april 4th
i sort of meandered down the stairs
with tenuous agility
emitting stench &
an air of the shambolic.
(not quite zarathustra).
rounding the balustrade
i came upon a voice
not unlike the sound of running water,
just more violent.
"whoa fella, you look rough."
i stopped at the bottom of the stairs
scratched my arse
rubbed my right eye
and continued shuffling down the hall
towards the solace of the kitchen
having forgotten the voice
(depleted memory)
4 steps later
it came again,
a dribbling sound,
"hey, listen, i need some help."
my eyes pushed hard
against crusted lids,
widening the sphere of vision,
pupils screaming in contraction
at the onslaught of light
sucking my corneas
towards an ocular singularity
somewhere at the root of my brain. [wtf?]
"what?" i replied, blinking away the screaming orbs.
"come here" came the voice.
"what?" i asked again.
"over here, by the door."
i glanced over to the door
but saw nothing, no one.
"here...right here."
My eyes
realised where my ears were focused
and closed in on the source -
an umbrella
leaning up against the wall
by the side of the front door.
i approached
and as i got closer
i began to make out a tiny face
in the wooden handle;
eyes, nose, mouth.
i crouched down
and began to study
the tiny features.
"rough night fella?" it asked.
its tiny mouth
sort of twitched as it spoke
not really forming the words
yet still issuing their sound
and its uneasy eyes
rolled like fruit machine wheels.
i yawned and made a feeble attempt
at picking my nose, got nothing decent.
"do you think it's going to rain today?" i asked.
there was no reply.
i laughed,
picked some sleep dirt
from the corner of my eye,
walked into the kitchen
and vomited
in the sink.
another day had begun.
paranoid at 35,000 ft
deep voids
grow
in the corners
screaming
violently
up the walls.
a worm
curls
away from the evil
a paranoid
insect
paralysed.
anxiety
creeps
through cowering senses
squeezed to a univision
an oppressive vanishing point
where a distorted rationality
mocks its passive master
laughing at its reviled host.
this room is a tomb
stone
edged by
black canyons.
there's no escape
for the
insect brain
until the ebb occurs.
i escaped
jumped over puddles
that reflected the city
landing in the last one
i annihilated it,
projecting it like puke
against the walls.
i wandered outside
smoking
the sting of bad booze
lingering
note pad in pocket
expectant
the steaming night street
damp with corporate perspiration
crawls towards a vanishing point
eager to flee the nonsense.
lonely creatures drift by
escaping the sterility
their cries
leaning into distance
muffled by the thick air.
the moon gazes up in pale indifference
from a puddle near the drain
where the day-filth
is washed away.
plaggy bags skip past
dancing
on deranged breezes,
a circus of waste
in the waxing half-light.
the pavement sighs
through a grate beneath my feet
and with dreams of tomorrow
the moon
softly kisses the street goodbye
and wanders off for a while.
timorously
the sun creeps up
blushing with embarrassment for what it left behind.
glancing up from mossy cracks
that edge the old cobbles
i squint into the mist.
my brogues echoing in the morning
singing my steps through the haze.
behind me
the last few dregs emerge from
the den of my nightly drinking
and where i wake to loneliness.
across the way
a drunk screams rainbows up the wall
and the image hints at the future.
i blink
but the mist remains
invading my head
blighting what is left of me inside.
beyond the crumbling wall
that edges the littered path
a brown river stretches towards escape.
tide swollen
edging slowly
like a filthy glacier
a dark lick slicing through the city.
it calls to my self-pity
so i follow
losing my loathing in its depths.
(words to be spoken aloud into an empty coffee mug)
hey mr
hey mr man
the man the you
the real and non
and on and on
and far you go
the drift to depths below
the life and lies
the saddened eyes
all closed and dead
within your head
is dark and black
and sad with lack
you ghost the most
beyond now real
and lost in truth
no life no feel
no feeling.
through a clean smear
in the filth on my mirror
i see you
existing.
the glassy islands on the window
reveal their interpretation of what i see.
a warped world in miniature
a fish-eyed microcosm of reflected reality
sometimes crawling
amoeba-like
down the slick glass
to pool in speckled puddles on the window ledge.
mid-afternoon
violently sunburnt
gazing up through dry corneas
at a single dark bird
circling in a timeless wander
against a backdrop
of cirrus
barely concealing an early moon.
slowly
another wanderer joins
and the pair drift away
leaving the clouds to crawl
alone
through their cobalt wilderness.
march 8th
4pm
under
the
tree
a dead leaf fell
withered
lifeless
to the ground.
i didn't see
god
collect the fallen leaf.
a lady
swept it up
and dumped it
in the bin.
faces
so many faces
aliens
all
discussing what is imperative.
it's like they're speaking in tongues.
pretence is all over this place
the pretence of friendship
the pretence of interest
the pretence of intellect
from transparent persons
who exist as vapour
who dissipate
like a wisp of smoke from my bad cigar.
ha!
persons important enough
to waste
such
words
on.
i shall remain
the imbecile.
[response noted].
slowly
woken
emerging senses
prise my heavy lids apart
uneasy movements
whisky breath
whisky mind
whisky gut
my
linoleum bed
close by the gungy mop
old
veg
rat raisins
vomit
and one shoe.
frowns fill the room.
where the fuck am i?
it took monte carlo
its decadence
and the juxtaposed words of a vagrant
to contextualise my non-life
the useless
bourgeois nonsense.
to jump from this height
(watched only by the silent yachts
that crowd the harbour with their conspicuousness)
may be the only road to art,
for i now understand
the power of posthumousness.
but would i naturally
land on my feet
like a cat
to writhe in broken agony
towards the infinite zero?
head first
sounds so much more appealing.
i woke this morning
as always
at an introverted distance
from the majority.
the lingering effects
of my indulgences
still crawling through my head,
an intoxicated leech
sucking on my sanity.
here on the train
it
remains
the same.
i'm outside the majority,
hearing
their moot idle chatter
watching their
ape-like gestures
that confirm
darwin's reality.
2 million years
and no significant change.
wandering through athens
i feel i've found rome's twin here;
could this place be remus?
lost and motherless,
without the comfort of a wolf's nipple,
a mother's milk of wisdom.
the archaic knowledge
that once careened
through the veins of this city
like a voluptuous broth
is now as smooth and forgotten
as the tourist worn marble.
so where are the gods now?
ancient greek wisdom
has become nothing more
than an eroded effigy,
a trembling pillar of sand,
exhibit #41
in the humid darkness
of an under funded museum.
oh yeah;
artemis packed her bags
aeons ago
and without a backwards glance
strolled off.
you carry around the demon
of your dead father
as if it's the shroud of christ.
his corpse is your skin.
his face is your eyes.
his voice,
the yearly ache
that knots your bowels.
his blood,
the milk of sustenance
that feeds your philosophy.
his physical absence
is the sick yardstick
with which you measure humanity,
the sadistic whip
with which you mete out
your dogmatic punishment.
the morning mirror
is nothing but his image -
fading,
growing pallid as the years progress.
you fear his final departure;
gripping his memory
with talons of denial,
tearing his flesh
into crimson ribbons of anger
that burn your memories
and bring forth tears
that scold your eyes
as you lie in the darkness.
and you'll blame us all
when these tears no longer fall.
dog piss flows through the streets,
the juice of an abscess,
a fetid syrup
painting a puddled patchwork of canine anarchy
on the pavements;
the art
of a public toilet.
i've entered this land
as precarious as christ
and become lost within a melee of
mindless mannequins
who pace the treadmill of time
in reverence of their ridiculous religions.
i intend towards the vanishing point
to flee the indignorance
that seethes over the
skin
of the oblivious.
i'm alien here,
i have but 21 credits remaining
and as i walk these strange streets
i hear the snickering of the dogs
hiding in the shadows,
stalking me,
waiting for my poverty.
i fear they will soon
be dining on my flesh.
my years burst and dissipate
like piss foam in a toilet bowl.
anarchy doesn't exist
as thought,
rhyme,
pamphlets,
or some skinny bloke
who smells like my granddad's slippers
screaming at shoppers whose philosophy
begins at CarPhone Warehouse
and ends in a pair of Marks and Spencer's underwear.
anarchy is as trivial as a tv quiz show
until it becomes an action.
anarchy is not the clothes you wear,
the ink on your body,
a pit bull at your feet,
a symbol,
a voice.
so quit shouting into the void.
become the fucking action,
and stop wasting my disappearing time
with mere pretence.
the sun dims its gaze
but the fire of day remains
with the tiny yellow finches
tripping through the leafy canopy
like circus people
above my wasted mind.
the beer is flowing,
the blood of dionysus;
and conversation is born at last.
introversion pins me to silence
like a dead insect
mounted on dark velvet;
mute,
growing dust and lice.
intoxication is the re-animator,
giving life to my interactions.
life sags grey for many
without a dose of drug.
an hour later...
and life seems beyond reach
as i spin like a fool,
ignorant to the finch faeces
that spatters my head.
music is so much more
than the air it infuriates.
the western sun
chases a transparent icarus
beneath the earth
leaving the distant hills
to perform their morbid shadow play.
they absorb the horizon
into their dark body
with the slickness of a malevolent amoeba
as if they fear the emptiness
the horizon's circle describes.
yet it's the night
that dominates them all.
incessant in its hunger,
it devours their form,
giving me the opportunity
to gaze upon utter darkness.
bugs land
amidst the wilderness
of my forearms.
excited by the sweat
they stamp
and
dance,
stroking their eyes,
cleaning before the feast.
they suck at my flooded pores,
the oily pools of salt,
until bloated
and content.
unable to fly
they tumble to the sand
only to be devoured
by the insane ants.
we stand
above the real
in our own little worlds
our own
cans of nightmares.
we gaze down
upon lovers
maniacs
priests
aged women
crippled men
with distorted bones
broken lives
broken futures
filled with faces,
the grimy moons
of children
gazing up at us
with envious wishes.
we stand up here
gazing down through our guilt
pretending that we wish
we could be them.
through an orange filter
the eye
perceives other than what we see.
the world
gains mystery
as the distant trees
lean upon the years of wind
shedding their snake vision
up
towards the crawling beacons
that slide from our memory
at the speed
of a spinning planet.
van gogh
spoke to me today.
he was sitting inside
a small
seed pod
that dropped from my cracker.
"look at me" he said
"insignificant as sane
genius as lunatic".
i just shrugged my shoulders
"sorry man, i have no answers"
and finished my cracker.
i arrived at the party
already worse for wear
a gut full of jack
a pocket full of benzo
and a mind
teetering
i knew the evening was gonna be awkward
'cos the funk of beautiful people
overpowered the cigarette smoke.
the intoxicant selection
was nonsense
patronising bourgeois piss.
i slipped a benzo
between my lips
swallowed it down
to soften the beast
then slid into the nearest circle of strangers,
absorbing their conversation.
they spoke in meaningless tongues
work
relationships
traffic congestion
beauty products
credit scores
TV chefs
shite
i ran away
before they had chance to convert me
and found a little space by the drinks table.
an hour passed
as i amused myself sampling the various
intoxicants
and making fart noises
then the music began
unable to contain myself
i leaped up on the drinks table
and danced a swirling montage
uncontrollably urinating in my trousers.
at the spastic climax of my contortions
some bloke with plastic trousers
and a modem haircut
came over
and took me aside
"hey man" he said
"there are people here trying to have fun
and you're making it difficult for them to do so"
i bowed to his courage
and ejected my stomach
down his shiny trousers
wiping the bile from my lips
i said
"go find me someone to dance with."
a friend of plastic trousers came over
he was a big chap with a large swollen head
and tiny mole-like eyes
he grabbed me by the collar
and pushed me back against the wall
"you should leave" he said
and then unfortunately
released his grip
i swung
and
missed by miles
god damn!
he hit me so hard
i shat myself
before i'd even hit the floor.
through streets of rebellious children
pissing on the cankers of the elderly
truth flees
over oily lakes
choked with dead birds
and aborted foetuses
truth flees
over carpets of mildewed envy
crushed snails that throb in death
gobs of spat phlegm
truth flees
in the midst of the bloodied
broken
spattered
aborted
chained
violent
emotionless
blind
prejudiced
cold
delinquent
abject nonsense
truth flees,
burning.