I could build a fort
out of the boxes
stacked up,
almost threatening me with insecurity
and false hope, a twin assault
on my nerves as I lead up
to the big day.
Fort anxiety, Fort Pride comes before a fall,
Fort…possibility, Fort…no, Garrison of optimism,
I didn’t sign up to the French Foreign Legion
or to be the bag man at Custer’s last stand,
this Norman tower I build from boxes
filled with the death of trees, Pulp Fiction,
is today the stronghold in which I
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Love, it is the greatest thing, the poets and the pop stars agree on that at least, even if their view points on the rest of life and existence differ wildly. Love is like a beast, it is the slow caress by Time. It can hurt, confuse and exhilarate and almost never in equal terms, never as if the times or the beat of the heart were in synch; but then Seasons of Love rarely do come together with the idea of the ever-lasting, it is only in the anthology that we see the potential of the relationship, no matter the form, no matter the aspiration, all that matters is love.
It was just a brush of lips
from what was at first a passing
stranger, undecorated, unperfumed,
more than a hint of beauty
tucked away in foreign,
never to be explored shores,
a stranger that came to represent so much more,
a passing of daily time, now
separated by sea and the once only,
never to be repeated kindness
of such youthful female gaze;
it was just a brush of lips,
that I would never taste again.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
You cannot choose family, it is a readymade solution to helping you in sour times, it is the possible agony to be expected when life takes the sad or unexpected turn; family is shrouded in the playful and sometimes the jealous, without it though nature and society become off-balance, you can fall and your sister will pick you up, but quite often there is nothing more helpful at your back than knowing and saying to yourself that the Brothers Of Mine will be watching, ready and waiting for action.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
In the end it is how you approach life that makes you stand out, despite what the day may throw at you, no matter the events leading up to the moment you take the stage upon; you glare in to the lights, you see the audience’s own hopes and dreams reflected back at you, and you sing and perform as if the world and its consequences don’t matter. For the point is simple, you do everything in your power to sing as if you are bringing the night to an end at Madison Square Garden, that you are saying Goodnight Manhattan.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The true rocker stands in defiance against trends and the spit in the eye from the other genres as they still find ways to suggest that the once thought uncool double denim look was a reflection of the music, that snobbish would sneer with delight, that the arrogant would openly mock, and yet throughout it all the true rocker stood firm, held their council and their own tongue and just enjoyed the ride in every form that was available.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
We ignore those who we should be holding up high every day, it is an action that costs a little piece of our soul, a small sliver of our humanity, until all that could have been evolution, progress in our hearts, becomes shrouded in the shadow of degeneration, the waxing and the waning of someone’s art too fragile, too at risk from the latest trend and the chase of the obscure celebrity fashion, the endorsement of those that quite honestly would step over the passionate and interesting in favour of the scent of the superficial and the phoney.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Oliver Ford Davies, Ronke Adekoluejo, Adrian Scarborough, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ken Nwosu, John Dagleish, Amanda Lawrence, Katy Carmichael, Orton O’ Brien, Tristan Sturrock, Jasmine-Simone Charles, Paul Chahidi, Simon Farnaby, Mackenzie Crook, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen, Toby Jones.
It is, with hindsight, easy to suggest that humanity in the 20th Century lost its way, that we as a collected species lost our wonder and our innocence to a new way of thinking, a rational that arguably had its genesis in the self-imposed, stiff upper lipped facade philosophy created by the Victorians and to which even now has eaten away at our ability to forget the dreams we had as children and the wondrous stories we could weave.
I have shaken
the hand
of a man
who went on
to become a President,
and told a former
Prime Minister to sail away.
I have been certain of where I am
half way round the world
yet still felt lost
as I looked into the eyes of love, never sure
how I managed to lose
my bearings and my heart
in such a small leap.
I have witnessed death
and blood congealing in my lap,
I have helped a cow give birth
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The environment is not just important, it is sacred. This urge to protect the place where we live, where we play, where we exist but for a moment in time, should be fulfilling, should be overriding, and yet like an errant fisherman who places his rod over the mizzen side when the sea is teeming with cod on the starboard side, some cannot be told that the belief they hold is a mistake which could have far-reaching effects.