roughcut #1 - the pursuit of pressure and Newcastle Diamonds

the pursuit of pressure and Newcastle Diamonds

Hey, so, thanks for being here. I wanted to kick off these roughcuts with something amazing, something insatiable, something so well written I’d fancy myself a new career a novelist. Then I realised I was granting myself yet another creative pressure, and I had to remind myself I’d not entitled this series ‘roughcuts’ for nowt. It did make it glaringly obvious, though, I am constantly in the pursuit of pressure, or ‘a glutton for punishment’ as a close friend recently remarked. I’m not sure if this is a chase for meaning, for validation, or for the sharp edge of urgency. But I am afraid I’ve defined pressure as proof of purpose and that my discomfort means progress. That if I’m overwhelmed, I must be getting somewhere. Where, exactly? The finish line moves the moment it’s reached. So we’re back. This is why I created this space in the first place - a messy, unfinished journal, scrap book, sketch pad, chat room.

So, finally starting as I mean to go on - here’s a poem/idea I wrote at home entitled speedway racer. I’m writing a lot at the moment, and themes of racing - through life, away from and towards childhood, relationships, home, career - have started to become prevalent in every song, poem and thought. Newcastle Diamonds were a speedway racing troupe that my dad and his dad used to watch on the weekends in Byker (apt). There’s something about the theatre of it, the costume, the drama, the danger, the font!! that I have become obsessed with. There’s also something exhilarating about inserting myself or my female friends, as Geordie women, in to this image of masculine combat and thrill and nostalgia. I’m letting it ruminate.

I’m a speedway racer, tattooing tracks in your Earth

Digging in my heels and wheels, a spirograph of dirt

Men live by their boots, I learned to lead with my feet

If you’re gonna love me, you can kneel and kiss the peat

Cos I’m a speed racer

Diamond chaser

I’m getting quite old now but I’m reliant on the burn

The dirt how it has missed me, it’s gonna kiss me when I return

I belong in gods arms, he protects me at all costs

Every time I mount my steed I kiss my dirty cross

Cos I’m a speed racer

Diamond chaser

My hair is flowing like a dress

Heart pounding in my leather chest

I’ll crash in to your world again

The boys and I have made amends

The dirty world we all come from

No thinking skills - we all just run

You other me, I’ll other you

This bike was never made for two

I’m the speed racer

The diamond chaser

I’m speed racing

Diamond chasing