YEAH

PREFACE

This text is painstakingly transcribed from defaced bank notes. Some of the bank notes were damaged, illegible, others ‘missing.’ Efforts were made to order the bank notes but were not always successful. No efforts were made to authorial-fingerprint the voice or psychoanalyse the handwriting. The text is not necessarily a critical indictment of embedded liberal capitalism of whom we are liberal, human subjects and where money, formerly neutral means of exchange, is becoming a flying, white, electrical spark passing through borders of osmotic porosity in the dark. Nor is the text necessarily about an imaginary designer drug called “Strictly Free” that does exactly what it says on the tin, is and makes you “strictly free” to consume. It is but an open-air paper, comprised of torn and bleeding snapshot-fragments that are given artificial insemination. Inherent in it is a notion that money is an Ode to Death, that a fiver is cheese and onion flavour, that work sets you free.

CHAPTER ONE: ‘BEHIND ENEMY LINES’ BY THE FLOOD

Note: This is an album recorded in Cambridge by a band called The Flood, who only recorded on our drummer’s binaural earphones – earphones with tiny mics implanted inside them. Hence it is something like ‘dark music’ or ‘anti-music.’ About it, I would say a “tron” is a point of inter-section between technology and art, or a post-poetic experiment with a psycho-technological edge. The album only has six songs because we wanted to draw a line in the sand, although there were others recorded. The album can be heard on Soundcloud but not on my account, on someone else’s, and whether I have the right to posit that hyperlink now I do not know, so won’t take the risk. One of my favourite lines is “maybe all I need is a new pair of shades” because then the album becomes a tone-poem but not in the Classical sense, only in the sense of Nirvana-esque, distortion-is-clarity, light sabre ink. I think if CD shops hadn’t been closing all around us we might’ve become a cult band, like The Velvet Underground. The Flood were named after many things at once including a literal flood in my family home at the foot of Black Combe where beckwater seeped in under the back door overnight and scattered my dad’s precious vinyl collection all over the floor like an archipelago. There is also serotonin disinhibition, the Biblical event, something Thom Yorke of Radiohead once said, an echo of Pink Floyd (whose town we were in) and most importantly a quote from Arthur Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations: “when the idea of the flood had subsided, a rabbit, in among the flowers, said a prayer to the rainbow through the spider’s web.” The Flood’s music asks questions such as “if the first song is called ‘Hunger’ does that mean it is about food?” I have heard it said that the song ‘Hunger’ is a work of genius. I guess the idea with the song is that if you plug your senses in the mains they become aliens, the aliens of Hollywood films, such as The Fifth Element where there is a blue alien that can sing in two notes at once. ‘Hunger’ was named after the Knut Hamsun book which both Paul and I read in Sixth Form, where a starving, nameless anti-hero who perceives visions of sulphur and purity keeps throwing his work away until one day he writes something of practical use to the world and earns enough to buy some bread. I won’t say what happens next in the book in case you want to read it. When The Flood came north to see me after I had been kicked out and gone back to university to get a degree, it was the time of the Plough alignment: The Plough was plugged into the socket and I said “it’s the abandoned shopping trolley from the front of the Gomez album of that name.” Our album doesn’t really have a front cover or a physical form but is there online if you know where to look. It was never intended to be the new Syd Barrett, more like the new Nirvana. Now I’ll give you the lyrics to our little work and in the event of an instrumental write a little bit about it.

HUNGER

(recorded on binaural earphones by The Flood and now online)

I e I e I e have I e I e I e have

I e I e I e have I have Hunger

I'm a sick magnet I e I e I e I'm in want

maybe all I need is a new pair of shades

I'm a craving slave for you

your pleasure's dust your pleasure's just

your pleasure's just your suffering's bait

it's a sucker's fate for you

escape escape escape escape

your home your clothes and all you know

leave no footprint in the snow it's just a photo

escape escape escape your name

your stain your skin your dead routine

for the pristine dream for her

I'm going to get your freshness back

plug my senses in the mains

it's just a bloodrush to my brains

I'm going to get pretty much f***ed up

flee this world on a midnight plane

dance with the aliens and the insane.

VOODOO ECHO

(by the Flood and recorded on earphones]

Well, I say this number is by The Flood but at one point I am massacring Jimi Hendrix which seems looking back to be folly to me now. The best bit about this song is that we – or rather I - through patience and spontaneity alike – manage to incorporate as much feedback and static as is possible onto the binaural earphone album, where this number goes in at number 2. Credit to Tommo for ordering the 6 tracks and keeping it down to 6 and for naming the song especially considering he wasn’t even playing on this number! Such a thing is typical of the Flood’s modus operandi.

THE WARNING

(recorded on state of the art binaural earphones in The Flood and now online)

Going to meet with the Otherness,

best go get a party dress,

play a stone, live in the wilderness,

I'm going to beat with the Otherness.

Suddenly their brain is an alien visitation,

suddenly I am the imposter againe,

lying in secret wait of myself,

knife ready to treat the pain.

F # MINOR

Well, this is an instrumental by the Flood, which was recorded on earphones in the middle of the night in Cambridgeshire. Wolf aka Agent G (who procured the earphones from his bro and was our drummer) came up with this weird detuning (we were always detuning guitars) and h-a-n-d-e-d me the guitar, whereupon I jammed around for a bit until I knew what I was doing then I said “right I’m ready” and Tommo was on bass and Agent G on drums and we recorded this number, this instrumental jam which is said to be the Flood’s best song, one where we got the cat from Piper just right. I mean what is the street-name for the drug ‘Ecstasy’ when you start to detune the guitar strings all the way? For me, F sharp minor is the answer to that question… and the point this song is trying to make. Whether or not Agent G knew that when he handed me the guitar in the F Sharp minor detuning I cannot say – but I would not put it past him. I cannot even say if I knew it when Tommo later asked me what the song was called and I said “F Sharp Minor.” Whatever the case it seems an almost unbearably beautiful piece and especially so for having something behind the words. I would also like to say that in The Flood we kind of posited the idea that O is the key of water and its soul-assuaging sound, and that is beautiful too – so all told we had a lot going on. When voices later told me to lose the book or the guitar, maybe there was already no choice by then.

MANTRA OF A MADMAN

(by The Flood and recorded on binaural earphones!)

Well, I was going to say this number has no words but that would be a lie. It has one line, a mantra. I inverted the Great I Can, I Am from Venice Beach, 1967 into the mantra “I Am, I can,” because it had to be that way round for the earphones. Paul and I are singing it in major harmonies, and it’s said to be one of the most beautiful moments on a very beautiful record. I say record but my feelers are out and my Google search engines are primed and bring back news that what we had was actually an algorithm more than an album!

THE BLASTS

[by The Flood and recorded on earphones]

[The Blasts has no words it is a bad monkey funky prog rock or even math rock rhythm and riff sequence I wrote when I was living in the shed and the song goes on at the end of our little record a beautiful record that contains six of the best this one being the sixth for all it starts with plugging the senses in the mains and we have six of them if you include as Professor Morley says thanatos I. e. an increasing sense of one’s own mortality in life as the perceptual kingdom of the individual enters overdrive.]

CHAPTER TWO: ‘SONGS TO RECORD WITH EARPHONES’ [DEMO 3]

Note: This solo album was recorded relatively recently after The Flood. Of all the solo albums, this one is the most traditional, being recorded in a secret studio in Disneyland, Paris. What happened was a friend (drummer, painter, poet and more) wanted to help me make something that I could look back on and be happy with despite the onset of mental illness by now. It was just after my degree, which itself happened after I had been kicked out of The Flood; so we recorded this album – not on earphones as the title would suggest but emerging from that past. What I like about it is that experiments such as the sheet where pictures depicting a song lyric grew and the fusing and healing of the cassette with a pause where cut and stuck together in the reel are foreseen and accounted for in song and song about love as well. It’s almost like I am writing the music theory for such things to work – albeit only in a couple of instances. The album can be heard on one of my two Soundcloud accounts under the name John F B Tucker.

COMING UP

Face of stars he had no nose,

Einstein’s bros equals Einstein’s bros,

backward f, forward f, equals running through,

Frozen in red, Sensation in blue.

Fire sticks and alcoholics,

violent Texan, bright northern becks,

the face of stars he had no nose,

Einstein’s pose equals Einstein’s pose.

L to the pregnant snorkel...

L to the pregnant snorkel…

L to the porcelain laptop….

L to the pregnant snorkel...

L to the porcelain laptop...

L to the pregnant snorkel...

L to the porcelain laptop...

L to the pregnant snorkel…

L to the porcelain laptop….

[Note: this song when played backwards recounts the story of a one night stand I had as a student. Somehow the lyrics just work forwards and backwards at the same time. I did not intend it to be like this and think it reveals that I was a bit of an ecstasy lab rat.]

EARPHONE RECORD REPRIEVE

Instrumental I am afraid. It was originally called The Blasts when I wrote it, back when we were recording through a mate’s binaural earphones in that Cambridge band called The Flood circa 2002. Grant Aspinall is singing some ah’s over it now – in harmony – to give it depth – thanks Grant – you made it a classic record.

PHYSICAL HYPERLINK?

To love someone truly is to set them free

to be who they are and not pretend to be

no-one knows how to free you but meyou

Blissful Lovingness is where all religions meet

when all love is revealed all science is resolved

love is bigger than colour, blogger

than space, deeper than memes

love is the smallest unit of time

time is divided at last by the coruscations of divinity

GROG LADETTE IN G

Baby we create the dawn

behind a veil where silence is born

and dawn conspires with the sea

and everything untrue recedes

and down into sleep with no dreams

and all that’s left is you and me

and all that’s left is you and me

no-one knows how to free you

eeeeeeeeeeexcept for meyou

no one knows how to free you

eeeeeeeeeeexcept for meyou

horserace books in traffic light

colours through the ancient night

in the end it’s all white

in the end it’s alright

NOTES FOR THE FILM ‘ENTER THE VOID’

Instrumental again. This instrumental has had a few names. One was ‘Musac From a Black Hole’ another was ‘Interstellar Artois’ but I think I like this present name the best. The film itself was recommended to me by an old friend who said it was very me.

ONTIMEY

If this thing were a woman

I’d be in trouble by now

and if it wasn’t I’d

be in double by now

like a witch she says

take FACE instead of fags

and then I put my

wounds up on bright flags

yeah

ontimey,

ontimey,

ontimey,

untie me

READING THE LESSON FROM JOHN IN ETON COLLEGE CHAPEL

Once upon a time there was an acid-rainbow

that struggled from a black hole and smashed through a window

of a big cathedral and landed on a page

and rearranged the sermon the vicar was enraged

O but then he found it bore a strange notation

and it was so profound he needed medication

and then the paper bread turned to acid which was nice

and everyone was singing music from a black hole by Jesus Christ

all the congregation gave their neighbours a nudge

and asked if every good boy still deserveth fudge

the wine it came in buckets through the back of the song

and even the vicar too, he started to sing along

3484, 3484, what do you need one of those for?

I was at the beach I threw a stone to the sea

to rearrange the day and the deity

no-one was beside me except the pretty dog

oozing and exuding uncomplicated love

voices from the city they were heard between the waves

like lost souls trapped in the cracks between the paves

then I saw the mystery of the single shoe

and knew that it was time to drop a line to you

you were off your face on something by this stage

said there’d been an accident and were hiding in the cage

and Barnes has scored a chicken and blanes is a liquid knife

and wingers are allowed bikes in the afterlife

3484, 3484, what do you need one of those for?

3484, 3484, what do you need one of those for?

IN A FIELD KNEE DEEP IN GRASS

Lovers and tools are breaking their own rules in the game

mad children play unaware of the guilt and the shame

pirates are looting the world and riding the breeze

angels and thieves are kissing at the tips of the trees

and I’m in bed against you

wouldn’t bet against you

I’m in bed against you

shouldn’t bet against you

if all that I’ve loved is a bunch of telly snow

still you can’t take away the afterglow

Science says don’t touch your dreaming gland

it’s all Thumper to you VS Edward Scissorhands

and I’m in bed against you

I wouldn’t bet against you -

I’m in bed against you

shouldn’t bet against you

and I’m in bed against you

I wouldn’t bet against you

I’m in bed against you

and b equals d

[Note: this song seems to be concerned in part with a tape of Pearl Jam ‘VS’ that has a pause where cut and stuck together in the reel.]

CHAPTER THREE: THE NEW BEAT

Note: This album was recorded on Ableton Live on my laptop, overlaying a slick and unchanging processed beat with two electrics and a vocal, leaving a big, bass-shaped hole. It can be heard on Bandcamp under the name John F B Tucker. Although I wrote the songs, the idea was to have 4 albums structured on my brother James P D Tucker’s “new da Vinci circle.” James designed the new da Vinci circle as a discrete system containing the international language alphabet in 4 points of difference, I. e.

@

<BEE> [long squiggle]

Infinity Symbol

to not only suggest that <BEE> might soon ensue from @ in the international language alphabet, but also, by including a long squiggle, to situate itself outside the totalitarian machination of every book, letter, sentence, paragraph, word in every order which a computer can no doubt by now already organise. So in many ways although I wrote the songs, these next 4 albums are part of that new da Vinci circle.

DREAM WITH OPEN EYES

(by Secret Chord H originally and used as radio jingle circa 1999)

Last night it seemed we couldn't 

sleep but maybe I was dreaming.

The world expands inside my 

hands it's getting heavy.

Of all the treasures I could

choose I can't seem to decide.

Today the shade was washed 

away where I would hide.

Dream with open eyes, come 

below and we can fantasise.

Now that I’ve stopped telling lies, come 

below and we can fantasise.

Last night it seemed we nearly 

died but maybe I was dreaming.

It made me feel sooooooooooooo 

alive and soooooooo in love.

CHOCOLATE DOG

MY DOG HAS GOT NO BRAIN/ MY DOG IS A TOTAL PAIN/ HE’S GOT THREE EYES / AND A BIG FAT NOSE / AND GETS HIMSELF TANGLED / WITH THE GARDEN HOSE/ HE ONCE TOOK A PILL / THAT MADE HIM ILL/ AND EVER SINCE THEN/ HE’S BEEN STANDING VERY STILL.

BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE

Such a bad day at the office

down the pub to get pissed

though I can't afford it

we'll never get a pay rise

stay up till sunrise

call in sick in the morning

spend the whole day mourning

underneath the covers

where the fuck is Batman

Sugar Candy Mountain

waiting for some action

heard it brings good fortune

papers want a scandal

tell them the truth

if you can handle

what a fucking headline

where in Hell is Tinkerbell

somewhere alone and dying

dawn calls in sick in the morning

what's the use in trying

don't believe in dying

it's shocking and appalling

it's four o'clock in the morning

and Paradise is boring.

CHIEF OF THE BLACKBIRD SPIES

Well I fell up a sycamore tree

and nearly spilled my glass of wine,

and though nobody came for me

I didn't mind it I felt fine,

for I was trading stories

w/ the chief of the black bird spies

amongst new leaves and old branches

that don't know how to tell lies...

He said to forget the job,

sack the boss, and hang the cage

which containeth all your rage

for but the minimum wage.

I said it's easy for you

in your neighbouring Otherness -

be Nature custodial or frightening? -

to avoid the mad enemy Stress.

He said he finds it fun-loving

to tense-hop all around

for cataclysm is catalyst for the cat

that sat on the map of sound.

Quite soon he spread his wings

until his wings were spread

and flew to Morrisons supermarket

for a tamed and manner'd head.

He’d said he thinks privation

is the mother of imagery,

and inconsiderate violation

at the root of the creation of beauty.

We’d bemoaned a lost society

w/ all its malaise and cheap talk,

its word-ways no better than

cheep cheep squawk squawk.

We’d spoken in no uncertain terms

and out in the great outdoors

where Mother Nature operates

according to her natural laws.

When he left it grew quite quiet

for he was a tremendous talker

and had a way with words

and had said I would go far…

when I left his sycamore tree

I was glad to see my own home

and return to my own kind

near the beach that’s full of foam

but I remembered that black bird

and his eloquent influence

performing from the end of a branch

in ways that just made sense.

SYMMETRY LIPS

Symmetry lips   symmetry lips

kiss me quicks  need a fix

make me feel  natural and real

cuts heal  with a plastic seal

I’ve been in your heart  and danced in hot rain

I've been in your heart  and danced in hot rain

now consciousness  is everywhere

now consciousness  is sentient air

the sky falls  apart into place

I crave to sleep  behind your face

everything in its  proper place

live where the sky  and the river freely give

live where the sky  and the river freely give

AIR RAID SHELTER

(originally recorded through state of the art binaural earphones in The Flood but not used for their record)

Air raid shelter, we're in it together,

let's not get entrenched too deeply,

fear and pain's our only motivation,

got to break free from that habit apathy.

Clinging to loveless, sweaty, rubber limbs

won't cure your heart, it's a painful art,

air-raid shelter, we're in it together now,

wrap me away in your wombs and duvets.

See this world from outer space minor,

saaaaaaaaafe distances have found

all our solid, common ground,

echo grammanon habeo amore.

Won't your spaceships come to find me,

pull myself right back to the centre,

attack on all sides, hold you soooooo tight

now that there is noooooo time.

I’m just trying to forget how to smell acid,

and still it seems acid isn’t flaccid,

but I think that you’ll find I still

got there in the end somehow.

LUCY IN THE SOUL WITH DEMONS

I no longer know if Lucy in the soul with demons

even happens to be an actual substance

but I know that acid can alter personality

and when home-made and strong be very scary.

Do not flinch at your own shadow when

you take its dark receipt into the glen

for panic in a wild stallion horse’s eye

can spread like wild-fire across the madding sky

where a digital wind of blue and green

blows in fake and chemical as glycerine

and the derangement of the senses can go

hang its head in shame, dear Master neo-Rimbaud.

PRIVATE DETECTIVES AND SECRET SPIES

I sleep in a hole for the Hoover tonight

there's always something not quite right

look at a wall it's not too hard to see

all the cracks and flaws beneath the paint

maybe all we need is to decorate the place

private detectives and secret spies

seem to have uncovered all of my lies,

scars and birthmarks beneath my skin,

should I sever my face with razor blades

to show you some ugly truth w/in

well maybe I should but I'd prefer to

score your flawless body with sin

like two new humans made for life

with default buttons to wipe any slate clean

and one of them man and one of them wife

in Crufts as it is in the black angel’s death song

A SMALL ADVERT FOR FREE SEX

My name is David Bonky,

I'm a knock-kneed hummingbird,

there's a tear up my jacket

and I heard a magic word:

Trans/ philo/ quis/ ation.

I fly through colours and shapes.

Lightspeed is my passport.

The countries are for apes.

A knock-kneed hummingbird

table on which to land and read

does not seem to me to be

such an unreasonable need.

I'll breakfast on snooker

colours, spark a dullard cigarette,

sail the wind of change and

have no room for regret.

I deem it quite Romantic

to go do the monkey bars 

with my legs into her open

chamber underneath the stars. 

I think love is both the all-

seeing eye and love is blind.

So wear an emotional condom

before you fuck my mind.

For that’s what language is,

the emotional condom of

the world into which we’re

all thrown in search of love.

Soon I must fly on, from

this gnarled treefinger perch,

and heal the glitch in the soul,

and join the Giant Search.

I don’t know what we’re

searching for but it’ll find us first.

Maybe just some peace and

quiet to slake the eternal thirst.

THE POWER-BALLAD OF MARTIN VICIOUS

I can see death and see flippers

coming out of his senses and say

“come closer you f***ing terrorist,

come closer you f***ing terrorist,

come closer you f***ing terrorist.”

It's because I live a life of all time leisure,

all drugs pure and the radiance just right.

I might be wrong but then I might.

Score some dodgy crack and die

here alone with nobody for a name.

I can be Proust and fathom ten

or eleven types of ambiguity and

rue them all cantankerously,

rue them all cantankerously,

rue them all cantankerously.

It's because I live a dream of my still

working, all love pure and trust in the night.

I might be wrong but then I might.

Score some dodgy crack and die

here alone with nobody for a name.

OCEANS SMILE

(originally by Oedipus Wrecks)

Oceans smile with liquid eyes

and fill themselves with rain.

The tide goes out and leaves me

stranded, the last thing a glass gene.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

Death will come on silky wings

but I for one will not go.  

A soul is endless, oceans severed

and keeeeeeeps a perfect O.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

Go drink the ocean with your tea

cup, give your heart far out.

If oceans smile with liquid eyes

then they'll give you a shout.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

Too drunkenly I sail the water

on Rimbaud’s smoking boat.

With whiskygills primed in fire

I sail the waves to Boot.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

(reconstructed via the new, synchronised word)

CHAPTER FOUR: SONGS IN G

Note: This album was recorded on Ableton Live on my laptop, overlaying a slick and unchanging processed beat with two electrics and a vocal, leaving a big, bass-shaped hole. It can be heard on Bandcamp under the name John F B Tucker, and is part of the new da Vinci circle. I know they say it’s best when there is as much diversity on an album as is possible, but it’s also true that as Stravinsky says “restriction is liberation,” so I thought I’d gather my songs in G.

BONECHINA DRUM

Where has all my washing gone?

Maybe it has gone to Heaven!

Mirrors on the street rebound.

Everyone is happy and free.

My dream-meet experiment tended there.

Not the local DogMuckels.

All walks of life were gathered and one.

To wake from the dream is to die.

That’s when you put on your socks.

Unless they’ve gone into the sock void.

Don’t mind me I’m paranoid.

I’ve got some bizarre ideas.

If a clock is only as fast as a cheetah

I. T. might stand for Instant Travel

but I’ll pad downstairs and drink a cup

only at my own slow speed.

FLOWER-PRESS LOVE POEM MUSIC

If a flower-press ending on cannabis 

could seem to equal a dialysis 

then a love poem hoping to impress Flora 

could seem to equal more a motor 

but giving up weed in order to be free

I can’t see how this really matters to me

and if it’s a system I just love you still

and love has not gone under the green hill

if all the noise in the world would be quiet

I’d hide in the cupboard during the riot

if systems rule with fear not love

I’d half it and laugh it with an imperfect dove

here I am at the foot of Sea Ness

this anagram of boredom is in a mess

I’m all set up for a walk on the beach

to watch the waves rolling out of my reach

I trust my family and I trust my friends

I hope my dog’s life never quite ends

the kitchen is clean because I cleaned it myself

my father’s philosophy is up on the shelf

if all the greed in the world would go away

I’d still be Bede at the end of the day

if power is wrong at least it’s transient

a birthday came and a birthday went

and this is the me we all want to see

and this is the way I know to be free

and this is the Now that is in Eternity

and this is the leaf that came to the tree

if the wording of this little contract is mine

alas you are not but I’m still feeling fine

I’ve seen the stars that are out tonight

I’ve tried to forget exactly what colour is white

I’m drifting to E on the end of a stick

I’m searching my memory but it’s just a block

if only I could hold you in my arms

I’ve fallen for all your loquacious charms

ICARUS UNBOUND

(a finger-picker in the drone of G)

I really love you my friend Mark,

don’t get me wrong I am not gay,

it’s just a way for me to start,

it’s just something to say…

placing bets on raindrops running

down the opaque window pane,

I have been a melting robot,

then they said I was insane...

there you are across the water,

living on the Isle of Man,

if only my attention-span could

be more like Peter Pan...

you’re the one who taught me de-tunings,

stairs down to The Velvet Underground,

I am the one in love with Flora,

and that fertile map of sound...

you say it’s got too late to make it,

I hear you crawl through new air,

but I was never one to fake it,

I for one don’t really care...

in your room was a very high ceiling

and I remember it was bright,

I can almost taste the loving feeling,

even though now it is Night...

you could not tell if the vocal

in Aphex Twin was a demon

so made us listen to Nick Drake when

on another easy comedown...

lines are blurred in drug-slurred idiom.

lyrical streaks now open up.

I’m thinking of youth which has now flown.

but I’ve still got a little plastic cup.

THE FIRE-DANCE

The fire-dance dwelled in electric drums

where ecstasy fell soft fathoms to clap

and bells let peace form in blue notes

and peered at beer in the wood and ate of it

and wet let excellence sound out its criticism

and dawn let sting its unsheathed sting

and chloroform in the heart let see

if only Game Over was seen in nights.

SONG OF THE NEON DAWN

X-ray specs don’t lead to sex

and mobile phones don’t have gay undertones

and television is a big decision

and the internet can’t just forget

and laser beams are born in dreams

and digital clocks don’t come in flocks

and Ableton Live is my nine to five

and the latest App is an angel’s lap

and I sing for Kate whose always late

and I write the Night until it’s white

and my vertigo lives down below

and my neon dawn will be reborn

and we’ll renew the morning dew

and Google our senses out there like a tide

and dream of love aloft on wings

and try and forget the nights we cried

and the alphabet is the suicide note

of Nelly the Elephant if you deem it true

and love’s gone veggie over Disney again

and the grass is green and the sky is blue

and E is a bet with the myriad mind

and I’ve seen so much I’ve gone blind

and a poem’s a seat where you sit and eat

and a driverless car has gone quite far

and a use for dust is a beautiful bust

and the wheel of a bike is a map of the Lakes

and a rugby match is quite a catch

and an abandoned band is written in the sand

and a red skin cell is a state of Hell

and sadness seems the mother of dreams

but maybe that’s the other way round

and a flower grows just for your nose

BIRTHDAY OF I. A.

You’re not a knock-kneed hummingbird, / you’re not a birthday of I. A, / and who you are I’ll never know now, / and if I did I’d never say… / I am your med-banging elephantine, / and I cry on the windows of trains, / and maybe all I need’s a length of, / need’s a length of metal chain… / and through it all I wish you rainbows, / made for two and very strange, / and somehow what’s most familiar, / is what really can estrange you, / rearrange and slowly derange you, / oh yes it most definitely can. / So don’t run in the corridor / or you’ll sin in the eyes of Santa / as he watches on.

TELEPATHIC ELEPHANT

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

Another, another, another fucking joint.

[Note: this song which was originally a Secret Chord H B-side concerns a Pearl Jam ‘VS’ cassette tape with a pause in the opening number where the reel is cut and re-sealed. In a sense it is about healing the pause in the song and then cooking the object in the dark blue AGA, top oven, hottest one.]

THE SWITCH THROWN

Blessed may be the end at last

under the sea

below the soul

in the upside-down

Oceans above us

(all that heaven sends is rain)

and blessed is the rain that heaven sends

it is the life for the gilly flowers

some might say

it even falls up

and you’re going to have to think againe

for a clock’s only as fast

as a wounded cheetah

who knows how to

get drunk on cold Wifebeater

but gets drunk instead

on the rhythm and metre

O love thanks

for coming round,

O love cherish

your map of sound,

O love I dreamt that

we were drowned

I made such a mess it’s wasn’t cool

but at least I didn’t

give it away

that music is

the sacred pool

or whatever else I had to say

it’s half past four but then again

the Night is young

the switch is thrown

whatever could

the poor boy mean

he means his heart is yours to own

SAD HYPOCHONDRIAC

I know she's only a phone call away...

maybe she's got something to say?

Anyway by now her number's probably changed...

seems even numbers can't just stay the same.

You always used to say to me

“to love someone truly is to set them free” -

you always knew better than me

you always knew better than me.

I know she's only a daydream away -

transient rainbow not made to stay -

only made of sunlight and tears! -

beauty like that should last for years.  

You always used to say to me

“to love someone truly is to set them free” -

you always knew better than me

you always knew better than me.

I’m just a sad hypochondriac.

Just another shooting rock star in love with the black.

Don’t want to die of a sudden art attack.

I’m just a sad hypochondriac.

I'm just a sad hypochondriac.

I'm just a sad hypochondriac.

I'm just sorry for everything I lack.

I’m just a sad hypochondriac.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE WHITE DOOR

Note: This album was recorded on Ableton Live on my laptop, overlaying a slick and unchanging processed beat with two electrics and a vocal, leaving a big, bass-shaped hole. It can be heard on Bandcamp under the name John F B Tucker. It is part of the new da Vinci circle.

TRUE LOVE DOT COM

Dead clock plodding play a different song // we're waiting for some action and some change to come along // been waiting all night at true love dot com // you're only just starting to notice the mushrooms are still too strong // dead pedestrians thinking fumes stay in and get fat in your new chat rooms // we chase the wave forms of the dusky dawn w/ black shadow cat-prints going backwards on the lawn // and I confess my open heart is lying w/ her legs apart // and if she said she's in love w/ me I wouldn't go taking it personally // for love has no ego as everybody knows  and something inside me she's given me grows // and a playground swing on the vexed edge of life sighs empty and forever and out falls a leaf // and not into love does that green leaf fall where wet Westerly winds swoop and call // we are the glitter on the Christmas trees and not the litter in the filibustering breeze // and the E comedown has no value in maths // and the loonies all walk on the wrong paths // and the grass is green on the Other Side // it pulls the ropes of the evening tide.

I KNEW THAT SHE LOVED ME

I escaped last night

into a heightened dream

from a dull and longing sleep

and the stars murmured

their cool ballad

to the approaching sky.

Secrets hung like ghosts

in the corner of my wanton world

all blurred and drugged too deep

and I knew that she loved me

from her invisible motions

and the dagger in her soft reply.

The questions concealed in her eye.

Her smile a luring prison.

Her blink a beautiful danger.

Her breath a poisonous magic.

And I knew that silence

would soon let slip its whisper,

knew that fantasy

had never been so real

and I knew that she loved me

because I knew everything.

I knew.

BAXTER

I love my dog

he’s barking mad

when he wants to smile

he wags his tail

his uncomplicated love

is healing for the soul

he has seventy words

like the book with smell

I wonder what the others are

maybe later I’ll know

mashed potato and stew

and a Pizza Hut

and the waves of the sea

go round and round

swim in mystery

but do not drown

ice cream is nice

on Freedom’s shore

so is sugar and spice

and more and many more

and so it came to pass

that I sat in a room

with the dog by my side

and the music on

and I’ve got the dog blues

yeah I’ve got the dog blues

which only means

I’ve nothing to lose

and the stream of life

flows on and on

and a cup of tea

awaits in the kitchen

and the dream of love

has not quite died

and I feel assured

deep down inside

because I love my dog

he loves me too

what more do I need

don’t need to sniff glue

to feel all high

when I have fresh air

and the Emperor has

abdicated againe

and a nice long sleep

will reunite me

with planet earth

at the end of the day

what more can I say

FAREWELL TO THE SEER OF SEA NESS

Farewell to the seer of Sea Ness -

see you later when the future is less.

What will you do about your trance?

Will you send a postcard from France?

I hope that you have a lot of fun…

I hope that you may find someone -

and the scenery streams by the train

and the world is small beneath the plane

Farewell to the seer of Sea Ness -

see you in the future when the past is less.

Will the future there be quite cold?

Will you feel sad and feel old?

I hope that your dreams all come true.

I hope that there’s hope for you too -

and the dreams stream beside the car -

and you make it Westwards quite far.

Farewell to the seer of Sea Ness -

see you in the light we might bless.

Will the visual radio still swirl?

Will you still blame it on the girl?

I hope that your heart will beat on…

I hope that your hope’s not all gone -

and the freedom you find is the best,

and the beauty you dream is a quest.

Farewell to the seer of Sea Ness -

see you in the middle released from the stress.

Will the sound of silence be heard?

Will they hide the mystic bird?

I hope that your love arrows down.

I hope that you don’t hit the brown -

and the light will puncture you

and the good life will still be true.

THE GHOSTS LAMENT (THE GUZZLER MEN)

(Oedipus Wrecks)

I'm the only one left, left to shoot my

own gun. This is the dead land. Crack a smile

and curse the sun. Death awaits to fuck me.

Give me bliss and give me kisses. Death a-

waits to save me. The ghosts lament, the ghosts

lament. Come on baaaaaaaaaby, you know it's e-

asy, don't say maaaaaaaaaybe, let's go crazy. Death

awaits to fuck me. Give me bliss and give

me kisses. Death awaits the same me. The

ghosts lament, the ghosts lament, no more ghosts.

[Note: when I discovered the James P D Tucker sheet where pictures grew, and the pictures seemed to depict the lyric to one of my old songs, this is the song.]

THAT BLACK NATURAL E

[spoken word narrative for B minor]

Where once I wandered far and wide 

on a field-file, a file-field, 

a fenceless farm without 

security alarm where all hearts bleed

and all arts breed, now Hell

is very quiet, unadvertised.

McBreastmilk, 

McBreastmilk, 

don’t feed your kids.

Gentle face erasing cream,

smear it in and let it sink

down through the pores of your skin

to erase your deepest down dirt.

O stars the government

that truly speaks for us!

Get an extra kid for free

when you spend 99p.

Freefall 0800 down

your own black hole pupils.

Maybelline you maybe only make-believe

you may be the true mating queen of the hive,

may mad vampires stalk you,

stalking walls walk through

your vagrant dreams.

I see state of head

is more than Head of State.

Monster Munch can

always gobble up your food.

Cancerel can always 

sweeten the stewed-

carfume coffee we sip in 

this liminal afterlounge.

It’s getting cramped

as a tin of beans in here.

In emergency please 

break glass and exit.

Credits at the end of innocence

are falling like numberless lists

of fallen autumn leaves.

Snatched handfuls of light

come to nothing in the dark room.

There must be a use for 

this dust amounting.

There’s nothing like digging 

a meaningless hole as if to cure the 

spiralling lethargy of Hell...

and when I went into the 

woods to bury my soul, 

all the trees knelt down.

O perpetual orgasm of the sun! 

Privation is the mother of imagery.

Prayers, ghosts and 

e-mails chatter on 

the ego-loss breeze.

The chitchat in the solipsistic

kitchen of fiction is 'phatic'.

My new, motley fridge magnet

letters contain no question 

mark in the pack but the first

qualification of Modernism

is enquiry and furthermore

wilful ignorance is a sin.

Meanwhile outside the 

fallen Autumn leaves 

are where bears have 

dipped their feet in pots of paint 

and danced across the threshold 

of the paving stones.

Water clears its throat from the tap.

Gunpowder was only invented

for fireworks and a firework

is a champion sperm nosing up

blind to explode bright and wonderful

deep-sea creatures in the Ancient Night.

The world is a cool, bejewell'd

marble snug in Holy Orbit

suckling on a mother sun.

Supposedly there is soon

to be New Atlantis on the moon.

The cure for cancer 

sustains your heart.

Robbed by a bastard vending machine,

somewhere a tramp drinks paint-stripper 

to cleanse the doors of perception,

a drunkard attacks a wall

on an otherwise empty street,

a policeman forces himself

to come with a gun.

Hey salesman 

slow down 

with that

fast-food. 

I don't mind

waiting here

for a year. 

(2002)

WAVETABLE IN C

I remember when my mnemonic for the guitar strings was Even A Dick Gets Big Erections… now I don’t need one, I’ve heard a better one from a fellow autist, high-functioning autist – Even A – no – er - Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually. At the moment I’m on James’ red electric. I remember when he got it for Christmas and I got an acoustic, a Fender, an expensive one, and I wanted to be Kurt Cobain so I was annoyed that I got an acoustic not an electric. I was upset and offended my parents. And now here I am playing on James’ red electric. As I say my mnemonic used to be Even A Dick Gets Big Erections, but this one’s in C. I’ll leave it up to you to work out what that means. Your guess is as good as mine. It could be for countryside. It could be for court case. It could be for caliphate. It could be for civilisation. It could be for completion of the soul.

NO DEATH ONLY CHANGE

Don’t be afraid/ there is no death only change/ let’s pretend, let’s pretend/ there is no end of play/ tonight, tonight/ I only believe in tonight / so for once/ throw your cares and travel with me/ travel with me/ travel with me/ travel with me/ I for one/ have long gone/ out the door and far away/ down south/ mouth to mouth/ to exhume a brighter day/ live for this/ chance at bliss/ this kiss that wants to form/ on the air/ everywhere/ as the fungus sun beats down/ on the nervous under-town/ planes are the shoes of clowns/ yeah yeah yeah /

THE POSTMODERN ID

I’m thinking about the old days,

how the hippies are not ageless as the sun rays,

I’m thinking about the ideals of 60’s,

and though I don’t believe in pixies

the effect of global warming on the unicorn

succeeded Piper At The Gates of Dawn,

the summer rain falls with as many hands,

as there are names for new rock bands...

I’m thinking about the imminent future,

there has to be a place still for Nature,

thinking about the state of poetry,

the young light has dawned on me...

the effect of global warming on the unicorn

succeeded Piper At The Gates of Dawn,

the summer rain falls with as many hands,

as there are names for new rock bands.

I’m trying just to think about the present,

and how my life could be so pleasant,

don’t want to be distracted in daydreams,

by a woman as lovely as the sunbeams...

the effect of global warming on the unicorn

succeeded Piper At The Gates of Dawn,

the summer rain falls with as many hands,

as there are names for new rock bands.

I’m thinking about the doors of perception,

how literature is beautiful deception,

you might find the bedroom is hidden,

you might find the dawn is unbidden...

the effect of global warming on the unicorn

succeeded Piper At The Gates of Dawn,

the summer rain falls with as many hands,

as there are names for new rock bands

so try to pass the gravy over

Facebook now and be free.

Don’t know what a Dorian Mode is,

but I know who Toad of Toad Hall is,

and the lady in my life is all missing,

and the music’s only meant for kissing.

‘GARDEN’ IS THE PASSWORD TO MY IMAGINARY WORLD

Because it is recorded and online while this book is in the process of being written I will represent this instrumental. I had the idea – once a portion of my songs were recorded – to make an album of instrumentals – no words - all about my boyhood mythos of tunnels inside the oldest fell lined with free beer dispensers and fruit machines. In said mythos, you whisper the password ‘garden’ to the portal at the back of the cave on the face of the foothill Sea Ness (originally Seer Ness after a seer and his trance) to open it up and then can enter the tunnels. Because there are no words, the names of the songs would have to tell the story on this album, which saw us travel to the old USSR and make it home safely for dawn. Unfortunately it never worked out and I can’t remember why but this instrumental is something that remains from the album, maybe the only thing.

WALKING THE BEAT

(impromptu spoken word piece)

Women can be very beautiful

they can be sharp-elbowed too

they think when we discern their beauty

we are being blinded by love

love is a banana custard to them

man’s highest emotion to me

but single is my jingle these days

I sleep on a single mattress

if I ever do sleep that is

the dog’ll be beside me

he’s a symbol of gravity

and humour and katabasis

it’s been a while since I’ve been in love

and what lovely dresses they can wear in summer

ones with floral patterns on

that come all undone -

it’s winter right now

winter has her compensations

I’m sitting in a coffee-cake dining room

there’s a Christmas tree

adorned with baubles and bright white lights

I suppose they should come down

it’s the 2^nd of January

Bertrand Russell’s History of

Western Philosophy is on the table

some chocolate from Finland

some baccy some papers

some of my mother’s driftwood art

Quality Streets which my dad

used to call Quantity Streets

and what else I don’t know

a toothbrush that hasn’t been opened yet

DOWN IN THE PATCH WORK QUILT BELOW

I like the light and the flight of arrows

I also love the sound of running water 

Down in the patch-work quilt below 

Where the river of sadness used to flow

It’s easy to trip up on a daisy 

Lazy of us to let it get this way 

Down in the patch-work quilt below

Where mad children splash and play 

Art gets to its feet like a cartoon Bambi 

She might go veggie for reasons of Disney

Down in the patchwork quilt below 

Where the ego-loss breeze can freely blow 

Heading down to the sea can free you 

No-one knows how to free you but meyou 

Down in the patch-work quilt below

Where we’ll inevitably have to flow

CHAPTER SIX: THE ALARM CLOCK

Note: This album was recorded on Ableton Live on my laptop, overlaying a slick and unchanging processed beat with two electrics and a vocal, leaving a big, bass-shaped hole. It can be heard on Bandcamp under the name John F B Tucker. It is part of the new da Vinci circle.

THE DARK CARNIVAL DANCE

[‘The Dark Carnival Dance’ has no words. It was an old favourite among my Cambridge friends and Cambridge band The Flood which I brought back from Warwick University, and when I went back to see The Flood in the holidays, I would try and teach them it. It’s actually quite difficult to play. It has quite a few chords in it and I confess I did not write the first two chords, but heard someone else (Tom) at Warwick play them on the bass, whereupon I picked up the ball and ran with it, wrote the rest of the number, in terms of both rhythm and lead. So I thought I would still leave a trace of the instrumental in this instance in the lyric book. Somewhere there still exists a rudimentary version recorded through The Flood’s binaural earphones!]

A POINT FIVE

[impromptu spoken word piece]

“I was going to pack it with content… a clock is only as fast as a cheetah - I said that at seven, seven. I got to the end and realised I hadn’t pressed the right buttons on Ableton. You have to press the right buttons in life. That’s more like it. Previously on this program oceans smile with liquid eyes and fill themselves with rain. Also I. T. might stand for Instant Travel too. Lucy in the soul with demons might happen to be an actual substance. And if a flower-press ending on cannabis could = a dialysis a love poem hoping to impress Flora could = more a motor. That was it. Then I realised – see I was trying to put Jimi’s amp guitar on the vocal and it was full of feedback, squealing like an electric donkey then I realised the vocal hadn’t gone down at all. I’d pressed the wrong buttons. I am hoping I pressed the right buttons this time. You have to press the right buttons. And now we’re going to have a typing solo. I’m noticing the space bar is like the snare drum. I type with 2 middle fingers you know, like William Carlos Williams did.”

TEST MONKEY IN B

We’re aliens looking for life on Mars

aliens trying to make life in jars

aliens homesick for the stars

trying to find home in the all-night bars

in a world with no more la di da’s

the sunset silts its knickers and bras

the night is bright with white guitars

the fat cats smoke their fat cigars

the wall inside is still the Tsar’s

I watch the passing of the cars

I’m through with reading inveterate scars

in a room resounding with loud hurrahs

SKUNKFOOT

(spoken word narrative to go over a drone of E)

Portability still seems the Apotheosis of Form: sometimes I can be walking along on a sunny day when I jump from the jungle to the Arctic to the Sahara. Mutation in consciousness itself, truth too simple to understand, these are gesture-without-motion-bones, like sadness gene and dreaming gland. It's not impossible to write an anti-poem. Love is not a mechanistic set of rules. Love was once aligned with madness, fever and intoxication. Love became grouped with language not God. Love became a tough word-combination. Love has no ego as everyone knows, and so it goes and so it grows. I for one think Lucy in the soul with demons may happen to be an actual substance. Travelling south, as I read Rimbaud, a rainbow smashed a railway train window. A baby cannot trip without memories... I remember “every atom ate our eyes.” Our eyes: they are ingrown in the ocean's bellyful of wine, down in the seabed-orchard. There is angelic music inborn in the inner ear; but those whom the Gods wish to drive mad are sent the end of ‘Bike’ in their heads and madness is not something to be Romanticised as a return to Purity. Impunity seems more what the poet wants. He likes to float on the artifice of organic emotions through synthetic sounds, and is into exploring alternative histories suppressed by the overarching meta-narrative. For plastic surgery of the soul there are libraries. Poetry is the bike riding itself. Monopoly money will get us well, Monopoly money will get us bread, she picks the blue tac off the wall and says “my T-shirt is red”. I put my wounds up on bright flags; I take the angel up the arse. To plug my senses in the mains might engage [!00 %] of my brains. It’s all about a permanent reactivation of the Glastonbury Festival spirit. John Tucker is taking acid again. Money shags in the dark. Thoughts of one’s greatness only diminish one’s greatness. Skunkfoot is putrid demons excreted through stone. Love an army of fire. Fire needs some incentive to rise up. Shall I touch my heart with a red Bic biro? When all the air in outer space is consumed… The bird in the wood, it was definitely a horse, with solar spike I can use the Force, with R2D2 I cleanse my doors, I’m just trying to win my Star Wars. I’m starting to think in five musical parts at once. The Anon Throwaway as a new form could become an alternative currency to rival with money for the role of the real. Formal education is not for everyone. The yellow DogMuckels M atop the pole in the industrial park is the postmodern churchspire in the spiritual vacuum. Postmodernism is theme dissolved into message. Giant killers are frozen peas in the microwave. I look into the mirror though I shouldn’t pool my sources. I’m not going to die at the age of twenty seven, watch the dreamtapes on repeat from a golden seat in Heaven. The heart beats to the rhythm of one. A fiver is surely cheese and onion flavour. Cataclysm is catalyst for the old cat that sat on the map of sound, just because the world is very round. If there were paper under my heart there would be writing on it and it would be art. I might ding it in compressed Space Age seconds.

(2002 - 2003)

THE WISH OF NIGHT

Madness swirls deep in the heart

A butterfly resides in you

A tragedy of feelings lost

surrenders to the wish of night

& in this world I can't explain

I know exactly where I am

Inside a crevice of desire

In the dreamy air of a lover's scent

Wherever you take me, that's where I'll be

In the weeping skies my mind gives up

& falls into the arms of sleep

I'd fade to know I thought of you

& the world has risen to my hands

& the earth murmurs beneath my feet

& the light of all that's good is true

if believing is the dawn of dreams

I guess that I'm afraid to tread

The purple skies for the risk of a word

But at least I'm sure of fear

As she gives me the strength to feel afraid

A whisper fathomed deep in mine

Well I don't even care to cry

& I don't care to face the edge

& plunge into the oceans dead

& the flame of love has lit my candle

& the sky has echoed my desire

& all the air is drawn into my lungs

& I know the secrets of the shade

& I know the wars that come from peace

& I know the mystery of love

& I know the resilience of the soul

& I'm sure that knowing you is true...

FIZZY POP

I’m a clown, I’m a clown,

a clown in the circus of death.

I had a mate who sent the words

“Liquid Crystal Meth”

into space, into space,

and I was underneath it,

shower down, shower down,

make me feel alright.

No-one knows, no-one knows

what I went through in life.

The sadness shows, the sadness shows,

the trouble and the strife,

but under the stars, under the stars

I dream of love eternal,

shower down, shower down,

make me feel alright.

Fizzy pop, fizzy pop,

gets drunk in Monopoly Jail,

time goes slow, ever so slow,

as slow as a garden snail,

but ecstasy is a teddy bear

back in the garden of Eden,

I don’t mind, I don’t mind,

if you let me off my chains.

INSTANT TRAVEL

Not far away in Magic Faraway Land,

there’s poetry written on the bank notes,

sadness gene is smitten with dreaming gland,

the God Particle foreseen in the dust motes...

I. T. might stand for Instant Travel too,

NHS for Lucy in the soul with demons,

H20 stands for your hypothalamus tattoo,

ESA for Extra Sensory Allowance -

so how about we take a long holiday there?

You buy yourself a ticket with the opposite of bling.

You’ll see through the frame of angel hair,

and might just need a love-song to sing.

Yeah yeah yeah, our love is the answer,

spinning in a circle around the tired sun,

waiting for the cure or vaccine for cancer,

seeming to be dreaming of the mid-day moon…

POETRY BUTTONS

Smart guitars between the stars

allow the ladies burn their bras

I don’t ask for whom the beck

puts a necklace on her neck

let us have a go then, you and I

when we are tired of getting high

piss on the dawn when dad is dead

poetry buttons are in my head

poetry buttons for endless revisions

and helpless self-derisions

got to keep the quavers at bay

got to make the monster go away

the monster is not me

he lives beneath the deep blue sea

when all the air in outer space

is consumed without a trace

through a prodigious systematised

detuning of the strings we rise

would you compare me to a tramp

now my face is on a stamp

the poet makes himself a tea

now he’s a mystic visionary

poetry buttons for endless revisions

and helpless self-derisions

got to keep the quavers at bay

got to make the monster go away

the monster is not me

he lives beneath the deep blue sea

voices voices everywhere

and yet not a drop to think

think of England when you’re on

drink of physical hyperlink

all the world is on a page

where we spend our petty wage

engage with the dark night of the soul

that dreams in meaning like a troll

poetry buttons for endless revisions

and helpless self-derisions

got to keep the quavers at bay

got to make the monster go away

the monster is not me

he lives beneath the deep blue sea

MONSTER OF ENERGY

‘Monster of Energy’ has no words! It sounds like The Velvet Underground jamming over a processed beat. When last I listened to it on Soundcloud, I got to the end and an advert flashed up, saying “originality is over-rated.” I felt offended, questioned why I was still messing around with pop music as my father would put it, when I should be trying my hand at science. I turned the advert off before I finished listening to it, and focussed my energy on that vapid fashion statement suitable only for the rebellion of youth, pop music, if only to be free.

TEACHER OF MY HEART

I have found you you're the Teacher

of my Heart there's only one one

and though my mind is endless old

my tender heart is foolish young

and my timeless impassion'd battles

of emotion have sooooon begun.

You have lost me in a Teachers

whisky bottle drinking down down

down the shipwreck IS the treasure

harboured in my pirate undertown

where visions of the real Unknown

await us there when we drown.

They have told me it's a T-shirt

that's the body worn by the soul

O to have to discorporate and wash

our eyes in the Fairy Liquid bowl

it's good for you to know a goal

there is no music from a black hole.

WHISPER

(originally by Black Hole Myths when we were still called Funnelspirals)

I wanted to hear musac from a black

hole by Judas Priest but the guys

sent a parrot after a carrot and

through the conch to outer space

singing 'I won't always be an orange

just because you've sectioned me,

no I won't always be on Orange

just because you've sectioned me

but at any given time I'm working

in a crane' and Jesus said 'Syd by Ray

in a way Spiderman's handwriting

has been too obscene, I rake the

blade over the wishbone of my

legs Breakfast All Day/ gay

teachers can still lay eggs and

I won't always be a lemon just

because you've sectioned me,

no I won't always be on Lennon

just because you've session'd me

but at any given time Oedipus

is spying me up in the shower,

why I'll break the speed of speed,

rendered squander never priceless,

I'll never speed againe, at any given

time I'm a rare aquatic insect.'

(Hackney)

CHAPTER SEVEN: UNPLUGGED AT THE FOOT OF THE FELL

Note: For this album, I simply put down an acoustic guitar part over a broken mic, then a vocal part too as a separate track. All the songs are like that so it sounds a little like a demo rather than a fully-blown album, but I don’t mind. The album has 12 songs and reminds of the time I came back from Cambridge, years ago, bedraggled after being kicked out of The Flood, and decided I didn’t want to go down the Syd Barrett path after all, but make three solo acoustic albums more like Nick Drake, even if only for the Romantic and rustic lyrics. The lyrics herein are not very Romantic or rustic as it turns out, and the songs just what I had knocking around, left over. The first one is a clever fusion of ‘The End’ by The Doors and the theme tune to that children’s Christmas cartoon movie The Snowman. The lyric to it is almost Sid Vicious rather than Syd Barrett. Another song ‘High’ dates back years to when I was a teenager, a Nirvana fan who had just discovered Jim Morrison. The album can be heard on the same Soundcloud account as the first solo album.

THE NEW SNOWMAN

We are the velvet e’s,

we’re shitting in Cuntington’s letterbox,

the valley road below,

beneath us as we fly.

We are the velvet e’s,

we’re shitting in Cuntington’s letterbox,

the valley road below,

beneath us as we fly.

Blissful Lovingness is

where all religions meet.

On the corner of the street.

I am the Burger King,

I can eat anything.

Especially a Double

Whopper with cheese -

and in reality the killer

stayed up all night.

STAVING OFF THE WASTED YOUTH

Please wait while you are on hold,

your secret world will not be sold,

and while you work out what’s gone on,

we’ll treat you to a song.

A cow has sat upon the throne,

and said to travel by Smartphone,

for all connection should be long,

and the maths you do is not wrong.

Thank you for waiting while I love you,

thank you for searching for the truth,

there’s only one God above you,

w/ medicine for a wasted youth.

You’ve been placed in a long queue,

but everyone’s in love with you,

procrastinate and find your crest,

I think your love is best.

The mashed potato that you ate

could sell for millions in the Tate,

and London renews sensation’s quest,

to put your mind at rest…

Thank you for waiting while I love you,

thank you for searching for the truth,

there’s only one God above you,

w/ medicine for a broken tooth.

ECSTASIA

Ecstasia, it will find you,

ecstasia will track you down,

wearing your bro’s blue T-shirt,

somewhere in a different town…

a comedown can be difficult,

a comedown can really hurt,

but it’s going to be easier

in your brother’s blue T-shirt.

Love, it will wound you

then forgive you all the same,

and one day death will find you,

and nobody is to blame...

I’m waiting at the foot of Black Combe,

I’m waiting for my true love,

and E has no value in maths

when you come down from a Dove…

FABLE

How much is that druggie in the window,

he’s washing off Steve’s holographic beard,

in the totally powerless shower,

he’s making me feel pretty weird,

blah blah black sheep

have you any wool?

Yes Sir, yes Sir,

ten fucking kilos…

How much is that druggie in the window,

I think he’s gone beyond the pale,

they made him a living art installation,

and he wishes he’d stuck to the ale,

blah blah black sheep

have you any wool?

Yes Sir, yes Sir,

ten fucking kilos…

How much is that druggie in the window,

the vision I had has grown dim,

I can particle accelerate Nothingness,

but I can’t write a poem like Jim,

blah blah black sheep,

have you any wool?

Yes Sir, yes Sir,

ten fucking kilos.

HEY MAN HEY

Hey man hey what do you

have to say about today?

These new pube-shaving,

lecky-saving times?

The air seems slightly strange

to me in all honesty,

but I’m just a guy

that plays hide and seek with rhymes.

I lost my teddy in the void

when I was paranoid,

now all I am is all I owe...

at least I dared to dream

unlike a mechanoid

of love the likes of

which we still don’t know…

Well scream is bad,

when you go quite mad

and you lose your dad

and the magpie gets down

into your bones…

and you can’t come down

from the under-town

like a decaying clown

and you know the truth

which nobody owns.

So you must obey the dust

in which you trust

and which lies at

the bottom of everything

and bore the Lord

with your secret chord

and your word-hoard

knowing not just what

tomorrow will bring.

FULHAM F. C.

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the best

we are the best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the fucking best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the best

we are the best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the fucking best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the best

we are the best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the fucking best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the best

we are the best

Fuck you fuck you

we are the best

we are the fucking best

HIGH

Oh hi, how are you?

I’m high and I’m new.

Oh hi, how are you?

I’m high, and I’m through.

Here you come

with your candle eyes

and your big horizon

and your higher skies

here you come

with a beautiful smile

I’m going to talk to you

for a little while

oh hi, how are you?

I’m high and I’m new.

Oh hi, how are you?

I’m high, and I’m through.

Here you are

with your hopeful stance

and your lucky star

and your backward glance

here you are

in the eye of my mind

let’s hope we don’t go

completely blind

oh hi, how are you?

I’m high and I’m new.

Oh hi, how are you?

I’m high, and I’m through.

There you go,

with you angel tear,

and your brand new car

getting into gear,

there you go,

with your perfect skin,

can’t wait until you

come back again

oh hi, how are you?

I’m high, and I’m new.

Oh hi, how are you?

I’m high, and I’m through.

LIQUID MIRROR

The night is alright under the electric light

and I am thinking of you

how we used to love each other

black and blue forever and ever

how I used to watch over you

while you slept and when you wept and

when we leaped and love was fire

now the light comes fair and even

hyperlink to very Heaven

just like it was when love was open

and it is still full of hoping

full of groping full of dreams

love has not gone stolen pollen

lustful London lips are swollen

and liquid mirrors still run to the sea

where the fish swim without insanity

even though they have fucked eyes

we already went there,

we already did that

sometimes you’re a willing dupe

and sometimes a doormat

PHET ACCOMPLIS

Love, love, good for the brain,

the more you eat them,

the more you go insane.

Love, love, good for the heart,

the more you eat them,

the more you break apart.

They’re dissipating energy

with spiralling entropy,

falsifying vision with

indoctrinated feelings,

colouring perception

with vague mysticism,

you’ve been plugged in

to the mental health system.

Love, love, good for the brain,

the more you eat them,

the more you go insane.

Love, love, good for the heart,

the more you eat them,

the miracle will start.

They’re dissipating energy

with spiralling entropy,

falsifying vision with

indoctrinated feelings,

colouring perception

with vague mysticism,

you’ve been plugged in

to the mental health system.

POEM

Fee the red

beat the swivel

gore a bean

what the money

turn it warless

loot the wheat

cheaple the bottle

crash the hash

bone it good

own it a problem

deal the country

marra the tryst

pull up a cloud

drug the word

read your text

see the guns

on the earth

leg it away

eat the mushroom

chain the laser

sever the O

free the bread

not the doh

we the law

(C/ Em/ G/ F/ G/ C)

SNOWFLAKE SONG

Snowflakes are falling to the ground,

that’s why the door-mouse makes no sound,

I could sing in an imaginary tongue,

but I find Klingon is best for song...

then it’s up to birds to say,

“hope you have another blinding day.”

There are no footprints out there yet,

but I might go out and lose a bet.

Sometimes I dream of mapless space,

a little place without X tattooed on its face.

So then it’s up to you to say

“hope you have another blinding day…”

snowfall was injecting smack

into the Universal Mind a while back,

and now I’ve nothing left but tea

still I think you’ll find it’s well enough for me...

so now it’s up to me to saaaaaaaaay

“hope you have another blinding day.”

IN THE CENTRE OF THE SUN

Love it makes an echo in the heart

where each day has to begin

but with such emptiness

thus and rainfall it is a sin

so I think I’ll have you know

simply nothing much at all

and ask an elf on the shelf

why I have to be this tall

fluttering her ocean we flow

through the Night with a bet

that the next guy after me

is still going to get his water pistol wet

then with peaceable form

we drink of tea to be like thee

the garden’s dark and all

its eyes I can no longer see

‘car’ went the crow to the bloke

that stands on his head on the brink

eating the earth that gave birth

to the butterflies that we think

freedom flies and freedom flows

and no-one knows why we’re here

but all shall rise still in disguise

to celebrate the taste of free beer

O let us live in peace, live in love,

live in music and in harmony,

let us thrive and stay alive

despite the disastrous things that be

let the accident be happy

as it fumbles from the gun

that went blunt for a stunt

in the centre of the sun

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE YELLOW ALBUM

Note. This album is on Bandcamp again, not Soundcloud. I tried to end it and this bunch of songs is mostly the result of bouncing back with some bangers. ‘Exercise Bike In A Coffee Cake Dining Room’ was written before the attempt and before the solo acoustic album too, and was made up on the spot, by just setting the mic recording and the beat playing and then making up whatever came into my head, as an exercise in freedom; but most of the others are written after the attempt and after bouncing back. Some of it sounds like The Velvet Underground jamming over a processed beat because I use full de-tunings. I also attempted to rap on this album, which actually turns out more like sprechstimme.

DOOR TO MY HEART

Up in the Lake District

I let my hair grow long

abandon poetry

and turn my mind to song

my father’s pollen has

gone under Gondwanaland

my brother’s ecstasy pill

gone under the green hill

but things are not so bad

no cause to leave a note

or just a cup of tea

where before was the alphabet

some pain can sharpen you

inside a brave new tense

that’s rinsed by flagrant flame

and elongates again

still pleasure is the way

and as the DJ says

as long as it is safe

and legal please feel free

When you give up on Starbucks

cool things can happen

crayons and playground swings

can be such fun

this beck is trickling out

one day it meets the sea

then I’ll go for a swim

when the sun is hot

and that is all for now

except my next little thing

I have been up all night

now dawn has come again

SOMETHING LIKE A SONNET

i

If Freedom and Peace of mind are what you’re after

you’ve made the right choice with BT

Talk Together with an unlimited number

of local evening and weekend phonecalls

if sorrow sighs upon your shoulder

find yourself another love

ii

manoeuvre over backyard fences

angel where do you hide tonight?

I’ll make maps of the stars to find you

soft, caressing breeze to guide you

if you can be in my dream can I be in yours too?

iii

get rid of/ ad hoc/ remembering when we wandered around Amsterdam, making up poetry about neon chameleons on the spot/ random dime/ random time/ don’t pour Pepsi on the bright equipment/ don’t piss on the cloakroom floor/ don’t fly with only a dream contraption/ don’t keep wanting more and more/ I’m too loud and woke my mother (repeat).

THE NEW CO-IMAGINATION

Beyond the style that is proleptic

I nearly went epileptic

lies the style of co-imagination

underwrite the name of the nation

beyond the style of co-imagination

love is the author

that means my brother

& I think I’d rather

just have another

love is the author

that means my brother

and I think I’d rather

just have another

just have another

just have another

just have another

love is the author

love is the author

beyond the style

at the top of the field

there is another

there is another

I’d better tell my brother

I’d better tell my brother

look, love is the author

nearly went epileptic with your

silly, semi-autobiographical proleptic

beyond the style that is proleptic

love is the author

MOVING ON

When you record on earphones and say you’ll plug your senses in the mains they become aliens, aliens from Hollywood films, like the Fifth Element where there is a blue alien that can sing in two notes at once.

When I hear the sound I think of Jess and her impeccable taste in musical tunes.

I’ve got a little bet that the next guy after me to attain the face of stars, to be enraptured and enthralled, will still write the line I wrote at the time and like I did too think it is his own.

My father knew the line and sometimes I think of him – he hasn’t gone so far – is only up the way – lying underground.

When I was a boy and we first moved up he took me out the back and asked what I could hear and I said I didn’t know so he said it’s the beck.

EXERCISE BIKE IN A COFFEE CAKE DINING ROOM

Exercise bike in a coffee-cake dining room,

I’m a slave to the wave that lifts me from the gloom,

so far it’s only been five times,

already I’m sitting on a treasure chest of rhymes,

flower, flower, flower, flower,

flee the dungeon and the Tower,

pictures on the wall don’t stop you from falling down,

flower, flower, flower, flower,

flee the dungeon and the Tower,

get out into fenceless meadows free,

out there baby can you see the light,

out there baby can you see it’s bright,

I think I can see a white crow

that rhymes with see through p o,

I think I can see a white crow,

that rhymes with Sue through p o,

flower, flower, flower, flower,

flee the dungeon and the tower,

one day there I was having a philosophical rant,

all of a sudden my page had across it walking an ant,

so I squashed the ant on the page,

someone tried to put me in a cage,

never never put me in a cage,

flower, flower, flower, flower,

flee the dungeon and the Tower,

don’t need power, don’t need power,

the useless proof of another 1000 hours,

I’m a slave to the wave that lifts me from the black,

she flutters her eyelids as the ducks start to quack,

flower, flower, free the Tower

from the garden lawn mower,

oh no it’s odi bodi bloader goader moader loader,

love is the answer to be a beautiful dancer,

dancing I cannot do but I’m still

in love with you Pooh, like Pooh,

flee the tower, flee the tower,

O flower, flower flower, by

now it’s only the seventh time,

I’ve started to try and rhyme,

see the paintings on the wall,

one of them might lead to Paul,

see the windows leading out,

to the world devoid of doubt,

flower, flower, flower, flower,

see the dungeon is the Tower,

I’d say the light falls true and quite

I don’t know what colour is white,

I’d say the light falls true and quite and banishes the night,

it says here once a Night was stood,

in the days of Robin Hood,

but now it’s gone it’s up to Anon

to tell me if my name is John,

silly dance upon the horse,

horses dance like intercourse,

by now it’s only the 25th time

I’ve sat here and struggled for pieces to rhyme,

flower flower in the tower,

sentient air is finding an hour,

taking an hour, taking an hour,

free the dungeon is the Tower,

exercise bike in a coffee cake dining room,

you’re going to fly away and liberate me from the gloom,

exercise bike in a coffee-cake dining room,

I’m a slave to the wave that lifts me from the gloom

no more, no more, no more, no more.

A BLANK SLATE

O laptop propped on a dinner plate

I dream of having a blank slate

it is my fate to wait for Kate

and find that she is always fucking late

it could be psycho-sensitive

the laptop pouring through a sieve

like the sunlight in the dawn

when the number A Point Five is born

I like the colours of the vowels

but am not one of Simon Cowell’s

I think with Negative Capability

but am only of average musical ability

a song only needs to be alright

not TS Eliot on his wedding night

through whom I see the modern cloud

which I foresaw at seven years old

I deem that this could be a fold

am old enough by now to be

a point of constancy in the flux

of time unstable as the sea

a dress I wore before the curse

is tattered now and mending worse

the sound of an engine in the drive

would say again the fells are alive

but writing could be but a bad habit

when friends have moved on to the rabbit

I still stay here and steer with skill

the self-driving car gone under the hill

and sometimes drift in canorous chimes

before the tape comes up with rhymes

and every planet has its own colour

(some are duller than the dollar)

and Calliope means beautiful face

and lungs don’t work in outerspace

and the maths of the new colour as a cell

didn’t turn out to go very well

and Hell is discrete with kitchen taps,

a place beyond memory and maps

where sometimes I still go with the flow

as if in the happy world of Haribo

and sometimes you reach an actual limit

and sometimes you have to just sprechstimme it

even if there is a void in your voice

where before was freedom of choice

and steam over fame seems the long game

but telly does not feel it the same

and so with the bracken I make a fist

and say well fuck it let’s get pissed

after all the new sky is blue

and that is something very true

and although I can smell the ward

I dream again of a secret chord

like Y or O or maybe even U

and expect to be at one with you

you who is beautiful as the rain

sits inside my addled brain

and takes your clothes off once again

and eases all my startling pain

SEEING THROUGH PUFF

I think Deathot is a clown

had no mates when he was at school

grew up to be a perfect entrepreneur

but I still think him a fool

lounges out in the garden

while the bees buzz around

carrying their pollen home

to the mating queen

over an ocean of green

Sweet Successo was his brother

and sometimes they didn’t get on

O after all is the key of water

in the language of Anon

lounges out in the garden

while the bees buzz around

carrying their pollen home

to the mating queen

over an ocean of green

and I’m the one who lives

between the letters of the word OK

trying to enlarge the sky

wondering what else I can say

and I’m the one who gives

gives the game away

trying not to elongate my shadow

at the end of the Big Glass Day.

O.

ONE STAR LEADS TO ANOTHER STAR

One star leads to another star,

connected by a red guitar,

while fire burns and people dance

the whole stone circle’s in a trance,

I’ve lost my little plastic cup,

but still seem to be coming up,

the drums are conjured from the deep

where maybe baby monsters sleep,

the list goes on, I love my friend,

this holiday should never end,

and happiness should last a while,

intelligence should make you smile,

(I lost my blues at Glastonbury

when I called out ad-libbed poetry,

upon the coming of the night,

when secret worlds were found out,

I made it up on the spot

but what it was I soon forgot,

if Spot the Dog’s a constellation,

then there is still hope for the nation,

who play beneath the stars above,

for the stars awake to notice love.)

RENEGADE CREDO

Even A Dick Gets Big Erections

used to be my mnemonic for the guitar

for whom it is clarity to be in distortion

and I believe in music in a room with no door

and once upon a time I came to mention

a chain of music from star to star

Even A Dick Gets Big Erections

was once my mnemonic for the guitar

Now the mnemonic has come on a bit

Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually

and I have a jamalade in the seat where I sit

and as I say think distortion is clarity

and I like it when a song doesn’t repeat

but mine mostly do, sadly, inevitably,

and I’m almost in it just for the lyric sheet

Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually

and I like to hear the click of the light

late at night when I’m still playing

for my brief fling with the politics of flight

is not just for me and not for saying

and I think Syd Barrett was a fine poet

and sometimes I’d rather be tucked up reading

than recording a song but sometimes not

like now as I sit here, explaining and explaining.

SPACE IS BIG

Space is big

space is big

space is big

space is big

space is big

space is big

space is big

space is big

and the edge 

is the middle

and the middle

is the edge

is the middle

is the middle

is the edge 

John is gone

John is gone 

John is gone 

John is gone

John is gone

John is gone

John is gone 

John is gone 

and he left

his pink pyjamas

pink pyjamas

pink pyjamas

and he left

his pink pyjamas

they were on 

find a bridge

find a bridge

find a bridge

find a bridge

find a bridge

find a bridge

find a bridge

find a bridge

or we’ll never

live forever

live forever

or we’ll never

live forever

live forever

BONUS TRACK: CHEESE DREAMS

Di di dit di di dit di di dit dit dit

Di di dit di di dit di di dit dit dit

Di di dit di di dit di di dit dit dit

Bring bring

bring bring

“Hello?”

Gold member, you're the one,

the one with the heart of gold

Vowels, pure vowels 

Immanuel Kant

will come to thee 

with immanence

You come home smacked up you come

d/ d/ d/ down

grooving up slowly

d/ d/ d/ down

grooving up slowly

d/ d/ d/ down

grooving up slowly

yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah

boom

boom

boom

boom

boom

how did we get down here from flat-top

wide tunnel cities self driving cars

bears in the moon and liquor and drugs

and whisky baaaaaaaaaaaars

boom shanka, you're the one,

the one with the sonic boom

knickers knickers faster than lightning

skin up fall out of bed

and did those feet

in ancient times

rain down, rain down,

come on raindown

and walk the sun

fatter, hippier, less well connected

always walk the hallways

down to create my own

and in the meantime

and in the meantime

I'll do the monkey bars with my legs

manic depression has enraptured my name

don't know what I want but I just want shame

don't know what I want but I just won't shave

rainy waif, rain always,

lay back and dream

on a rainy waif

now I know how Kurt Cobain sang

oh now I know how Kurt Cobain sang

no more laaaaaaaaaa la's

removal van canes will be turned into furniture

we're thinking of putting Tricky's name on the front sir

you never see me dead near an inch of closure

|| | |||| | || | |||| 909 and 693 are wings

“and a record made of sound

goes round and round, conveying

music to the speaker through the stylus,”

says the radio as I turn it on.

Well, although there is no

such thing as the Nirvana barcode

it opens up a discussion about

the Telepathic Walkie Talkie, how

if barcode is rain barcode is phone...

and at least I have

the grace to come

back and say that the

extinction of consciousness

has no monetary value.

It is past dawn

and I see that

that first mobile

phone has gone.

TRANSPORT

He found himself on a plane.

He found himself on a.

He found himself on.

He found himself.

He found.

P.