CEREMONY

Divided by joy
Multiplied sorrow
Hooks rolling bass
Ploughing grooves
The band follow

Buoyant ebullience
Across F and C
Each billet-doux
Bursts like
Pomegranate seeds

Skittish hi-hats
That jitter
And scratch
And tattoo sixteenths
Across multiple tracks

Then

It arrives
Pregnant and quivering
With promise
And caution
Looking up
Through a fringe
Of Nervous
Buzzcock distortion

Clippered bumble bee

Freed

That bend
And
That note

That simplest of riffs
All of Heaven knows

It falls across the beat
Like a self conscious shadow
Sliced by steel rain
On staves that are fallow

The chiming elegy
Of tragedy
This post joy
Modern ceremony

A Rhythm Impediment
A stuttering snare
Door slamming
Mini deaths
Orgasmic despair

That punctuates heartbreak
Broken
Stained glass
No colour by numbers
Smashing
hues of the past

Subtle hints of anthems
for the warehouse kids
The mourning band
Still broken now
will one day embrace bliss

It's a long way from 1976
The lesser free trade hall
Pistols gig

And then Bernard sings

Mournful
Elegiac
Electronic mosaic
celebratory lament
As if androids
are praying

If songs are all friends
Made just for the lonely
This haunted band
held out their hands

With the gift of ceremony