45 r.p.m.


Dust collects on the black grooved discs,
stored in blokeish order
of genre, date and playability.
Each is a memory, maybe:
history consigned to loft space.
Life no longer measured
by revolution's turning circles.

When told you'd swapped Led Zeppelin 4
to get the Anti Nowhere League,
somehow I knew we'd rub along.


In our heads still flailing 
pogo limbs explore B-sides,
ignore the limits of extended play.
As background noise accumulates,
alter egos nurse baseless crushes.
Click, pop, crackle and hiss:
yearning and protest jump at the scratches.

 
We trade arcane detail of line-ups
and releases: I'll see your Damned,
raise you Desperate Bicycles.

 
No more stacking singles on Dansettes then,
nor littered ransom note
of picture sleeves on bedroom floors.
Cut-off corners once were ex-chart bargains,
are now forgotten clues.
As time runs out, a needle rides
its crowded spiral to the heart.

  We've reached the point when ears turn back,
  fill their own future in. 
  What went before outstrips notes yet to hear.

 
vi.2011
 
 
 [So, foist obscure compilation CDs onto friends & they'll pay you back in kind...]