Gladiolus

HANG OVER CHILD
by R. Pollard of Guided by Voices // The Bears for Lunch


hang over child
what you've got you'll not require
in any attire

hang over child
born into a lost desire
you'll know the fire that grows

hang over, child
'til the clock runs over
the check-out line
for the red light sales
bury your nose in the bookends
bury the scales

and you'll not back down
and you'll not fallout

hang over child
save your breath
in the way that you stare
into the face of despair
if you dare


* expired Agfa RSX II 50 slide film // Nikon FG-20 // 24mm

Gritty pictorial show of August, that I like. That is what you get with Agfa film from the nineties. I'll take it. Hollyhocks climb with the temperatures of August. Big pink blossoms in Point Douglas soften the neighborhood. Hard boiled eggs for every meal, black coffee and underwear, sweltering apartment, bareback babies, gas on the hands, BBQ in the air. This is summer. Guided by Voices spins nonstop from the listening station. I get it now. At a fantastic wedding this past weekend, I ran into an age old friend. Whenever he makes an appearance I want to yell in his face one hundred things at once but never know where to begin so I say nothing. Kicking gravel as a storm gathered momentum overhead I professed to him awkwardly my deep love for Guided by Voices, a band led by Robert Pollard. Thank you for the introduction. I get it now. Get what? I didn't understand the power of his music five years ago when you first dropped the needle, but I do now.