I WISH I WAS A SEAGULL

I wish I was a seagull perched upon a lamp
pedestrians below out shopping in the rain and getting damp
I'd sit or stand then fly away
though I’m sure I’d come back soon
to sit beneath the daylight sun or at night beneath the moon

BROADMEAD GULL

ELEVEN-THIRTY

Eleven-thirty this morning we left the flat the same time, we learned later reading Metro, the life-support machine on which a boxer, shot by one or more of three men he’d asked to stop smoking in a club he was drinking at after working as a bouncer at another, was being kept alive so his family could pay their last respects, was switched off.

DELIVERY

GOT THE SHOPPING

‘Hi,’ she said when they walked in.
‘Hello,’ I said and smiled at her son who wore blue vest and trousers and a headscarf pulled tight over his skull.
‘I’ve got the keys,’ he said to me and then to his mother, ‘why’s it going up?’
‘Either someone’s called it or they got here before us and took it up,’ she said.
‘It’s coming down now,’ he said. ‘From Eleven.’
‘Oh yes.’
We got in. They first though it’d’ve made sense if it’d been me seeing as I live a few floors above them.
‘Why did you make me hold the keys?’
‘I didn’t make you hold them,’ she said. ‘I asked you because I wanted to hold this (a piece of paper in her right hand) and I’ve got the shopping.’

WATER BAGS

COUGH COUGH COUGH

She got into the lift had two bikes and three people in already.
‘Cough, cough,’ she coughed, ‘cough, cough...’
I could feel the the air from her coughing on my cheek.
‘...cough, cough, cough...’
I looked at the man had the other bike and smiled and he smiled back. I looked at daughter who raised her eyebrows.
‘...cough, cough, cough...’
My forehead against the metal side as I leaned away from her but I could still feel the gentle breeze made by the cough.
‘...cough, cough, cough...’
‘Do you need me to get out?’ I said to the man when we stopped on his floor.
‘No, it’s okay,’ he said.
I got out anyway as had the woman, '...cough, cough, cough...' and I hoped she wouldn’t get back in but she did.
‘...cough, cough, cough...’
She pressed a floor button.
‘Let it be the next one,’ but it wasn’t.
'...cough, cough, cough...'
At our floor me and daughter got out and when
‘...cough, cough, cough...’
the lift door closed daughter gasped.
‘Did you hold your breath all the way?’
‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘of course I did.’

BUBBLES IN BATH
a result of the recent hard rains fallen on Bath I happened to see while passing

VIEW

MILK

‘Going down?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She wore an overcoat over a red dress legs bare loose fitting shoes she shuffled into the lift the door closed behind her.
‘Is it still raining?’ she said.
‘It’s tipping down.’
‘I don’t mind the rain,’ she said. ‘I’m only going for milk.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yesterday was hot and that’s worse for me. It’s uncomfortable.’
She looked around the lift and I looked at my feet and picked fluuf off my black tee-shirt.
‘Here we are,’ I said as we landed.

SMASHED GLASS INCIDENT - 10TH FEBRUARY 2007

Dear Resident,

You will recall the above incident and I write to advise you of the outcome of the legal action taken by the Anti Social Behaviour Team and the Easton Housing Office against Mr Hammer, the perpetrator.

The City Council commenced possession proceedings and injunction proceedings against Mr Hammer. On the 21st June 2007, the Court made a postponed possession order against the Mr Hammer which will run until 21st June 2008. The effect of this order is that if Mr Hammer breaches his tenancy conditions, the City Council will return to Court to request a full possession order and subsequently request a warrant of eviction against Mr Hammer. In addition, the Court has also made an injunction against Mr Hammer which also runs until 21st June 2008. If Mr Hammer breaches this injunction by breaching his tenancy conditions or behaving in a manner that causes his neighbours any nuisance and/or annoyance, the City Council will return to Court to seek Mr Hammer’s commital for prison for contempt and for a full possession order and subsequent eviction.

Mr Hammer is aware of the seriousness of the Orders made against him. We hope that Mr Hammer will abide by the terms of the Orders and that you, his neighbours, will not suffer from any further anti social behaviour by him. These Orders have been obtained by the City Council both to control the behaviour of Mr Hammer and for the protection of all City Council tenants in the area. Accordingly, if Mr Hammer should cause you any nuisance or annoyance then please report the incident. Any call will e treated in strictest confidence and we hope that you will join the City Council in refusing to tolerate any crime and anti-social behaviour.

Yours faithfully,

THIS IS FOR YOU

Back home my computer wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I went to my dad’s.
‘Hello,’ I said to a man pulling on his trousers on as he came up the stairs followed by my dad who said, ‘you've been where?’
‘I’ve only just arrived,’ I said.
Behind the door of the front room opened left were two piles of paper both about a metre high. On top of one a computer like mine but with a larger screen, on the other audio recording equipment.
There was a note: This is for you, Dad

FERRIS WHEEL RIDE
today Ashton Court Festival was rained off, yesterday was different and we took a ride

POON

I got left for a younger woman.
Said he’d only be a minute but he never came back.
I was half way up Colston Street talking to a friend when I didn’t answer his call.
I must’ve walked ten miles around the festival site my legs in a slow groove by the time I got home where I picked up my bike and rode to her place.
I thought about him, what he was doing, what could happen and hoped he’d be alright...
...generous from someone abandoned for poon...

THE COFFINS ARE

‘You can wait,’ she said. ‘You’re not coming in with that I’m going to work.’
I wasn’t going to wait for her to go to her floor then for the lift to come back down before getting in myself. I was wet from riding in the rain.
‘I’ll go in first you can get in after,’ I said, ‘there’s plenty of room.’
‘I forgot for a moment,’ she said on our way up, ‘I thought it was the old lift and you had to squeeze in.’
‘How’ll they get a coffin in, I want to know,’ I said.
‘You can get one in here.’
‘But the coffin hole’s gone.’
‘Maybe there’s another one somewhere,’ she said and we looked around.
‘It’s a discreet one if there is one,’ I said. ‘Or the coffins are.’

PIGEONS SQUARED

LUNCH

He lay ashen face up on the pavement his mouth and eyes open a community police officer on each side one giving him CPR the other, both wearing gloves, kneeling, looking at the cut on the man’s high forehead.
- Hello. Im at the airport leaving in 20mins! And there is a flight bound for southampton..But anyway..See you in1.5 weeks..
I walked past to the post office, got served more quickly than usual, paid a few bills.
From the post office to the newsagent. On my way people in doorways, standing near the kerb watching the drama unfold on the far pavement.
- Im on the same plane as peter kay!
Talking to each other two women smiled when one said, ‘that looks like hard work.’
Over the road against a wall an ambulance arrived. The traffic stopped by the man from the newsagent. Then he walked over to the focus of attention.
- He looks kinda normal actually. Which is to be expected but a shame..
A few minutes and the ambulance left with the man loaded in the back on a stretcher. I put my phone away and went to lunch.


A DIAMOND GEEZER

‘You got any money?’ I said to her outside Sainsbury’s on the Triangle near the railings I’d locked my bike on the way home from work.
‘No,’ she said.
‘This is all the change I’ve got,’ I said looking at the coins in the palm of my left hand in my right a five pound note.
‘Here,’ I said, ‘have this.’
‘Oh cheers man, you're a geezer,’ she said, taking it, ‘a diamond geezer.’

CAPACITY

The camera is a migrant worker standing at the old end of Broadmead New End.
It follows the journey of a blue inflated balloon blown by a gentle breeze from outside Cex to over the road and then behind the tractor unit of an artic the trailer of which is loaded with breeze block.
He was sitting no more than ten yards away from me when he threw up the vomit falling down the lapels of his jacket the front of his shirt and on to the lap of his trousers.
I helped him changed his clothes and clean up and he gave me something to read by Winnicott.
‘He’s a top psychoanalyst,’ he said.
The piece was titled: MIND AND PSYCHE-SOMA;
- mind means something, he wrote, quite distinct from psyche;
- the psyche is concerned with soma and body functions;
- the mind catalogues events, stores up memories and classifies them;
- mind makes use of time as a measurement and can measure space;
- mind relates cause and effect.
- mind recognises the noises of preparation, is able to anticipate, seeing the whole picture using its link making capacity.

DOG

The lift stopped on Three on the way down.
‘You see that dog?’ said the man got in.
I looked to where he pointed at the dog was between the doors to the stairs.
‘That’s a big one,’ I said.
‘A crossbreed,’ he said, ‘and I don’t like dogs.’
We got down to Ground the door opened and there was the dog at the bottom of the stairs on its way out.
‘Do you mind?’ said the man moving back into the lift and pressing One.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not keen on dogs...especially that size.’
The lift went up.
‘He a friend of yours?’ I said. ‘Does he live on your floor?’
‘No.’
On Ground the man walked in front of me to the exit peered round the corner checking the dog was gone.
He held the doors for me on our way out, 'sorry about that,’ he said.
‘No worries.’
‘Thanks.’

PIT PIGEON

THIS HOUSE

When I got back from being south of the river the two gulls I’d filmed last night were outside the flats...at least I thought it was them the way they looked at me...feeding on the worms they were is what I thought...they watched me as I passed before resuming.
Three young women stood by a man lying on the floor in front of the lift the strap of a shoulder bag wrapped round his legs and a coat over his feet.
There was blood and cuts looked like they’d been made by a sharp object on his face and bald head and a strong smell of alcohol.
‘We were only visiting,’ said one of the women when I asked what happened.
‘He was in the lift when it opened,’ said the another.
The third was on the phone.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘How old do you think he is?’
‘Fifty-five, sixty,’ I said kneeling down by the man, ‘how old are you? How old are you?’ a bit louder.
‘Fifty-four,’ he said and I saw blood in his mouth.
‘He’s been hit. Look at the cuts,’ said one of the women.
The police and an ambulance arrived.
‘The attacker still here?’
The paramedic knew the man’s name.
‘What you doing in this house?’ he said.
‘What you mean "this house"?’

GULL PAIR
these gulls were opposite the entrance to where I live. I'm not sure if it was me they found disturbing or the approach of torrential rain

IT’S THE PHOTOGRAPHS

‘Did we survive the weekend?’ I said as we stood on the corner by the Spar on our way home from the Chelsea and Easton Art Trail. He was in the off licence buying a few bottles of beer.
‘You know how much they are in the Spar?’ he’d said. ‘One sixty-nine. That’s twenty pence more than Jim’s.’
‘That’s a lot,’ I said. ‘Still cheaper than the pub though.’
‘But I’m not in the pub.’
‘A man in the pub asked me if I was the Stokes Croftian,’ I said.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, “yes,” and asked him how he knew and he said, “it’s the photographs.”’