Paul J Penton – Songwriter

He thinks he’s the life of the party, now on can number eleven he’s almost fully tanked. Dancing with abandon, arms and legs flailing like a tank landing on D-Day. The river of alcohol infused into his blood makes him think he’s attractive to women and he keeps sidling up to them , interrupting conversations with bulldozer comments only to be given look of shock & horror as if he’d just emerged from an open pit latrine. The alcohol dulls the rejection to the size of a gnat and he carries on aping around and around. By can number fifteen things are getting way out of control. His semaphor arms and legs are starting to hit photo frames and trinkets off of shelves, peoples patience has become a guillotine ready to lop off his head at the next incident and pretty soon he finds himself sitting out on the curb. The duff, duff from the house party now a muted noise that merges into the starry night he’s looking up to. It’s so simple right now, he doesn’t notice the dewy grass seeping into his clothes. When he wakes he won’t remember any of it, never does, just feeds on the stories of his stupidity – somehow he becomes an eight year old whenever he drinks- somehow he never remembers- but he now does it now out of habit as a way of getting attention- it’s the only attention he ever gets – it’s a sad sort of life he’d rather forget and he does right about can number eight.

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Looking for Mr Perfect-Demo 5 May 2009
© 2009 Penton

She’s been chasin’ Mr Perfect for almost all her life
love’s come and gone been lost and won – she’s ain’t nobodies wife
her bio-bomb is tickin’, she’s almost had her run
she knows she’d better find him soon –
or it’s over and done

She’s always known precisely what he needs to be
muscles lean and tight blue jeans – smile by D & G
but all her aspirations have never been fulfilled
every bar stool disappointment just left her with a chill

To get her dates she uses the best technology
she’s a heavy duty user on RSVP
she meets her dates by G.P.S. and lets them go by S.M.S.
but her love life’s a crazy Mess …….
And there’s no Mr perfect
no Mr Perfect

She works out like a demon to keep herself in shape
kick boxing on a Tuesday night , it’s Tai-bo on Thursday
The corporate life she’s livin’ don’t leave her too much time
for chasin’ men and wonderin’ when
he’s gonna arrive

I’ve watched on from the side lines I’ve seen the highs and lows
heard her laughter watched the tears
chased away those blues and fears
she meets her dates by G.P.S. and lets them go by S.M.S.
but her love life’s a crazy Mess
still there’s no….no Mr perfect, no Mr Perfect

She always wants to tell me how bad each date has been
she calls me up at half past ten saying that she’s over men
If she could drop that bar a notch and live without the Rolex watch
I’d be everything she wants I’d be
her Mr perfect …
her Mr perfect
her Mr Perfect

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What is it about a crumpet? It’s different to bread, spongy, pliant,not well defined. Biting into a piece of toast is like cracking glass, but a crumpet is like putting a trampoline in your mouth and letting loose a bouncing ball. I don’t indulge often, but when I do my preference is toasted, with butter and jam. There’s a weird contrast as the lower part – as flat as a surfboard – meets the curling wave of my tongue. But with a piece severed and bouncing in my mouth, my tongue engages in a conversation with the oozing butter and jam. It gets caught in the pock marks that crater the surface, freshly bubbled from a graze with the toaster. I chew and chew and it seems I’m getting nowhere, unless I’ve only had bad ones that is – does anybody do home made crumpets? How would you? Are these just a British delicacy? I think of OLD British sit-coms- Benny Hill- On the busses -where woman are referred to as ‘Crumpet’ does that still exist? I guess it relates back to tasting good- maybe.

When they’re cooking you gotta keep an eye on them, under the grill it’s a contest that requires constant diligence, though – all we really want is thoughtlessness in the morning with our breakfast. One plate of thoughtlessness please- to go would be great. But, of course thoughts and worries of the coming day start to unfold from the newspaper in your mind, they start to squeak, moving like a broken down car and they’re here already. It doesn’t have to be that way though- it might be excitement about things to come – depends on your situation- your perspective. So why not get the day running sweetly with a nice spongy crumpet? Perhaps douse it in maple syrup watch out don’t drip on fingers or they might be sticky-wicky for the rest of the day……

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Rockin’ Ropes I think it was called down there in Rotarua N.Z. We arrived at a yard full of telegraph poles with ropes stretched out in place of telegraph wires. Yes we were going to be walking these thin strands soon After a quick safety talk we don harnesses. Cradles are strapped across our shoulders and under our groins like a parachute harness.

The first pole is easy, hand over hand I ascend. The cold memory of the metal speaks to my hands. 20 feet up, stretched between two poles are two ropes a body height apart – the idea is to shuffle along them For safety we are tethered to a rope to catch us if we fall. It looks easy, but the reality is more challenging – there is no solidity when you’re on the rope. My hands slip and rasp along the top rung of knotty threads, my feet yo yo on the bottom one. The difficult part is when I counterbalance with my feet, my body goes out at an angle and the rope begins oscillating. It feels as if there’s nothing solid beneath me and my straining arms give up and I fall. A moment of panic, a pump of adrenaline from my racing heart and I’m caught by the safety rope.

I progress through all the levels heading toward the final test: Another telegraph pole is scaled – this time all the way to the top. Standing on top of it is tricky-but manageable I sway vertigiously for some moments before fixing my gaze on a trapeze some several feet out of reach. This is the final test – a leap of faith, all I see is the bar and the clear air in between. I know I can do it after the build up of the day, but it looks just a little too far………

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Blue dot, green dot, yellow dot, red dot. Splotches of colour, perfect circles on glossy white background. A dial spins, lands on a colour, now hands and arms and legs octopus toward the nearest blob. Laughter ripples through the room as limbs bend at impossible angles to accommodate. Muscles feel the strain – being tensioned and ratcheted to breaking point- to failure point. The selector spins again the pointing arrow propellers around the selections fixing on yellow. I need to reach behind to make this one.
My torso is twisted now into a strudel. The plastic matting is waxy and cool underhand. It crinkles as my palm rests the yellow slot. Somebodies leg shoots beneath the bridge my arm is making. More laughs float in the air, they seem to be coming from a subterranean chasm somewhere under my belly which carries a stream of tears to my eyes. We all start to shake and sob and collapse into a writhing heap. It’s that laughter that makes you shake so much it hurts, you know, that kind where if someone says another word – ANY word – you will just erupt into another round.

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I quiet enjoyed the train journey into the city on Tuesday nights, it was unusual for me as mostly it’s the bike or the car- but parking would have been impossible , so, I sat in the artificial light of the carriage observing fellow passengers engaged in books or I-pods or conversations – some half overheard – like the folks who seemed to be bent on discussing the downfall of a family member – I think the guy was egging her on so he could get her into bed – not suggesting he and her were related in any way- but it was all out there for anybody to tune in on.

Writing class met at 6 pm for around two and a half hours. I didn’t really know what I was doing there but as we talked and walked through various things I began to see the threads that bonded narrative and song. Hoping to get myself more oriented toward the page I had undertaken the task and was the faced with the challenge now of concocting a short story in a week! Where do you start? What do I possibly have to say? Surely I had to have some hint of selfness in the story, just creating something out of thin air would not do.

I open up a new word document, it’s whiteness staring at me like an interrogation light, shining into the back of my mind trying to pry some sort of answer out of me, and as usual a word appears, more a word than a concept so I punish the keys with that and then another and another – and lo and behold there’s a sentence, now whether it’s remotely good I don’t know, but it’s about something- a guy who fixes photocopiers, hmmmm what could he be doing today – hmmmm -fixing photocopiers, maybe we need some ‘love interest’, yes – he could be attracted to the receptionist who escorts him into the building, maybe she could be modeled on that receptionist from the doctors surgery last week….. and there it is , the ‘characters’ start to grow flesh and blood and have there own thoughts as if they have been existing in the world all this time, you get to know them the more you write the more they ‘talk’ to you. are they imaginary friends? The thing is, it’s a ’short’ story so you need to get to the point QUICK- unlike a song where you have to get to the point even QUICKER- but it’s good practice, useful for when that really good idea hits home and you set aside the time to work on things.

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Eyes scanning the skies for invaders, he sits on a telegraph pole near where the cross member is bolted to the post , looking on with radar eyes. A bulbous black and white body, almost like a bumble bee it seems it should not fly, but when you’re walking in his territory a flutter of wings is all you know in the instant before he attacks with scraping claws and chiselling beak. There’s a momentray panic as you wonder what the hell’s going on, the impulse is to dive and fold under yourself, a reflex action, a flinch. Hands raise up like punching levers as the swooshing wings rise up for another swoop. Guarding the territory, the black and white uniform turns to Stasi Grey. A fascist flight opportunist, scanning the world form his perch looking for objects to decorate the nest. Protecting the youngsters with their emaciated bodies in need of filling, thin stringy necks and plucked bodies as yet unfeathered- no wonder he wants to protect his investment.

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Secret secrets, a cape and black shall swishing through a forest carried by thundering horses hooves. The mask of Zorro. Batman the caped crusader. The music from the TV show buzzes in my head, that electric guitar like a buzz-saw, red horns blaring on the landscape of imagination. Bruce Wayne in his day to day life reversing roles hding the cool suave rubber super hero. Superman in skin tight uniform, muscles bulging, tasting fresh air at 30,000. Faster than a speeding bullet, whispering death for villains doing dozens of dastardly deeds. His alter ego- Clark Kent- trips over his own tongue, surley it’s five feet long, a great slug disguising the super incognito super hero. All those super heroes with split their personalities, how do they stay sane- super will power?

I bet villains wish they could be more incognito; stepping into shadows, dissolving into walls,wearing a lightweight suit of lead to avoid X-Ray vision. But then what work would there be for a super hero? Are these old ‘super’ heroes manifestatitons of a frightrened nations personae from the fifties, from the edge of a cold war where failure was not an option and people needed something to believe in. Were they doing the bidding of the gangly government- incognito?

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Rows of serving dishes in shining porcelain white. A metal tray full of carved slices of meat on the side board. The air filled with the smell of roasted potatoes and lamb. Lovely. The knife saws through a shell of a crackling potato skin which is dipped in an oil slick of gravy. Creamy potato coats my tongue, and gravy washes it down. Chasing peas around the plate – the only thing I’d eat then…. but I go back for more of the leftovers; another slice or two flops at the end of the fork another potato punctured and a geyser of gravy. There’s not much conversation, just the serious business of eating, the occasional grunt of a chair leg, the squeak of a knife or fork against the plate – so serious this chewing and slicing and leaving nothing behind, take no prisoners, kill the enemy defeat the invader.

Light streams in from the front window where we have the Sunday roast, the leaves on the grand avenue of elms twirl in the breeze like kids handheld windmills, the crystal blue sky punches my eyes through a gauze of white shade cloth. I think about after lunch – getting on the bike, making a ramp and racing at it full pelt. The boards will crack and bend as the bike climbs and then a there’s a moment of freedom and weightlessness as the frame soars. The thud on hitting the ground is jarring – the lunch will be well stirred by the end of the afternoon. Beyond that there’s not much else to do, maybe paint some model soldiers or something or strum guitar for another couple of hours…..

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Mum snored. Big time. I’d hear it through the walls. How did dad ever manage to sleep with all that going on? It was sort of like a car skidding to halt in slow motion. Flaps of air opening and shutting as if they were cogs grating over the gears of a not so well oiled machine. Their bedroom was strange just a curtain across the lounge room, sometimes when I couldn’t sleep I’d go to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I wouldn’t turn on any lights so mostly felt my way there, over the soft blue baubles of the lounge suite and the sensuous curve of the dining table. On the way back I’d spy a tiny glowing orange ember – Dad smoking in bed – perhaps because the snoring had woken him up.

Now apparently I snore. I have no proof of course, but have been told. I wonder if there’s a way to set a recorder going or something similar to check the severity. Apparently I am nudged me when it’s going on and it all comes to a halt. It can be dangerous I hear , you can actually stop breathing all together. hmmmmmm

I know when I’ve been away on trips with other people camping or being stuck in a communal bunk bed situation it’s quite amusing to wake in the night and hear snorting buffaloes in the night. I can’t help but think of a saw rasping slowly over a piece of wood as it’s drawn back, each tooth trying to dig in and bite, just the way the closing passages in your nose do.

In high school the lads would come in from the country and stay at my place on school dance nights- we’d get drunk then go to the dance, come home- get drunker and the play monopoly or something crazy ’til two a.m. – then lights out and we’d all nod off- with some snoring. One night somebody gets up and knocks over the game- has a piss, returns and the snoring resumes- In the darkness Dobbo’s voice says sleepily – “Pom- have you picked up the monopoly yet”?

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