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26 March 2011

The Phantom Piddler

Phantom-Blk.

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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10 January 2011

Birdcage

birdcage

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.


11 November 2010

Talking Monkeys




Jehovah H. Frankenstein! - What have you done now? I went along with the duckbill platypus, the giraffe, the elephant and the giant fish – yes I’m aware that they’re mammals thank you – this time you have gone too far! Talking monkeys – are you insane? What earthly use are talking monkeys? Apes – shapes they look like monkeys to me. Say, are those monkeys wearing clothes? Why are your monkeys wearing clothes? Have you been talking to them? To your talking monkeys - have you? Have you been talking to your talking monkeys? Not really? How often is not really? A couple of times? That’s all! What did you say to them? You can’t remember! That’s no good! Nothing important! – I’ll be the judge of that! You know, you could have compromised the entire project. Talking monkeys indeed – it just won’t do!
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19 October 2010

Dirty Harry


…………………………………………….

I don’t think too much about it    I just write from whatever direction the wind’s blowing     I have no flags to wave    I don’t believe in ‘things’      so I got no use for flags     I have no cause to affect      and no mission to accomplish    I already set myself free    as befits a man of my temperament

I have no beef with anyone     in the normal flow of events     but when some numb nutted   bovine brained   worm tongued  would-be  Wordsworth wanders lonely as a fucking cloud across MY horizon      I figure  why shoot the breeze    when you can shoot the messenger?   I bark bullets   I don’t take prisoners     I don’t have the facilities

I dish out summary execration     to anyone waxing lyrical on the virtues of agape    or how their soul is stirred by nature’s beauty     I read them their rights     before I ram my muzzle home     and loose my words    BLAM!     d’ya feel that?  BLAM! BLAM!    do you understand?    BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!      any questions?     then we’re done here     one less polygluttonous book maggot wasting good paper

 

*This work is entirely fictitious and any resemblance to person or persons actual or fictional is purely co-incidental. The views expressed here are not necessarily not the views of the author.

3 October 2010

The Mark Of Cain


1
I come from East of Eden,
And bear the mark of Cain,
That may be the reason,
They say that I’m insane,
My boots are caked in mud,
From walking in the rain,
My hands are stained with blood,
From the brothers I have slain.
The End

*Image by Robert Crumb

2 October 2010

Hollow















there’s the tenderest vibration 
of laughter’s unheard echo 
the emptied out sensation 
of rooms now left hollow
and something fragile vacillates 
between happiness and sorrow 
something now is missing 
some subtle nuance fled
it's something nearly tangible 
that burns inside my head 
as half remembered passages 
in a book that I once read 

The End
Finis

28 August 2010

Monkeys



Nymphet strumpet whores cascade down Picasso Avenue in giant stiletto heels. Crack monkeys in sharp threads and wearing sharper faces tap the windows of passing limousines with black – blue metallic shiny raven sheen, driven by sanguine velvet dust junkies with golden smiles and populated by porcine businessmen with their million dollar hookers.

”Weed?, speed?, oxy’s?, meth?, smack?, crack?, coke?, crank?, acid?, E’s?, 'shrooms?, ludes?, peyote?, snake oil?, embalming fluid?” Sample sewn satin linings open like bat wings. “I can turn you on.”


Suburban voyeurs are hassled by dealers, whores and panhandle cops, student vessels trapped in the neon glow. Fledglings crunch popcorn as they pitter patter through pools of blood that await the rain. Zebras and Lions stalk the crowded sidewalks, Vultures feed on carrion. It’s a dog eat dog world, only they ate all the dogs a long time ago. The cops frisk the feeble hearted for dope and pennies, peanuts, but that’s what you get when you hire monkeys. 

A moon faced born again ding dong chants Hari Krishna hip hop style. His hands spasm before him, signing in ancient Indian semaphore – ‘stay away’. The wolves haven’t eaten him yet ‘cause it’s considered bad luck to eat crazy meat. The innocent are herded and fleeced in a revolving strip show of brutality, horror and vice. Layers of degradation and corruption are peeled for their delectation. Most of them will make it home, but some will end up with their teeth in somebody’s necklace. The rest is just hamburger meat.

Finis

29 July 2010

A Children’s Crusade



they sing a mournful song

in the hours before the dawn

and march in rank procession

 through the land of desolation

the lonely sons and daughters

of forgotten generations

the one lost tribe

scattered throughout the nations
The End
Finis

14 July 2010

The Abattoir


The abattoir was secreted away amongst a warren of dereliction. It stood alone amidst the burned out buildings and piles of rubble. Its red brick walls were mostly covered by a coat of black soot, courtesy of many local warehouse fires. The soot thinned out at the base so it looked like a black occult temple which was dipped in blood, like the feet of Tezcatlipoca the terrible god of Aztec legend. The clock tower towered above the entrance like a great black phallus. Through the gates below countless thousands were once led to the slaughter. The entrance reeks with the fetid stench of rotting flesh. The holding pens, arcane iron contraptions stained red ochre by rust and congealed blood. Meat hooks hang silent witness to the butchery committed in this meat factory, this industrial necropolis. This temple of savagery is not deserted. There is a priesthood yet, practitioners of a dark and unholy art. There are others too, the innocent abandoned. Victims of a satanic press gang, penned like cattle awaiting slaughter. Herded into the bloody death traps where iron jaws are clamped around their necks. They await the skull cracking hammer blow. They wait to be made meat.
The End
Finis

29 June 2010

School

school-bus-top

School

They lie to you at school,


To make of you a fool


They really only want you,


For the labor pool,


They only teach you stuff,


They think you ought to know,


When you’ve learned enough,


It’s time for you to go,


Now you have to work,


There is no time for play,


You simply cannot shirk,


If you want to earn your pay.

END

Wabi Sabi

beauties102
Wabi Sabi
My darling you’re imperfect,
1
In every single way,
1
You have the kind of smile,
1
That darkens any day,
1
You frighten little children,
1
When they come out to play,
1
Your countenance is glorious,
1
Your anger to inveigh,
1
Your temperament's notorious,
1
But I love you anyway.

End
Finis
Wabi Sabi is a comprehensive Japanese world view, or aesthetic, centred on the acceptance of transience. The aesthetic is often characterised as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" - One of its central precepts is that imperfection is itself beautiful. I thought I'd take this concept and stretch it a little...
End
Finis