Afraid of the winter dark
The ghost in the window
Was your own reflection
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May I just say, strictly in confidence you understand - just between you and I, and I would not dream of saying this to another living soul, but with circumstances being what they are I really feel I must say something. Heaven knows I don’t like to pry; I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. I’m not one for tittle tattle, I’m no gossip, but I’m bound to say and with a certain amount of justification, I think that you’ll agree, that something must be said. With the situation being what it is, and it’s for that reason only, I think I can confide in you – I can confide in you? Good, well as you know it’s being going on for some time now and I feel it’s time someone said something, don’t you? Far be it from me to judge, it’s hardly a question of blame, it’s just that things have reached a point where someone must say something. I think that it might be good to get things out in the open. I’m sure you agree that it just can’t go on like this indefinitely and sooner or later someone will have to speak out and while I’m reluctant to be that person, it’s hardly a task I relish, I think that time has come. I’m sure you can see that beating about the bush can only prolong the matter and there is no point in postponing the inevitable. You do agree, don’t you? I’m glad we understand each other. I can see we have reached an understanding – no need to say anymore. Mum’s the word, you can trust me. I won’t say a dicky bird; this will not leave this room. Thank you for hearing me out. I’m so glad to have gotten that off my chest.
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.
they
say the pueblo people snare moon dogs
in golden filaments and wear
their luminous pelts to dance in
their lunar mystery rites when the
big shiny glows like a big silver
dollar across the southern desert them moon dogs hunt the dark in
packs their howls fill the
night air eerie as spirit songs
on the breezing they paint the
joshua trees large and the
desert lupines aquatic frost them
moon dogs cavort like ghosts and
caterwaul in the inky the last truly
wild creatures in the last truly wild country when the sky falls on the land and we are sunk under her mystic woven
blanket them moon dogs chase their
tails round the angles
in-between their shadows and our
dreams
Craters filled with dinosaur teeth
Vast archives of dusty elephant tusks
Mountains of torn old manuscripts
Broken road signs and tattered flags
Crazy paving stones leading nowhere
Fractured rainbows and sullen assent
False prophets and broken idols
Idiotic geometries of insane dimension
Incestuous romantics beating off franticly
To jungle rhythms played on thigh bones
Mutant junky baboons tapping veins
Wiping their asses with William Burroughs
Living relics of the beaten generation
This is the land of who gives a fuck
Where tomorrow never comes around
Where the streets have no shame
Whores give blowjobs for food stamps
And souls are rented by the hour
Jesus never lived in this neighbourhood
The light here comes from a darker sun
The residents await repatriation to hell
Nothing comes easy or cheap here
It’s the sleazy dark side of civilization
Spreading like a cancer across the city
Creeping like a nightmare into your room
A kingdom of have little’s and have naught’s
A filthy empire of broken promises
.
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Mrs. Hogan was a dark, thick set, giant of a woman with a Medusa face which was set in the grim aspect of distain. Her seething cauldron was ever on the verge of boiling over into rage. Mrs. Hogan - Hulk - was our fourth grade teacher, the dictator of a tiny nation who pressed her grapes of wrath. She would crouch before you to unleash her dragon breath – waves of halitosis spiced derision washed over you in a terrifying tsunami of abuse. “You are an imbecile boy – answer the question!” You knew the answer, but your mind was thrall – a rabbit in the headlights. “This boy doesn’t even know that two times two is four!” the class laughs heartily, if nervously. Your face flushed with embarrassment and shame, but the true humiliation came later in the playground – when the humour got physical.
The heavy breasted Spartan tyrant ruled over her Helot minions with a mixture of violence and sarcasm. She sat at the head of the hierarchy of bullies – if she fingered you the rest were sure to follow. The nice kids, the middle class kids, were treated with fawning respect, but the poorer kids were reviled. Mrs. Hogan could strike with sudden fury hauling children by the hair, or dragging them by the arm in a vice like grip to the front of the class to be subjected to tirades of furious abuse while she slapped them around the head.
The days were long in Mrs. Hogan’s class, long and tortuous – especially if you were one of those less favoured children singled out for her special attention. “If brains were taxed you would get a rebate boy!” the children laughed, even those who were not quite sure what she was saying. “What do you have between your ears, a vacuum?” You had discovered long ago that even if you answered her enquiries correctly she would mimic you in sneering tones, and so you had fallen into silence. This was a tactic that had singled you out as the class idiot – your silence was growing ever deeper, until there really was a vacuum at the centre of your being.
Then one day something happened to rouse you from your reverie. The class was filing though the door after recess, some of the other kids were sniggering, and Mrs. Hogan had a face like thunder. When everyone was seated she took up her Mussolini stance – hands on hips before the class. The sunlight glinted off lenses of her horn rimmed glasses obscuring her eyes and giving her an even more inhuman aspect than usual. Her face was engorged with rage, “Who is responsible for this abomination?” she was pointing behind her towards the blackboard which bore the inscription scrawled in white chalk – “The Phantom Piddler Was Here!” beneath which was a small puddle. The class suddenly erupted with mirth, which was cut short by the dragon’s glare. “There is nothing funny about this disgusting display of savagery!” she intoned. “I want the culprit to come forward right now.” Moments of silent tension passed while she stared down the whole class. No one came forward.
For the next two days Mrs. Hogan simmered in her quiet rage, exploding occasionally in a seemingly random pattern at any pupil who irritated her – even her squeaky clean favourites were not immune. The question of the phantom piddler weighed heavy on her mind and was the chief subject of debate and speculation in the playground. Who was our masked hero, when would he strike again? We had not long to wait until he did. Two days after his first attack the phantom struck again in the same spot. This time he left the epitaph “The Phantom Piddler Strikes Again!” Mrs. Hogan could barely control her rage. She flew on her broomstick around the class accusing each of her most ‘troublesome’ boys in turn, until she came to you. “No,” she said, “You don’t have the gumption, even for this.” It was the most hurtful thing she ever said to you.
The next time the piddler struck it was a dagger to her heart. He left a puddle on her desk and scrawled “The Phantom Piddler Strikes Again!” across it. There was the usual rage and enquiries and threats, but it was becoming apparent to everyone that Mrs. Hogan was impotent in this face of the Phantom Piddler, our very own Zorro. From then on the classroom was always locked in Mrs. Hogan’s absence, but this did not stop our intrepid piddler. He struck again in the cloak room taking the time to leave his calling card, “The Phantom Piddler Strikes Again!” and against the classroom door, on which occasion he scrawled, “They Seek Him Here, They Seek Him There, They Seek The Piddler Everywhere!.”
The Piddler was a cause célèbre in the playground; everyone celebrated his exploits and speculated on his identity. Then one day, as we settled into another afternoon of boredom laced with terror, Mrs. Hogan called Alex Harvey to the front of the class. As you turn to watch him pass you notice that Anne McKenzie has turned beetroot red, Alex glowers at her as he passes, she was our quisling – She had seen Alex in the cloakroom and felt it was her duty to squeal.
Alex walked slowly, yet confidently, to the front of the class where Mrs. Hogan launched into a tirade of accusatory abuse, “You dirty little boy! You are the source of these disgusting incidents; it makes me sick to look at you!” Even though The Hulk was livid with righteous indignation and shouting right into Alex’s face he remained quite impassive, until The Hulk laid hands on him to shake him by the shoulders. It was then he came to life wrestling her off him, he cried out, “Leave me alone you old bag!” There was a muted murmur around the classroom. The Hulk stared at him in disbelief, “What did you say?” The shortest boy in the class Alex drew himself to his entire four feet in height and replied, “Leave me alone!” The gorgon grabbed him by the arm and attempted to drag him from the classroom into the corridor. Alex was a blur of hands and feet as he kicked and punched at the hulking woman who outweighed him ten to one, for a moment they actually traded blows, until Mrs. Hogan suddenly disengaged. She stood panting and staring her young advisory for a moment before saying, “Go back to your seat!” Some of the boys let out a cheer, Mrs. Hogan stared at the class and said, “Don’t make me deal with you too!” The unmistakable voice of Malcolm Fox, the class joker, piped up with “When you get your breath back” and the classroom sniggered openly.
The Sensational Alex Harvey, as Foxy dubbed him, was our Spartacus. He didn’t set us free, but he loosened our chains. For the remainder of the term Mrs. Hogan did not raise her hands to any of her pupils and though her sarcasm was withering, it was not as malignant as it was. There was a new attitude too in the playground - there was still bullying, but it was not vicious without the orchestration of the wicked witch. There was a new sense of unity amongst the class and for the rest of term the Sensational Alex Harvey – The Phantom Piddler ruled supreme as our king. When the class reconvened after the summer recess the new term began there was no need for The Phantom Piddler. Our new teacher toted a guitar into the classroom the first day and sang a song about Jesus; we knew we were free at last, free at last.
.
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I'm
going mad I tell you!!! Tiny shiny metal bats with wings as sharp as razor
blades clang against the bars of my cage and spiral off - down into the gloomy
infinite - what the fuck is down there anyway! Tang! shliiizz - there goes
another one. They echo locate as they crash straight into my gilded dome.
They'd slice me up if they could get in - but I won't let 'em. I got the only
key you see. So here I coop on this little stoop - too chicken shit to venture
out into the bat infested climes of the infinite what?
I was lured in here by small game hunters who laid a trail of opiated millet - by the time I realised it was a fucking trap - I was too stoned to care. They must have shrunk me to get me into a cage this size - coz I felt pretty big on the outside, but now I feel small on the inside. The day I moved in they gave me a little golden key and said; "Here Joey, this is yours - this here's a zoo and the keeper is you."
I was
fucking furious let me tell you, "What the fuck does this mean?"
I asked - as I hurriedly locked the door. "You mean I'm a fucking prisoner
here?" One of them replied, "Not at all." Shit head - I said,
"What does that mean?" He said, "What does what mean?" I
was getting mighty pissed by now, "What does THAT mean." - "What
does what does THAT mean?" he answers. "Are you pullin' my fucking
chain?" I yelled. "No reply," was the answer. I don't mean 'no
reply' was the answer, I mean "No reply" was the answer. He actually
said "No reply" - what does THAT mean? I'm getting out of here one
day - soon as I figure out where I am, or were out there is, ‘cause I know
where I am - I'm in here, wherever that is. I guess I'm headed out there,
wherever that is, as soon as I figure out where that is, that is.