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12 January 2012

Jonah


the wind tugs at memory
in indistinct murmurs
from the wilder country
full of forbidden places
and ancient curses
I learned what it feels like
to become a beast
my face is fluid now
it can take many forms
angels and demons
dance across my surfaces
twinkling like children
in orphanage rags 
I took to the streets
to deliver the bad news
but the streets were so wide 
they swallowed me whole


7 January 2012

Spotlight

spotlight_sm
When the spotlight hit us we were frozen in helpless fascination. We’d stayed longer than we meant to and just wanted to go home. From my point of view – and presumably hers – it was all over. Even the wildest of adventures becomes mundane with familiarity and it’s true what they say – familiarity breeds contempt. In the cold glare I could see that it was over; I felt no more remorse than I would for stepping on a roach and I viewed the whole thing with the same detachment. Whatever we had together had long outlived its usefulness.

Our thing was nourished by lies – from the start to the finish we never knew each other. Fear drew us together; the fear of loneliness, the fear of discovery. That’s the history of the world – boy meets girl, boy lies to girl and gravity does the rest.

They say nothing lasts forever, but some things last a lifetime; like fear, anguish and shame. Ever since the Garden of Eden we have been covering our shame with little white lies. When the black dog begs at my table and the cold wind hampers my doors I review my liturgy of falsehoods with a wry smile. Every lie begets another – each a building block in an empire of self deception.

21 December 2011

Ash Wednesday



Someone must’ve spiked me with methedrine because I’m way too high. That shit gives me crank bugs and the heebies. Another nightshift scheduled – my body aches and my mouth is dry.

I saw him, we danced real close, he has black eyes and the blackest smile. The drinks were on him, black wine from Corsica. I’m halfway to Ash Wednesday and my penultimate oblivion. I hooked an angel with my kite and cut him loose with the Devil’s scissors. I wrapped him up in a parcel and mailed him to the Church – they said it was a miracle he ever arrived considering the state of the Italian postal system.

You must send the boy away. If he goes to his father the old man will think him evil and wild like his mother. His father has religion now and has become a terrible bore. He sits all day issuing sober soul orders; “Repent! Everyone is responsible for everything they do. The Lord God demands his supper!” His inquisition isn’t welcome around here; we’ll have to stone him one day.  We’ll mail him to Church as pate for the Holy Father. All organisations are built on lies, but he has all the best ones.

Exile the boy and nurture the man - with regular beatings. Spare the rod and spoil the child. It’s in our nature to nurture, so beat him relentlessly. Cut him with the devil’s scissors, make an end to his childish ways. Take him to Church and bury him - every church is a tombstone for the spirit of man.

My mind is my church; no altar, no preacher, no ceremony – just thought. The Church is theatre and religion is politics. The God venerated in the church is completely at odds with the natural universe. Iconoclast is the answer; smash the idols, burn the churches, free the mind.
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7 December 2011

The Sickness Of The World

Fear[5]

I have always been the victim of my own machinations   I always gave in to the blunt and vicious side of my nature   I feed that hump monkey with my bitter delusions and confectionery lies   I’m not a victim  I’m a volunteer  the sickness of this world is fear  fear of disclosure  fear of truth  fear of death    creeping fear is the prime motivator  the scent of excitement  the stench of dread apprehension  take a little whiff and he’ll make your wildest nightmares seem true

 my cloak of invincibility  my masquerade of masculinity   are driven by the shameful quirt of fear  the whole public edifice hangs on one tarnished nail   the threat of exposure   the disgrace of discovery  fear is the touch of death   my most secret paramour   fear has driven me to the contortions and exploits that map the surfaces of my life   but the hidden depths are his alone  he is emperor of the interior  my internal story is one of revolution   of my struggle against his tyranny I’ve learned throughout the years that inaction breeds doubt and fear    you gain in strength courage and confidence   when you confront your fear

25 November 2011

A Criminal Mind

CrownA thousand Kafkas, arithmetically sound, file the dreams scouted awkwardly in your sleep. It’s the low sleep; the sleep of dogs left dying. None shall trespass here in hollow space – none will hear your cries, or read your laughter. It is a wretched thing - scrutinized by panels and commentators in the prime time of your imagination – it is a wretched thing. 

You are a pile of limp bedclothes in an empty room. You are the blossoming of dead flowers in the dark. You are the silent echo of screaming corruption; poured out as congealed blood into the night. No-one can reach you now; you’re out of kilter. This place is the last elaborate station before damnation – there are no roads out of here, just a gradual sinking into nothing. 

This journey was in your stars; this place was always primed for your acceptance – you want to go home, but you are home. You were incarcerated for possessing a criminal mind. You saw crime in everything. You saw injustice everywhere. But you lacked the imagination to act like a criminal – you had to play the martyr. So take this crown of thorns and sow your dirty sheets. There are betrayals and crucifixions to re-enact before  you ever see another dawn.
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16 November 2011

Flight

Flight
At a run we could leap between the garages quite easily. The wooden rooftops would give our footfalls an extra spring and help us to build up momentum until we reached the final garage in the row. Then we would launch ourselves into the air with a final thrust, our arms and legs still flailing as if we were running on air. We experienced a moment of exhilarating flight then, a moment of ecstatic buoyancy, before gravity took hold and we landed with a thud on the grassy ground. We would compete to see who could fly the furthest. My brother Tommy was the best flier by yards. He was part bird, my brother Tommy.

14 November 2011

Joyride

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Richard brought her around
they brought some booze
which soon ran out
while he was out buying more
I fucked her on the kitchen table
I still can’t remember her name
but she was a looker
or I was very drunk

Richard arrived back just in time
to see her straighten her dress
and me pulling up my jeans
he had that resigned disappointed look
that told me this was not his first time
he dropped the booze and left
not all bad news then – he left the booze

we drank some more
she tearfully told me she loved him
as I undid her blouse
we fucked with less passion than before
we took the time to get low down and dirty
when the booze was gone
she remembered
she had a full bottle of gin at home

I was beginning to get the impression
that booze was a big part of her life
she took a minute to locate the car keys
“Les go” she said
“No” I replied, “Les call a cab”
she would have none of that
she pronounced,
 in slurred speech,
that she’d drive home
with me or without me

that’s how I found myself driving shotgun
in a weaving death trap
I steered from the passenger seat
and she operated the pedals.
we were both blind drunk.
still, I wasn’t so drunk
that I wasn’t terrified

all the time I was thinking;
will I die like this, drunk in a pile up
with a nymphomaniac alcoholic
squeezing my crotch
as I steer through the blurred traffic
on my way to a bottle of gin?
Christ, I don’t even like gin.

Plague

Rats
Rats! – I saw rats. What kind of rats? - Big fat hairy bubonic rats, delicious rats with long juicy worm tails. That’s how I know this ship is sinking. Flea bitten scurvy rats are deserting in droves; it’s not too healthy around here anymore.

This place is a cess pool of vice and debauchery – not the fun fleshy kind, oh no, but an inane limp variant of isolated key punchers and video hoaxers vying to impress with the vacuousness of their thought. This is a plague of ineptitude, the triumph of mediocrity. Mankind is doomed to die of impotence; a whimpering lovelorn adolescent reaching across the net searching for human contact by remote console. They have not deserted the sinking ship, they have locked themselves in their cabins. They say the Roman Empire died of decadence – our civilisation will die of negligence.

There’s a pandemic stretching an ugly hand across the globe – one that reduces all it touches to the commonplace. An imagined empire of sameness; the current composite existence is dwindling into a mire of self restraint and tasteless simulacrum. We no longer touch. We no longer experience firsthand. We share. We share a pseudo reality where even our dissent is manufactured and orchestrated by unseen commercial interest. Our every thought is digested by the combine and regurgitated to inform new patterns of consumption. The machine has set us free. The machine has relieved us of the burden of thought and feeling. There is no choice to hate in this brave new world; only the option is to ‘like’ – not love – ‘like’. Even our emotions are being reduced to the mediocre. We can rage against it, but will do so next to advertising selected by the machine to reflect our current status.