Chasin' the Breeze
for Bernadette
la petite phrase
Proust
Back home and married
after our year abroad,
the heat was on all summer
as mortgage rates
and temperatures soared.
Recording it now,
the memory’s triggered
by the music a DJ plays –
which happens to be
George Benson’s Breezin’,
the track that eased me
into jazz, clocking on
in the council yard
to get one step ahead.
And when, a little later,
the kids I taught
were into Punk: outrageous,
pierced and pimpled,
anarchy shaped
the soundtrack
that haunts them today.
How strapped for cash
and happy we were,
making the most of things
when a few
bargain records
by Mingus, Miles or Monk
wrecked the monthly
budget and kept us
in the red:
our taps at least
flowing sweetly,
no water bowsers
on our street.
<Deleted User> (13762)
Thu 8th Dec 2016 14:12
very evocative David - and that's from a still outraged and haunted ex-punk - piercings and pimples now long gone.
We were plenty cash strapped back in them days that's for sure - I remember saving up and paying £4.10 for my copy of Never Mind the Bollocks from the tiny Virgin Record Store on the Queens Rd in Brighton - never understood why it was so expensive at the time.
When punk wore off I got into Mingus, Miles and Monk amongst others but found secondhand copies at car boots a much more economical way of expanding my record collection - now since flogged on Ebay as I needed the shelves to house my extensively published works of poetry.
All the best,
Colin