Randall performing 'Something of Value' at TiNA Festival, Newcastle -29/09/2011

.


if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct link to the YouTube video



Performed at the This is Not Art festival's anti-slam, on September 29th 2011. Camera by the redoubtable Alex Scott.



SOMETHING OF VALUE

If you are going to be lonely

find the biggest sky you can
as far from home as possible
to do it under

lift the weight off old skylines
finding new light looking up
lose old aching gravity
overarching starful
as the pinpricks wink you
across this impossible distance

where a couch can't contain you
let that distance stretch you
-out
so much further
than spread eagle across beds
throw yourself into it
scatter life down highways
like you're a string of wreckage
let hurt
spur you on
paving the lines on your face
with a road map's direction and

own your alone

if lonely hunts you
amongst people
in places already known
then run, sucker, run
hide inside a pocket of velocity
an envelope of anonymity
a blanket of trajectory
jumping the void
left by burnt bridges
across the still waters
running too deep for shallow swimmers
to have followed
you
insist
that loneliness
will work for its prey

if you are going to be lonely
be strange
stubborn as leg cramps
let your skin
carpet your flaws
be so funny
that your punchlines
...can leave black eyes
be so far gone
that your trail
will itself be a tale
bread-crumbed to become
the stuff nourishing a legend

if all your photos of you
are taken arms length
then reach further
than you ever believed you could
and picture yourself

beautiful

and in reaching around
to sunscreen your own back
develop another flexibility
plans remain in your hands
no splitting this difference
where decisions comes from within
that same sunscreen grease
will suddenly smell like freedom
and release

if caught in a conversational drought
then find your minds own inner dialogue
and talk yourself up a storm

get your years covered in mud
get them buckled and blistered
warped from water-log
snow stained with sand grains
stuck in them
'til you stink
of a long-story's old nostalgia

if you are going to be lonely
at all
do it all
out there
where not a single friendly-fire
word-exchange can steal your flame
torch glow
your life's light
far from home

pursue and imbue
illuminate the solitude
with something of value
a suffering brilliance
finding gains hidden in the pain
on nights alone
that need no account
lose count and let go

...of letting go

and hold on
to those nights' silence
feel it congeal around you
so thick and hard
you can actually grab hold of it
climb the silence
use it as a boost-up
to get over the walls
that followed behind you
into every situation

look out on an horizon
as it curves back too far
in either direction
for the straight
and lame
to ever catch you
again

under the biggest sky you can find
as far from home as possible
and up on that silent line
even if standing there
all alone
it remains

one

hell of a view.




______________________________













-Peace






.