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Gallant Encounters

by Outside Your House

supported by
Paul
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Paul really really good art rap album, OYH are a gift to the durham scene Favorite track: My Indefensible Acts.
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1.
Thoughts 04:12
Tom taught me the word sonder Later pinging it through Alta Vista Have to remind myself what a noun is Never top of the educational lists Sleeping in the Wendy House as the first books were passed out It’s just a thing, a person, an idea, a name for something All around us are messily latticed, unwritten epics Part forgotten by the protagonists Pausing in my perambulations I stare at the Great Bear Though with those legs he looks more like a fox or a frog, or a fighting sled dog In the thawing North, Douglas firs hide and seek you Outside a bleak view Take a picture and crank up the brightness Take a picture and crank up the brightness Take a picture and cut out the contrast Pull through colours that weren’t even there The closeness, the coldness, the doses I lost focus, lost touch with old friends, did not seek amends Eyes open during grace, silent in the amens, the empty plates Look round the table, reach out for the ladle, hands I can’t see stop me The same ones that rock me to sleep ten times each night Take a picture and crank up the brightness Take a picture and crank up the brightness Take a picture and cut out the contrast Pull through colours that weren’t even there I no longer care who was right, though we both know it was me The mirror behind the bar revealed it all There was no fight just flight, downstairs Recurring dreams of swallowed pride Tried to stop being so soft, but the intent is lost in the wash Yeah, the intent is lost in the wash Take a picture and crank up the brightness Take a picture and crank up the brightness Take a picture and cut out the contrast Pull through colours that weren’t even there
2.
Would you still be leaving if I wore glasses Or gave up rapping to teach science classes? If I was less passive aggressive and more angry aggressive? Less obsessive about tennis? You know I met Rod Laver once At the urinal both nodding and smiling Never asked about his 200 titles, just where the beer was Never meet your idols Jim Courier pushed me and called me a drunken limey You remind me I regaled you with this once or twice before But he was the king of the court, yeah he was the king of the court Would you stay if I was less cowardly with the neighbours And hadn’t interrogated poor Kate about being an accountant? Was more well-groomed, plucked ear hair, used razors Fought for you with no hesitation, excelled in gallant encounters Not my borrowed stories of escapes from bouncers Or the answers I gave to dodge fines at libraries From now on I’ll be pulling pensioners from fires and going back for their budgies Drinking in rough pubs on weekends to catch fists and barstools I’d backflip to catch a thief and act like it’s all average in my day If it’d make you stay You learnt dance moves on your dad’s feet I’m a minus on your balance sheet I slept in parties that I crashed Sprawled on the carpet Borrowed beers in my jacket Now, I rarely agree with anything cos my spine clicks when I nod my head And I’m deafened by my breathing when I’ve ear plugs in to block the sound of the wind So I’m wrestling with all the chores I haven’t done The unglossed doors, the numbers not dialled, the burnt on béchamel sauce left to soak I’m a collapsed pile Unread email subject lines generate through my pineal gland ‘til it all fades to sepia Hastened on by my anaemia You learnt dance moves on your dad’s feet I’m a minus on your balance sheet I slept in parties that I crashed Sprawled on the carpet Borrowed beers in my jacket
3.
Wizard of Oz 03:46
My moods are conducted by the weather So when it snows I tiptoe softly by your house I know I’m always saying that I’m sorry Though I’m never really sorry I just mean I wish it didn’t hurt If I was god, or the Wizard of Oz I’d make you like me, just like me Self-help’s no assistance Faking notches on my bedpost Won’t get myself distressed Even John Major bagged a mistress But my mother’s ringing thrice a week Straight out worries not oblique So I say I’ve been dating with Sandra and Deborah Fictional all but it brightens up the call Leave your job through the window Leave your home through the floor Crush up your SIM card gaffer tape the door If I was god, or the Wizard of Oz I’d make you like me, just like me Cinema trips alone trudging home in the snow Looking for a face in mirror that wasn’t my own Constantly dreaming of floating up to the ceiling But in the daytime pinned down by my duvet and my cat Feeling the betrayal of friends busy off having children When it’s me not calling back and it’s me that’s failing them But I think you could change it all like a struck match or a phone call If I was god, or the Wizard of Oz I’d make you like me, just like me
4.
Kelly said, “it’s only poison if you drink it, or read it and misunderstand it” This old cassette holds more than voices and laughter Background traffic noise transports me, more than photographs have done The back of envelopes the back of hands Start a notebook in the middle Write to gentle folk in distant lands who can’t read your scribble Like a spider crawled out an inkwell on scented paper eggshell blue Unravel the kinks and the curves the words are a mask and a hinderance Need assistance for every sentence When right now I only want to smell and touch and clutch and burrow Kelly said, “it’s only poison if you drink it, or read it and misunderstand it” This old cassette holds more than voices and laughter Background traffic noise transports me, more than photographs have done Animals in your pad drawn with dreaming faces A walrus or a bat, swooning blowing kisses All whiskers and teeth, huge eyes Bassett hounds in ties discussing imports and exports Don’t scrutinise the logic, I’m getting off the topic Which is that fiction is easier to write I put a weekend aside but gave up and called a voice recorder An answerphone at home with no one to answer Knocked sideways by a centimetre of whisky Kelly said, “it’s only poison if you drink it, or read it and misunderstand it” This old cassette holds more than voices and laughter Background traffic noise transports me, more than photographs have done A chapter erased now beyond reproduction One day I’ll get nostalgic about right now, but not about the sitcoms
5.
Spokes 05:01
We went night swimming, me and her brother She stopped at the villa digesting her dinner Calamari supper, afloat on a red wine sea Gave some doofus a crook look Should have got a phrase book that covers hand-signals Round here I think that they might carry pistols Stop me if I’m wistful, shove a stick in my spokes If I exist when I’m 90, I’ll still repeat the same jokes and anecdotes Feeling empty inside, I eat when I’m not hungry and drink when I’m not dry It can get out of hand like vegetation in Spring A word not crossed but stored in your closet lingering You don’t have to be prophet to foresee Silent and frosty Deliver information like a bee sting Or just ignore it I’m probably not up for the fight Hiding on the backstairs Afraid of the night I’m probably not who you wished I would be Short temper, short tongue I lost my mystery Sorrentino’s a hero, but I wouldn’t want to meet him Life can chance in an instant, but it usual doesn’t My cousins moved away, left me coughing from my stomach The Consequences of Love left me without a compass I’m sleepless and shallow Meatless yet callow Somehow draw a salary without creating casualties Accidents aren’t always avoided by reference to past events Concrete reinforced by steel and hidden secrets I’m probably not up for the fight Hiding on the backstairs Afraid of the night I’m probably not who you wished I would be Short temper, short tongue I lost my mystery
6.
I keep a lock of your hair, that I took from your plughole Snug with bugs on my mattress, it’s potentially disastrous Press the spacebar, delete my profile, I fade to blackness You said I was always concerned with childish things My heart skips with the telephone rings Answering in my deepest voice Give my number first and then hang up Now in a spell like I’m being read to Of you I’ll always contain an echo Like a shell replays the ocean I have welcomed in a trojan Fed it it’s favourites, whisky and gin Remorse, regrets and might-have-beens Piss-poor records from the 90s Neither of us are aging kindly You are not the ads in your browsers sidebar Or what you do with tissue paper Through the blur of my self-hatred My internet recommends Russian dating You’ve got problems with your diphthongs So there’s misunderstandings I’m taking elocution lessons from a retired actress We dress like it’s award season for every class Me in dickie bow and velvets while she’s shod by Louboutin I get my cape on to leave We pose for paparazzi In front of plastic palm trees As we kiss bon soiree But I’m an outsider as I float passed the bookies Sit upstairs on the bus Chewing on day-warmed butties I keep a lock of your hair, that I took from your plughole Snug with bugs on my mattress, it’s potentially disastrous Press the spacebar, delete my profile, I fade to blackness When you notice how narrow your eyes focus It can sow the seeds of mild psychosis Trying to only look at the world through a screen that’s flat and bordered There’s no depth and all’s in order I’m treading water in the shallows not on the surface of the deep sea No shadows move beneath me I won’t see my coiled spring unfurled I’m closing out all complications Seeing only one side of the story I’m picking my favourite army I’m picking my favourite toothpaste Every morning I pack a suitcase Made connections on the dark web An error, a fall, a misstep
7.
It was the first place I’d eaten where they bring you two spoons Sidled out without paying the bill But felt ill and rang back to pay on the debit card Of an unwitting friend who draws cartoons Three panel pieces of crushed hopes Which at first seem satirical Then gloomy Then sage and truthful Determined to pour my heart out But forgot I’d already spewed it Woke up dry and unhealthy and dry round the edges Like a spider plant sustained by office lights and moist breaths He’s got less backstory than any item in my wardrobe Flash forward to 2023 A 16 month wait for a new knee Calculate the flow of the Wear Semi-hallucinate a tiny kingfisher Camp out from five to see a native snake Suppressing the shivering becoming reptilian Determined to pour my heart out But forgot I’d already spewed it I was inspired by a TV cookery programme to buy a TV cookery book I never cracked the spine but spent my time reading history From the labels of beer bottles My unbranded wheat biscuits have ruined our romantic milk bath I’ve heard foxes smell like marijuana Or a cross between sweat and urine I could beat you all at table football by only playing the goalkeeper Telling everyone that I’ve got secrets to spill Determined to pour my heart out But forgot I’d already spewed it Anthropomorphise everything I see faces in trees and in coffee cups Dogs named Steve, cars called Elsie Talking lions and what the hell is a Moomin? And why does that one dress like me? How can the sea be cruel when it’s just centillions of molecules More a medium than a man? It warms my heart that comedians doing stand up make you awkward Science has taught me that when you blush the inside of your stomach glows too I’ve never been drawn to solipsism But when I’m hushed, drunk and warn out I can believe there’s just me and you
8.
The foil on your pills sounds like blistering chicken skin And I’m forgetting the names of exes’ exes Who know what height these snowflakes formed? Tuck my trousers in socks to keep my pins warm Now I’m lowly Faithful Johannes But trying to use more words than Declan McManus Like pangolin or circumloquacious, fluoxetine or abyssopelagic The later pertains to the ocean’s depths More explored in fiction than in fact At the bottom of the Marianas Trench there’s only fine silt and film directors But, I keep my pastey scared body in the shallows Tiptoeing round weaver fish spines Surf’s rolling in both ears full of brine I got my Sunday TV through showroom windows We recorded over the C90 of your wedding But you haven’t noticed Staying up late to find a melancholy melody Is this heartfelt or a cruel self-parody I’m insecure like my tenancy Steadily altering my personality In heresy to my teenage self Stealthfully let my dreams decode my indefensible acts Buy a pet rodent and call him Penelope In nearly every sentence there’s sub-conscious synecdoche Cry listening to Yo La Tengo in traffic Blame Ira Kaplan, there’s no need to panic Who know what makes these teardrops form? Maybe atmospheric pressure, it’s building to a storm Like on that trip back from Eaton Hall I was small and certain it was the end of the world Sky darkened further by the tinted glass Vice grip on the car door Praying to a girl in my class I got my Sunday TV through showroom windows We recorded over the C90 of your wedding But you haven’t noticed Pangolin or circumloquacious, fluoxetine or abyssopelagic At the bottom of the Marianas Trench there’s only fine silt and film directors
9.
I raise my game Pheasants and deer Animal husbandry You don’t know what you mean to me Hands soaked in white spirits Rough enough to light matches The catch is the when it enters the blood stream Flips co-ordination and you can’t catch things Cold water stream Cold walls in the kitchen Cold and damp feet Cold heart Cold frozen ground Icicles in the pantry Cold and numb hands Cold heart Said I’d make a new start Forget the city The pruned parks and cut grass All the earnest artworks Politely resigned from the committee Avoiding all investigations Let’s just stay calm No one asked why? But I didn’t seek questions A few said goodbye But I was not listening At first the birds wake you But it doesn’t take long To feel like you belong Got a dog, we swim in the lake Say up late and read, although the readings just me You don’t know what you mean to me Stay calm, is it better not to chance your arm While I wait for a change in the weather The only think holding me together is barometric pressure Cold water stream Cold walls in the kitchen Cold and damp feet Cold heart Cold frozen ground Icicles in the pantry Cold and numb hands Cold heart It can change with the turn of a lock A mountain range only stores secrets for so long It can change with the ring of a phone The whispers in the trees reflect your own I raise my game Pheasants and deer Animal husbandry You don’t know what you mean to me

about

***** TAPES AND CDs AVAILABLE FROM sapienrecords.bandcamp.com and fruxtapes.bandcamp.com *****

Debut full length release from Durham City barely rap duo Outside Your House. Split release between Frux Tapes and Sapien Records Ltd.

credits

released November 10, 2017

Words - Faithful Johannes

Music - Jonathan Swift

Mixed by committee

Mastered by Faithful Johannes

Cover photos by Leslie-Ann Spence

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about

Outside Your House UK

Outside Your House are a two man operation.

Faithful Johannes is part spoken word poet, part folk singer, part laid-back rapper with an eye for detail.

Sweet-singing Jonathan Swift‘s musical scrapbook of vinyl samples, live instruments and cut-up beats delivers the pop backdrop.

The melancholy of brass bands, chest pains, beer-offs, weight gain & David Attenborough
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