Dropping Like Flies...

Is there something in the air? After my last post about Linda (who?) Smith, today I find out that the legend that once is but now was Ivor Cutler has also popped his clogs in the last week.

Despite myself, this blog seems to be turning into an over-sentimentalised, "tributes to people I never even even met" kind of thing. And I hate that kind of rubbish.

But Ivor Cutler was a true one-off - you were never quite sure if he was being funny or if he was being genuine. Here's a couple of his poemish things:

Coming to Terms With Being a Moth
When Sarah's powdery wings appeared from behind the headboard, we attacked. The old man lay supine, helpless, breathing irregularly but heavily. Fluttering along the thermals rising from between his thick dry lips, we tickled them till his arthritic claw rose to brush us away. We rose swiftly, then landed at the huge runway at the top and walked around till the claw rose and fell, and smashed Sarah. I flew over to see if I could help, but she whispered, "Go! Save yourself!" then perished, a pathetic splat. I flew off, sad yet happy, buoyed by the knowledge that the transmigration of souls would bring us together again, and soon.

Reading
Swalows swank along the sky, braking and skidding. Hear deep thudding in the sky as flies smash against the back of a birdie's throat and plop into the gastric stew. There is a little light down there, just enough to see your chums floating on the top, rubbing their skulls and cursing their luck, or lying on their back, calmly reading their wings.

The man was a genius, and more of an influence on me than I'll ever care to admit.