ANON SONGS FOR LUKE B

By Anon

HAIRVENT

I love my mum sometimes.

I love her always actually.

Sometimes we get frustrated

but today was a special day.

She said “Nirvana would

do one called ‘Hairvent.’”

I absolutely cannot wait.

To listen to it, or to fuck it up,

that is the question. To

listen to it, or to fuck it up,

that is the question. Over

and out, testing testing 123.

Over and out, testing testing

123. Welcome to my presence

and its intensity. I need

to let some pressure out.

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

mara 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)

NOTE ON TEXT

It should be down to the writer in question whether or not he or she goes Anon. I consider this work the first and only work I have done that I have personally agreed to be Anon. Anon is the most famous composer of all time. Anon is also the author of the earliest English poems. The first line is “Well-wrought this wall: Weirds broke it.” Weirds could be weather systems; and combining the fact that the earliest subject is ruin’d architecture and the earliest recipe known to man is for beer, as discovered by monks, could make a poem’s definition something like “a statue of alcohol.” Normally I take the stance of John Stuart Mill: that a progressive country can quickly become backward if there is a decrease in Individuality. Normally, I also take the stance of my father: that a writer has a Right to a Name otherwise an Exclusion of the Individual Machine can close ranks against you. For there are valid arguments against being Anon. But still, an Anon work was required of me, to give back to society, and I am putting myself into it too, to give as I say, to make something that is ours. The problem I had with Anonymity is that all previous work that they were trying to make Anon was against my wishes and was only falsely Anon, for it was really written by myself, as myself and to retroimpose anonymity was false. And if an Anon work is required of me, despite my CV, I should rather have the Right to determine what it is going to be, and that would mean I give myself to it more as an art form that requires skill. So it is that it depends on the content as to whether or not I am happy to provide some Anon work. To go against a writer’s desires to be Anon or not is illegal for a reason. Now that I have the present text herein, I am hoping that I might consequently not go Anon with other work that they have been trying to take away from me. For if it is Anon it means you didn’t really do it.

– Anon

ALL THIS CAN CHANGE

The earliest source I can find still in print

is Binaural Songbook.

Then we have things like

57 Paintings For Art Therapy

The Field of Rock N Roll Science

John Tucker’s Schooldays: A Spreadsheet Poem

Another 57 Paintings for Art Therapy

The New Beat

The Effect of Global Warming On The Unicorn

Word For Stained Glass Windows

154 Shakespearean Sonnets

Then we have some Chipmunka books for example:

Soundcloud Raid

The Sunset Child

Breath Trapped In Heaven

Brave New Tense

Transition To Philosophy (by Johannes Bergfors)

Yes You May

There’s more on his blog.

Poems superimposed on photos.

And there are 36 poems with a magazine…

he would rather forget some of those.

Then you realise

he’s also done the music…

he has ten albums or long E. P’s.

They are only demo standard.

All this can change.

HAUNTED BY THE MOTH

Since I was cursed by a hypnotist,

and made to walk the plank,

I have been haunted by the moth

that likes my scented candles,

my bare bulb three floors up

in the night-time while I

read the New York School.

The midnight moth flits about

a little bit e’ en while I sit

and work during the day.

I’m so badly bruised I might be

disaffected, so badly torn

I might never feel good again.

Happy days may have flown.

The moth is dull but with its wings

it carries my life away with it.

You should learn not to listen

to the moth. Ignore the moth!

I’m riddled with guilt about

something not really my fault.

Had it not been for that

I might’ve been the best.

It’s down in my bones and

in the meantime, voices everywhere.

That’s what I mean by the moth -

the rate and frequency of a female irritant.

It’s not a word-chord synthesiser

at the edge of selection allowed

in the band, not magic alphabet

radio, no, not the new,

synchronised word, not even

Smart-talking – when it’s the moth.

They let you believe everything

is on tick, and don’t leave

you alone, but then it

turns out they want you to be

Anon and you don’t want that,

because you’re an Individual.

Sometimes you want to turn

the moth out, set it free, otherwise

sleep under stars in the garden.

The colour of pain turns dull.

Yellow is not the colour of pain.

I preferred it before it turned dull.

The screech of the moth

I find is absolutely terrible.

COLLARED DOVE

I see a collared dove fly

and it lifts up my heart.

Into the filament of bird

I travel on. Birds

are for flying, not

for special perception.

It rises from right to left, fluttering

its wings in a frenzy, furiously flapping,

leaving the ground, ascending

an echelon of fresh, fell air, taking

flight in a flurry of feathers

and disappears behind

the yew tree. A bird

could be a portal of discovery.

It could lead to light

even if descended

from the pterodactyls

whose dawn chorus out-shone

the colours of the vowels.

REMEMBERING SPRING

Barnes has scored a chicken.

But every time I confute it,

it grows back, like a tree into which

you have carved your name, healing.

It wasn’t Barnes, wasn’t a chicken

and wasn’t a goal. So Barnes

hasn’t really scored a chicken.

But then you need a proposition.

And “Barnes has scored a chicken”

grows back. Because it is about spring,

renewal, rebirth, growth. So

you have to prove it wrong again.

It could be that the proposition

is right in terms of recourse

to euphemism and wrong

in terms of factual data. Every time

I prove it wrong it grows back,

but that may have all changed now.

This might’ve been an epitaph.

PETRA HYDRA DEUTEMOL

As you may know by now,

O some one foot wedge of air away man,

Dear, gentle reader,

I took an O. D. the likes of which

it was said to be genius to survive

but coming back down

had lost the ability to ejaculate.

Never again will I know a woman,

her containing elasticity

and texture, her granular wear -

and I am as yet to properly cry…

there followed another

O. D. attempt where I

got even closer to death

and I think damaged my brain.

I don’t want to sound like Sylvia Plath

who was an egoist, so unlikely

to last as a major poet,

so I keep my misery literature

heaped up in a separate file,

ready for when the day comes -

but I just thought you

should know all the same.

I used to be dead against poets on medication

because a poet is a translator

of feelings and the feelings

you get on chemicals

are fake – but now

I have no other option

except to join in with them.

Cannabis was exempt

in the old creed because

I thought it was organic

and therefore God’s work and

I thought Jesus would smoke it

if he were alive today – and

then other drugs started to be allowed -

like ecstasy for example.

The brain is a physico-chemical factory

full of messages being sent,

signals and bikes, overflowing,

overloaded, all through the night.

Each chemical enacts

its own physical poem on the body.

Truth is one is made of drugs.

And to call all drugs “drugs”

represents a dangerous

narcotisation of the truth…

Reading of how a chemical enacts a poem,

and also of a schoolboy, contemplating

getting stoned on milk

once upon a time I dreamed up

the notion of top-down drug

called Strictly Free

that does what it says

on the tin, is and makes

you “strictly free” to consume.

It is but the narcotisation of air

in-between spliffs.

Naturally, I don’t do that

any more; but there was

e’ en relatively recently

a time of communion

with someone that knows magic,

which I can’t claim to know myself.

And then, if you can get sorted out

with noxious toxins of

deleterious self-derision,

if you know the right person,

as in have a friend, and

are signed off work, and

on benefits with mental illness,

The Lakes becomes Paradise

just for a little glimpse

before it all caves in on you.

Like not knowing a woman,

I might not know chemical heaven ever again.

We were fiends, my friend

and I, but killing ourselves really.

When my mother passes away,

I wonder what I am to do, whether

I move in with my friend, or

head down south to Londinium.

My mother keeps saying

when she dies this house

is going to be sold…

I might need to have a few drinks.

And I wonder if beer enacts

its own physical poem

on the body, and I think

so and I wonder of coffee too.

Beer is a depressant,

that numbs the pain

and even instant coffee

is still said to be a drug.

I was going to say mother’s

homegrown tomatoes also

enact a physical poem

and they might but then

I also remembered

even water leaves its own

indelible stain on the hypothalamus.

So everything chemical

conducts a physical poem.

And acid (which is flung

from the sun) is fungal.

That’s the one where poetry

is most evident. Or I suppose

you could say ecstasy too,

which is not psychoactive

but emotional. Soooooo

you could say they are

but different types of poet.

Here I search for correlation

between drugs taken and

poets read but find nothing.

I think maybe Milton is smack,

but that’s just rubbish.

The open freedom of this

game shrinks back down

to a narrowing of possibilities.

I suppose acid would be an Imagist

and ecstasy would be a Romantic.

I suppose we’re looking at

a words as drugs analogy.

Have you ever ingurgitated, say,

the word “infradiegetic?”

It’s not actually a nice word.

It’s a posh, technical term

from the corner of the library.

Here I would like to mindfully

consume another, like

words are astronauts

entering the ear’s orbit,

and one delicious one

is the word “noetic.”

It simply means “of the mind.”

Another is “abeyance.”

It means “a temporary absence of change.”

Another is “propitious.”

I’m sure you can work that one out,

or if not you can’t look it up

with the help of your A. I. co-pilot.

And all along, you find

I am under the chemical cosh -

am consuming meds at a rate of knots -

and trying not to write

merely empty medicine packets.

For writing can become a machine

for remembering to take your meds;

and the most progressive doctors

say medicine is a waste of packaging;

and that means they can reach you

in your lonely solipsism

and teach you better ways

to think about yourself.

ERASING THE DEBT

(for Simon Pomery)

My father told us he was a fine art dealer,

smuggled fine art o’ er the old Berlin Wall,

sold his business when the Berlin Wall fell,

was codenamed “Blue” and donned a faux

Australian accent for the job; but I found out

it was pollen that he really smuggled, that

art was recourse to euphemism for pollen,

that he had a pollen farm up in the Moroccan mountains

and shipped tonnes and tonnes of it to the States –

a fluffy kind of stuff that crumbles under

the thumb, replete with mascara bruise,

peacock feather, butterfly-wing and velvet flare;

that that was how our private schooling was funded;

for all the schooling of his four children was

“the only thing worth spending money on”

or so he said; and so a minor footnote in history

became a front we learned to see through.

VOICES ON THE INTERCOM

“To what do we owe our win?

Gather round brothers and listen in.

The blue cars have gone…

they work for us now. I mean

we may have become part

of the new government. I hope

we all get on. I mean it might be time

to let those that curse and hypnotise us

off the hook. If you think

they’ll put you in prison

after all you’ve done, you need

a wash. We won’t let it happen.”

THE GENIUS

My latest thinking is that my dad was (possibly) sponsored by some philosophers to provide the real human witness from The Lords And The New Creatures. Already at seven I helped invent the net: when the idea of the net needed storing in writing in the attic at the foot of the fell to give it a chance to grow all the way round the world it was I that wrote it. At eight I made two Naturalistic Observations I didn’t understand. At eleven I was marked by a boyhood experiment into the maths of the new colour, and it didn’t turn out to be the new colour in the end. Soon enough I attained the island of penguins. It may have been observed on the other side of the universe. In 2000 I predicted September 11th, spoke against it, also prophesied the God Particle, the alignment and wrote the highest-marked English Literature A-level exam essay in the nation. After school, I recorded an album on state of the art, binaural earphones. I had an effervescent mobile phone reverberating the rhythm of ‘William Tell’ through every technological inlet in the room before it rang. I climbed up on the binaural earphone album and said I would “plug my senses in the mains,” hosted the Plough alignment for a rhythm change in the White House, got a First despite the onset of mental illness, spotted a tattoo of my name on Piper At The Gates of Dawn, worked at a numinous, purple-bleeding screen, built the Tower as an instrument of philosophy, conducted an experiment into a tape with a pause where cut and resealed in the flimsy reel and discovered the sheet where pictures seemingly depicting my own song lyric grew. It was my brother’s sheet originally, so I surrendered it over. It then became time to start bringing books out, including a falsification of the Nirvana barcode, and also for a while I attained visual radio broadcasting dreams.

I AM A TROLL

I’m so groovy,

they’re making me a movie,

I’m so cool

they’re closing down my school,

but something you don’t know,

don’t know if I should show,

your little mind might blow…

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I’m so sorry,

they made me say a lorry,

I’m so smooth,

they’re getting me a booth,

but something you don’t know,

don’t know if I should show,

your little mind might blow…

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

I am a troll!

THE PROTECTOR

You used to play for England

but now you play for me

when all I find is words unkind

you protect my sanity

You used to be a winger

but now you play anywhere

to get between myself and the scene

when people are in the air

You used to score for nothing

but now you score for peace

when screaming eyes are in the skies

demanding a swift release

You used to be left footed

but still could use your right

emblazon my soul with your England goal

I think they should make you a Knight

LOVE SONG

I left my comfort zone,

travelling by mobile phone,

through the six inch gap,

to make the stranger clap,

sitting on my seat,

thinking on my feet,

eating crisps and drinking tea.

I said goodbye to things,

surrendered angel wings,

underneath a rock

found a pretty frock,

proved the face of stars

with my old guitars

and took a drug called Strictly Free.

Then it came to pass

the moment was made of glass,

that shattered on the floor

and left you wanting more,

and everyone could see

the sheer insanity

of the world afloat in space.

At least I sent a text,

feeling rather vexed,

to have my message sent,

despite it being Lent,

and have it bounce around

and come back to the ground,

trying to send my love to Trace.

FIELD OBSERVATIONS

Already Radiohead is a field

with a river down the way

where mad children splash and play

unaware of the guilt and the shame

unaware of the praise and the blame

unaware of the end of the game.

Their tender playfulness extends forever

as they splash and play in the water,

moving stones to change its pitch,

not quite minding which is which,

free to do just as they wish,

and on the river bank languish.

THE ISLAND OF PENGUINS

The island of penguins was a Holy night,

if we don’t take flight

then we’ll seem quite bright.

It doesn’t matter about the plot,

for the plot is grot

and can go to rot.

What matters most in life is love,

if it comes from above

then that is your dove.

We were three gathered in the name,

if you find it a shame

I can take the blame.

ON A RENEGADE FLIGHT

My head is burnt

I fried my brain

as if prefigured

in James’s stain

I do say James’s

but it’s mine as well

as if the rest

can go to Hell

so don’t take drugs

they only lead

to bad outcomes

where dreams can bleed

I’ve bored myself

with my own tale

the bread is dead

the past is stale

when all at once

I get some tea

and that’s enough

for this new me

whom it would seem

stays up all night

as if to escape

on a renegade flight

SONG IN THE WEE HOURS IN THE KITCHEN

The voices won’t stop

oh why oh why

I am not a shop

that sells them pie

I think at the top

they have to lie

down here I flop

as time goes by

what shall we pretend

to fill this hole

and shall we ascend

a telegraph pole

and will metal bend

to greet your soul

with ears that lend

and a mine of coal?

I’m under the old

chemical cosh

and feeling cold

and in need of a wash

and being bold

splash the dosh

before I can fold

on this bunch of tosh.

I’m guided by voices

just like the doors

and make silly choices

without good cause

they are not James Joyce’s

nor are they yours

as the dawn rejoices

in the great outdoors.

FLUOXETINE LADY

Fluoxetine lady you shine so bright

in the dungeons of the night

what immortal band or lie

dare frame thy fearful telemetry

I crashed on your sofa last night

as all the world was in unmanned flight

and sensed a disturbance in the Force

then saw at once a winged horse

it was going past outside

in the world we sleep to hide

but that was just my imagination

as I looked through a Sony Playstation

Fluoxetine lady I love your curves

and see the way your mirror swerves

to keep you but cannot contain

the beauty bursting in my brain

WOMAN IN WHITE

Agonising woman, dancing in white,

your short dress hugs your figure tight.

It’s only a photo, only a still,

but still how you’re dressed to kill.

I’ve never seen love from this angle before,

totally useless, but the thing we adore.

I see you among the adverts there

online, tossing your blonde hair

in a leonine way, and want to know

who you are and in what show.

Of course if I click on you I fall

for the adverts and so instead I stall

at you, the bait, to suck us all in,

with a promise of wanton-ness and sin.

I don’t wish to be re-directed

feeling as badly as if I am rejected,

I wish to know more of your eloquent shapes,

for in my mind your beauty shapes apes.

You dance in a sensuous graffiti of

blind white light, proving only love,

but all we can see is a split-second caught

on a camera whose lens can distort.

Distortion is clarity with a guitar

that stretches between star and star,

but not with your body, for it is clear

that I would love to hold you near.

I’ve seen you in yellow and in red,

but white is best, like words unsaid.

Come closer, please do, for I am alone

without any use for my mobile phone.

JUST ANOTHER LET DOWN

(Am/ G/ F/ C/ Dm/ F/ Am/ G)

Hey bro – what do you know?

It’s always raining at the station.

Hey dude – it seems a bit crude

but is it time for medication?

Hey sis – if I give it a miss

they say bad things can happen.

Hey man – I do what I can

to help my mother in the garden…

(F/ C/ Em)

and dreams of love are over

but still something is distilled

and though I’m not too clever

with my brother I am chilled

and though I’m getting older

love is still my first ideal

and when I was much younger

I was more inclined to steal

(Am/ G/ F/ C/ Dm/ F/ Am/ G)

Hey friend – where does it end?

Is it with another let down?

Hey mate – what’s your fate?

Is it arriving at a new town?

Dear Sir – I hope you concur…

it took us all this way just to get down.

Dear Maam – you’re a cherry palm -

I hope you like your new night-gown...

(F/ C/ Em)

and dreams of love are over

but still something is distilled

and though I’m not too clever

with my brother I am chilled

and though I’m getting older

love is still my first ideal

and when I was much younger

I was more inclined to steal

(Am/ G/ F/ C/ Dm/ F/ Am/ G)

Hey dad – it makes me sad

to know we’ll never speak again.

Hey mum – it’s not that I’m dumb

it’s just that some things are in vain.

Hey ho - here we go -

trying to sing away the pain…

Oh yeah – I’ll meet you there,

where we discuss my brother’s stain...

(F/ C/ Em)

and dreams of love are over

but still something is distilled

and though I’m not too clever

with my brother I am chilled

and though I’m getting older

love is still my first ideal

and when I was much younger

I was more inclined to steal.

HERE COME THE WAVES

Here they come,

here come the waves,

let’s move our bodies

and dance a little bit

and when they come

in all shapes and sizes

that’s when we need

to average out the waves

here they come,

here come the waves,

let’s see through music,

let’s rule our kingdoms with song

don’t pave the wave,

unless you’re a slave,

unless you want

things to turn out wrong

here they come,

here come the waves,

let’s let the phet

be a little bet with the myriad mind

and when we lose

and have the blues

that’s when we choose

to not continue colour-blind

FOUNDSTEIN

(a new fingerpicking song)

How do you do Ryuken?

Ableton is broken,

like the first morning,

nothing left to decide.

The kids will want a garden,

spaces that are open,

I wish I had some pollen,

surrender to the tide.

The morning’s come to names,

we left our old flames

in the land of dreams

and now will play our games.

I’m not up for fighting,

witness in the lightning,

the winter wind is biting,

I dreamed of love and trust.

There has been a sighting

of something that is fleeting,

the job is a good one,

ending up in dust.

The morning’s come to names,

we left our old flames

in the land of dreams

and now will play our games.

Drake is in the wilderness,

suffer teeming emptiness,

nothing comes from Nothingness

except nothing at all.

Another day has begun,

and even though there is no sun,

it could be a good one,

where I remember Paul.

The morning’s come to names,

we left our old flames

in the land of dreams

and now will play our games.

HYPOTHALAMUS

She said her name was Freedom,

and love is born in chaos,

desirous for your whisper,

your hypothalamus

controls the universe,

the universe-hearse

is in your soul-hole…

but don’t break the Hollow Claw,

waving for the raven’s throne,

for it’s not against the law

just to always feel alone

alone as a stone

in the great unknown.

(2000)

FLOPS

It’s just another problem

for me to sort out,

intelligence is sadness,

intelligence is doubt,

the band aren’t with me,

the band have gone,

we still don’t know

if my first word is Anon,

the music I am writing

is meant for the book,

I’m still feeling empty

from the things that I took,

with Colgate toothpaste

you can’t go wrong,

I want to put a roundabout

in the middle of the song.

A WALLETY WALLETY WALTER

I was walking down the valley,

in search of Where’s Wally,

and I became a silly billy

and everything was willy nilly

and the squiggles on the page

were the corners of the room

and everything was in a cage

at the foot of Black Combe.

There were eight pills in the evening,

six pills in the morning,

three pills at lunch time,

while the Golden Age was dawning,

and there was an emotive charge

in the cables overhead

and the headlines were a splurge

and some things are best left unsaid.

SALAD DRESSING

Yesterday we had a warm salad with roasted beetroot.

Today we went down the Sunset Cafe at the beach.

I had a ham sandwich and mum had a quiche.

Her quiche came with salad with mustard dressing.

When we came home we walked into the kitchen.

There was still some salad left from yesterday.

The flies might’ve been at it but it’s still edible.

I might polish off yesterday’s salad later on.

Now it seems to be a time of peace and quiet.

The day has drifted free of the ice berg like an island.

The raft has drifted free of the medical gaze.

I open a pocket of sanity with Negative Capability.

Occasionally cars whoosh past but not often.

Most of all, the voices have gone away for now.

Now the plot is that I have eaten the salad in question.

It is later and the day is still bright and sunny.

To what horizon of significance does this tend?

Nothing but the piping up of the drone of the fridge.

Nothing but the wind in the bright grass outside.

Nothing but the slant of light in the kitchen.

Nothing but a state of mindful awareness I enter.

Nothing but my mother sneezing upstairs.

Let’s hope she’s not getting ill all over again.

She already had to endure a course of antibiotics.

Now through the thump and dump of medication I see.

Now my heart is a dumping ground for spare medication.

Now her sneezing fit has been passed down to me.

I sit downstairs at a lonely vigil at the kitchen window.

Sometimes the wind throttles the arthritic window.

Now we have peace and quiet elongating.

Now I eat an extremely hot chilli which I like.

I like it because the pleasure and pain areas of the brain

are right next door to each other, which explains a lot.

I still have to wash the hotness down with milk.

In the morning I crash my face into water.

It’s a tried and trusted method all round the world.

Now I drink tea and my mouth is still scorched.

It’s the feeling of turning off an annoying Youtube video.

It’s an abeyance in which the soul can languish.

It’s a soft, putrefied armchair of lethargy for the soul.

It’s a mirror that is blank to all that is before it.

WEATHER-WASHED VIGIL

Here I sit ( ), still in

the solipsistic kitchen of fiction,

checking the file, anxious

that my brother is still in it,

that my friendships are still intact.

My brother hasn’t left

his room all day, but

will likely get up in the night,

wake us all up, making

beans on toast. Therefore

I am. The voices recede,

the emotive charge at the end

of The New Creatures comes

into play, like a cable

above a twilight wood.

Birds scatter. Night falls.

“We deem it the best you’ll ever do,

and the rest are just scones.”

LOOKING BACK IT WAS ALL CRAP

Looking back it was all crap…

the only good bits were my brother’s notion that <BEE> might soon ensue from @ in the international language alphabet

also the red and black thing I did at seven, when I put a + sign for the ‘f’ of scarf in the line:

“I have a scar+ that is red and black.”

That, after taking care of Einstein’s E, means I did to maths what my bro did to language.

And to articulate Flora’s pretext, system or “equilibrium” was cool.

But I never tasted her kiss so maybe I shouldn’t have done.

Even the Nirvana barcode was rubbish…

I made the Nirvana barcode to be but the beat of ‘Scentless Apprentice’ by Nirvana tapped out in approximate barcode shape using the tool of the qwerty keyboard – but recent information indicates it was sent to me by someone else.

Getting into Warwick, I had the idea that I. T. might stand for Instant Travel too, but it’s not up there with my brother’s <BEE>.

And when at University I also wrote a paper about how “Lucy in the soul w/ demons/ might happen to be an actual substance.”

GIVEN THAT <BEE> MIGHT BE MY BROTHER

The children of our friends are growing up to do <BEE>.

The idea is that <BEE> may soon ensue from @ in the international language alphabet.

Given that it’s my brother who came up with it, my brother might be <BEE>.

Given that my brother might be <BEE> I should write about him.

He is working on an epic sci-fi novel set over 1000 years in space.

He is left-handed and even dreams creatively.

My dad used to say with him that still waters run deep.

He used to be a rugby player at school but took it no further.

I would say that he is a Bentley among the Ford Fiestas.

We share what I call “co-imagination” and what he calls “sympathy.”

Given that <BEE> might be my brother, I would say he’s a genius.

I would say he’s a genius though was never good at school.

He says “a dog is a dog is a dog is a dog.”

He says “if you buy cheap you buy twice.”

He spends most of his time shut in his bedroom at his laptop.

He plays chess online and also other computer games too.

I once got him to read The Lords And The New Creatures by Jim Morrison.

He said it was good but not as good as his own work.

His own work is yet to be seen, read, appreciated.

Unless that is you count the sheet where pictures grew.

The pictures seem to depict the lyric to my song.

But the sheet is my brother’s for he designed it and laid it down.

He is not a poet or songwriter in the traditional sense.

If <BEE> is my brother I’d say he’s invented a new art.

He’s actually a good chef and makes a nice chocolate mousse.

He makes spag bol according to a traditional Italian recipe.

I think he thinks philosophy is a kind of spaghetti.

The way he likes spaghetti best is al dente.

THE OEDIPUS WRECKS GIG, CAMDEN TOWN, CIRCA 1997

Nota Bene. Oedipus Wrecks were a three-piece, energetic too, in the mould of Nirvana, who played gigs just before the Millennium in London and the surrounding area. We took our name from a friend of the band called “Dr. Calculator Ptom,” whose wit we have to thank for that name that so suited us. We were, or I was, aiming for Doors lyrics and Nirvana riffs. The genre I had in my notebook and my mind was Grime already in those days as a mid-Atlantic equivalent of grunge but in the end we were said to have foreshadowed Doom. Oedipus Wrecks was basically about still singing along when The Lords And The New Creatures getting real had been too horrible and disgusting. I’m going to show you the lyrics to the set-list interwedged with paragraphs of prose about the surrounding time, and pertaining to a crepuscular twilight zone.

I

SECRETS IN THE MUD

This is the sound of getting totally fucked.

Of when you first get your notebook sucked.

Of changing gold into Glastonbury mud.

Of lying down in a field with your bud.

This is the music through whom we aspire.

This is the rule book that is thrown on the fire.

This is the jam where the trousers are down.

This is the wine-shop on the edge of town.

Chorus: Glastonbury, you should be free, and all you have in your big city,

you hit my G, you make me see how I want to see,

lights go down, lights come on,

and all my sadness seems to be gone,

although I still love to be what I dream I am.

[guitar solo]

THE ISLAND OF PENGUINS

One night, two friends and I from Dr. Calculator Ptom’s school attained the island of penguins, out night-walking in Eskdale, on a camping trip in the Lakes. It was a vision in the truest sense of the word, both in its containment of the divine, as in our being three gathered in the name, and in it possibly being born of Rimbaudian derangement of the senses. I am then said to have proved the island of penguins with the first verse of the first song at my first gig. The problem, however, is that if the line (or maybe two lines) belongs to the house I should possibly be made to be Anon with it all these years later. Then again if you take the line/s away from me surely that would mean attaining the island of penguins has become a regrettable event – which nobody wants to see. To this day it still hasn’t been sorted out. The line came into being for me one day when I was reading Rimbaud, and was never intended to be proof of the island of penguins. In the meantime it transpires that the island of penguins might’ve been observed on the other side of the universe!

II

OCEANS SMILE

Oceans smile with liquid eyes

and fill themselves with rain.

The tide goes out and leaves me

lost, 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 open

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)

MEANWHILE

In the meantime, Dr. Calculator Ptom (who named the band but didn’t play) liked the movie La Heine, where there’s a gorgeous bit of urban poetry about society falling from a high-rise building, thinking to itself “so far so good, so far so good” all the way down. I had some poetry myself, or thought I did, inside me, as well as writing what I thought were good words to the songs.

III

VITAL SIGNS

Smile like a smile just to smile,

cast to Heaven for a while...

let's rip holes in the boat,

throw the captain overboard,

throw the angels off the bridge,

death comes and stops me getting

bored of life's soul-machine.

What we need is energy,

show me all your vital signs,

what we steal is what we need,

what we need to feel alive,

for I'm alive with vital signs.

Back to Hell to plunder wings,

let the ritual now begin,

come and ride the waiting beast,

ride it gone into the fire,

ride it to the waiting feast,

my baby's waiting to get higher,

to get higher, to get higher...

what we need is energy,

show me all your vital signs,

what we steal is what we need,

what we need to feel alive,

for I'm alive with vital signs,

yeah feel alive with vital signs.

Come again there's much to do,

don't you know that I love you?

IN THE MEANTIME

Meanwhile, Dr. Ptom and I were part of a group of intellectuals, a circle, who watched weird films like Eraserhead and The Warriors and The Doors. We even kissed so willing we were to try new things. We would have tried out a new alphabet had we the opportunity. Dr. Ptom was a poet too… he had one about Zeus and the conjunction of souls I liked but knew I did not understand.

IV

KILL

My eyes sting,

my teeth are bleeding raw,

too much thought

to make me sick.

Stinky clothes

and mouth become

my skin and all

these fruits I want to kill.

Give my hope,

surrender to the tide,

you can take

my remains;

but I must go,

to wash the poison

from my eyes,

before, before, before I kill.

THROUGH THE WOODS

On the night we boarded a train not knowing where it was headed, we fell asleep, and were woken at dawn, in Luton, by the conductor, who let us off not having a ticket and sent us back the same way from which we came! We ended up sleeping in a suburban wood, under leaves, when we got back to Radlett! I remember mostly that it was cold! We could still find a portal under the leaves and open it and find stairs that lead down into dark earth, and follow them down and find the Nobel Prize Ceremony inside… all sorts of besuited gents sitting down. Or we could take the route of New Realism instead.

V

MOTHER IS DEAD

Fuck this, fuck that, fuck me yeah,

I wish that I had been there,

been there to saaaaaave Jesus,

I'm sure he meant to please us.

Mother is dead,

mother is dead,

mother is dead.

We're young and filled with semen,

we're going to break some hymen,

we'll make the cops turn in their badges,

we're going over all the edges yeah.

Mother is dead,

mother is dead,

mother is dead.

EMILY’S GARDEN

Emily was my first proper gf; and one night Dr. Ptom, another lad and I went round her house to see her and two of her friends. We were about 14 or 15; and as soon as we got in the house, Dr. Ptom and I went straight out into the back garden, where there was a trampoline, and started to send a green parrot through the conch to outer space, so to speak; and we started cackling like hyenas; and the end result was that it was the end of my relationship with Emily.

VI

SNAKE SNAKE BUTTERFLY

Snake snake butterfly, lay me dead & close my eyes.

Angel serpentine, she waits on the Other Side.

Give me your alibi; give me chains to stop me fly;

give me night to soothe my blinded eyes:

so I can see the secrets of the skies.

We must rise, freedom falling from our eyes,

unlock doors, it's a perfect time to die,

and it's okay ‘cause baby we'll go insane

but don't reach out too far for the flame.

Snake snake butterfly, lead me to the Other Side.

Angel serpentine, she waits on the Other Side.

FAREWELL TO THE DAY

I remember well when I had to say farewell to the day. We were down at Will Fenn’s holiday house in Devon; and I was tearful that I was moving on; and Dr. Ptom said “there’s going to be a massive, John-shaped hole in my life now.” I am 44 and still hear his voice on magic alphabet radio, or the intercom, or whatever you want to call it! Although he didn’t play an instrument or write the music, he wanted to invent a word-chord synthesiser to go in our band (which was otherwise a three piece.)

VII

THE GHOSTS LAMENT (THE GUZZLER MEN)

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.

||||.

TOAST

The latter song, looking back, sees the sublimation of The Lords And The New Creatures into a singular, pronominal act of Romantic, first person lyricism. “I’m the only one left,” it went; for I was smuggling The Lords And The New Creatures. But I never intended to literally curse the sun if that is even possible; for the chorus was written first, the bit you’d think was the curse, then the verses came second and I was just trying to make it rhyme. It did strike me about twenty years later that it might’ve looked like I was trying to curse the sun, but that was never an intention at the time. The song was also the one that was used for my brother’s sheet where pictures grew, pictures seemingly depicting that lyric, and he says <BEE> might soon ensue from @ in the international language alphabet. It’s a shame we can’t use the sheet where pictures grew. My presentation on Oedipus Wrecks would benefit from it but I am forbidden from showing you my photograph of it even though it was my discovery because it shouldn’t be online. In fact, the whole business of my being the new Syd might necessitate a revelation of the sheet in the presentation, but as I say I am newly banned from showing it.

VIII

HEAVEN KNOWS

Heaven knows and walks away -

but what it knows it will not say.

It’s impossible to make a cowboy film in space?

Heaven knows and turns its face!

Heaven’s filled with silver eyes.

Heaven’s hills all harmonise.

I hear its angels when they call...

Heaven knows and lets them fall!

[reconstructed]

BEDROOM

I remember when I had started my new school Oundle going back to see Dr. Calculator Ptom in Radlett and playing a new song I had written since the loss of my virginity and acid virginity too. I was in a new band called Secret Chord H, and this new song was called ‘Dream With Open Eyes’ and was all about love. One commentator in Ptom’s bedroom where I played it said my voice had gotten a lot better.

LOVE POEM

And why not stick getting head

from gorgeous Flora

on the end of it?

You notice that she can

only speak vowels

when it’s happening.

But to write a poem

to recite during fellatio

is another thing.

I have waited all my life

for this moment

to arrive and now

don’t want to waste it

talking about

the music of King Crimson.

You notice that

her name is a rainbow

that you can taste.

Down the corridor

she walks and into

your open arms…

“are you alright?”

you ask her and she

says “yes” to that.

You hug and get

a hard-on hugging her

and so you suggest -

“do you want to sneak

into the changing rooms?”

which are to your left.

Again she says yes

and inside you start

to kiss. She fumbles

for your cock, feels

around and gets it out,

and then there you are.

A dream of wish

fulfilment in all truth.

I never even kissed her.

But your opportunity

to recite a fellatio

poem has arisen.

O drizzled Cola bottle

woman, word-walk you

my way into my arms?

THE BOAST REVISITED

That I didn’t earn a penny

is why my life sucks

and I wonder if it was scripted

into The New Creatures

and then became a farce

where there was nothing I could do

that would earn me a penny

but I don’t really know

and am rich in soul if

not in money and that

is the more important thing

as long as Benefits keep me alive

which they do seem to do

while I get busy writing

trying to give back to society.

TUNING A HARP

Inside my mind I think

they are tuning a harp.

A guitar crashing in the night

is not the same as

the colours of the vowels.

My brother meanwhile

thought he had left

some Crinklecut crisps lying around

but it turned out

he hadn’t bought them,

had picked up something

else instead at the shop.

On the subject of cuts,

I don’t believe

in cuts to benefits

or to the tax on the rich,

and nor does my bro.

It’s why I might need

disobey my father’s ghost

and present an Anon book.

I remember writing on skunk,

a yellow M on the end

of the word “them.”

A spare time continuum

where the eye walks the plank

to affix the end word

of the next sentence down

to the end of the present sentence.

An hypertext of the word

“pi” was floated over

the prose like

an astral body.

Back in Sixth form, b/t/w/,

I wrote a gorgeous piece

about the city. It

was the witness’s city

and even though

I was only 17, and

it was never finished

I wouldn’t change a word.

I have covered 1000’s of files

with words in my time

and there is worth

in all of it somewhere

even if I say so myself.

So much remains

wasted on dead computers.

I do love the friends

I have made so dearly

that I might need

to present something Anon.

All of the files I have open

and I go and write another

poem as if to obviate-not-titivate

when I cannot decide.

There is science

and philosophy

and maths

and fiction

as well as verse

and music in

my laptop’s backrooms and more…

When I was a kid,

there was a big family mystery

as to what happened

to my brother James’s Gameboy

when it went missing

and I as the witness

even entertain

in my open-ness

and uncertainty

that it was transformed

into the second specimen itself

such were the evolutionary

possibilities at the time

and I have 1000’s of files

of writing in that mode.

If I was threatened with death

upon completion

of the next book,

it would naturally

make my writing

too frugal and mean.

Death is a form

you can write against too.

I don’t intend

on going anywhere yet

but I remember

when my dad said that

and now I miss him

and wish to know

what he would advise

but it could be alright

if I manage to stop.

Then there was the period

A. I. became a pronominal

act, way before the

A. I. we know today.

If I could remember

every move I made,

every turn of mind,

the list might stretch to the moon.

A shadow page poem

is written in the dark.

A helium aubade

is written at dawn

when you’ve been up all night

wrestling with the dark

night of the soul.

I even tried making

the turning of the page

the turning over

of a steak in the pan.

Give a man freedom

and let him write.

Give him joy in his heart.

Give him blessings.

Give him “the secret

of an inward prayer,

whispered to your soul,

disguised with shadow,”

as was my working

definition for a poem

during one poem at least.

So prolific I have been

yet don’t really like

much that’s come out.

Morsels of death

demean the process

and yet now it’s enchanting.

I love it when you take

a half finished bottle

of something like milk or Pepsi

and empty it into the glass

and the glass is filled

exactly to the brim,

emptying the bottle utterly.

It’s like that because

the alignment is exact.

It’s the same for electricity.

It’s why I should

do the me one.