Andi Langford-Woods

Biography

Andi is a third gender catalyst and has been working in music and performance for forty years as performer, event/tour manager and mother hen. Took control of the Acoustic Night Bristol rudder in 2005 and is a proud group member of the present core group. Andi moans about not getting enough time to write anything but press releases and listings yet manages to document time spent on the road with exotic artistes.

Samples

FIVE WORDS Give cheer, when morbidity lies deep and rank coating the fragile, potential optimism of our lives… your reaction – bugged out butterfly feeding on tension ~ they flip the switch from glee to apprehension neutered in the glare of criticism impotent, searching for a clue in the conundrum of rhythm and rhyme eyes water… just like you’ve been kicked in the nuts by that pony you thought soooo cute until at every turn in all you’ve learned it’s impossible to take any ‘Hello’ without a bucket full of suspicion it’s impossible to take any word at face value instead analysis and doubt underpin each conversation an examination of the second-hand car salesman patter ~ cluttering the hearing psychotic moths of promises blandishments to be sorted through for genuine sentiments… not trick events of delusion eyes water… like you’ve been cuckolded by your virgin bride who had fucked the whole cricket team before drinks while you… were passed out in the bridal suite after she’d drunk you under the table… Aye life’s a fucker when you just want to believe… ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS Poetry cafe , London 15 minute slam November 2005 TWO SIDES TO BEAUTY - Autumn leaves remind me of what has passed dry and brittle underfoot s h a t t e r i n g to dust sighing their last breath invisible in autumn air. Words sprouting from the saplings of the future who hold, not only the physical beauty of form but the metaphysical chlorophyl that courses thru' their soul metabolised by experience and environment. I prefer summer as my roots grow old and ache for warmth, soft ground to lie upon with just a whispering rain to refresh me. Even though, as traditonal expectations of heat are flouted by fickle climate… in the random days of +20c muscles loosen blood warms I can almost remember sap rising I can almost remember youth. ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS SEPT 2007 EL FUEGO She, was used to beds. He didn’t care whose mattress he inherited subverted insubordinated. When horizontal environmental aesthetics went OUT OF THE WINDOW, but she… she was svelte, sensuous and smelt of vanilla. It’s not certain he was aware of this, carrying with him his own cloud of polluted body odour. Not a ripe and fulsome pheromone but a rank fabric rotting testosterone aura acquired through weeks of inter-active sloth unchallenged by hot water and cleansing agents….soap. The Water Board sent him urgent letters about his worrying under use of their services Unilever quivered in their calcified corporate nervousness. Recovery vehicles, St Johns’ Ambulance and independent good Samaritans hovered around anticipating an epidemic of retching and fainting and epileptic passers-by succumbing in his vicini..ty The Latin paramour disappeared, her attraction to the rough hewn hulk and his animal aroma shattered by exposure to the skid-mark scattered bachelor landscape behind once proud door now sadly patched in five separate places to cover the drunken blows inflicted the nights keys had been lost or simply overlooked in the fumble to gain entry. So, overwhelmed by the basic lack of hygiene and appreciation of olfactory nuances (she still had not recovered from his insistence on shared nocturnal flatulences) our disillusioned olive-skinned beauty fled the neighbourhood first taking refuge in a garden shed then the opulent ambient converted loft of her English as a foreign language Prof. DE MAL EN PEOR!! OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE!! Better homeless in Hampstead than Hackney she’d thought as a well manicured hand round her shoulder had sought to bury itself between muscle and breast. The Old Spice was cloying, the hand headed West now the torso that flexed to a hot Bossa Nova was twisting away from a greying Casanoa Her dreams of romance fell apart at the seams was she doomed to be feted only by Queens? For the only good dancers were as Gay as you liked and the best sex she’d had? With a transgendered dyke… The city made her shiver with its’ cold retentive life and she dreamed of Buenos Aires and the rule of gun and knife. At least the were macho (and clean!) and had something left to prove, if you didn’t fight you wore a big hat and were a Patron of the Groove. The roasting coffee caught her as she crossed another street she bundled in, dishevelled, thin ordered Cappucino, slipped off her shoes, rubbed her feet. The Gaggia squealed and sputtered as she lit her cigarette a local eyed her lustfully as he lay another bet eyes closed she wondered “How much worse this gonna get?” “Cappucino” purred the rusty voice raising hairs upon her belly she opened her eyes _ saw a goddess in her sky and her legs quite turned to jelly. “com’esta amiga? Es tu vida una mierda? “aieee mondo mucho macho!! Ees your life getting weirder?” They left the bar much later and strolled off into the night and in the nightime silence they make a handsome sight and now El Fuego burns so fiercely turning night-time into light. ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS 2000 I’M A POET… GET ME OUT OF HERE! Part 1 I’m a Poet… get me out of here! Out of the cyber-web of on-screen networking those face-ache tickles, plasma screen pickles leave the poor PC non-savvy making tracks to lock the lavvy door where they can breathe and face no more the codec coded cookie vortex full of pop-ups that perplex and terrify the timid type who’ve never ever heard of Skype I’m a Poet… Get me out of here! Out of the writers’ spaghetti-thought-block pasta rasta full of dread-locked mental wrangles, the pen, it dangles tantalizes scornfully tabula rasa, flat slab, blanks me unused printer shuts down mournfully I’m hanging frozen… a bug in a web a matrix of matter that all seems immaterial it’s impossible to correlate the ethereal I’m a poet… get me out of here! Out of the this world of political scandals where trust is crushed by receipts for candles where hope is denied by rigged elections satisfaction offered with artificial erections and old school weed is replaced by the speed of hybridised chronic that destroys by sections the brains of the youth with no idea of truth just a vague perception that they’re ‘havin’ it large’ as psychosis creeps in like a River Thames barge I’m a Poet… Get me out of here! Out of the library where there’s just one book and every day when I take a look on the shelves for inspirational poetry it’s always the same and it’s written by me and it’s blank, it’s empty, it’s what you get when the title is “Poems I haven’t written yet” ANDI LANGFORD-WOODS JULY 2009

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.