"Hangover" by A. Monaghan

Am I surfacing,
becoming lighter, slow
and still drink sodden.
Coming up for air,
rising, rising, dizzy,
everything spinning
in the dimness,
a diver with the bends,
a bestial, filthy wretched thing,
face stuck to carpet,
in three day drunk
tortured clothes.

Pure, black pain
everywhere, no
prayers or tears will
save me. A victim
of myself, beaten
by my own hand,
bruised and battered,
broken and mad.

No amount of water
can wash away this thirst.
Everything is dried
and petrified.
Horror piles upon horror,
delirium Tremens!

I swat imaginary
flies and they
dissapear, nothing
left, but they
keep coming and
buzzing all night,
visions and voices.

This room is dark
but I can't get it
dark enough to ease
the pain in my skull,
in my soul. I need
to dissolve into
the night, into oblivion.

Shaking, and shocked,
solidly I try to breath,
with a huge, humming
sound in my ears
and I sweat and sweat
and still sweat.

My brain feels like
a day old turd,
floating in a bowl of piss,
and I drop and vomit,
my lungs emptied out
crushed and breathless, 
and I faint momentarily,
my legs have gone, knees
buckled and useless.

I come around
freezing cold but cleansed
and pure, if only
for a moment,
like the saints,
all their names
charging through
my brain finishing
with Francis, the
great sufferer,
and his prayer...

"Lord make me a vessel,
off thy peace..."
that's all I can
remember, and I laugh stupidly
with my head resting
on my hand, slowly
sliding to the floor.

And a tiny flower floats
down from the open
window, but with no
breeze behind it.
It is purple
and yellow and I
hold it, and it
seems like it is
enough to help me
through this terrible,
endless night.

I tear off my angry,
soaking, slept in clothes
and fall on the bed.
It is too hot and too cold
and those awful words, raging
in my head, with guilt,
and fear and madness...
never again! never again!
but I'm really saying
never enough...

I know I am destined,
doomed to repeat this
insanity and repeat
it again and again
and it will BE me
and it will be my hell.

My most treasured piece of vinyl

My 1966 , gold Parlophone label, mono pressing of Revolver by The Beatles (of course).
It still plays without a jump, bit scratchy though. Finest!

"This Dark Star" by A. Monaghan

This dark star is all sadness, all sorrow.
It is blinding, deafening and unforgiving,
offers no light, no sound and no relief,
to the one caught in it's orbit.
Like a door of thick, heavy glass.
Frosted and warped, distorting all reality,
it reduces the entire cosmos into
a single dot of pure black pain...an atom of despair.
a black hole that sucks everything into
an eternal and endless night,
shooting cold shards of ice
to pierce the heart and freeze the soul.
This dark star is always present,
it has no future and no past.
It is the weight of the whole of creation
pressing and diminishing everything
into a drowned nothing,
in a soulless and drowned world.

"When Rock Goes Acoustic" Documentary

From the title it's pretty obvious what it's about. Take a stroll down 'rock's' many highways and discover the role of the acoustic guitar in the making of modern music. Everyone from Donovan to Albert Lee to Ray Davies have their say. Excellent documentary, and as Johnny Marr says, "If you can't play acoustic, you're not a guitarist!

part one...

"Mallard Duck and Raymond Carver" by A. Monaghan

You are a well fed, bold and barking Mallard duck,
and you approach at an alarming speed.
I give you bread, I give you banana,
and that's all I have to offer.
You gobble up the bread,
and hesitantly eat the banana from my hand,
lightly nipping my finger, snapping your beak for more.
That is all I have to give you Mallard,
so, I read to you from a book of poetry by Raymond Carver.
You "quack quack" and turn away.
"Harsh critic", I say, as you waddle to the next customer.
Poetry will never feed a duck.

"4:01 AM" by A. Monaghan

It's 4:01 AM

I'm wide awake, it's the rats in the attic.

I curse, take a piss, dress,

and step outside.

It's a clear moonlit night.

I'm bent out of shape.

I want to wake the whole

Goddamn sleeping world,

so I walk.

The cold air on my face.

The first blackbirds.

A large ginger and white cat,

on the gleaming wet street.

He stops and sprays ,

looks at me, and walks of.

The cigarette tastes good

and walking calms my jangled nerves.

The outline of a cabbage tree against

the darkness of the sky.

I stop and breath the beginning of dawn.

I feel foolish living this life,

and walk home.

I rub my face hard,

and smell the smoke on my fingers.

I drink some tea

and wait for the day to come up.

It's 4:30 AM

"She Moved Through The Fair" Instrumental

Original instrumental arrangement of the traditional folk song "She Moved Through The Fair". Dropped D tuning. Influenced in part by Davy Graham's version, and although it's nothing like his version, his gave me the idea to do an instrumental arrangement.

The Nazz - "Open My Eyes"

Pop psych freakout from The Nazz, featuring a very young Todd Rundgren on magnificent form, playing a beautiful "Gibson Flying V". Featured on "The Nazz" and the first Nuggett's L.P. You have to go to YouTube to watch it for copyright reasons...

"We Fall Into Love and We Fall Out Of Love" by A. Monaghan

In moments...
I remember falling in love.
Watching you walk across a room
from a distance for the first time.
Seeing you in shadow, outlined by the sun,
a hand on your hip,
a dark blue strap,
slipping from your pale shoulder.
Watching you swim and
kissing your dark wet hair.
In moments...
I remember loving you.
Holidays, laughter, reading books out loud together,
wedding rings, markets, moving houses, adopting a cat,
buying a bed...the bed where we made love and babies.
Holding your head in the pains off labour,
with a child, our child!
Watching that new life
spilling from your heavy body.
In moments...
I remember love losing it's way
in uncertainty, confusion and dread.
You still look so young, I feel so old and we fade.
Shared photos become pictures off strangers,
and we wake and find nothing between us,
no love, no laughter, no more life.
A love, once clear becomes blurred and glassy.
Silence replaces words, we become two
different things, and in the end,
it's not the loss that is hardest to bear,
but the slow creep off change,
that gradually tears the heart into a million shreds.
The night arrives, the last night at home,
and then the first night alone,
then nothing.

"The First Time That Ever I Saw Your Face"

Instrumental version of the famous Ewan Maccoll tune, father of the English folk revival, during the 1960's. The song was adapted by Bert Jansch. My guitar is tuned to DADGAD. Played on a nylon string acoustic for a softer feel and sound. While Bert's reinterpretation strays from the original tune, it's a fitting tribute. My version is more or less a copy of Bert's.

"Danny" by Anthony Monaghan

Tune I wrote for my son. Influenced by John Fahey, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake etc...

11 Moustachioed Daughters...Viv Stanshall and The Big Grunt

This from 1970 I think, The Marty Feldman something or other. If this isn't on of the most disturbing pieces of television, then I don't know what it is. Brilliantly insane, Roger Ruskin Spears inventions, Viv Stanshall's eye's and who the hell is that little fat guy on the guitar, and more to the point where did Viv find him? Good God the seventies were a strange time...