The trouble is you never want to see it my way
You always want to have it your way
like a broken down record you’re stuck in the past
skipping and scratching along Old 55s highway.
you asked me to be your crutch
and then you left me in the lurch
you asked me to be your guide
but you never acted such.
You dealt drinks like a croupie
smiles like a film star
but now that I know you
I can only say this:
Your heart holds nothing but that you wanted it that way.
The pain that you’ve chosen you designed all anyway.
It may be you lost control
It may be you’re in a hole
But the fingering of records of our past
will not make the moments last
but the delving into the stream
will not reverse this dream.
And you might well call it a nightmare
you might even shout traitor
you might even be right when I never tried to save you.
But it was never about me, but you,
and what I could bring along.
It was never about us two
but whether I would sing your song.
And from a distance I read about the pain
and when I returned I experienced it again.
but I was no longer convinced,
I was no longer so sure
if the friend I once had
was my friend anymore.
And when you held me in contempt
I swore I could never forgive you,
but I did.
Your number erased from my phone
came back all by itself.
I remember the gig where we took to the floor
spooking all the natives into the shadows.
And it all could have been good,
it all could have worked,
but instead I had to fight them off as they dragged you out the back door.
Instead I had to bleed while you escaped once more.
Instead the one who’d caused the pain was the one to suffer the least all over again.
Instead the ones around you wilting were held dear
and I just stood there,
I just stood there.
On the morning balcony
the pine tree guard looming all round
at the outpost of my vision on his perch
the dawn patrol is headed by this silhouette
somewhere far off his follwers respond
a chorus of recognition
nearby some jackdaws squabble over pittens
their squawks and chatter no less meaningful
a fly, persistent, buzzes by
and almost unrelenting before he moves off
the garden in the cooling shade
already feels the pending heat
the air moves sluggishly:
another hot day’s coming.
When I first arrived in Budapest the Budapest Jazz Club was situated on Múzeum utca in the popular university area which spans the 5th, 8th, maybe even 9th districts of the city. It was near that area where an Irish pub consisted of putting the word Irish before it and the streets had yet to be pedestrianised. Now that the area is looking good the Budapest Jazz Club has upped pegs and shifted residence to the 13th. It’s still up and coming Hollán Ernő street style but somehow this district, this part at least, and my favourite, is more becoming of Jazz Club mystic post smoking ban.
In the place where once the Odeon, an arthouse cinema stood, it has changed little albeit better music emanates from the speakers mid morning.
It still retains the arthouse feel and along with the other arthouse cinemas that have fallen foul of progress, or other conspiracy theories, imagination has been employed in order to maintain quality, at least the quality of difference.
With regular concerts and an early morning, 10am, opening this serves to be as much a library as a theatre. It’s a cool place to hang out, literally during the almost unbearable summer’s days and it serves to enhance the spirit for those more musically curious.
And for those who’ve just popped in for a coffee you are in a good neighbourhood for some good quick eats if things turn peckish.
Disfruta la!
The fact that the Hungarian word for tomato and pardise (paradicsom) are the same could indicate a reverence paid by the Magyars to this simple fruit ( or is it a veg?). Nevertheless tomato isn’t something I’d usually associate with a chocolaterie and yet here I am, still uncertain.
Hidden away a little off the synagogue in a passageway between buildings, joining Károly körút with Semmelweiss utca, this place could easily be overlooked and yet the Tripadvisor has been and gone. It presents itself up front as all sweets and coffee: the glass casing at the counter filled with little treats and ice-cream scoops, while behind, the caffeine cardinals lie in wait. Along shelving scattered here and there, there are other curiosities, bottles of spices, bags of chocolate buttons, and other such marvels. It’s almost chemistry, even alchemy, and now as I sit here ruminating the paradicsomos csoki teaser I’ve just recently indulged in is resurrecting in the aftertaste whispering sweet nothings to my soul…a taste of more for sure, though I think I may resist in favour of sanity. Already the odd rush of a strong coffee coupled with the overtures of cocoa and tomato have me screaming of the tragedy of man.
A pleasant retreat it’s hard to imagine the bustling junction some twenty metres away and in the heart of the fifth district, come tourist time this little haven may indeed become one’s salvation in an escape from the heat and the hordes.
Year 3 of an eternal programme to get things to perfection in all ways cider-ly. First 2 years had the highlights and the low-lights, the last batch actually gassy and sweet on opening, while the previous year’s sour torment was over-ridden by the fact that there certainly was an effect, even if this was just a fast track to poisoning. Later harvesting versus earlier harvesting is also in debate this year with 3 specific time periods pencilled in. Today, 12/8/12, being the first of these with the windfalls all to choose from. The next harvest will also be windfalls and…while the last should be tree picked. Either way this year will see the introduction of the red apples from the garden too. Sweeter to taste let’s see how that translate into brewing and end product. Fingers crossed.
Well we certainly could hear her but gladly she made this her insistence point and hung up. The idea right now mid-Friday afternoon – just having been to the doctor with Tara, my own chest paining – of having to listen to this woman would have been frightful. Frankly, I needed rest. I’d slept some last night, but rather erratically. Tara being feverish – fighting a throat infection – tossed and turned the whole night through and was tracing buses and trams and trains across the ceiling by the skylight. My first impression had been that she was still dreaming. Now I’m more inclined to believe she was being just a little bit delirious. Nothing like a fever to push the mind to other streams of consciousness…
Arriving into Barcelona all those years ago, 44°C on the roadway sign, me huddled up in a thick blanket shivering with a soul deep chill, I can only reminisce to the comedic concerning my mind’s wanderings.
The gay guy at the petrol station who would have gladly taken me home. No doubt he had a cure for my fever.
The campsite we stayed at where I marked, like a wagon rut, a trail between the tent and toilet, each time a pot to hand in case both ends decided to erupt at once. They didn’t, then, to my knowledge but I’m certain they would have had I forgotten the pot.
What a place to have been. An arse-hole ripped from posterior propulsion, sitting grimacing, looking through tear-filled eyes at a lap full of vomit! Not that I was getting the satisfaction of a projectile puke by then anyway. Bile, and blood vessels bulging – ah, what sweet memories.
As for the city itself, well, I have the occasional figmented memory, flashes, though in all sincerity, beneath the brief returns I have at once an underlying and overwhelming appreciation for the toilets in that city, especially the McDonalds on Las Ramblas!
“A masik kusz, nem szeretem!” Tara announced defiantly.
She didn’t like the ‘other’ bus. Well, I knew what she meant. A funky-blue bus – air-conditioned – has arrived in Budapest and appears sporadically on our bus route, 129. That I, and Tara, both, prefer the older, smellier, rattlier models is to understand our traditionalist values…hehe.
The new one as we entered was immediately declared wrong by Tara as I lowered her into her seat. Was it the A-C? Maybe. The constant beeping, however, I fear was the real culprit, and the fact that there is that blackout on the windows. Her view was obstructed – she being every bit the explorer already, this was tantamount to blindness in front of the Greats (visual artists I mean though Pele or Messi would necessarily apply).
We suffered the journey, needless to say, songs and reassurances doing the bare minimum to provoke subsidence, and yet the truth was plain to see. She was unhappy. On the way home later, an older model, still expressed some reservations but this may have only been due to the lingering memory.
Next time she missed the funky bus deliberately with Andi and it crashed. Maybe she knew. Later the following day she began to profess a love for all motorised vehicles, at least as long as they fell within the range of securely familiar. No fancy schmancy. At least not till she turns three and wants to impress the Kindergarten ‘bastard’!
Homeward bound on the newer model now I find myself curiously inclined to wondering – what is it that is fundamentally wrong. The seats though tiered are more coach like which provides the comfort. There generally seems to be a more logical layout even for the prams, but something in that intercity feel only to the suburbs may be a little disconcerting for the tormented traveller while furthermore the air-conditioning is not exactly tip top, well not down the back at least. I’m beginning to feel the nausea as once I did on the school mini-bus we had, all huddled in together on those day trips to the beyond. Heat stuffiness, vomitessness. I’m merely implying a discomfort but I’m willing to heed my daughter’s senses more than the rationality as proffered by those in the know. Haven’t some of those clowns also condoned GM foods – those soulless, tormented miscreants, whose eventual suicide is their only true gain. The yields initially astonishing are recorded, in fact, as depleting rapidly in each subsequent year. The super pesticides used, and flaunted airborne into neighbouring non-GM fields, are developing an environment where super-pests are slowly but surely ensuring the death of everything.
Our technology, I fear, has only given us the illusion of comfort because it tinkers with our memory and encourages us to think that we cannot live any other way. Now where did I put my phone? I know: I‘ve got a map app on it and GPS, but really what use is that if I can’t even find the phone. And no, I don’t have that whistle-and-it-beeps key-finder either! Damn-it! Well enough of this. Here’s my stop…
