (of course) about being asleep.\n\nYour girlfriend, calling to confirm the time she'll be at yours. You attempt to sound sure but you have no recollection of arranging this (further investigation reveals garbled Facebook messages from the night before), so you simply agree.\n\nShe casually starts talking about homewares, furniture and meatballs. You realise you have made a terrible mistake. She is not coming here to hang out, she's coming here to pick you up - you have a [[Date w/ Ikea]].

As you lie in bed that night you think of all those couples you observed - walking around Ikea, picking out furniture - finding happiness in the intimacy of sharing.\n\nAnd you think of yourself - distant and detached - wandering the place dripping with panic and disdain. \n\nAnd then the fear starts to set in. Sunday night fear.\n\nA whole week of thankless work stretched out in front of you. Not out of a passion, not out of a desire to be rich but just out of survival. \n\nYou will subject yourself to this institutionalised torment. You will. \n\nYou have an unmistakeable case of the [[Call Centre Blues]].

As you attempt to make your way home, your body rattles and heaves with the cold Glasgow wind. Without money a bus or a taxi is out of the question. You must traverse this city - West to East - with only a Greggs cheese and onion pasty for sustenance.\n\nThe sound of Mogwai in your earphones soothes you but stops suddenly. Battery dead. The last leg of the journey will have to be completed alone. You follow Duke St along past the old factories, now repurposed as student flats. Progress.\n\nYou walk until you get there. Home. Oh, [[To Live and Die in Dennistoun]].

Back in the grim surroundings of your shared flat, you step out of your clothes and immediately into bed. Lying there, piecing together the remnants of the previous night, you are struck by the absence of memories about your sexual encounter. Did it even happen? What was said and done?\n\nYour body twists with the arousal of the possibilities. You reach down and begin to pleasure yourself but the fatigue and the sickness hold you back. You begin to scan your memory for sexual conquests, the small victories amongst the embarrassments and defeats.\n\nYou feel your body contort as you think about the encounter beside the [[Crooked Xmas Tree]].\n\nOr\n\nYour heart starts to race as you recall your brief affair up the social scale - your little slice of [[Middle Class Love]].

You stumble out onto Great Western Road. Your stomach aches, your hair plastered across your face, yesterday's clothes reeking of smoke and vomit. Passers-by look at you with a mixture of pity and revulsion.\n\nYou must get home but dizziness overtakes you without warning. Your body revolts, scarred by the abuse of the night before.\n\nYou choose to seek solace... \n\nAmongst the natural refuge of the [[Dear Green Places]].\n\nOr\n\nAmongst the dramatic spires of the University, recalling the [[Halcyon Days]] of your youth.

The phone rings.\n\n[[You Answer|Link 9]]

The phone rings.\n\n[[You Answer|Link 10]]

Crooked Christmas Tree\n\nLate that night by the crooked christmas tree \nYou opened up your mouth and prepared to consume me \nYour blood was soon to stain my pubic hair \nAnd your naked body was not all that you would bare\n\nAnd I remember, there were ducks on your pants \nAnd I remember, the way the breeze blew through the flat \nAnd I remember, you taught me how to feel \nAnd I remember, the way I threw up that day’s meal\n\nOur clumsy movements as we attempted to disrobe \nBelied the intricacies of our unspoken code \nWe cleansed ourselves of our self loathing and despair \nAnd handed our bodies into one another’s care\n\nAnd I remember, there were ducks on your pants \nAnd I remember, the way the breeze blew through the flat \nAnd I remember, you taught me how to feel \nAnd I remember, the way I threw up that day’s meal\n\n[[Next|Link 4]]

An Unremarkable Shade of Beige\n\nThis one is for the hipster fucks and the aesthete cunts \nI will hunt you with my voice \nThis art is a compulsion Not a fucking career choice \nWith your twee little melodies \nAnd your synthesized sins \nIf it were up to me I’d consign it all to the bin \nBeside the tattered brogues and the vintage chic \nYou’ve appropriated as your look \nTry discussing Dylan with me \nAnd I’m liable to puke\n\nYour vacuous façade hums quietly along \nMarket research disguised as a song \nAn unremarkable shade of beige\n\nSnivelling sycophants sniff \nAround the corpse of a scene \nJumping from tweepop to mathrock \nAnd everything in between \nWhatever tickles the fancy \nOf their esteemed peers \nFuelled by delusions of grandeur \nAnd self congratulatory cheers \nComets orbit moons \nOrbit planets, orbit stars \nSpace detritus fallen to earth \nAnd drinking in trendy bars\n\nYour scripted drama unfolds so predictably \nYou identify, use and abuse so instinctively \nAn unremarkable shade of beige\n\n[[Next|Link 14]]

Black Dog Days\n\nMy mind is confined \nI exist behind locked doors \nAnd I swear to god \nThere’s no pleasure anymore\n\nNo pleasure anymore \nNo pleasure at all \nJust a stifling pressure \nThat leaves you groping for the wall\n\nAnd just when you think \nYou can’t take it anymore \nAn overwhelming enormity \nLeaves you choking on the floor\n\nIt quickens your breathing \nAnd it blurs your sight \nArms outstretched \nBegging for respite\n\nWhile my mind remains imprisoned \nBehind these multitude of doors \nCursed is the life \nWhere there’s no pleasure anymore\n\nNot sleeping nor eating nor drinking nor sex \nNot booze nor fags nor filthy texts \nNot music nor sport nor art nor culture \nNot memories of the past nor plans for the future\n\nNor any other aspect of this life \nThat creaks and groans and bores \nAnd makes me resent \nThat there’s no pleasure anymore\n\nMirrors become abhorrent \nBecause they multiply disgust \nObserved by my crumpled reflection \nFractured and concussed\n\nI am but a surface \nA composite man \nA stretched skin canvas \nAn elaborate sham\n\nStalked by a clandestine assailant \nWithout cause and without motive \nWho incrementally drains my will \nWithout hint and without notice\n\nMy broken record brain \nRecites the same speech contemptuously \nTo my long suffering friends \nWhile the grey grows exponentially\n\nStruggling to articulate \nHow I’m rotting to my core \nCrushing is the life \nWhere there’s no pleasure anymore\n\nNot drugs nor gambling nor stockings nor fishnets \nNot nights on the tiles nor DVD boxsets \nNot stoic celibacy nor ritualistic masturbation \nNot frenzied hedonism nor transcendental meditation\n\nNor any other aspect of this life \nThat creaks and groans and bores \nAnd makes me resent \nThat there’s no pleasure anymore\n\n[[Next|Link 16]]

Bachelor's Banquet\n\nRemove outer packaging \nAnd pierce film lid \nConfront the vagrant in the mirror \nHere’s looking at you, kid\n\nNot the man about town \nJust the man in his room \nConsuming a sandwich of condiments \nWearing a heavy shroud of gloom\n\nThis isn’t the bachelor’s life \nAt least the one I signed up for \nWhere are my one night stands? \nMy transient muses to adore?\n\nMy worship again reserved \nFor no-one but myself \nWith no excuse required \nI drink to my health\n\nI’ve got beans on toast for breakfast \nAnd then again for tea \nAlways the same around here \nOnly deaf ears hear your plea\n\nSo I close the curtains tight \nAnd retire to my filth \nMasturbating furiously \nAmerica’s next top MILF\n\n[[Next|Link 15]]

The Jogger's Nod\n\nThe jogger’s nod is imbued with meaning \nAnd lends the extremities a modicum of feeling \nA passing salute of shared exertion \nThrough a grimace mask, a goodwill assertion\n\nA secret code reserved for those dressed in fluorescent \nWho spend our spare time tripping the light incessant \nThose men and women beating paths and parks \nInto submission with laps of loops and arcs\n\nThe exclusive club of the meandering masochist \nPavement pounding, hill bounding evangelists \nRunning to lose weight, thoughts and piles \nCounting the calories, kilometres and miles\n\nBodies in motion, propelled by piston like legs \nWhile creaking joints loupe and beg \nFor a carry out and a pasty from Greggs \nOr maybe just a lie down\n\n[[Next|Link 17]]

Hitler's Moustache\n\nI woke up one day, wearing Hitler’s moustache \nIn stark contrast to my jammies \nAnd milk bottle calves \nA strange wee thing, not two inches wide - \nStraight, pronounced, with a sense of restrained pride \nBut my ebullient side, did not agree \nThought it would be a laugh to go out and see \nWhat the public thought of my new facial endeavour \nHeads turned quicker than the West Scotland weather\n\nThe masses caught a sight of my fascist ‘tache \nPointed me out, shook their heads and laughed; \nGave their friends a playful dunt, stared and whispered - “Check the state of that cunt” \nMy attention seeking relish soon dissipated \nAnd my irreverent disposition rapidly deflated \nYou see the hair was stuck, I pulled and tugged, sighed and shrugged \nBut the situation did not one iota improve \nHitler’s moustache simply could not be removed\n\nIn panic I hid, fled amid the angry mob \nA gathering collection of the disenfranchised \nThe overly sensitive and the easily antagonised \nCivilians, veterans, angry young men \nAvid viewers of the news at ten \nAnd then, running to my aid came some skinhead thugs \nWith their clumsy tattoos and their ugly mugs \nThey claimed they were defending my right to dictator chic \nBut I knew this was an excuse for havoc to be wreaked\n\nAmongst the melee I slipped away \nIn hope that myself and my fascist growth \nCould fight another day \nI tried to understand, how a neat arrangement of hair \nCould leave a rational person going absolutely spare \nDid they really care? \nOr were they fulfilling a moral obligation \nTo appear outraged at the prescribed situations\nI pondered this as I escaped on my bike \nCursed as I was - With the moustache of the third reich\n\n[[Next|Link 13]]

The phone rings.\n\n[[You Answer|Link 8]]

Call Centre Blues\n\n“Please wait while one of our UK based advisors becomes available” \nGoes the mantra – distant and inalienable \nA disembodied female voice Repetition without a choice\n\nSo I wait, beep beep \nAnd I wait, beep beep \nAnd I wait, beep beep \nAnd I wait, beep beep\n\nI consider a more efficient use of my time \nCreating art, masterful and sublime \nThese jobs are designed to deny our potential \nAnd occupy our minds with the inconsequential \nHour upon hour of precious time wasted \nThe fun we could have had, the wine we could have tasted\n\n[[Next|Link 6]]

Notes From A Quarter-Life Crisis

Date w/ Ikea\n\nFlatpack dignity, build it yourself \nHomogenised style, facsimile wealth \nAspirational living for the faux middle classes \nWith the Murakami novels and the horn-rimmed glasses\n\nThe crude light dissolves amongst the frenzied throng \nAn amorphous mass trudging slowly along \nTraversing a showroom that seeps with desire \nHoarding timber to construct their own funeral pyre\n\nCouples with hands entwined and smiles embossed \nBind their futures together with mahogany albatross \nWhile tired spouses with crumpled faces \nDebate which lamp will best fill their empty spaces\n\nJealousy colonizes the mind and erodes the soul \nInfatuation manifests itself in a set of ceramic bowls; \nA pillow with arms; a stainless steel fork; \nA horrendous ten foot canvas of New York\n\nMatching monoliths of cool angular wood \nGranting meaning to rooms that sat so long misunderstood \nA domestic symmetry to deflect our pain \nFrom the personal perfection we could never hope to attain\n\n[[Next|Link 5]]

Halcyon Days\n\nI studied Media, English, Politics - and the female form\nAttempting to decipher its secrets \nSpecializing in debauchery, drunkenness - the student norm \nIll informed and sleepless\n\nReplete with jackets of denim and flowing hair \nA bachelor of the arts, the nightclub and the union \nIndependence almost too much to bear \nA masters in regret, spontaneity and self illusion\n\nA student of film, media and TV boxsets \nOf unsustainable overdrafts and breakdowns \nAn average education and a legacy of debt \nHas reduced me to rhyming nouns\n\nI met friends flung from far off lands \nPlaces like Edinburgh, Lancaster and Fife \nAs we struggled daily with life’s demands \nUnaware we were existing without strife\n\n[[Next|Link 2]]

You wake up, puking bile and shitting blood. You only had a few cans... didn't you? Then you notice the empty bottles of wine beside your bed.\n\nYour drinking has got out of hand. You know this, but why can't you stop?\n\nYou know the answer to that too.\n\nLife has worn you down and you can find no need for you here. There is no need, and no want. Your days pass with regularity and an unshakeable belief that your ongoing existence is of absolutely no consequence. To anyone. Not even yourself.\n\nIt's time to make a decision - to face up to your depression or let it overtake you.\n\nWill you struggle on, alone, fighting the [[Black Dog Days]].\n\nOr\n\nWill you pick up the phone and call the doctor, the [[Secret Magician]].

The Vision (Jesus of Possil)\n\nI died, I was resurrected \nI came back \nTo walk the holy streets of Possilpark \nI left my father’s right hand \nMy own personal seat \nTo spread the word from a bedsit on Saracen Street\n\nBut I’ve had nothing but hassle \nSince I returned to this mortal realm \nIn the age of the iphone My miracles seem to underwhelm \nI walked on water Right across the Clyde \nI multiplied the battered fish and the Mother’s Pride\n\nBut still… Nothing\n\nJust gormless neds and brainless quips \nLike nails to my hands straight from their lips \nAbusing my “stupid beard” \nMy “manky sandals” \nThey don’t care that I hug the hookers \nI love the vandals \n“Whit’s wae the get-up, you some kinda muslim?” \nMate, I’m the son of God \nDo you know who’s balls your bursting?\n\nI’m trying my best here, I really am \nI read aloud from the 21st psalm \nTo a 14 year old pushing a pram \nAnd all she said was: “Whit the fuck’s a shepherd?”\n\nSo I appear here today \nSo you may state your case \nFor the continuing existence of the human race \nAfter the wanton destruction and neglect of this place \nAnd all you can ask for is forgiveness\n\nWell, I forgive every sin \nExcept your Kappa trackie \nAnd that time you called the shopkeeper a packie \nAnd that boy you left with the gaping chibmark \nPissing blood by the side of the swingpark\n\nNo more\n\nI’m going back to my roots \nOld testament shit: \nPlagues, smiting, fiery pits \nUnless of course you can just admit -\nThat you all still need me\n\n[[Next|Link 13]]

Middle Class Love\n\nHey baby, I wanna cover you in pesto \nBend you over the breakfast bar and hey presto! \nI wanna take you away on a romantic city break \nTake that balsamic vinegar and shake! Shake! Shake! Shake! \n\nI wanna take you out to the GFT \nYou can watch the subtitles with my hand on your knee \nLet’s lay together reading the Guardian in bed \nVisit the garden centre and make love in the sheds \n\nGo for a country drive in my old ford estate \nWith the two litre engine and the E regi plate \nCrowned with a bike rack rusted with neglect \nUnder which our traffic will merge and intersect\n\nIt's a middle class love for me and for you\nIt should be tax-deductible, the things we do\n\n[[Next|Link 4]]

I Am My Father's Son\n\nI may see it fit \nTo borrow an expression or a phrase \nTo be executed by my tongue \nOr written all over my face \nA half remembered bead of wisdom \nOr a bawdy little pun \nAll recycled as my own \nI am my father’s son\n\nA restless mind and greying hair \nAmongst other things bequeathed \nA bulbous sac filled with bile \nA mouth of crooked teeth \nThree generations of men \nWho let spirits loosen their tongue \nBut despite all that’s said \nI am my father’s son\n\nA propensity to sadness \nA genetic predisposition \nJoins a hereditary dissatisfaction \nAmongst a litany of conditions \nYet to unselfishly oppose injustice \nIs something I’ve never done \nBut there’s still time for me \nI am my father’s son\n\nI eschewed tools for language \nCurtailing tradition as I went \nAssigned societal roles \nI’d attempt to circumvent \nReigned in by lineage \nImpossible to outrun \nAs he was before me \nI am my father’s son\n\n[[Next|Link 18]]

Kevin P. Gilday

To Live and Die in Dennistoun\n\nNo poetry in the library, no bobbies on the beat \nJust a kernel of despair that cripples the spine of the street \nFurnished with broken TVs and flickering street lights Carpeted with a freshly excreted layer of dog shite \nWelcome to Dennistoun – Glasgow’s wild East \nThe eternal heart of darkness, the belly of the beast\n\nRampaging bams seeking riotous acclaim \nTo an audience of pensioners fraught with disdain \nInsipid junkies, furtive and stealthy \nCommunicate in coded speech unintelligible to the healthy The woman with the crumpled face is at pains to explain \nWhy her pack of rabid dogs all have racist names\n\nVenetian statues unsuccessfully guard the shrubbery \nAgainst rubber legged drunks dying for a pee \nWhile delinquent youths maraud and brawl \nCiting their influences as religion and football \nCathartic exhibitions of frustration and regret \nA legacy of disappointment summarily beset\n\nSmall men in ridiculous garb march down the street \nAttempting to twirl a baton menacingly to a monophonic beat \nA redundant display of cultural stupidity \nAn outdated show absent of validity \nWalking in formation, bitter and plastered \nBurdensome, boorish, bile ridden bastards\n\nBut despite the eccentrics and undesirables \nDespite the colour it’s undeniable \nDespite cohabiting with every weirdo you could send \nI’d rather be here than the fucking west end!\n\n[[Next|Link 3]]