On campus, first light on Holloway road, barbed wire and drizzle beyond my office window, Kendrick half time show on repeat, my upcoming lecture on Epistles and Monologures, Pope, Browning, William Carlos Williams, Plums, blue collar staff effin and jeffin on the other side, fackin’ ‘ell, that was once my vibe too but I’ve been a ponce for far too long, a skint ponce but still a ponce, i have a little game controller on a lanyard that I wear when I write to remind myself that its all just play, that there is always pleasure to be had even when all i can spin out is prolix and mediocrity, I dwell for a moment about what Cheeto Mussolini made of it up in his rafters, don’t give much thought to eagles and chiefs, safety rugby, there is a pressure to keep up on things, to wedge the finest point of one’s wit into a cleft in the Zeitgeist, but I find that I’ve got more business with the drizzle and the barb wire than I do with the cosplaying that political discourse has become, there are dates and book titles that I need to remember, I scribble them in a yellow notebook just in case, i remember all the sniffy noses and cleared throats on the commute, hope none of them made it into my system, hope that the students aren’t similarly plague-ridden, i get here early every Monday to bear rush hour and get a couple of hours to myself, i repeat one of two glimpse practice mantras – relax, release, open – or – unhook, drop, open – they’re both little doorways to the same thing, a sense of my body thoughts and actions being preceded by awareness and within awareness, all of it coming into being, the rain and the barbed wire and my bad habits always returning, a van pulls up at the next building with British Premium Meats written on its side, the halftime show is a liminal space made sublime
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