Paul Badger Poetry
By Paul Badger
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Podcast Description
Paul Badger, reading my poetry. My homepage is www.paulbadger.com and you can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/paulpoetry
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CleanYou Wake Up Beside This Person | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com You Wake Up Beside This Person You wake up beside this person In bed in the boarding house And you see the pittance of change On the dust-covered dressing table That's supposed to last all week But won't And you think, Well where is that which The aftershave promised? And which his new shirt promised? And his urgent kiss? And his slow caress? And you see your lipstick On the table and you think Well what did I promise? What have I pretended? Will he know my truth? Will he accept it? Will he love it? And only then In the boarding house Do you think, I know nothing about this shape Beside me Oh I know his coat His smile His eyes His hair, His shoes As he walks the promenade, And his hand On the spoon of honey At the breakfast table, But I know nothing Nothing About him. Him. Who is he? You ask yourself, You ask, Who is he? And you know so little of him - Of the tide of his blood in him - What he really wants and thinks And fears and loves and forgets And hates and plans and remembers - You know so little of him He may as well be Some shadow drowned at the bottom Of some midnight ocean. And what does he think I am? What is he... convinced... I am? Coming home on that train Back to Liverpool... Despite the fear of mother's anger, It was a relief, An escape. From the shadow silent Sleeping in the bed. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Tatyana Nyshko - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanYou Know What? | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com You Know What? You know what? An hour after I was made - Just after you were born - she got tired of me And handed me a pair of lead boots And an overcoat of cobwebs And marched me out the door to search for pennies. Yeah? And I was a right mug - I'd bring them back, Clawed out of the sea-cold soil With worms still clinging like babies To their curves and faces, And I - what a fool I was - I'd look up at her from the November mud On my iron shoes and wait desperately for her slow kiss In her candlelight. But the kitchen cupboard was bare And I got none. Your mother, see - She had second thoughts about love. She preferred coins to my kisses. Because she could control them, hold them in her palm. Not like my kisses - they were too wide for her. Frightened her. More than she bargained for. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Beenana - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWith Your Lips a Sugared Inch From His | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com With Your Lips a Sugared Inch From His Like, when I was a newlywed blushing before The watching kitchen toaster, it was a relief to unfold Into someone then - in the caress of your own walls And his warm silence, With your lips a sugared inch from his, You could say, "My heart hardens into oak Sometimes, does yours, does yours..?" It was like whispering yourself home, The spring you'd wound inside you All your nervous years could at last uncoil, You could say, "Sometimes I rage like scarlet And sometimes I freeze like cobalt Do you, tell me you do, do you...?" But a few years with a ring's razored mouth Biting your thin bone finger and what do you do? When you're aware of how fast the burning clock Is racing on the wall? Bolt down your shoulders again, Seal them with a rivet gun and an acetylene torch, Frightened of all your colours in his clenched fists That he can use against you. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Paul Posthouwer - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWide World Whizzing By | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Wide World Whizzing By The window. The wide world whizzing by. All these moments judging me. The muddy cow in the field. The iron gate, broken. The cloud, sadder than your mother's tears. The hill catching sunlight. Someone's forgotten car Nudging the hedgerows in a ditch. They say, Deep and slow, their coal voices murmur "What have you been in your life, Anne? What have you become, Anne? What have you known, Anne?" I'm not good enough to look at them, Not good enough to lick their boots. I'm the Scrap Paper Girl. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Jordan Lewy - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWhat Fireworks Do You Ignite Now, Mrs Married? | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com What Fireworks Do You Ignite Now, Mrs Married? What fireworks Do you ignite now, Mrs Married? A loaf of bread and a torn dishcloth! I was so betrayed by love - Your mother was so reluctant to kiss me, hold me - So how come you got married? Eh? How could you trust something as small as love? Why was your mouth so eager to taste my mistakes? - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Andreas Meyer - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanWalking Book | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Walking Book A sponge, that's me, Soaking up this that and whatever To keep out the night, As long as the night's outside me I'm a robber with no conscience. At night, I can hear my skin made up of Thousands of lips babbling and shouting Into the dark, Other peoples' voices whispering Mondays And shouting Tuesdays and the harder I try to listen To hear what I'm saying – Hah, can you believe what I've just said, It's not what I'm saying at all is it, All my stealing mouth is fit for Is saying what others say, what they're saying But the harder I try to hear it The louder the voices get because Even my ears, even my ears are made up Of someone's lips, talking and shouting. I'm just a book, aren't I? A walking book I've invited Other people to write. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Tinka - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanSince When Do Kisses Pay Bills? | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Since When Do Kisses Pay Bills? Oh grow up! Since when do kisses pay bills? You haven't thought Any of this out, have you? I mean look at you - Fancy cigars, American wallet - Your shirt collar swamps you! We've run out of money And we've only been here a week! Dreamer! And the way you stood At the train station. Sniffing the air and shuffling Like some pickpocket Just let out of prison. All the other girls were arm In smiling arm With their fresh-pressed soldier boys, But you made me look cheap. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Gresei - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanMother Wound Up The Mantelpiece Clock | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Mother Wound up the Mantelpiece Clock Mother leant back in her chair And wound up the mantelpiece clock And she waited - On the breath of its tick she waited. For me to strike the golden hour To set her heart chiming. For me to take the umbilical between us Far across the surging sea To channel her blood in my body across The oceans and burn her flesh bright into A star upon the stages of the world. My lungs to breathe the air She never tasted. My feet upon the ground she'd never touch. New York. Broadway. Hollywood. The flash of smiling cameras Impatient gleam of purring cadillacs And above all the wet-inked And hot-pressed newspapers Leaping onto street corners shouting "This Woman The World Wants!" - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Sly - Fotolia.com | 2/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe World Has Forgotten Me | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com The World Has Forgotten Me The world has forgotten me. I am just another shadow In this sprawling city, That eats, sleeps, works, alone, apart - A solitary insect tapping out her age In the hollow walls of a crumbling house. And each street of this city Is lined with my brothers and sisters: The shadowed husks. The forgotten people. And through all this, The world turns away Its head and stays busy, And rides its trams down to the Mersey And rides its trams up from the Mersey And opens its shops in the brassy morning And shuts its shops in the murmuring night And newspapers prattle And newspapers babble - But not about us: no. Always the eyes of the world On someone else! On the smooth walking Warm rich and famous. When you first screamed the air, I said, While I can merely walk, She shall have The wings to fly; While I stumble under The leaden weight of words When I talk, She shall have the silken threads Of the sun to let her sing. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Jan Inberg - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanUnpick the Thread Inside Your Heart | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Unpick the Thread Inside Your Heart Unpick the thread inside your heart and Be what the world wants you to be - And it shall always need you, Want you... Love you. Be loved by the world, Not forgotten like me And the rest of this city! Serve it well. And take the fire. The glow. The burning. When the stars savour the silver screen, They ladle their spoons into the clock: Instead of being eaten by time, They make time their dish. We slave under the laws of the world, But the famous devour them! When your father kissed me, It was done and gone; A moment elbowed away by clouds, And all the birds swooned Into the shrinking space And replaced it. But the kisses of the famous last forever! When you smile upon the screen, You shall be loved for as long as the Clicking film whirrs in the projector, And all the cameras of the world Shall make their valentine eyes At you, and you alone! - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © James Steidl - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanUnder the Kiss of a Midnight Lamp | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Under the Kiss of a Midnight Lamp Remember when we Were under the kiss Of a midnight lamp? I said, "Why do you love me?" And you said why. My eyes. My hair. My walk. My smile. My... perfume. My... lipstick. These things you love, not me! - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Alena Root - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTrain Travel is Like Time Travel | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Train Travel is Like Time Travel Train travel's like time travel. I mean you can find all these different pebble people Of different shapes and ages and they're all rock shards And fragments of me. Or fragments of you. Or fragments of anyone. Do you want to be reminded what you were like When you were six months? Well look at that screaming ball of dough there, Filling its nappy in the tight corner Of the carriage, that was you. Or, do you want to see yourself When you collect your pension? Well, there you go, at the far glass window, Nod-nod-nodding at the rails streaming by. Yeah. All your life, and anyone's life, Is crammed inside a railway carriage And it dawns on you how fast each second Races into the next. I can see myself And the yelping dog when we first got married – Over there, that couple inside the Brand new Saturday shop jeans, The ones making frantic jokes About their fresh train tickets And their cans of orange from the matchbox kiosk. That girl – see her, see how she's opened up Her tissue-paper shoulders – Well, you do that when you're that naive age, Don't you, everyone unclips their virgin shoulders To let the insides out when you're that small age And you've only just got married. That's when you can hear the clock ticking But you're happy for it to tick. You haven't yet discovered your need to stop it. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Tinka - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThis Night, Falling | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com This Night, Falling This night, falling: Black ink oozing a steel-grey sheet of blotting paper. Look. Everywhere the sea stretching Like an impatient lover While the night hangs its coat over the red-sinking fire. This ocean. When I'm dust In the night of the sleeping soil, The waves will still roll, and the cod will still rush Into someone else's nets, sleeping like sacks On the bed of the brine. Me in the mirror - sodden feet jammed Inside a swashing pair of wellies, Ciggie smouldering in one claw, Glass of whisky in the other... Me the clinging skipper on a coughing trawler, Crawling tiny round the North Sea Like some ant in the Sahara. My breezed sail I launched to boast I loved this - Some Neptune of the North, Smiling broad to the tars in the pub Over my foaming wash of ale. And to her, at home. Under her watching moon I plied my trimming tongue: "Caulk your eyes, Maureen. The rock of the tide echoes The rock of my cradle - soil and sea are brothers to me." My smile. The most crooked lie ever to pass my lips. The days I can stand. But the night... So every night I make a brother of the bottle. These lads, they turn their eyes, pretend not to notice. They're good lads - or too ashamed... Two hours. Two hours till I'm home to her Soft red kisses and the stroke of the fire. The day creeps near When she shall haul my sunken treasure. How shall she sail? Stand in shock at the uncoiling of a rope? Or clip new waves from the port of my sad tide? - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © David Woods - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanSongs on the Silver Radio | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Songs on the Silver Radio There was me, listening to all those songs On the silver radio about kisses and moonlight When I was young, I was so naive, I dreamt one day I'd be a lover too – With my kisses melting into each street of the city And the blue sky soaking into me. And a woman devoted to my shades and whispers. A walk along a summer's street With her anxious eyes studying my face, Worrying about my heart's colours. Asking if I was okay. Putting me first, Putting things aside. And what have I got instead? Someone cracking up rushing off to London When she's needed here. What a joke... I could have been going out with Rachel. Or Mary. Dedicated women. Their devoted eyes. Their caring frowns on their foreheads. But what have I got? - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © U.P.images - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanSet the Coal Sky Alight | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Set the Coal Sky Alight There was a rosy day once when all the cellotape clocks In our bone house would tick and chime for you. Who spent hours studying engineering? Tapping figures into a calculator, Doodling calculations with an eager pencil As the clock ticked away? Who designed her own spaceships and space suits? I lay awake like an owl, waiting for you to ignite The boosters in those rockets. Waited for your moondust invitation To race over to the white window And watch you soar up and set the coal sky alight! - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Vladimir Popovic - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanSome Mothers are Content to Spoon Soot | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Some Mothers are Content to Spoon Soot Some mothers are content to spoon soot From the grate Into their daughters' mouths. Letting them make the same mistakes. Letting them lift their foot Over the doorstep With a head full of candyfloss Before the mantrapped waiting world! Not me. My love for you Is a burning ball of coal, To flame your heart and light your way From the shadows of these streets. Who wants mince, When there's steak? Or tin when there's gold? Or glass when there's diamonds? When you were christened, I said, Not for you the cheap currency Of a common name. No. Royal blood deserves a royal name - Something forged in a very special fire. And I called you Penelope - Say it. Hear it hang in the air Upon your dancing tongue - Pen-el-o-pe - The arching rise and fall of a rainbow In a single word. I couldn't call you a Doris, An Edna, A Milly... Or Agnes... Cheap names, Lining these streets like the grubby paper Inside the drawers of boarding houses. An icicle name like that Would forever freeze The fires of your heart. Does an... Agnes... Sing of love on the stage? Does an... Agnes... Give her midnight autograph To the flustered crowds Round the stage door lamp? No. So few have names That drip with honey's gold. Men's tongues shall stroke your name until it shines - A star in orbit around the melting moon. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Igor Kaliuzhnyi - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanScrapbook Woman | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Scrapbook Woman I'm cheap, me. The Scrapbook Woman. But, even though, I mean even though I'm stuffed full of an old waste paper, me, Yesterday's newspaper screwed up in balls inside My arms and legs, and fish and chip paper And odds and ends paper you find in street gutters Packed in my chest, like, all held together with A skin of cardboard - even though I'm all that, There have been times when Steve's caresses Have made me feel like someone else. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Richard Laschon - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe Crew of a North Sea Trawler Claim | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com The Crew of a North Sea Trawler Claim The crew of a North Sea trawler... claim... That they found him, like some maggot In the belly of their fishing net. They... claim... He was as still as a statue beneath the Squirming waves of fish, rifle held solid In the iron grip of his hands, full army uniform, Kitbag on his back. And then from the coffin of the net, He opened his eyes... And spoke. Fanciful tale, all right - breathing body scooped From the bed of the sea, same clothes... But I'm too old for fairy tales. What really happened is clear. Fifteen years ago, This man went to Hull, yes. The records tell us that much - But can't have boarded The troopship at the docks, never set sail for France. Must have hid in the shadows of the city instead. For years. Deserter. And now - only now, In this condition with his mind shattered Like shards of glass He hides in a trawler as it leaves Hull; And in the falling darkness, Nestles himself inside the stomach Of an empty net - After it has coughed up its fish. And of course, What none of us can understand is - why? Why hide in the net, Why labour all that trouble, Why uniform, kitbag, rifle - What's twisted his mind to do that? Unlock him, Miss Wilson, and let us know. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © mark yuill - Fotolia.com | 2/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanNew Night, First Night | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com New Night, First Night Now a different night from The ghosts of the others: New night, first night. Back home, As Maureen laid the nervous table, I surprised both of us by Talking, And the words spun out of me like eels Of why I'd tried to hide from the night Inside the night of the bottle, And how the torch had fallen, Smouldered - But all she did was lower the plate Gently onto the table, and smile. "I thought so," She said. Relieved to hold The diamond of a truth in her palm. In my weakness lay my strength And in baring it to her Made the night grow lighter And the sky grow smaller... And all along the sea had grown thinner Because finding the body in The shadow of the sea Was a sign: The man we scooped from the mountain wave Who murmured And opened his eyes: I saw. I heard. I understood. This fish of flesh we set down In the docks of Hull. Into the shadows he stumbled And his every step was mine. Full of my lesson I tumbled my speech to Maureen. She said, "Do you want to leave the boat, Work elsewhere?" But I said no. Such a small word, that word. No, I said, If she could know my secret shadow, And love it, That would be all. That really, really... would be all. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © idrutu - Fotolia.com | 2/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanMy Metal Skin's Always Been Rusting | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com My Metal Skin's Always Been Rusting My metal skin's always been rusting. Did you know your mother made me Out of a dustbin lid and two empty baked bean tins? That's how much she thought of me - Knocked me together in a frying pan In a bored minute Between steaming the Monday night And sizzling the sad potatoes. And since the flames cooled, girl, I've been shouting my anger in my metal stride, Hating my iron legs and wishing my arms Were Autumn gold and my face was summer's silver. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Walter Quirtmair - Fotolia.com | 2/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanLiverpool | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Liverpool Liverpool. The lights. The lights. So what's it all about? Hmm? What's it all about? When you stand by Your mother's grave In the Thursday afternoon rain, And in her nailed-down coffin She takes with her Every promise you've broken Every lie you threw at her Every deceit Every sting of pain... And when she comes to you In the murmur of the night And she says that All the bonds and locks She gave you were from love And you say "Yes, Now I see it your way Only now do I see it your way," When it's too late When it's over When she's in the soil... So what do you do? Where can you go from there? Liverpool. The lights. The lights. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Andrew Tobin - Fotolia.com | 2/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanLike The Weave of a Space Suit | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Like the Weave of a Space Suit Sometimes he has breathed his kisses Like the weave of a space suit around me, And I have floated towards the feathered stardust And the moon's bull eye and the planets gently Because he closed a space helmet Round my head with his own hands. The lead weight of a frown would have been too heavy On my face for me to creep out into the silver clouds Of stardust by myself. Me, an insect beside the planets, But there were the hours' chimes when his space suit Made me dwarf stars. And yet with that, I felt a bile for him birthing inside me. He gave me a jewel confidence on a silver platter And I smiled like sugar for this, But my need for him - The sight of my shaking paper hand Leaning on his granite shoulder to taste this - I hated. Me, Paper Girl, No stronger than a strip of tissue. And when I did lie out there among the silver stars, In the black mirror of my space helmet visor I saw his face, And it was the smug Gloating smile of a puppeteer, An owner cracking the whip, And I hated myself Because I still felt so cheap inside the spacesuit, And so black guilty for feeling that - and more cheap - Because without his firework kisses To shoot me into the sky I would still be drowning Amongst the ashes and the sawdust of the Earth. It's the same old story: there's always a problem. After the wedding rings were slipped on our fingers The colours faded. I remember once I was searching through my wardrobe And I put my hand in my coat pocket. It was full of kisses from our courting days. They'd frozen into glass fragments, Chipped and blunt and dead. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Georg Lehnerer - Fotolia.com | 2/7/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanIt Ripped Me to Pieces | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com It Ripped Me to Pieces Look at us! The ash people! All those dreams! The wedding ring on my finger started laughing at me. Made me want to be a heartbreak. An iron dagger of hate, a shout of metal. When I saw men and women share the same words Between their lips that were denied to me and Elaine, It ripped me to pieces. Whenever I saw them kissing in pauses in the parks, Or in the murmur of train stations Or hand-in-hand in newsagents, I wanted to be the silvered flash of a heartbreak That could rip into their paper bodies And tear them to shreds! I'd say to myself, Why should other people own a warm smile When I don't? Why should other people be Laughing on their mountains When I'm tangled in ropes in the foothills? And then the disgust with myself For thinking such a thing. When you first taste a kiss on your lips, You think, What my clock has been empty of Is finally here. When that kiss shatters your heart to pieces Round Ordsall Park, You think, Back to my clock's empty hours. Why did I expect any different? - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Thomas Näther - Fotolia.com | 2/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanInto the Fridge of a Museum | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Into the Fridge of a Museum Weird, this is. Like a museum. Know what it's like when you're In town and you walk from the hot sun And cinder shadows on the pavement Into the fridge of a museum, You’re walking small and slow Into slow black air in the December rooms And your footsteps are so cold, Your ice steps given you From the coffin-wood cabinets watching, And there’s a doll, A Victorian doll stolen From a child’s arms by some professor with oak skin And the doll, with its skin of ashes Is dead behind its label in the glass case coffin – Well, that’s this place. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Anita P Peppers - Fotolia.com | 2/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanLast Night - Again the Dream of Water | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Last Night - Again the Dream of Water Last night... Again the dream of water: Rain stamping over the pavements, Gargling down drainpipes, Heaving itself against the cracking windows, Roaring over the walls of houses, Streaming roof tiles down the street Like a fluttering pack of cards from a conjuror's hand... All the waves of all the world Oceaned this Liverpool away. But... when I crouched at the centre of the storm, Small as a shell on a beach I was soothed, by the slow Sweet, slow, caress... of a gently falling rain. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © ann triling - Fotolia.com | 2/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanIn a Sandwich Flat | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com In a Sandwich Flat She started at the university years ago, did Jade. It was a Physics degree first, and then A Master of Science, I think, and what was it then, It was... well whatever. And she's still doing that now, Far as I know. She was absorbed into the books and pages, Diagrams and facts. In a sandwich flat tucked down a tiny backstreet That even the grey-fluff pigeons have forgotten about. Her books open on tables and chairs, Spilt all over the carpet like a river of paper. Her black biro, leaking, exhausted. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Elnur - Fotolia.com | 2/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanIt Was the Eve of My Eighth Birthday | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com It Was the Eve of My Eighth Birthday It was the eve of my eighth birthday. Mother jabbed the blocks of the coals In the Sunday grate With the clanging poker. While the night hugged its knees Under its arms and dried Its just-bathed hair By the black-bright crackling And spark-stirred fire. The coals sighed and crumbled soft into Crows' feathers and the heat licked Around my face like a lozenge. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Harvey Hudson - Fotolia.com | 2/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanDrained Cup | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Drained Cup Where did we buy this table? And where did we buy this cup? Was it on a Thursday, or a Saturday, And was it on a day when the rain Was hammering the tarmac in its iron grey anger, Or when the sun and sky were baking the pavement With a cobalt peace? And were we happy then, As we handed over excited money At some counter at some shop At somewhere or other, As we were making a home? As we crossed our front door with our rustling bags quickly We must have had such eager smiles on our faces, But where are those smiles now? Did the house steal them from us? Such excited laughter, and now this ocean of silence. And here we are in a room that’s too small for us, You standing by the icicle window And me staring at this cold cup. You looking out at the world hoping for a better future And me looking into the past on this table Wondering where it all went wrong. This sad cup, drained, like we are. As you are standing by the window You are filtering the light around you And it is so fragile that if we breathe on it it would break. I don’t know how to read tea leaves, But I know how to read silence. And it’s strange how in my head I can see some kind memory Of some kind of summer - Some haze of blue, some blur of gold - But looking into this dead cup of winter I think all my life has really been in black and white. In the far distance, At the rim of the world, Both of us can hear a small plane droning, Scraping slowly at the edge of the sky. Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © angelo.gi - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanHarry? | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Harry? Harry? My bones are chalk; Before today I thought my thoughts The world - streets, walls, bricks, All sang what they were - to see was to know, To know was to own. Now this world thinks me. I was told you drowned. You breathe: your death a dream. Any second a sleeper shall wake And melt this street And I his dying dream of bone and hair. If your death be rubbed away Why not my chalk lines rubbed out Ready as a child's drawing? My blood a paint unmixed Sealed back in virgin tubes? This world is water and nothing's no longer itself! Harry? Are you a ghost? Can you feel my hand? Your eyes say no. Can you hear my voice? Your eyes say no. Do you remember me? Your eyes say no. Does your voice hide from you, A spider secret in the tunnels of your veins, Or have your declared your silence your sign? And what does the Doctor declare me? Girlfriend? Lover? Am I to speak our dictionary to you? Mint all words new to hook your silent shadow? Where did you shroud yourself in Hull? If you can see me then what do you see? Lover? Enemy? When I see you I see all the past watching us... - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © npologuy - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanGreatest Lie of All | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Greatest Lie of All Love. What a myth. The greatest lie of all. The world feeds itself so many lies To keep its sanity, Says you can love, and be loved – But it's a myth you can love someone, on their terms. You can only love a person on your own terms. And that's not love at all. And I've never understood the sky of kisses. The rainbows and clouds of the heart. The lightning strike of the lips. And my skin may be the smear of mud but inside I am the swirl of a November fog. Fog in my head, clogging my heart and hands. I have seen the world and wanted to kiss it But been afraid of infecting it with the fog In my arms and chest. Afraid of my fog words Spreading out across the air Smothering and suffocating my loved ones With my baser colours. My fog word of love in their mouth. My fogged, sullen versions of 'hope' and 'desire' Blinding their eyes. Their breath squeezed Out of their bodies by the tourniquet hold Of my words. I have no place in this world. Next time the November fog Settles in Manchester's yards It shall be my waiting mother: I shall walk inside And dissolve in it and never come out. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © TEA - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanI've Said He's Waiting For You | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com I've Said He's Waiting For You I've said he's waiting for you. Outside. Will you see him? Prove me a liar? Forgive me. I know how quickly I have brought The shock of this to you. Unforgivable. And yet for weeks I have sat with him in a room Beneath an icicle window; And each day the tiles on the wall, The barricked table, my notebook, Have all listened to my questions But strained in vain for his answers. Beneath a bare bulb he sits; And the blank moons of his eyes pull At the memory of someone, Or something, That has ripped open his mind As surely as a bomb that roars apart The houses in a street. I can do nothing with him. Yet it's my job to heal the patient I'm given, So... Now I've traced you, And because I'm told his kisses Were once yours, And while I know your voice Is more a home to him than any hospital... Well, can you blame me? What else can I do? - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanCollecting Smiles in a Bottle | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Collecting Smiles in a Bottle Marriage! There's nothing down for it. Or love, either - so short-lived. I've found lots of lover's smiles in the street, Where they've fallen off faces When they weren't being used. I pop them in a bottle I keep On top of the wardrobe. Well, there was that creased girl's smile On the top deck of a bus in Clayton, Left behind on the back seat after a feller ditched her. And a lad's cardboard smile quivering in a puddle Outside a pub in West Gorton When he realised just how thin kisses are. But as for your smile, Anne - it's hardly on your face! Spends most of its life under the dishcloth in the sink. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © hannahfelicity - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanI'm Your Doorway Aren't I? | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com I'm Your Doorway, Aren't I? My Dad. Washout. Useless. Lived in a glass of brown mix. Thought the world was the same colour. Which it was. His world. If he heard something he didn't like He pretended it didn't exist. Washing the canvas of the world With his favourite colour. Any coward can do that. Like you. Newspapers scream bombs. The march of armies. And every time I mention it You roll over and look At the bright blue sky. I'm your doorway aren't I? Lose yourself in the blossom of a kiss And the war doesn't happen. You aren't running away with me Because you love me! You're running away with me Because you don't want to get called up! - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © George Bailey - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBut You Can Still Tell It's Her | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com But You Can Still Tell It's Her I'm amazed. I am. I'm amazed. It's a mock up. A kind of model. It's a matchbox version of our schoolroom From our eggbox secondary school back in Ancoats. There's only room for six desks, but there's The blackboard on the wall, and the chalkdust hanging In a smile in the air, and posters about shapes And formulas on the wall. The room's deserted and there's a mannequin, A full-size mannequin at the front In her brown field jacket and her brown field skirts And her Monday morning shoes. It has one firm hand on the strict blackboard And one firm hand on the corner of her strict oak desk. That's Miss Murray, that is. You can't tell from her face, it's just a cloth, A cloth blank like a November sky, But you can still tell it's her, Her cold clothes, and her teachers' hands, Caught inside the gap between One snail second and the next. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © milosluz - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanI Used a Signature to Trap Her | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com I Used a Signature to Trap Her She was right. Love's shadow caught me And I used a signature To trap her on a dotted line. "Boyfriend." "Dreamer". Me slumped on a lurching deck In the middle of the salt North Sea. Wrapped in khaki, Bound in boots - Yet it was her that dressed me: The hands that unbuttoned The Lover's shirt Were the hands that strapped this helmet. Do I fight for Churchill? No, I fight for her. Yet without her there's no fight in me. She was right. Her kiss my escape. She could ribbon all words of war, Shrink Germany in the heat of her smile, Inferno all armies in her silken caress. So. What now? My eyes burst by shrapnel? My skin baked black? What say you ocean? If she were here now, She would paint this: The sea, then, is her sea It flows with the tide Of her streaming paintbrush. To leap inside this canvas Would be a leap inside her tide. This would be no death But life. Alive, I am dead I kill myself and others - But to pour myself inside The shroud of her water, Would be the deepest kiss, The longest kiss. So let me die With her name on my lips... - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Mollypix - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBut Who's Judgement Counts? | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com But Who's Judgement Counts? But who's judgement counts? If eternity is the origin of all things, Then eternity's judgement is the criteria That objectively matters. I can supply my own subjective judgement – Out of the fear of being submerged under A coal black river of despair, Of paralysing worthlessness – I can generate my own subjective point of view, And claim... lie... to myself, Some vain comfort of thought alone that says, "I am finite but I shall declare myself to have value"... And yet, all along eternity is looking at me, Nodding its head with a patronising smile, A shallow smile on its face, saying, "Yes, of course dear, of course you can think You have value, if that's what makes you happy, dear," And meanwhile it's tightening the grip of its hand Around me, eagerly rotting me away. If eternity exists, then I want to be it. Subjective feelings - judgement - aren't good enough For me anymore. Because if I believe something That eternity doesn't believe, then I feel dishonest. This life, this temporal life, This glass case of numbered days That I must walk through, Like some trembling puppet, It's just... it just doesn't feel good enough. It feels dishonest. I feel I've been conned by the universe And it's laughing at me. - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © IvanRu - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanI Slipped Into the Sea Like a Stone | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com I Slipped Into the Sea Like a Stone I slipped into the sea like a stone And in the night of the wave I saw The lights, the lights All the lights of Liverpool were swaying In the streets and alleys And rooms and yards! Each stone step of the city Was bubbled in the smile Of the mud and the shale And all that was above the water Was below it, And the waves heard your name On my bubbling breath and Whispered to me. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © malexeum - Fotolia.com | 2/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTwo Blokes Up a Mountain | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Two Blokes Up a Mountain Two blokes up a mountain, Playing a board game That’s old and tatty from an Oxfam shop. We’re talking about The Man With The Smile, Who’s famous for his home-made Cardboard hat on his head, And Silent Sullivan, Who’s famous for just nodding Whenever he’s asked a question. And the rain drizzles and pours With the same grey it was last Tuesday afternoon And on the cold Tuesday afternoon before that. A Geology field trip from a school in Huddersfield, Wrapped up in red and blue kagoules, Watches them And wonders. Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Tryfonov - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanIt Was Easy Saying That | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com It Was Easy Saying That Oh It was easy saying that With my head on your shoulder, Harry. Was that Why I loved you? My sudden ease of words? Was that my prize for A kiss, And a caress - My new-found lips Bursting with a brave voice? - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Friday - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanDown the Street For a Bag of Chips | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Down the Street for a Bag of Chips You think you know what's going on with people, What they think and want, but you don't really, Just the mask they wear, The silvered surface of their moon. I mean, you walk down the street for a bag of chips And on the way you see a cold smile in a puddle In the gutter that's fallen off someone's face Because they had no more use for it – In a world like that, what more is there to say? - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Anette Linnea Rasmussen - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanA Doll Stealing Grownup's Lipstick | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com A Doll Stealing Grownup's Lipstick A doll stealing grownup's lipstick And wide-eyed with a kiss below a streetlamp. The cut of the white collar against his neck. A weave of aftershave on his cheek. How can so little pretend to be so much? And why me so keen to swallow it? "My head full of candyfloss Before the mantrapped waiting world..." - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Thaut Images - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanThe Boy Who Grew Up Into a Guitar | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com The Boy Who Grew Up Into a Guitar Did you hear about the boy Who grew up into a guitar? One day he was skin But he woke up one morning Made of wood and steel strings And as he went to the mirror To study this change There was a cable Trailing along the floor behind him For the amplifier. He would have asked Julie to the pictures But every time he spoke The saddest chords cried out Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Chris Walker - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBirth of New Colours | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Birth of New Colours I can't stop thinking about kisses. And the urgent sculpture of moonlight And the glint of July wedding rings. Once the clock held the hockey stick And the brownies But now I have the birth of new colours Raging in me, the throb of stars pulsing my lips... - from "Wedding Rings and Space Suits" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © S - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanAnd I Was Right in a Way | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com And I Was Right In a Way And I was right. In a way. In that what I didn't want to know Couldn't hurt me. When you bought the ticket For the midnight train I looked at it in your feathered palm And thought, "He holds the world in that." I did. Honestly. And I think you did too. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Stas Perov - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanAnd I Heard Her Sleeping | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com And I Heard Her Sleeping And I heard her sleeping As I shuffled down the shadows Of the stairs with my suitcase. The whole world was listening To her sleep And pointing a finger at me. And in just listening to her, In that pause on the stairs You'd have sworn there was a smile On her face as she slept. - from "Uncle Harry and the Melting Moon" Copyright Paul Badger 2010 Photo © robynmac - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanAll Our Yesterdays | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com All Our Yesterdays I can tell from your face You’ve got your mother’s hopes Inside you, Suffocating me. Strange how someone So far away in time Can be so near Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © olly - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTonight The City Is Made Out Of Light | Paul Badger www.paulbadger.com Tonight the City is Made Out of Light Tonight the city is made out of light. You thought it was concrete and steel But you are wrong - It is pulsating with light, Pumping hard along each one of its veins. Hold me. Hold me in the frenzy of this light And tell me Tell me Tell me so convincingly That I will never ever die. Copyright © Paul Badger 2010 Photo © Joshua Haviv - Fotolia.com | 1/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 48 | CleanVideoThe Girl They Call The World | An excerpt from a full-length work. | 1/13/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 48 Episodes |
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