Sometimes I feel like two people.
Surviving the day,
then alive on the page.
Flip the switch.
Words spilling.
My soul expanding,
my mind on fire.
Sparks.
Love.
Meaning.
Could be a song,
a riff,
a smile.
Connection
Light.
Through the alleyways and avenues,
or flying high above the city.
The beach as the waves crash.
A little cottage in the hills.
Or here,
on the front step.
Writing this.
Music playing.
The Rolling Stones.
Flip the switch.
(c) Paul Andrew Sneddon
I thought I was at the end:
the end of time,
the end of life,
the end of the line.
But I was at the beginning.
You’ve got to start somewhere.
I started here, started again, down by the water, the river.
I thought I hallucinated myself on the water of the Clyde,
on a raft, going into the city.
I gave myself a wave as I drifted by.
When I looked over, I smiled a toothless grin.
My eyes were blank, empty.
I saw it on the news: they pulled a body from the river.
Or was it a mannequin?
Sometimes I dream,
in the light hours,
that I am on a boat,
out of the city,
down the coast, home.
I wake up couch surfing in Partick,
or on the bus,
or in the library.
Sometimes you can’t go back.
That little pub on the corner,
drinking away my days,
drinking away my time,
my money,
my looks,
such as they are.
My liver is operating under protest,
much like my mind, much like the rest of me.
Analogue in a digital world,
as I carried on oblivious to the world around me,
as it shrank from the work,
from the stage,
from home to the bar,
to the glass,
the bottle,
the end.
You could leave it there if you like.
But it would be a lie.
That’s not the end of the story.
I’ve seen that story before,
like sickness on the wall,
like piss from the radio,
like blood in the lungs:
grace and love
and blood and tears
and guilt and pain
and forgiveness.
And luck,
lots of luck,
and some bloody stubborn people
that wouldn’t let it go.
Get up,
get up off the floor,
get up you son of a bitch,
get up.
Regret, mistakes,
pain, hurt,
love, forgiveness,
light,
a blinding light,
a hospital bed.
“We can’t keep saving you, man.
The country is on its knees.”
The old guy in the next room, light escaping.
Get up,
get up off the floor.
The nurse, the nurse,
she whispered in my ear,
“Get up you son of a bitch, get up, because I love you.”
I woke up in the house, on our couch.
Heard you calling from garden,
your nurse’s uniform on the line.
Sunshine in your eyes.
I am a lucky one.
© Paul Andrew Sneddon
I woke up this morning.
My head hurt.
The room looked a little…
There were words
all over the floor.
Were they resting,
or were they broken?
Were they mine
or were they yours?
Words I thought could fix things
made them worse.
I heard them crying last night,
or was that you?
Pulling the words closer for comfort.
But they slipped away,
like sweet nothings in the morning light.
I tried to hold onto them.
I wrote them down.
But they refused to be tamed.
On the pavement,
but the rain washed them away.
Spray-painted the walls,
but the council painted over them.
I picked over the words you said
’til they were numb.
Dead.
Ghosts.
I stood by the river
in an Ayrshire storm,
in the rain and the wind,
the words at my throat
like a knife.
I let them go.
And I searched
High,
Low,
in the pubs,
in the libraries,
in the everyday,
in a pure morning.
And I found my own.
© Paul Andrew Sneddon
Part 4 of Rock and Roll is Dead
Across the bar, Ami was flicking through her notebook of songs and lyrics, glancing at the empty glass and empty seat opposite her.
They would have to play fucking Idlewild at the end of a breakup. Fuck it. It was done.
Call me a fucking bitch. Prick. He’ll be away home to tell his maw all about it. Either that or he’ll be back for an acting award.
She pushed her specs back up her nose and swallowed hard. How the fuck are people together for forty years? she wondered. What the fuck do they talk about?
I mean, come on, dating a dentist? Plenty of money, but the chat? Christ. Putting my guitars away. Fuck off. The cheek of it.
Ah well, fuck him. What’s done is done.
She had lost some security maybe but now she had her freedom. Fair trade.
She browsed her phone; there was the listing. Wednesday night. The open mic would be on down the road. It had been a while, but she had a new song that she was aching to let out into the world.
She looked over to the bar and saw Lauren holding court. She wondered about all the Idlewild songs tonight; it seemed unusual for this bar. Normally it’s all new songs and rock and roll.
She got up and walked to the door. She heard the two lads arguing about Led Zeppelin and online, but she kept walking out into the cold Glasgow night.
She walked along the pavements as the streetlights lit up, and she could hear the thud of bass from the Riverside Dome.
(c) Paul Andrew Sneddon
Sometimes I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a volcano.
The silence of the night. Weighs you down. Sometimes it makes it hard to breathe.
I felt like if you whispered then the whole world would hear.
But you knew it couldn’t be true. Could it?
I watched the cold, steady rain fall through the early hours.
The light reflected on the puddles and cracked pavements as daylight bled in.
The streets were empty, the silence broken by an occasional ambulance as it sped up the street . Its lights flashing, siren howling at the crossroads.
Life and death.
In a moment.
I sat by the window.
I’d been up most of the night.
Sleep had become like a fugitive lover you could no longer depend on. Here and then gone, with no guarantees when it would be back.
My brain was running ragged, worrying about everything and nothing all at once. In an exhausting battle with itself.
I’d given up trying to sleep and got myself a coffee. It sat untouched on the window frame. That smell used to give me comfort.
Now, like so much of life, it just drifted past.
A little mountain of silver packaging sat next to the coffee cup, my constant companions. Pills to slow a racing heart, antidepressants, and sleeping pills. The doctor had scared me off the sleeping pills. They were very addictive, so I should take one or two and then stop.
How bad could it be?
Bad.
It felt like I was back at the volcano’s edge again.
I was already hung up on insomnia and everything else. I really didn’t want an addiction to pills to go with it. But I’m not a doctor. Maybe I should have just gone for it.
The room was cold, and I noticed my breath in front of me.
I picked up my notebook. The page screamed back at me. Empty. Line after line. A song unwritten.
Words unsaid.
I looked out the window and saw a milk float making its way up the street.
Had I slipped some gap in time? Who gets milk delivered these days? It made its way up the street but didn’t stop at any houses.
Just kept going.
Was I dreaming?
I caught my reflection in the window. My beard was a little greyer. A few more lines on my face. But I didn’t recognise my eyes.
The brilliant blue was gone. Just dulled and faded.
A scream built up inside me.
My heart raced.
I opened my mouth but no sound came.
Silence.
I drew in a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried again.
There was a small rumble, which quickly evaporated to nothing as the breath escaped my lungs.
Emptiness.
Everywhere.
I wanted to dial 999.
Call an ambulance.
Call a doctor.
Call someone. Anyone.
My words choked me as I looked around desperately, my hands at my throat.
I watched as the number 22 bus made its way up the street.
I saw the lights.
People setting about their day.
Travelling into work.
I tapped on the window.
I hit the window as hard as I could, but no one noticed.
I slumped back in my seat, exhausted.
My arms fell heavy to my sides as I felt the sweat rolling down my forehead.
It felt like my head was melting as I looked into the window.
It seemed like the world was shrinking and my face was disappearing.
Into nothing.
I looked around the room.
My guitar stretched out, losing its shape, melting before my eyes.
The room began to bend and stretch, losing all shape. An endless emptiness stretching as far as I could see . In every direction. Forward and back.
The future and the past.
I woke up on the floor.
7 a.m.
I had slept for 15 minutes.
My mouth was dry.
My head ached.
I looked up , and there was no roof.
Just rain.
© Paul Andrew Sneddon
Paul Andrew Sneddon 