Inspired by Jamie McLeod’s images of Marc Almond “I Created Me” – a poem

Gazing at your image,

I gaze into your soul

Sometimes shy of the camera, sometimes consumes you whole…

A glimpse of this, a hint of that

Fully nude, just wearing a hat

Grit and glitter and forever shine

Memoirs of past, a voyage in time

Skulls and fire. Leather and lace

A fishnet stocking placed over your face

Santo Marco the ultimate fighter

Lost in the shadows, but shining brighter

Treat ya self to an image so rare

Criminal lover beyond compare

Only the brave can see your soul

Black heart inside, consuming you whole

Evil dead eyes and devils of red

Mamba queen and the day of the dead

Empty eyes lost behind a smile

That draws you in, and wantonly beguiles

The boy with the pipe, looking so cool

The clown in a cafe, who’s nobody’s fool

You created you, beyond compare

Versions of an original, dark nightmare

Your pretty face is going to hell

You wear it with pride. You wear it so well

Kill me now or make me pretty

Down in the dust where life is so shitty

Saint Judy of the Original sin

With a mamba smile enticing you in

Adorned in silver and traces of gold

Always youthful, never growing old

Ange Chan ©2018

Image credit : Jamie McLeod

Shine – a poem

Early morning, early start

Feeling the love from the depths of your heart

Today is a chance to sparkle and shine

Today you feel good, but you don’t all the time

Embracing the feeling, you shimmy when you walk

And there’s joy in your voice when you start to talk

When you shine like today, gods cover their eyes

Dazzled to blindness by your natural highs

A twinkle so bright, it bewitches, beguiles

Birds start to sing when they witness your smiles

Your laughter, infectious, it tinkles like bells

You’re drawn to the light and you wear it so well

No one can ruin you on a day like today

But tomorrow will come and the shine fades away

Dulled to a shade that’s a little morose

Some days you win, and others you lose

But today is all about the positivity

Embracing the feeling of being ‘all about me’

Stand in your spotlight, bathe in that applause

Your one perfect moment, you’ve nothing to lose

Ange Chan ©2018

Florence and the Machine at the Royal Festival Hall London 8/5/18

Florence and the Machine at the Festival Hall last night was a veritable love in. Flo herself was the high priestess of l’amour and she whipped the audience up into a loved up frenzy from the off.

The show in London was one of three, as a warm up for Flo’s forthcoming support slot at the Rolling Stones UK leg of their tour. We were highly privileged to witness a stadium styled gig in a smaller venue. Florence certainly made full use of the intimacy of the Southbank’s layout; running around the stage barefooted in a diaphanous floor length gown, like an ethereal whirling dervish, and on occasion venturing into the enthusiastic audience running up and down the aisles of the Festival Hall. The crowd of course lapped it up! “Hug the person next to you. Tell them that you love them!” she encouraged, mid-song. The majority of people didn’t need telling twice!

The stage was suitably adored with bouquets and arrangements of flowers and looked quite wonderful. The organ pipes of the infamous hall were proudly on display and we were treated to the penultimate song, Shake it Out, being accompanied on the organ, its pipes belting out a beautiful accompaniment.

The 90 minute set mostly comprised of songs off her most recent album plus a few new songs off the next, as currently unreleased, album. I’ve never seen Flo perform more than a few songs live before. When I saw her previously, she was accompanying Patrick Wolf at the London Palladium around 2010, just before she hit the big time. Even back then, it was fairly obvious she was destined for bigger things. Supporting the Rolling Stones doesn’t get much bigger. Looking forward to hearing all about it when the time comes!

Ange Chan

9/5/18