Neutral Milk Hotel - "Two-Headed Boy Part 2". Jeff Mangum came to Montreal last night. He played a beautiful show, the songs that mattered, his voice almost unchanged. He wore a plaid shirt, a newsboy cap. His haircut was the same as it has always been. He opened my heart right up, lifted words and wordless syllables to my lips. He reminded me that every time I make a metaphor with flowers - blooms, buds, curls, - it is a tribute to him. But in spite of all this, I am not sure what Jeff Mangum was after. He came back to Montreal after years away, sang his cranberry melodies, asked us all to sing along; and maybe he was after money, or solace, or reverie or community or some full-circle kind of peace. I really don't know. He gave nothing away. He smiled, quipped, eyes flicking around. He drank from that plastic bottle of water. He seemed disappointed, sometimes, in himself. He seemed most alive when he was singing. He sang old songs and offered no clues. Today I listen to "Two-Headed Boy Part 2", feel its full force; and I wonder what it means, when a man is selfless and concealed. [buy]

Gillian Welch - "The Way It Will Be". E---- lifted her hood and went out into the fiery streets. There were yells in the air. The rioters had already been chased through F---- Lane so now the road was empty, full of smoke and sirens. The Tesco was boarded up, the shoe shop, but someone had broken the window of the Greggs. E---- wondered what you would loot from a Greggs. She stood in the shattered glass, peered into the bakery. Part of her expected crumbs, so many crumbs, feathery bits of puff pastry. But the inside was clean, undisturbed. Cheap cakes sat under glass.

E---- walked up the street. She was sick with missing M----. She was streaked and raging. She heard sirens and felt as if they were batting against her. This city should be full of crows. Not rioters, cops, just a million black crows, watching from the eaves, clicking their beaks. She didn't want to ever see M---- again. Wanted him to live in a green valley, where the sky is always white. [buy]

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You have until midnight GMT to buy If Destroyed Still True #6: Iraqi Kurdistan edition, a zine by my friend Nine. It is £3, black and white, utterly exceptional. I met Nine when I lived in Edinburgh. But she has left that city, taken her life on her back. She is a traveller, now. She is sensitive, serious, alive. She tells good jokes and listens hard. Earlier this year she visited Iraqi Kurdistan. IDST6 is about her time there. It is a photocopied cut-up job but in its content it is so beautiful, thoughtful, a testimony of feelings felt and questions asked. Nine's gift is the way she strings together pieces of things - honestly, humbly. These strings of pieces teach and move me, in a manner that almost nothing else ever does. I recommend this little book passionately, unreservedly. £3, shipped anywhere in the world.

(read more about the poem above / listen to it read)