dream diaries…112

21.06.22

Hull is such a miserable place. The people are inbreds and will accost, accuse and assault you as you leave the dreary grey and red plastic coach station. All semblance of civility is absent here. I am unfortunate enough to find myself thrust among this ugly mob one grizzled afternoon in autumn (it is dry and the crisp packets crunch noisily underfoot). I’ve had to come to this place to return some rusted, useless and ancient hulk (what is it? a dynamo? a lathe? a pump?) to an address on Filcher Street. I have one of those big blue bags from IKEA that are popular with students; it is slung over my shoulder. A bubble haired boy steps out from a doorway. He wants to know what’s what and proceeds to rummage in my blue bag. We perform a scruffy dance of push and pull; round and round we go. His voice is gruff and his grip is like a vice and he steals a LURKERS badge that I have pinned on my lapel. I am not a fan of this band and would find it hard to recall any of their songs, but, for some reason, the notion that they hailed from west London – Hammersmith; or, probably Fulham – remains with me. The tiny purple coloured badge is thrown to the ground and is lost. I prise myself away from the stupid looking vicious boy, and now I find myself on a street where all the shops are boarded. Laughing beggars beg. Kids, spitting, pull wheelies. The litter pirouettes…

22.06.22

Walking with IW through an approximation of real and imagined places, including Framwellgate, Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, Hexham railway station and a quiet, border village. The village green is bound by flint faced shops with sun-shined glass, cobbled streets. All the shops are closed. There are some swings on the green and we play on them, reading aloud from a volume that we pass between us. IW wears a blue cotton dress and the poems sing like shopping lists. A man appears from a phone box and shouts something, but his voice is too thin to carry, so we ignore him. The swings rise and from this new vantage I see that the village is actually a vast city that stretches in all directions. The green is the size of a postage stamp and the blue dress breezes.

25.06.22

Lyme Regis is busy. It is high summer. I stand at the park entrance next to the Regent cinema (prior to the fire, 2016). I can see the Cobb through the tree line. The sea sparkles. Punk Wayne tells me that he has started his own business – an electrical shop. He proudly displays a black polo shirt that reads Hardcore Electricks. I pull him up on the spelling, but he looks confused.