JUST SOMETHING I USED TO DO

NOTE ON TEXT

I’ve brought out many books by now but things went wrong when they were not all in terms of intellectual property mine, so I already look back to a day when I only had three and they were all online. One was poems, one was songs and one was my seven year old Prep. By now something else has emerged which is the start of a novel called ‘The Dream Film Store’ from Upper Sixth. What I I am giving you is the poems of my youth; then that novel opening; then a dream sequence of early rock songs; then the boyhood science at the end. The poems show me not just starting a new school but founding a new religion around the Millennium. The novel opening shows early promise in amateur psychology but had to be abandoned. The songs contain the energy of my youth – for though there is barely mention of it, I was in many bands including The Flood that were recording on binaural earphones in Cambridge just after the Millennium… what few lyrics there were on that album have been included naturally in the songs and the album itself can be found and heard online. Last but not least the boyhood science reveals where it all started for me when I was seven. To carry on after you’ve gone mad is very difficult, be it because you were cursed or hypnotised or fed a bunch of lies from Day One or whatever the reason was (my mother would say drugs.) I did persevere but looking back wish this to be it, because I think this way is happier. These are days when I still smoked pot, days before Western medication kicked in, days before I started to hear voices. Some have contended that my having to stop was as a result of Fate – that I was already destined to be a neo-Rimbaud character before whatever difficulties arose. At the end there is an About The Author piece that shows the main moves I made, shows how several new fields might’ve arisen, had it not been for the illness.

THE NEW RELIGION

[1996 - 2004]

IN THE BLUE ROOM

Sullen, silken sulks,

we drink the same rain,

spit is clean

and so is dirt.

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 deer 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.

SONNET

I watch her walk along on the other side of the street.

She parades the black panther’s nonchalant strut.

She wears blue jeans and black leather boots.

She takes some chewing gum out of her bag.

She slides the stick of it out of the pack.

She puts the stick of it into her mouth.

She loves to chew and suck the taste.

She loves to chew and suck the taste.

She puts the packet back in her bag.

She swings the bag about a little bit.

She walks past a little pub long shut.

She might go check out a flower shop.

She loves to chew and to suck the taste.

She enjoys it, chewing and sucking the taste.

DON’T ADJUST YOUR MIND THE FAULT IS IN REALITY

I

Necklace noose, 

reckless truce, 

drooling before 

wet, electric eyes...

ii

a salmon escaped the ancient net. 

A sprightly hypertext sniper on 

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn 

accrued to the procession. 

The anguila eel is wet and 

named after the devil for 

mysteriously appearing in 

the puddles of towns on rainy days. 

iii

Literature is a vehicle. Punk

is an attitude more than a

genre of music. Piggy

is a symbol of Reason and

dies. Civilisation is but a

thin veneer belied by dark,

arational forces. The doors film 

is emblematic of a paranoid 

meltdown into post-euphoric 

psychosis. Yeah, dance music 

can have a soul for sure. 

iv

A purple parrot perched upon the 

shoulder of the pirate squawking 

“don’t tell Moronika.” A green 

one was sent to space through 

the conch… maybe all I need

is a length of metal chain. A Lion

Bar was driven through the economy

in a car and a carfume whooshed 

from the unicorn’s bottom… 

v

and why did the chicken cross 

the road if not to break on 

through to the Other Side,

break on through to the Other

Side, break on through to the

Other Side? I am the Burger 

King, I can eat anything. 

Preferably a Double Whopper 

with extra cheese, bacon

large fries and a Coke. 

vi

When ‘The End’ is playing 

on the jukebox I can clear up 

the pool balls, when the boys

are away on holiday, and 

the noose lets us go, and 

thinking I can drink more 

firewater whisky than I can 

I puke on the carpet when 

the boys get home, when 

we are new you and new me.  

vii

For one I’m only trying

to pass the witness test,

and for another, Flora

wouldn’t pass the fitness test

being as she is the mating

queen from the green

pages in the flesh,

whom it would seem

is not attracted to me

for reasons I shouldn’t mention

like the way Barnes

has scored a chicken, and

the way there are still doors

out in the great outdoors.

A BROKEN CHAPEL

Not to renounce the past with rapt amazement,

but to forgive our sins, falling like leaves…

we have seen this all before, Time

tumbling away into sleep, seen

this darkness drop and these ruins murmur;

and now we are gathered to appoint the gods

and now we are gathered to consecrate ourselves

and now we are gathered to ordain this dust,

we are gathered to live and to dream.

INVINCIBLE LOVERS

I’ll tell you how strange and wild

With wanton promise comes she

On an unknown hour

Like an uninvited guest

You’ve somehow brought to bed.

All night we’d

Sit and think of history

As if it hadn’t passed,

The great wars and the ancient peoples

And all the silly fears.

We’d think of how much we’ve changed

And how much we’ve remained the same.

We’d think of moments of mine

We somehow shared and how I longed to live

In circling illumination of all those moments,

Fragments gone.

And softly I wished

To expand history back into the past

And never to move again an inch forwards.

And to run through the memory of Time,

Ancient, timeless galleries.

Often we’d sit and think of speaking

Or retiring to bed or even sleeping.

Always we’d realise we never had

Time enough to waste or spend.

So we gloried in ourselves

Like invincible lovers,

Always boundless in new being.

And if I seldom spoke in sad regret,

She would turn and smile

As if to boldly offer

‘Come take my hand,

And we’ll wander across no-man’s land.'

THE RISING KESTREL

Night arrives like a ghost.

The green kingdom around me

opens up to the starlit laughter.

To hover motionlessly o'er the mellow fields

I'm rising through this careless freewill

like a kestrel from its wood.

Lusting for life as every being should.

Desperate for sex with a dream full of ladies.

But nothing too personal.

Because love is life without drugs.

(Note: co-authored with Mr. William Thyne)

OPEN

In the cotton mist she came in shining leather.

Time swings on sighs forever.

She touched my shoulder like a burning prayer

and sighed as all the sky was severed.

“Full fathom five” could not be a-

nother number for Virgil says “there are

tears in things;” and O is not a ghost-vowel, no,

but U is a ghost-vowel– when we're

opened unto the gloom under

sliver moon and I slide her over.

Semen spills like silver water.

We're soon enough in the flotsam ether.

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.

INFANT JAZZ POEM

Sometimes perhaps 

down opening quiet

I am drawn down 

long and alone

and my friend and 

my foe recede 

into deep sleep

sudden and still 

like a dawn behind a 

screaming veil 

where silence

is born and all that's 

loose and tight and 

all that's light is light 

like first morning 

with no night

and wend my way 

so slow to Freedom

and soft Infancy-lunacy 

with harp-sure eyes

so I can live 

the last poet's 

last poem.

HAIKU FOR SPRING

There is joy in things

and smiles not grins like butter

but like butterflies.

AN INWARD PRAYER

“The initial task was to widen the area of consciousness” - Allen Ginsberg

Blessed are all these miles of madness

bumbling around us

Blessed is Night w/ its centuries

of bright, burning eyes

Blessed is the secret of an inward prayer,

whispered to your soul,

disguised w/ shadow

Blessed is the joy

when tears break from their blue chains

and shatter from your eyes

Blessed is Brahma

and the holiness of Things

O Brahma! Regard me

w/ mine own eyes!

(Atman is Brahma

as the sun its light

cursed the wiseman to God

w/ his final breath)

Blessed is Buddha & Samadhi & Christ

and blessed am I for blessing them

Blessed is connecting to the

Big White Dream

in moments of vast, empty enlightenment

when suddenly wakened

you open reception

to Dark Dream Radio & the Infinite Broadcast

and blessed are its electric currents

(the channels of rhythmic ecstasy)

for Music, Sex and Idea

are the elements of miracle

& grasping your mind

in instant static pain

the sudden rush of apocalypse

like the visitation of God

or the angel in your eyelid

Blessed is falling through leering madness

& waking again a naked boy

Blessed is the sadness in things

and blessed also its joy

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)

& blessed is the rain that heaven sends

it is the life for the poems around us

Blessed are the Four Pillars of Time

Milk Water Whisky Wine

milk is the silver semen of birth

water is the heavenly liquor

whisky is embedded in the soul of the poet

& wine swims through the heart of the gods -

O drown me in the heavenly fluids!

Blessed is the poet

struggling through headache

strung out in harmonious rhythm

like a chain of music from star to star,

beating to joy in a New Beat heart

Blessed is sin if it kills Ignorance

Blessed is the redness of blood,

The madness of kissing,

The promise of moments

Blessed is the wavering emergence of Now

The friendliness of meeting a stranger

The strangeness of meeting a friend

Blessed is the promise of words

That someday I may dispose of language

Blessed is peace

as blessed is 'FUCK!'

Blessed is the miracle of life

Atheist and holy in one

Blessed is choice and every decision

And choosing never to choose at all

Blessed is the rapture of the slender moon

And the danger in her wanton thigh

And blessed are we for our daring tongues

For being in love w/ being in love

Blessed is our small advance

beneath an ocean of weeping stars

for time is all that time can prove

Blessed is Discovery, Invocation and the dark

Blessed is pain for it shows you can feel

And blessed is death for it means you’re alive

Blessed is wandering the cruel edge

and seeming a fool in quest for height 

Blessed is the rambling bardic child

Who never strays from his heart

But on vast miniature journeys through space

He arrives at Conclusion

W/out even thinking

Blessed is thought as absence of thought

So in the great, dark Over-soul of night

Above us all and counting time,

That thought behind

The back of your mind…

Let’s just say you looked into my eyes

And saw the scars of dreams had opened

And saw the glimmer of the gates unlocking

And saw the nobleman nod his assent

Tell the master calling for me

The servant shall not be disturbed

He is drowning himself in the laughing sea

And has seen the snake slowly recoiling

And has felt the womb of conception calling

And has found the Sea of Words

No let’s just say

I came and saw

And you almost heard

My soundless word

Blessed is word as absence of word

Last words change all the rest

And last longest,

Last word

Death.

ONE DAY HE’LL BE MADE OF MUSIC

Sensation precedes thought in art. What colour is white? Smooth and tight! What colour is blue? Be true you! Waves [squiggle] crossed the FTSE [squiggle] and the Helter-Skelter [squiggle] crashed in the electric-sea [squiggle]. Every Atom Ate Our Eyes. Now on the edge I rest my head, feeling feint as “FUCK” touched in steam on glass and dream a cure for pain. Chain is made from same as key. Perception is for alchemy. I plunge the needle into the heart of the brain.

LE LITTLE LAPIN

Le little lapin on the lawn

trembling in the dusky dawn

which spreads from the glowing east

& forlorn flowers open mild

so soft & frightening like a child

was born but locked inside to mourn

as the morning soft awakes outside

& a rabbit perched upon the lawn

sheds a secret tear for us all

before the rusty autumn falls.

__________________________

STONED POEM NO # WHATEVER

Usually I masturbate over

Nolove

But sometimes…

“Whaaaaat?!”

screamed the madman to his bride

My song of life is short

‘Confess your self

then when all is gone

you will have won’

So go round singing it

in the wind like

the bardic child

happily lost

in dreamland

O dreamland!

- you are the soft fruit

of sadness

O joy!

- you are the break of my tears,

it is you, sweet self,

who clutches the chains in my eye

(& I is alone in the heavenward eye)

When I say love is

music between masturbating souls

I could mean that as a VAST

speculation expressing after

freedom,

But no it is not an

abstract ambiguous speculation,

it is the only way of expressing it,

the ONLY & ENTIRE

verbal equivalent of that

moment of conception

in the mind-womb,

that sudden connection

to the eternal self

The statement is as concise

& true to itself as it can be

without changing its meaning.

I tell you,

Music, Sex and Idea

are the currents of heaven

and also the rivers that let

open the poem valves

stonedness is the opening of Idea

when you notice slightly

louder and listen nearly closer

to the Music in your soul

& want to have sex &

soul-sex with angels and your love

Love is Music

between masturbating souls

Poetry contains Music & Idea

& expresses sex of all insane varieties

with souls, with hearts, with sadness,

with joy with wine with death

& with yourself or no-one

Drugs is placing a bet with

your mind

& Poetry is birdsong,

when your sparrows awaken

at dawn in your head.

SAFE FROM HARM

Fleeing the scene of the smoking crime

my shadow legs were failing falling

decided to run forever but fell

the cops were swift on my slow back

& slow to follow my swift soul

which grinning escaped through some hole

& down a road safe from

Ignorance perfectly un-noticed and perfect

The cell was hard like white bone

& naked like something blind and ugly

I slumped & swayed in openly stonedness

& opened my black, silken shirt

“the silent one” sulking & moaning

in hooded prayer to an inward God

The cells were sick & blind

some people advertised their Ignorance

in graffiti screaming from the walls

“FUCK THE PIGS” someone had scratched

I would have told him to fuck himself

for what worse is a pig than a sheep?

& so it appeared that Ignorance wins

only over Ignorance again

& I was thankful for this thought

& thankful that I felt wise

& winked eye to my mind

thankful that though I know my judgment

really judges deeper and wider,

unlike the pigs and sheep I don’t

insist my judgement is better

________________________________

STRANGER

Stranger we must pass like prayers

together in the ballad-murmuring breeze

we must go like pilgrims to Parnassus

boundless in our impossible hope

perhaps again we shall lie like children

& invent such things as poetry

follow swift untrampled footsteps

in the candle-forests of Holy Night

we must be silent, listening

for whispers creeping away

like tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiptoe-shadows

stranger take me now unready

I stand unsteady on this path

sad there’s too much still to forget

my eyes are sad for delivery

stranger show me all that’s strange

I need you just to touch your eye

or show me that you’re still alive

perhaps your breathless heart has stopped

to catch its breath trapped in heaven

lover you might tell me your name

I’ve nothing to say to the endless pupil

______________________________

[NO NAME]

through arteries of galaxies

of memories

to galleries where tapestries

of slaughter hang from falling walls

through the purple corridor

a door is ajar

push it open

gently creaking opening afar

then into the

crumbling tumbling temple

fumble through and stumble on

across the stone across the floors

flat like graves

patterned in shadow

onwards upwards

notice the window

above all stained in

glory-orgasm

w/ the cross of Christ

and the face of you

Holy you

like some ragged tearful stranger

bled to the world

just to say

“anyway

- there is no truth

give up now

& turn away”

it's all too late

you must not wait

follow the shadows

into the shade

head up high

up on to the altar

where stands a candle

forged in Rome

find the candle

& follow it upward

& finally then

find the flame.

From ‘THE BOOK OF WORDS’

Words, words, words. What are words? These are words.

Words in this epistemology I would say are useful tools associated with the instinct to survive.

Man is words and ‘man’ is a word and words draw bridges across metaphysics and words make connections between first and third persons.

Words are also a great bandwagon of falsity we must presume is not false in order to make life easier.

Words are, well, ONLY words.

“MAYFLY” I say the word ‘mayfly,’ phonetically, sounding out its every vowel-sound alphabetically.

The word ‘Entropy’ spelled backwards, i.e. y.p.o.r.t.n.e could frame the first, unformulated spark of appetency in Nothingness preceding Creation, or else have no meaning under the sun in which case I’d say that is Tucker’s constant.

Neil Curry says “if two people can agree on the meaning of a new word, it becomes a real word.”

‘Indwellable’ might mean the opposite of ‘indomitable’ when it comes to the medicine man’s medieval cinema screen empoldered from the harbour in Iceland.

Neil Curry also liked the bit in my essay on Norman Nicholson where I wrote “You can find freedom from accepting limitation.”

Sometimes I drive a stolen, Dream Factory car for whom punctuation is merely brakes, bird with the skin of snaking in the Lakes.

Music, Magic and Mystery make the three M’s of words.

I think I might write A Trance of Stalks by Professor Quentin Ponsonby, when I am bored.

The distractionary may contain the metallurgical origins of birds, whom it seems speak, in gagazookzook and bongateebingbong.

I think poetry is more like Man interpreting God and music more like God interpreting Man.

I like my lines of shining conveyance to be free to connect in all directions.

When two words thought to be mutually exclusive connect in Holy Orbit it forms an Image.

“Noetic” meaning “of the mind” is my new favourite word because its suffix ‘ic’ reminds of Icarus who flew too near the sun.

WALKING TO ICELAND

“I have walked for miles to this straw bed,

seen unafear’d a landscape of cloud

carved into paths and roads, grasses and hills,

by meltwater angels booting their balls

about in sundrenched meadows up there

and know of no epithet to place her beauty,

no painted pantheon of seraphim ready -

and behind your eyes where tears dwell

in sacred rivers flowing up the fell

and let go of their tiny blue chains

and let go of their wet horse reins

I feel I have landed and am home.”

SCENTS OF SPRING

I love the day the first, fresh scents of spring

suffuse the air and pervade the senses.

An AEIOU bird

toots its hollow horn

outside on the A595.

A celebratory genesis is everywhere.

Mother earth

is giving birth,

menstruating season

and ovulating dawn.

Fresh lovers maunder

hand in hand and

knee-deep in redolent flowers

into shade to take repose

by cool, running waters.

Sybaritic sylphs swoop in sentient air.

The blue sky arches and swoons,

I bridle the mind and

race apace to the shore

where seabirds scream

from the ragged rocks,

O is it their love-song or elegy?

Waves make gentle love to the shore.

In alchemy a galaxy

of stars exploding

into being above is perceived

as an orgasm, is perceived,

that is, in an erotic sense.

Liquid night arrives too soon,

O moon, O beautiful,

sleepless omen moon,

who shines like an

electric coin and seems

to be in love with the sea

or at least her own

shattered reflection:

she scatters her jewellery box all around.

Homework tonight

is to remember your dreams.

I prefer telepathy to 10p.

INVENTIONS

A virtual death machine to wake you up. A word-chord synthesiser at the edge of selection. A drug called “Strictly Free” that does what it says on the tin, is and makes you strictly free to consume. A red-bleeding type-writer inside a ping-pong ball. An holographic horse-cock wheeled in the bedroom. An invisible square of air called ‘Mosaic by Darth Vader’ stroked on telly. A neutraliser drink that sobers you up in one quick instant. The monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey protruding from the oldest fell at ten to eight. Earphones implanted with tiny mics inside them so that you can record on them. What’s wrong with these is that they are not real!

MILLENNIAL PROPHECIES

I look into that dust in that late sunbeam angling in and foresee that they will one day hunt for something called the God Particle that will prove God non-extrinsic to matter.

It would be good to see an alignment of the Plough and the landscape for a first black President of America.

I think if Fight Club were real someone would fly two planes into the Twin Towers on September 11^th and I don’t that a good idea but it might happen.

I would like to write a book, maybe a Trilogy, called The Scientific Papers, classed as a series of findings into itself, into the concept of art and science as a single discussion of perception.

It would be good if there were a party in an office block where all the internal walls are removed and where every floor represents a decade in music, fashion and substances.

I myself would like to record an album on earphones, like Rimbaud might if he were a musician.

I would say that smells from tellies would also be possible one day too.

I think what we might see is an Age called the Age of Enchantment that is an echo of the Enlightenment.

I do wonder if there will be another immaculate conception now that we have a new Millennium.

AMBITIONS

To replace the archaic word for ‘gay’ would be amazeballs because ‘gay’ used to be Man’s highest emotion and was never replaced.

To discover an aesthetic anti-system like the colours of the vowels in English would also be great, even though Rimbaud deemed it folly.

To conduct an experiment into the international language alphabet would also be an artistic ambition.

To overthrow the conscious self-censor would be good, maybe create a superhuman narrator called FUCK who can tell the truth like no-one else.

To start a new religion is what I am getting at because I think the Millennium means what is old is expended and we need to renew our values; and already Jedi is an official religion on the census forms in London.

To start a new language entirely would also be a positive thing, if at all possible, in my opinion.

I would also see gypsy poetry in the English centre because it would shake things up and I think it could be interesting to see if they have anything new to offer.

If I were a concept artist I’d build a room made of hash that the audience can blow-torch but as I am not, just a writer, I can’t do that; and I would only endorse real live death in the cinema if an old granny volunteered for euthanasia and that’s because I do have some moral compass.

To make a new discovery as big as fire is the long and short of it, for every generation might have that chance again, to usurp the burning torch of culture from the old.

To bring back the Summer of Love is the largest and widest goal.

To bring about simultaneous orgasm of Man.

BLUE

“You know how dad told us

he was an art smuggler nicknamed Blue?

That he smuggled art over the Berlin Wall?

That he sold his business when

the Berlin Wall fell? Well,

I think it might’ve been code,

might’ve been recourse to euphemism.

I think he was a pollen smuggler.

I think he had a pollen farm

way up high in the Moroccan

mountains and shipped tonnes

and tonnes of pollen to the States.

This whole art dealer nicknamed

Blue thing is just to protect us.

At least this is what I entertain.

I also think he named us after

The Doors, John, James, and Robert

and then they had a girl of course.

Have you noticed we are born

in a season each, going Spring,

Autumn, Winter, Summer, and

march right left right left in the hands?

There are also four compass

points, four seasons, four wheels

of a car and four dimensions

to the mapping of any point in

the spacetime continuum including

time. Now revolve that bifter!”

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE DYING OF CANCER

A Russian has a right to a square of red perceived by someone from another land and Liberty and Trade go hand in hand.

Smell is the most primal sense, in love, absent in cinema.

Blissful Lovingness is where all religions meet.

Better and worse are but materialistic, Western concepts.

The Age of Communication momentarily endorses, means the Age of Alienation.

Each age is unable to see its own prejudices, its own cage of retrospective categorisation.

The Age of Enchantment is an echo of The Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment is the simultaneous astrological and sociological de-centering of Man.

The opposite of something is the pre-requisite.

The pre-verbal, the thought-pattern, into words, via the mechanics of meaning, is dilution.

The condition of knowledge produces no Triumph.

When you renounce the quest for meaning, you find it, fall back on meaning-by-proxy.

When you lose your concentration you die.

Your ordinary speech is surreal enough.

There are too many words in the world.

Everything living shares the same heartbeat in a given lifespan.

The artist is the missing link reintegrating into a society of worms below and the artistic spirit androgynous.

You should not trust systems for they rule with fear not love.

All guns should be flown in a spaceship into the heart of the sun.

Without difference no contradistinction.

Everyone is my brother and I love them.

The symbol [R] represents the stance that there is room for Creativity in the synapse gulf, that the creative spark is not all mappable/ predictable in advance.

There is no more mapless space.

Fear is an epiphany of Hell in the self.

Philosophy is a self-contained language corresponding to nothing real in life.

Existentialism is a child at the pick and mix with a credit card.

Politics is a choice between two plates of dogshit.

It is better to have a cup of tea than it is to kill yourself.

Portability is the new apotheosis of Form.

I. T. might stand for Instant Travel too.

All things must be returned to earth, surrendered like a rented thing to death.

HYPERTEXT

No fear, lost lover,

Science has the answer,

all wrapped up in its

rubber-gloved hand

and they’re soon

abolishing altogether

sadness gene and

dreaming gland -

for Science has told

us many of the stars

you gaze at tonight

are not really there

but illusions of the

light that takes so long

to reach the beams

of our glistening eyes

that for centuries

after the star has died

it still appears to

be hanging there,

a little, glimmering

crystal tear, in

love with the dark,

as bright and beautiful

as it would be if

it were really there.

THAT BLACK NATURAL E

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. 

SKUNKFOOT

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 bed in the wood, it was definitely a whore’s, 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.

STET

I

If I dare call this

the beginning

of anything at all

then I shall begin

until uncertainty creeps in

the cracks in the walls

& the room spins

to a brand new view

from the window pane

maybe rain pattering

down like a piano-piece

splashing to the ground

gravity found it

(& I’ve been found)

mute, translating thin air

This shall stand alone & dare

dictate its own

time & place

in infinite headspace

“I Am, I Can,”

said the suddenly free man

warned before about

getting a conviction

getting found out,

I am suddenly arrested

now driving

w/ daredevil exhilaration

in an open top car

leaping between seats

in a race to death

w/ my rampant shadow,

inescapably involved w/ the inviting,

pulling fragrance of orgasm,

playing again in chambers of water

& under the bridge w/

the angel’s daughter,

semen spills like silver water,

splashing w/ laughter

in a moonglow chamber,

moon-light veiled to the walls;

I remember

vast imaginary worlds,

as real as

Oh.

You can read in a book

about the Tachyon Particle

firing out the gun

just before you press the trigger.

“Well, you never know,”

they reaffirm

I take responsibility for saying

of course,

as long as rumours

or an insidious virus hasn’t

imbued our brains

w/ dreams & fevers

it proves everything & nothing

to be true;

nothing we may even

think of as true

So butterflies embroider a dance in the sky,

butterflies dance

& multiply

like scattered sunbeams

discovering your eye

There is much to be done,

glorious pyramids built to the sun,

much to be done

It seems

I have forgotten you again,

absent-minded-

what-of-audience

waiting in the rain,

dividing the dancers from the damned,

what of the perpetually

fresh new land,

sparkling clean sugar,

let us go,

let it stand.

II

So tell me what “a life changing experience” is.

You’ve missed it already,

& again & again.

If you’re ready for now,

then I might begin,

Imagined real & dreamt awake,

on the verge of everything,

(I found half-a-butterfly

& a wing.)

III

Vodaphone, alone, in total unknown,

Well maybe Maybelline, I make-believe,

I find you, a million butterfly queens,

I’ll fall into a fever & dream,

seen all the adverts I’ve seen,

Nokia, block her, privately unlock her

maybe we’ll fleetingly meet in the aisle?

Instantly convince me to smile

CCTV & spy cameras in the brain

you need an injection of fear & pain

well, tell me what you mean

by “love” or by “hate”

better get the law to investigate

IV

Trying to translate mute shapes of befuddled colour

in the head, trying to render them in word-forms

is such a frustrating business.

Invocation. I want to want nothing.

Catch a train that carries me always up to date

w/ the moment. I see it fluctuate

& flicker, gone.

To be utterly modern in every way

is the goal, yet to be a mediator through

which the entire history of literature

& criticism finds its newest development.

Finds its development manifested.

It shall never find its resting place, its

dwelling point. Each moment renders anything

fixed obsolete, the fluffy, dissipating

trail of the aeroplane, w/ which you can trace

its current position & its flight path

until the wind fragments its

history. We cannot hope to preserve or cling to

that untenable inconstant dissolution.

V

Here they come, back, the runners,

round the final bend again.

Forward to the place from which they came.

Here they come, the infinite angles of change.

Summing up to circle,

the orbits my pointing finger pins down,

immeasurable orders spin around.

The starting gun still resounds.

Fingerprint dancing pressed under the eyelid.

It’s never the safest way to blank it.

Run for cover as safe as a blanket.

In darkness, your shadow

hidden under your eyelid.

So hug me like a womb, I’ll hide from the world.

GREEN

My development as a writer since arriving at Warwick has been truncated and stultified by my refusal to abjure a little clinging: psychological addiction to cannabis. Where before I would smoke and make smoking a magical sacrament too for magical de-familiarisation, now the refreshing thing would be to get sober. The paranoia levels are quite bad and sometimes I get so paranoid I have to leave the room. I have started to contemplate the spare time continuum as a fictional continuum with two poles of faith and of doubt conceived of as positive and negative energy swirling in the void. All this was just the evil weed speaking, like the arch-tempter snake. So you see I need to break free, maybe spend some time in a log cabin in the mountains to apply murderous and ruthless revision to the work I have brought into being. After all I am one of God’s reporters and should bring people the Excellent News about how flowers grow. I am not just pilgrim to Parnassus, deep-sea diver in collective unconscious, psychic map-maker, alchemist of perception, liver-function of language but translator of feelings and the feelings you get on drugs are all fake. Paul speaks of being a robot and robot-builder in one and how we must look within to improve ourselves in evolution. Madness and gayness are both pressing in on my brain, and on weed, at night, in bed, I cannot defend myself against the paranoid accusations that arise in my haunted skull. Chicken Blames Egg, the burlesque newsprint headline reads, then, in terms of the paranoiac circles that go round and round. Sometimes I can be found applying some of these midnight thoughts to a page, in darkness, with a pen that has run out of ink, almost carving the letters in to the page so that only by tilting the page to the light in the morning can one discern any of the words. Even then I go over the same area of page sometimes and make a parsimonious palimpsest of pentimento. It seems in the morning like I have created a scab, a white scab. Sometimes, because of the nature of the chemical – how much it costs, how sacred it is as an effect and as a ritual alike – I think these midnight scribblings are valuable – epiphanies worth something to the world – of a visionary proclivity – but really I will likely end up binning hundreds of notebooks – all of them – from my youth – in not one, not two, but three big, black bin-liners – and that’s without even reading them. Gone will be the moment I first dared to trespass into forbidden gardens apropos writing about the face of stars in naked, honest, open, convivial, face value narrative. It’s all going to get thrown away and that may be why my father says “writing is biodegradable in the end,” as if even when you word process it, as is newly mandatory in our troubled and testing time, the actuality of the literature remains biodegradable. In other words it will all grow back if it wants to.

WARP RECORDS

The plane exists on 2 dimensions including Time.

The pyramid exists on 4 dimensions, including Time.

To turn a plane into a pyramid is a 1 dimensional step.

Therein discover new dimension of the words

‘1 dimensional,’ meaning stupid – a dimension

which could also be called a separate plane -

and did I mention that I wanted to die?

JOB HUNT

I want to be a junkie,

I want to be a saint,

I want to be water,

wannabe Kurt Cobain,

a cultural paradigm,

I want to be a model

or maybe it’s a monk.

I’ve got the style and stance

I want to be a man

I want to be popular

I want to be outside

I want to be an anti-hero

that breaks the stereotype

I want to be a weirdo

I want to be a freak

I want to be an astronaut

just for a few weeks

I’m going nowhere fast

through nobody’s ideas

I’m not sure what I want

and what exactly I fear.

[NO NAME]

Log on/ eyebeams/ information overload/ username/ password/ I. D. please wait/ long queues/ old blues/ wake up/ new green/ taste of fear/ move in/ horizon/ doorways/ move on/ bus-stop/ renegade/ no soap/ piracy/ uptime/ bring down the internet/ rename Saturday/ closer to home/ yes please/ use your freedom of speech/ don’t be P. C./ stick to your Velcro/ watch out for T.V’s/ overthrow your ego/ rebuild hillsides/ a bit of rain never hurts/ keep it out of harm’s reach/ keep it out of diaries/ day one/ suitcase/ don’t take the game to heart/ keep it out of salt jars/ keep it out of surgery/ tactics/ kitchen clean/ sign up/ with machines/ keep the dream alive/ mis fits/ jigsaw/ secret charm/ vitamin pill/ exposure to strobelights/ whitewash.

[NO NAME]

Walking through the widescreen hills,

no set rules to follow, too

much green, so many blades,

there’s nooooooooo way out.

Enclosing ourselves in trees & caves,

the villages below enclothed in nothing.

Walking, what is the way to do it,

O crossroads of all inward spiral?

Perhaps up the freepath where

the sheep have trodden equators

running rings around at latitudes,

a slow ascent up flat, gradual paths,

gentle gradients where you just have to jog

& manoeuvre gravity into carrying

you at quite a trot, risking

a twisted ankle in the footholes, hiding rock.

I know this mountainside intuitively

well, I know this potential, I remember

this trust - let go of the reigns,

become one with the vehicle.

THE READING

On the train to Simon Pomery’s birthday party in Leeds I wrote in my notebook, all the way there. I wrote the whole alphabet out:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

Then I went on a bit about ancient alchemy – about how to alchemise the alphabet into something good, transmogrifying lead into gold. It was going to be a reading at the party – but despite all that I had written, when it came to pass I had nothing left except

“I felt a leaf,

I fell out of life.”

AN UNFINISHED NOVEL FROM UPPER SIXTH

[2000]

THE DREAM FILM STORE

A sad and seductive female voice is saying things to me. I cannot focus or see her face, it refuses to appear in my mind.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve finally come, I’ve been waiting for you for lifetimes.

- Welcome at last to the Dream-Film Store, I can’t believe you’ve awoken here after so long -

Did you have a long day? What can I find for you tonight – that’s right – anything you can imagine – a Thousand amazing thoughts preserved – or perhaps just a bottle of red wine and a dream about the swaying sea will rest you well tonight?”

Of course in dreams you never know you are dreaming. That is why they have control. Certainly this dream harnessed control enough to disturb me & leave itself lingering behind the back of my mind when I finally awoke.

In my sleep I was wrestling w/ heat & the covers, & frightened by the lady’s continuing voice. All I could see was blue.

“I know you can understand what I’m saying. Don’t be afraid” -

I felt her stretch out her arm towards me and I jumped in panic.

All around me I could see blurs of deep colour merging & swirling, a moving chaos of images and shapes. Still I could see no face.

“I know you can hear me, please, I’m your friend, look! I couldn’t bear to see you waste this now. You know me already please just trust me.”

********

II

I awoke shaken and wretched, grappling with the duvets, rubbing my stinging eyes. Already the terrible fear of my dream had subsided considerably; simply because waking instantly cancels out what was previously merely dreaming. Now I just had a headache & a longing to return to that strange scene and assuage the curiosity that always accompanies fear. I suppose the fear when you dream is because you don’t know you’re only dreaming. It seems real. I lay there thinking.

What troubled me most as I lay there in bed was that I never saw the woman’s face, though I could sense it was desperate to appear. Oh well, just a dream, as they say.

Refusing to let a dream trouble my thoughts all day, as had happened before I decided to get up and wash my face.

The flat was crazed by disorder & rubbish. Clothes, papers, books & boxes which should’ve been locked in some attic were at war w/ the floor. I trod w/ care to the bathroom & stood looking in the greasy mirror at a face full of grease; the eyes that once rewarded me w/ strange smiles were laden w/ sleep, heavy with the impurities that sleep had filtered. The Drain in my Brain.

“I’ve been swimming

in a sea of sleep,”

I began singing to myself in a hoarse groan. Wanting to give myself a shock, I dunked my head in a cold basin decorated w/ floating limescale, pubic hair (for some unknown reason) and toothpaste. How I could call that much of a wash I don’t know. Nevertheless, I felt fresher; so, as always, I started to prepare my morning spliff, which helped me decide what to do today, or if to do anything at all.

I used to take great pleasure in rolling huge reefers, just for the hilarity of seeing something unusual & absurd, I suppose. Recently though, since moving in to the flat, I’ve been rolling the swiftest & easiest joints possible, & filling them w/ more weed than the big old ones. Being stoned now fits into the same category of Time & Tedium that it once was the escape-route from.

As I lit the spliff, & fell softly back into the sensuous web that stonedness weaves, I felt a longing for the fantastical times I used to have w/ friends & girls & laughter & ideas – whereas now I just felt numb, in a blunt trance. Not wanting to linger on the past, I took a deep long drag, like the spliff was a sacrament, & pulled some stolid clouds of darkness into my lungs. Holding it down, I imagined counting some numbers but couldn’t get it together, so just waited - & then exhaled, releasing the smoke in a grave grey sigh, watching it fumble, disperse & vanish into cushions & curtains & air. My head was heavy. I knew what I needed now more than ever. To get out.

********

III

After dressing in some jeans & T-shirts, I took my weed, some skins, a pen & paper & various other articles of minor importance, & hid them in places in my big jacket. I’ve never been too bothered about what I wear on top - trousers, I just wear jeans, so I’m not fussy there either. Shoes, however, I’m very particular about, seeing as I have to walk in them etc. Shoes are rare allies in life. Also, I have a tendency to turn a jacket into a home.

So, finding a particular pair of boots, I left the flat w/ a feeling of the promise of the Day.

But where could I go?

I’d abandoned my friends a few months before, fallen out with them all except one, Gabriel, who I don’t speak to anymore, anyway. It was a strange series of incidents involving my previous band & some magic mushrooms. The details escape me & give me pain trying to remember them. We were called ‘Open Poem Opium,’ & we split up; that is all.

(“Beat through the veins of the city in madness

Revolving doors in your mind & sadness

Cities crawling in your brain

streets of mystery and of pain,

I’m leaving town on the underground train.”)

I put my hands in my pocket to instinctively protect myself from the knuckle-gnawing cold that hung around outside. Feeling what I thought was a £10 note in my jeans, I pulled it out to find only a little scribbling of lyrics written some days ago in a dull hash-induced trance.

I often scribbled things. I enjoyed the freedom of scribbling & doodling. The pen can move exactly where you want it free of direction, w/out the obligation of having to form restricting letters & words. I have pages & pages of doodles, strange shapes, & occasionally some lyrics appear in the mess. That’s what I did for the band – wrote songs & sang, though I don’t play any instrument.

Noticing a growing rumble in my stomach, I felt that food & coffee were the best options, & would give me more time to consider how my day of activity could be filled.

Rounding a corner, I saw the parade of shops ahead, dead faces facing me, w/ cheap dimestore smiles. In the middle was the cafe, called “The Rat & Vessel” to my amused bewilderment. I opened the door. Inside it smelled of sad people, old times clinging in smoke to the walls, sad paint and sad light. The door was still ringing from those crazy bells that crash together on opening , & make me cringe every time. Those bells should be banned from sad cafes. They exacerbate the dead silence that awaits you inside when the door slams shut & the bells stop clanging.

“A large strong white coffee please, & a Danish.”

£1. 90. I couldn’t believe it. I realised then that left me w/ only 10p for the day – a rare day of Activity. Oh well.

The coffee was bitter & the Danish was over sweet. I was fairly stoned & therefore felt a heightened sensitivity to things like taste. After a few mouthfuls, I realised it wasn’t quite late enough for breakfast yet.

Well, what could I do? Where could I go? 10p is less than having nothing, because it just irritates you with niggling little time-consuming questions.

I decided I’d be freer if I threw it away my last change. Why I didn’t bring any money w/ me I haven’t a clue – pen, paper & weed must have seemed like a more useful currency to remember this morning.

So On discovering that I finally had something to do (albeit only disposing of 10p), I thought I’d turn it into a ritual & perhaps waste an hour of the day. I was finding it increasingly difficult since realising this money shortage to tell myself that I was even capable of activity this morning. Spending an hour of one’s morning throwing away short change, & taking an hour to decide how to do it in particular to add a pretend sense of ‘fun…’ I realised a dead-end frustration possessing me. The town was in abeyance, time was trapping, what could I do to rid me of the cruel bindings of post-youth, expulsion from university, confusion, unemployment, & worst of all, sheer boredom? Where could I go, & with what purpose?

The 10p dilemma had started to annoy me. I thought in vain for ways I could make a ritualistic point of getting rid of it, but soon realised this sort of time-consuming thought was exactly what I wanted to get rid of the 10p for – like I said, to be free of it. This realisation of my own frustrating, mind-cycling stupidity annoyed me greatly. I decided I’d give it to the next tramp I saw.

It was now 11. 00. Which meant nothing to me, because w/out anything to do or anywhere to be, it didn’t matter what time it was. The street stretched ahead of me crawling w/ insect-cars & insect-people, all busily rushing around swarming sick and feversome. I often wondered exactly what the term “crowd-neuroses” means, & laughed that I felt detached from the clinging time-table lifestyle. Walls of grey rose either side of the road to complete the dull-grey prison of the street. People flocked & assembled, briefcases merged into madness, mute timetable agony, flaccid lovers limp by, smiles fail, children congregate in backstreets to escape, everyone around thinking they have something to do & somewhere to go! I felt dizzy so found a bench to sit down upon. Watching the parading fools & this procession of sadness brought out a sadness w/in me too. I was sitting motionless on the bench, feeling the flux & thrum of the city, the dead beat of London; & I heard the beat of my heart clash w/ the rhythm of the streets. I felt suddenly cold and alone. If London had a voice, it would be a blunted and dead-pan voice like Lou Reed’s.

I must have sat on that bench for about 2 hours. The time was spent coming to terms w/ the fact that I felt estranged from my environment – the first time I’d realised the alienation of being poor in a city. Perhaps if I lived in Cornwall, say, I’d have a job, a community in which I was known, maybe even some friends. The city is a great culmination of sadness & alienation. No-one in town is conscious of their extreme self-consciousness. Everyone in town is homeless.

Pleased w/ the thoughts I had accomplished this morning (& thinking was my poor equivalent of a morning’s work), I decided to roll up another spliff & go for another wander. My hands were cold & it was too windy sitting outside, so I went to look for the nearest phone-box. Phone-boxes were excellent for skinning up in, because a) you were off the street & out of people’s way b) there was a nice little platform bit to rest the Rizlas upon c) no-one disturbs you in a phone-box, because they assume you are looking for change, or about to make a call etc. One felt a slight degree of safety & protection inside.

The nearest phone was just across the road. I loved crossing roads, felt it like a game, a dare, a thrill. One of the things I felt most confident about in life was dodging traffic & crossing roads w/ what I liked to portray to the driver as being a fearless & disdainful nonchalance. I’m constantly occupying myself w/ little challenges & wars, that I suppose I create for my own amusement. Walking along a pavement, I often ask myself a question of importance then tell myself that if I reach that lamp-post over there before the next car passes me, the answer is so & so, & if not… I’m sure everyone plays the same game, just ask different questions. It’s amazing how something as utterly pointless & unfounded in anything apart from my own mind has the power to excite & possess me.

I can honestly feel a terrible suspense sometimes as a car grumbles & groans & approaches blind behind my back – I walk quicker, desperate for the answer I want. Sometimes, if I fail to reach the object in time for the right answer, I change the question or say I meant the previous lamp-post anyway. It is by no means a game I enjoy playing. I become frustrated w/ myself after a while, but at least it distracts me from frustration of having nothing better to do.

So crossing the road, I reached the phone-box, & entered its heavy door. Inside I felt how truly separate I was from everything else around me. There is a certain mysticism about phoneboxes & telecommunications. I remember having a fascination w/ Dr. Who, & the way he travelled throughout space & time in the blink of an eye. How I longed for such possibilities now, standing stoned & alone in a phone-box surrounded by strangers & the dizzying thrum of life. I wanted adventure, change, discovery – but I was stuck. Where was there to go?

I emptied my pockets on top of the phone & extracted the various bits of paraphernalia needed for skinning up. The spliff I rolled was terrible, due to what I noticed was a growing distraction in my mind.

Standing there pulling on the spliff, I tried to locate the exact area of my mind where the negativity was emanating from.

‘Right,’ I thought.

‘I know I don’t want to be here, but where do I want to be?’

Something was certainly on my mind, but I let it go as the smoke melted into my blood & sent diamonds rushing up my neck.

I started to gather my belongings, & noticed among them the 10p which I’d forgotten about.

“I’ll leave it here for some lucky person to make a phone call w/” I mused.

‘Or, I could make a phone-call myself..”

I didn’t own a phone & the thought of making a phone call was quite big news to me. Who could I phone? I had no friends.

Except for maybe Gabriel. It had to be Gabriel. 0171 385 6603. I only had 10p, so I had to plan carefully what I would say. Even better, I thought, I could invite myself round to his.

I don’t know why I suddenly had a desire to be w/ someone. I don’t know whether I even liked the guy. I alienate myself. Perhaps the guilt that loneliness brings, had stirred me finally into communication.

“Hello?” came the cautious, questioning voice.

“Gabriel, man, it’s, uh, Franco, could I come round?”

I spoke nervously & stuttered a little, out of practise w/ conversation.

“What! Hey Franco, how’s it going? What are you doing? Come round!”

“Yeah, I will, I’ve got 2 credits left, so I’ll - “

The line went dead & the dead sound came up in my ear & hung around in a tone of despair.

“Shit,” I thought. “Where the fuck does Gabriel live.”

Typical, that for once I’d actually wanted to do something that involved someone other than me - & it wasn’t going to be possible.

I left the phone-box still sucking hard on the joint. “I suppose I could go home, get some more money & - “

The phone was ringing. I lifted it. It was Gabriel.

“Man you should’ve just said & I’d have called you back.”

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t know – shit, sorry. You know how I am w/ phones, clueless.”

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha – well, shall I meet you somewhere then?”

“I have no money & I’m down to my last few smoke’s worth.”

When I said earlier that phones fascinate me, I also meant to say that they terrify me. I’d probably prefer telepathy.

“I’’ll tell you what Franco, where are you – I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Um, well, I’m in a phone-box in Baron’s Court. I’ll meet you outside the Oddbins.”

“In 10 minutes, I’m close.”

“Alright man, that’s perfect, cheers.”

“See you then Franco.”

“Bye-bye.”

Wow. I’d never known anyone so efficient at phones. If I’m ever forced into using one to make arrangements, I faff around for hours being indecisive & calling back & hanging up.

Gabriel was a person of admirable sagacity for his age – 2 years older than me, 22, but w/ a sensibleness that empowered him to be utterly assured and self-confident. Decisive & wise, the kind of friend everyone wants & fears abusing.

I could already see Oddbins. I approached feeling slightly ridiculous still for my telephonic incompetence.

‘I could have done any number of things,’ I thought

- ‘reversed the charges, borrowed 10p off someone… oh well, I’m just useless, no matter.’

My thoughts were interrupted by Gabriel’s voice.

“Franco, jump in!”

Elliot Smith was playing on the stereo. I didn’t like Elliot Smith very much. He finds it too easy to write fairly good songs. I couldn’t respect that.

Gabriel had a spliff going. “Have a smoke on that man,” he urged. “How are you? Tell me about your life.”

“Well, I’m O. K I suppose. To be honest I’ve been quite dazed for ages. I don’t really know what’s going on man.”

“How’s the band?”

“We split.”

“Oh, why”

“Dunno, just crap really.”

“Just crap sounds about right. So what are you doing w/ yourself?”

“Oh, nothing much, nothing at all really. I’ve got virtually no money, & none on me.”

“Any girls?”

“Ha ha ha you must be joking.” The thought of me having the time, money, energy & effort for a girl was hilarious. I was not ‘boyfriend material’ – I never have been.

“Man, I’ve met this amazing girl, she’s at the flat at the moment – you’ll meet her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mary.”

“What’s she like?”

“Oh, amazing man, you’ll see, you’ll see.”

“I’m not sure if I want to believe you or not. I mean you know how sceptical I am about girls. If she’s not perfect, not the Absolute One, then she’s not worth any waste of time bothering w/.” This was my arrogance. Suffice say, I had never found the One Perfect Girl.

“Franco, I’m telling you man – if you’d just stop being so fucking particular & arty farty, & just accept things, you’d be happier. You’ve probably already met your Perfect Girl but were too busy moaning about existence & lack of money & fucking weed to even notice her.”

“you think?”

“Yeah, I do think. You can’t get perfection, so then take what’s best.”

Elliot Smith was starting to annoy me, so I turned it down. The car pulled up & stopped.

“Here we are then, this is the new flat.”

“Cool, which door.”

“Here.”

We entered.

I stood waiting inside the door wondering what I was doing. A blond girl w/ a subtle face & medium sized breasts came to the bottom of the stairs w/ an open smile on her face. She was attractive. Very. She wore only a long robe-like dressing gown that revealed tempting patches of skin when she moved. She looked at me for a strange second, then Gabriel & her were full of kisses & smiles. I felt a little bit small, an outsider. Gabriel introduced me, & we went through to the lounge for a smoke & some coffee.

I always admired the way Gabriel could mix women w/ friends. We shared a flat at University, so I knew him well & had witnessed many of his previous ‘mistakes’ & ‘successes.’ I felt rather uneasy being in the room w/ my old friend & his beautiful new girlfriend. I felt alone.

We sat for a while & Gabriel & Mary inevitably drifted into the usual fresh-lovers type of conversation. There was certainly a silent communication between them, a sign of their genuineness perhaps.

I looked around the lounge. Shelves groaned w/ the slow old weight of books, heaving piles of books, pages of words compressed & preserved together in slumber, long centuries of books. Gabriel had no doubt read them all. He thinks books hold the answers. I think they only hold the questions.

I became distracted from the books by the sudden movement of Mary putting on some trousers. She stood up & had to jump & pull them up quickly while she was in the air. I caught a glimpse of her pussy through her knickers. & then I was hooked. I couldn’t help but cast glances at that soft pleasure-triangle that women posses, knowing there was a cunt lying in her lap, just lying there unattended. I felt an angling, wincing agony.

Uncertainty and mystery was what sustained me, kept my curiosity strong.

I wanted now to solve the cunt-mysteries hiding in Mary’s knickers.

“Franco! Wake up man. Where’ve you been? Cloud cuckoo Land?”

“Shit man, sorry, I’m a little bit stoned, well quite stoned actually.”

Everyone laughed.

I suspected that Gabriel was feeling excellent about himself now – it was obvious that I had been staring at Mary.

“Yeah & I’m a little tired as well. I had a really strange dream last night.”

Gabriel & I often discussed our dreams when we were stoned.

“Yeah? Tell me about it.”

“Well, it was terrible, frightening. There was a woman.”

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Yes! That sounds just like Franco – terrified of women, even when it comes to wet dreams!”

Mary gave me a look of intrigue. Gabriel laughed at me more.

“You couldn’t understand unless you were there in the dream. It was terrifying.”

“What did she look like?”

“I’ve got no idea. I couldn’t concentrate enough on her face. It was everywhere, all around me – lots of deep blue green colours swirling & all the time there was the Voice…”

“...and what did it say?”

“something about the Dream-Film Store or something.”

“Wow. ‘The Dream-Film Store’. Sounds exciting. & what happened that was so scary?”

“I don’t…. I don’t really know…. It was just…. Um….”

I trailed off into oblivion. The T. V. had been put on & it flickered its bright ugly faces around the room. I felt dizzy & needed suddenly to lie down. Chaos was swarming in my head, I took a deep breath….

& a strange blue colour pervaded the scene.

“I’ve been calling you all day, why haven’t you been answering -

Look, there’s something we should get straight now & here: you WANT to be here, w/ me, so please make it easier on us both.”

“Who are you?”

“Oh you already know all this, it’s the same questions every time – in time you’ll remember everything, but I need to -”

“Where am I?”

“Why, you’re at the Dream-Film Store of course..”

I felt the softness of her presence, the lure of her maiden’s voice, a strange sense of having been here before in another time – still I could not see her face, just an oceanic blur.

“Is there something wrong? What is the matter?

What is the matter?”

she kept repeating

& repeating

her voice dispersing

& drowning as I

floated away

slowly upward towards

the surface again

through the big blue

until…

---------------------------------------------

IV

I awoke panting for breath on Gabriel’s sofa, w/ 2 impending heads above me – stoned expressionless faces.

“Man, what the fuck happened,” I joked.

Their smiles told me they were relieved.

“You suddenly started hyper-ventilating, & moving your limbs manically, & then you feinted & just lay there looking still & peaceful, &, uh, almost… dead!”

“Shit, that’s never happened before, I never feint, that’s weird.”

“Probably just the weed.”

“& the crap company,” added Mary w/ a smile. “Let me get you some water,” she continued.

“Please,” I agreed.

I watched the ripe shape of her body as she moved away, watched her casual motions sway. Disorder Lust & Loneliness. ‘There is no room for love in my life,’ I thought ‘or perhaps all I have is room for love.’

“Gabriel,” I slowly asseverated, suddenly snapping back into the room, “when I feinted, just then, I had the dream of the scaring woman at the bed of the sea.”

“At the bed of the sea?”

“Yes, yes, it was at the bed of the sea first time as well. I remember. I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I haven’t seen the woman yet but I spoke to her.”

“What did you say?”

“’Who are you?’ & ‘where am I?’”

“Ha ha ha ha ha. & this was supposedly a nightmare?”

- “Um, well, no, not as such, no definitely not a nightmare, just a strange, scaring dream.”

“’Who are you?’ and ‘Where am I?’ That’s what people in 3-rd rate Hollywood PG’s say when they miraculously arrive at some fantastical place. Sounds like pure cheese to me man! I can’t believe you’re letting yourself get bothered by a dream as cheesy as this!”

“No, it wasn’t cheesy, it was crystal clear & pure blue & cool on my naked skin….”

Then there was an uncomfortable silence that hung around waiting to strangle me.

“Gabriel shall we have another bifter, I could really quite do w/ a J to sort my head out.”

“Yeah, man, that’s a sound idea. I’ll skin.”

I turned my head to look out of the window.

Grey streams pervaded the sky. The street outside was full of sadness, lined w/ windows, desperate & nothing. The street goes nowhere. The pedestrians are going to places that I refuse to call anywhere.

Mary had returned now w/ a glass of water & a cup of herbal tea.

“Oh, cheers, that’s perfect, thanks.”

I was never myself w/ new people. Strangers gave me a nervous edge. You could say that they excite me – or perhaps that was just Mary.

She sat down next to me on the sofa. I always sit forward w/ my hands clasped. (My mother used to say I sat like I was praying & I used to tell her that I was.) Mary sat back relaxed & full of presence. This made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t see her face behind me, & now felt sure she was sitting back so as to look at me w/out me noticing.

My stoned mind focussed out & dispersed & my thoughts began to spread into detailed crevices of indecision.

If I lent back it would be blatant that I’d either noticed her, if it’s true that she is looking at me, or, if not, it would be either a nervous action or a rather full-on, arrogant one; so I shouldn’t just sit here & feel comfortable w/ her looking at me from behind.

I considered my position w/ Mary agonisingly behind me, & Gabriel, my friend who was beginning to bore me a little, reading in front of me, quite engrossed. He had the spliff & wasn’t even smoking it. I didn’t want to ask him for it, because it was his, but the rude bastard hadn’t even passed it once.

Suddenly, in a moment of decision I sat back next to Mary, our bodies pressing. At this stage, w/ the threat of Gabriel there & the tendencies of my edgier thoughts getting carried away, I began to feel excited – I began to get an erection & my jeans were tight. “I could really do w/ leaning forward again,” I thought. “Though what would Mary think of me rocking back and forward like a monkey?” Paradox. The only solution I felt was to ask Gabriel for the biff & lean forward to take it.

“Gabs man, the bifter has extinguished itself in the absence of you smoking it. Have a light.”

We often spoke to each other in burlesque tones using highly pretentious diction to mock the people who assume we are being serious or genuinely ostentatious. A silent cruelty, & a disdainful one. We enjoyed deliberately confusing people. I know that of course it’s a manifestation of personal insecurities, or something like that. Enigmatic people, though, have to cultivate their enigmas, play on people’s curiosities. If people knew this, however, the enigma, the mystery, would cease.

I suppose you could say I suffered from a dreadful arrogance that played games w/ my autonomy.

W/ all this thought taking place & consuming my stoned mind, my erection subsided. & Gabriel passed me the joint.

“Cheers man. What you reading?”

“Turn of the Screw.”

“Henry James. I’ve read it.”

“What do you think?”

“Frightening. Frightening to think that the entire novel is related through the eyes of someone so subtly mad… psychotic… that she doesn’t know it and neither do we…”

“Yes, yes, the scary thing is that when you’re insane of course you wouldn’t know about it.”

“Where are you at?”

“The Governess has just been visited by her second horror.”

“Oooooooooh… it’s just getting good. The insanity accelerates from then on.”

I often spoke of insanity. The idea of it attracts me. It’s in the same boat as all the things which attract me like dreams & angels & myths & magic, symbols, Mystery.

I often used the word ‘insane’ as an adjective. I’d never told Gabriel (& he was the most likely person I would tell anything) that I don’t actually believe in sanity. Or intelligence. I just believe in minds.

I needed the loo.

“Mary, where’s the bathroom please.”

“Upstairs.”

That’s all I needed to know. Bathrooms are self-evident & usually exactly where you expect them to be. Still, you’ve got to ask.

“Right. Do you want the rest of this?” I offered the joint.

“Oh, yes please. Thanks.”

On leaving the room, I realised how much I’d wanted to leave it since entering it.

“I’ll take my time,” I thought.

Halfway up the brown carpeted stairs I heard Mary & Gabriel exchanging aggressive but hushed remarks w/ each other. They were squabbling. Shit. Was it something to do w/ me? No, don’t be arrogant Franco, of course not, they just waited for privacy.

I reached the top of the stairs slowly, straining to hear what they were saying downstairs.

“Don’t be so nosy Franco, go & take your piss,” I said to myself, imitating the sense of morals & responsibility that I recognised I inherently lacked.

Four possible doors faced me at the top of the stairs. I chose the one I was sure was a bathroom; but it was a bedroom. “Shit, oh well, another one of my immaculate notions ruined. Bathrooms are not self-evident after all.”

The door next to it was the right one. As I pissed, I looked around at all the fancy bottles of sprays & scents & creams & whatnot. My bathroom, in comparison, was utterly empty.

I decided I’d stay in the bathroom a little longer to give the two downstairs a fraction more privacy. Their relationship, on first impressions, was strange. They possessed a silent communication which I’d seen in other couples, but never experienced.

In front of me, they ignored each other. & Gabriel had definitely changed. I realised then, staring blankly in the mirror, that Gabriel was not a friend anymore. I no longer needed him for the public confidence he inspired in me. I no longer needed any public confidence. I had no friends. I had to get out, leave as quickly & politely as possible. W/ as much of Gabriel’s gorgeous skunk as possible.

Returning downstairs it was clear that all the fuss had subsided. Entering the living room, Gabriel had now moved to sit in my seat next to Mary on the sofa. He had his arm around her. The skunk was on the coffee-table, where Gabriel was previously sitting. I moved over & sat down. The couple were full of smiles.

For the next ½ hour, we chatted idly (except for Mary), & I was given the opportunity of rolling a spliff. Little did Gabriel know that it was also an opportunity for me to steal about ¼ of his ounce of skunk. Having convinced myself that there was no longer the same connection between us, that he wasn’t a friend, & that it was his fault as well, I reached a guilt-free state of mind, which excited me. Ah, the potentials of being guilt-free, amoral. All you needed was to be good at lying to yourself. So, skinning the J, I subtly spilled the bag under the coffee-table while the couple were smugly engrossed in some embrace. Under the coffee-table, I put a substantial handful into my left boot, then brought the rest up in the bag, laughing and apologising.

“Gabriel. After this biff I’m gonna cruise.”

“You’re going? Already?”

“Well, I’ve been here ages &… to be honest, I still don’t feel too good after that feinting episode.”

“I thought we’d do something today, go to Camden maybe.”

“Gabriel,” I joked like a friend would. “You know we never do anything if we’ve got enough weed.”

He was reluctant to agree. I knew it was because of Mary. Being w/ her changed him.

We smoked the spliff, & talked some more. I couldn’t be myself w/ him. He had become a stranger. The way he was so – insensitive about my dream as well…. That was what first alerted me to his new persona. Oh well. I managed friendly chatter, & by now had realised he probably wanted me to go anyway, & was probably experiencing the same friendship crisis between us that I was. At least he had Mary there when I left. What would she be like then? What were they really like together?

“So,” I said, standing up, “I’m off, man.”

“Cheers for phoning & coming round, it’s good that we’ve retained our friendship and are still in touch…” etc, etc,

Bullshit.

After the crap & the strange half-falsity had finally gotten too crappy to bear on both sides, I smiled at Mary.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said looking at her intensely in her sea-green eyes, as if to communicate something more than my words actually said.

“you too,” she smiled,

“see you again.”

& then that was it. I doubted if she ever would see me again. Or Gabriel for that matter. It didn’t matter.

The door had closed behind me. I faced the street. I was free.

********

V

W/ my confidence fuelled by the safe knowledge of having something to smoke in my possession, I strolled briskly away. “Even if the worst comes to the worst,” I thought, “I can just get utterly cained & escape, pass out in a miserable gutter.” But I could not accept this as being the outcome of the day. “Decisions must be made,” I said decisively out-loud, to no-one. “I must choose.”

I turned the corner, not knowing where I was, or where I was going to. A woman w/ a pram passed me & deliberately averted her eyes from mine. I don’t know why but this fuelled my sense of drive further. My stride began to extend.

A moment later, a fragment of sun scattered through the clouds that had lay in the sky all day. A ray caught me in the eye. I began to feel quite exultant, happy to be alive, & to be me. I continued walking in a strong rhythm. My feet penetrated the street.

I started to hum; then I fitted words to the tune. I was walking directly into the beam of sunlight, which seemed to be exclusively shining on me. ‘Wow,’ I thought, light-headed & dreamy, ‘I am indeed a very special person, blessed.’ As soon as I’d felt this elated sensation float through me, the grey clouds covered the sun again, as if to punish me for my arrogance, or simply just to ruin my mood.

Angered by this, I felt like getting myself involved in a conflict against the sky & sun. I decided, in the mess of my mind, that I would will the sun back out from those clouds.

Soon my concentration faltered, though, & my thoughts maundered into silly crevices. I had turned onto a little side street, & at the end of it, I saw there was a fenced grassy opening w/ a gate. A cemetery. W/ my thought now on a level of confusion, it would be a good idea to sit down & think for a while. Maybe I could write a song.

The cemetery was virtually empty. Furthermore, it appeared to be more like a park than a cemetery. Nicely mowed lawns. Cosy gravel paths. Each tombstone lined up immaculately & forgotten about. I couldn’t believe for a minute that any of the people lying under this ground had specifically chosen this cemetery as their place of rest. Of all the places of rest on Earth.

I wandered down to the bottom of the path & sat by an unusually small gravestone under the trees in the corner. Leaves were scattered around me, fragile and crumbling.

“In loving memory of

Mary Calliope,

died 2^nd April 1882,

aged 26 years.”

That was what this curious gravestone said. It was faded & looked out of place, tucked away at the side under this tree. It seemed almost lonely. I leant against it, sitting on the damp ground, forgetting to respect the dead.

I noticed a robin hopping around the base of the nearest sycamore tree. He, or she for that matter, looked rather impoverished, skinny & tired. I immediately took pity on this little robin & felt helpless that I couldn’t give it something to eat. Instead, I smiled at it, & said “hello” in the tone of voice you’d use w/ a baby. “You can be my friend” I said wistfully, trying to put some genuine enthusiasm into my voice. I sounded false. Almost inevitably, the robin bobbed away. ‘Oh well.’

I sat there engrossed in an evolving day-dream, unable to find a single thread of productive thought, wallowing in whatever arose.

I was beginning to feel nauseous. My guts felt like sludging snakes writhing inside me. “Shit,” I thought “I haven’t eaten yet today.” What time was it? I hadn’t a clue. How long had I been sitting there? I began to panic a little, & feel light-headed. ‘Shit, I’ve got some weed, shit I forgot, wow, I’ll have another smoke and calm down.’

W/ my face down to my lap, & my fingers absorbed in the process of rolling a spliff, I did not notice the elderly woman approaching me w/ a little joke of a dog scampering beside her. Just as I lit up, & lifted my face up, she was there.

“Morning,” I said, slightly shocked.

Her face was heavy w/ old skin but could have been attractive before about 50 years of weathering set in.

“Why are you sitting on that grave?” she said abruptly.

“Well, um, actually, I am here to mourn my father’s grand mother.”

Her nosy rudeness annoyed me, & I was in the mood for retaliating on the offensive.

“She died while giving birth to my grandfather,” I continued, enjoying the freedom & spontaneity of lying, enjoying the fact that I had gained the upper hand.

“Oh,” she said solemnly. “Oh I am sorry,” she continued humbled and apologetic. I was suddenly hit by a great wave of guilt, at seeing how easily I had defeated his poor old woman, who was in the right anyway. I wanted to tell her that I was lying, & had actually stopped to roll up some illegal substances, & that yes I was a typical youth, & that you were right to question me… But she had already tottered off, w/ her little tottering dog. Oh well, no point in pitying the weak, I thought.

W/ this incident over, & seeming to have taken place hours ago, I continued with the spliff.

Slowly, I began to enter a state of mind that I’d never encountered before. My stomach seemed to expand & expand into space. I closed my eyes & felt the walls of my stomach moving outwards. I felt as if a universe was being created inside me. I felt a huge space within the entire of my body, which I felt no longer existed. I imagined seeing stars explode & planets being born &

********

VI

& I plummeted to the Dream-Film Store again…

“Here is where dreams are stored on disk,” said the friendly female voice as if on autocue. “Anything that can be dreamt, any dream sequence, it’s stacked on the shelves here in The Dream-Film Store, this shop beneath the waves.”

I felt less afraid than before.

“What’s the meaning of this?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “I can explain.”

Her face, her physical form now appeared, a nubile and pulchritudinous sylph.

“Hi,” she said, resolving from the colour.

“Hi,” I said back, breaking that rule that women don’t like you copying them.

“Your loneliness, disorder and despair leads to LUST. Your agonies are self-inflicted. ALIENATION is one of them. You have escaped into The Dream Film Store. You have accidentally slipped into a crevice of your own mind and landed awake in the subconscious.”

“Really?”

“Either that or you have created a world here at the bottom of the sea symbolising mystery, women, penetration, drowning, hallucinating, dreaming, the subconscious.”

“Well which is it?”

“Your LONELINESS is a fantasy world that is the subconscious reaction to and sanctuary from the alienation, waste & disorder of your waking life. You are at war with yourself. Your subconscious is offering you peace terms.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Come with me while we plummet,” she said; “plummet with me while we sleep.”

********

FORLORN SOUNDTRACK

NOTE ON OEDIPUS WRECKS

My friend Dr. Calculator Ptom named the band upon hearing my songs. He used to say gnomic things like “the universe is a projection of the mind.” “The G note is green on the guitar fretboard.” “Born Slippy is evidence dance can have a soul.” “Poetry is untranslatable because of the music.” “Death is God.” “Early Oasis is good for bittersweet, comedown energy.” We boarded a train not knowing where it was headed in the middle of the Night in London. By now he is Dr. Calculator Thomas and the song is ‘Born Slippery.’

THE OEDIPUS WRECKS GIG, CAMDEN TOWN, CIRCA 1997

I

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.

||||.

[Note: when years later 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.]

II

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]

III

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.

IV

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.

V

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?

VI

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)

VII

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]

VIII

MURDER 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.

Murder is dead,

murder is dead,

murder 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.

Murder is dead,

murder is dead,

murder is dead.

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 cassette tape with a pause in the opening number where the reel is cut and re-sealed]

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.

Dream with open eyes, come 

below and we can fantasise.

Now that I’ve stopped telling lies, come 

below and we can fantasise.

HIGH, HOW ARE YOU?

Oh high, how are you? I’m high and I’m new.

Oh high, 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 high, how are you? I’m high and I’m new.

Oh high, 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 high, how are you? I’m high and I’m new.

Oh high, 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 high, how are you? I’m high, and I’m new.

Oh high, how are you? I’m high, and I’m through.

[reconstructed]

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.

(with an opening riff co-authored by Tommo and Mark)

THE WARNING

(recorded on 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.”

AIR RAID SHELTER

(originally recorded on 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.)

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.

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...

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.

ALAS THE DAY

Alas the daaaaaaaaay doesn’t matter anyway

for there is a Night and heartbeats are bold

and hold me tight and Night is blessed

and filled with questions can not guess

what will happen next O maybe death 

then of course we’ll lie under fertile loam

but for now we’re miles away from home

O electric street I’m feeling New Beat

I feel the heat within my sensory atrophy

so many things are all happening at once

the infinite cocks are fucking the infinite cunts

then of course we’ll know who sees something strange

and he will know when it’s time for a sea-change

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

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR

(recorded on binaural earphones in The Flood but not used on their album)

Love your neighbour till your girl gets home

I’m fleeing the town in my neighbour's clothes

love your neighbour in her underwear

I wonder what goes on under there

and you’d better repent

for all the money you spent

now you’re dove has been sent

Love your neighbour when you're all alone

I left my message on your answerphone

love your neighbour with her tricks and lies

ask no questions hear no lies

and you’d better repent

for all the money you spent

now you’re dove has been sent

Love your neighbour till the war is gone

I think they think that’s not fair on John

love your neighbour when the war is over

treat your neighbour like your long lost lover

and you’d better repent

for all the money you spent

now you’re dove has been sent

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,

scar sand-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 different 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.

(reconstructed)

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.

THE BOYHOOD SCIENCE

INTRODUCTION TO THE KID

When my father passed in 2014, a little book I had begun in 1989 at seven years old surfaced – my boyhood Prep. It had been locked in the attic at the foot of the fell all these years, where it sometimes made the sound of footsteps that could be heard below. There are several pieces missing because the original was stolen before I had typed it up; but this will do. I can’t seem to tell what it is about but it mentions the net. Last time I published it, even though it wasn’t that long ago, the frame wasn’t right – so this second edition should be better. It needed the little one at the start to give it shape, order and purpose that for some reason the previous version left out. I think what it was about was storing the idea of the net in the attic in writing so that the net could exist all the way round the world. So I thank whomsoever got me to do it because it meant I was part of that process. Whether I am allowed to keep it I do not know, but would say what happened to me happened to me because I was very well hung as a child.

2

JOHN TUCKER

ENGLISH

E

Ah yes now I need to find another piece… the piece that was lacking when I first brought it out. Ah yes I find it – what is it still doing here? It’s been here since Christmas!

[NO NAME]

teacher rite elephant nite

everything lite lesson love

learn tell everyone Esso orange

ADVENTURE IN A CAR

On a Tuesday morning there was a big car in Form 2 and it had flashing lites all over it and then I said it's a magic car and we all got in to hide and it took off in to space and it landed on the moon then just as we were going to explore the moon a gravity force pulled us and the car under the sea and a propeller came out of the back of the car and we crashed on a ship REC and we tried the canons an they were still red hot. Then we went into the cabin and we saw a captain's chest and twenty fighting pirates and we looked out we saw a whirlpool heading straight towards us and since we were under the sea the whirlpool pulled on top of the water. then we were getting bored so we decided we wanted to go to the dinosaur age. we disappeared to a little island we saw Tyrannosaurus rex then we were all back in Form 2.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 28TH

We made sandcastles on the beach 

I am going to meet mummy 

today we are having exams this week 

it is too dear to buy 

Sweden China 

country tail 

tender street 

share lies 

late dry 

weak poor 

small prinsesses 

countries is 

stories tables men pens manes 

TUM TUMPTY TUM

Tum tumpty tum 

The cat is playing the drum

Four little mice

Are shaking the ground

Dancing merrily around

Tum- tumpty- tum

The cat is playing the drum

Three little mice are dancing

[NO NAME]

In the picture of the airport

I can see... a runway,

two planes, a controwl

tower, a cloud

and the ire ii net.

SEPTEMBER WEDNESDAY 13TH

one day me and Andrew set off on an adventure in a big jungle. We brought a tent a sleeping bag two knives a rope some matches a spear and an axe. We came in a boat we sailed a thousand miles. It took us six days when we landed on the island we were exhausted so we made camp and feel asleep. In my story there were six monkeys a wizard a tiger and an elephant and two snakes. When we awoke we went hunting we brought a spear and the rope. Just as we got out of the tent a snake fell down in front of us. We threw the spear at it he crawled away in pain. When we came back we had killed a tiger. We had seen the wizard yet but when we came back the tent was gone. Remember the wizard. We went out trying to find it AaaaaaaaHH we just feel in an animal trap we threw the rope up some body hang onto it. It was the wizard. We climbed up he invited us to his house. When we got there we saw my tent instead of the sleeping bag. There was lots and lots of chemacals. The wizard said do you like my house. I stole it from some body. It was my tent i said. Then he gave it back to us and we sailed back home and lived happily ever after.

[NO NAME]

There is a waterfall at the back of our house.

I saw a mural in France.

I lost my blue paints.

Ten plus ten equals twenty.

Our housekeeper is called Joyce.

In our new program there is a Vetacore.

A bomp explodes.

I faded my work.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 4TH

My monster is 12 feet tall and 5 foot wide. 

He weighs 13 stone he is very good and friendly he is as strong as ten tigers. 

He has got five friends and six enemies. 

6100000000 years old he is as fast as a cheetah. 

He is only a friend of alive trees. 

He talks a little bit of English but lots of alien. 

He eats hay and straw and rams horns. 

He has got 1000 hearts. 

He is very well armed he works 12 hours a day. 

he works in  houses. 

his name is Roy the robot. 

He sleeps 3 hours from 6 til 8 and he has got 300 gagats.

THE LAZY WIND

One day the wind would not blow. 

He said he was too tired so he fell asleep. 

All the flowers died down the boats 

stayed still, the wind mills stayed still 

the trees stopped talking to each other. 

Every body grew sick and hungry.

Who is going to wake him up. 

I will said the crow. He flew up in the clouds. 

Go away said the wind I’ll sleep for weeks. 

When the crow came back the world sulked. 

I have got an idea said the cunning fox. 

Off he went running away. He told 

the wind you can stay asleep 

we have got some body to replace you. 

No I will not stay asleep and he came 

rushing towards them. It’s all right everyone 

the wind is comming they got a lot happy.

[NO NAME]

I rely like the leaves that fall to the ground

Specele like to push them around

I like the foul moon hai up in the sky

I try to reach it but it’s much too hai

I like the fruits that are on the trees

They fall down with a little breeze.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 13TH

I have a scar+ that is red and black. 

I have dirty feet and I'll make

footprints on the floor.

I threw a snowball and it landed

in my brothers face. 

I watched a film and a man was

in a snowstorm.

I went outside and it was snow.

Flakes were falling. On Hallowine

wiches makes spells.

My dog did a puddle on my

bedroom floor.

I made a pattern with my spirograph.  

GOOD AND EVIL

Last night at 1. oclock I was sitting up in bed and a dark creature grabbed me by my hand and then came three more. i turned the light on and fainted. They were rielly dangerous. Then four good ones came well I think they were good and I hope they were good ones. They attacked the bad ones with whips. We went off in a big vehicle to a Stone Henge where they lived. one of the bad ones pushed a big stone on top of the vehicle. There were 5 of us we all got out but one still got killed. The good ones were strong. We went and attacked them and we killed them all. 16 more of them came and started to throw rocks at us. They captured all of us and they started to fire guns at us until there was only me and one of the good ones left. Then we escaped and ran away. We made camp and went and attacked them. They killed the good one until there was only me left but 1000000000 more of them came and we killed every bad one on earth.

GRAND-DARTH'S SHIP

People wondered why Don had chosen to become 

a deep sea diver. There were so many other things 

he could've been. Whatever had put such an idea 

into his mind? "Who suggested is?" he was 

asked. "No-one", Don always replied.

BLEEP AND BOOSTER

One day Booster made a sonic solidifying gun Bleep thorte it was an earth mouse-trap. It is not a mouse trap said Booster it is a sonic solidifying gun. What can it do. It makes things rock hard look it is nothing and he made Bleep's asteroridade hard. Then he got in his space pod. Commander I've found him he is in deadly danger. He is on planet Gelatanus X he heard a voice help Ime sinking just then Bleep got two ray guns and a back pack. He flew down to the planet and started to shoot the monsters away the ray gun was so hot so it made the planet melt.

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 1ST

One day I was walking in the woods and I saw some popple pushing a little boy around. I went up an tried to stop them. They said to him go and get that delicious apple on that spookey tree and he went and got it. Then the ground started to rumble and lots of ghosts came out and grabbed us. The apple rolled down the hill and fell in to a deep river. And the trees came alive and we got sucked underground then Jamie came along. He saw a big hole in the ground. Just then every thing disappeared and all the bad trees turned into apple trees with lots of apples on. 

EVERY

We had a snowball fight with the Widgets.

Go and wait with Boris at Ash Rock. – 

The rocks fell from the cliff.

Amanda and Rodey built a snow shelter. 

Rockets fly with a jet of flame.

A train puffs a cloud of steam.

My dad dug an underground tunnel.

My dad was mentioning something about Christmas.

We are going to do fractions in maths.

I got on a train at the station. 

The first one is a boy’s name.

This one is a lady’s name.

This one is the name of a seaside town.

This one is a doctor’s name. 

This one is title of a man.

This one is a question mark. 

VIKING NAMES

Vikings liked to make up nick-names for people. 

here are some I have made up

Christopher leaker. carrie two teeth.

christophere long nails les.

curly wayne.

nodey claire. 

Big mouth Tony.

No tooth wayne.

Small guy Stewart.

Give a way Tony.

Mrs parr in her wight car.

Mis gab and the Vikings.

WHEN I WAS BRAVE

One day I pulled a radiator off the wall and I blamed it on my brother. And I was very scared and then we went to Carlisle to do some shopping. And I got lost and I was too scared to go and ask a police man. But I went and did it. And just then my dad found me. Then we went back home and it was dark upstairs and I had to go and get something. And I was too scared and I found my dad's torch and I went and got it and then the batteries went flat and I carried on and I got it and I gave it to my dad and he said it took you a long time and I laughed. Then we went to school Wayne and I climbed up a tree, and I did not want to but I did.

ADVENTURE ON THE BEACH

One day me and Wayne went camping and we were exploring a beach. We saw two rowing boats. Three men came out with a big chest. It was nearly time to go home. I said lets go and hide and see who they are. and we did. They carried it into a cave then we went back and we went and had a look. But the cave was gone. Wayne said it is dark now lets go back home. Next day we had a look it was still not there. Then we went back.

Just then i stepped on something then we heard a noise. The cave opened we went in and there was no sign of the box. Just then the cave shut and we could not see a thing. The passage way went down a lot further. When we got to the bottom of the cave it was a lot lighter. Then we saw a big box it was two meters long and half a meter high. It was stuck to the ground. We saw a sledge hammer we smashed the box and lots of treasure poured out. We brought the sledge hammer to the other end of the cave and we smashed our way out. There were 10000 pounds all together 5000 each. We got lots and lots of money.

[NO NAME]

Dark brown is the river

Golden is the sand

It flows along forever

With trees on either hand

Green leaves a-floating

Castles of the foam

Boats of mine a-boating

Where we’ll all come home

CREEPING IN THE CELLARS

My mum asked me to go down in the cellars to get some washing. I found a piece of string with a stone on it. I put it round my neck. I saw that the stone could fit into a hole in the wall. I turned it and a door opened on the floor. There were some steps going down I started to unwind the ball of string I followed the steps and they lead to a maze. Just then I heard a grunting noise  and fell into a hole. It was full of dead skeletons.

THE CREEPY HOUSE

One day I was walking along in the woods. Suddenly I came across a house. It was quite a big house but it was in ruins. I went to envestergate and I heard a howling nose I could not find what was making the nose and i was quite afraid. I went back home and Jamie had come to play. I said come over here. We looked out of the window. I caught a glimpce of the house. he said shall we go and have a look at that house. I said alright then, lets go. 

We went down in the woods and explored. Then we saw a vision of a giant spidder. Jamie saw a machine. that's what it was coming from. Then I heard my mum calling me. We went back home. my mum had made some cakes. I was delighted. Just then I tripped over and I fell in a cobweb.

[NO NAME]

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves

Hang trembling

The wind passes thru’.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees

Bow down their heads

The wind is passing by.

THURSDAY MARCH 1ST

He has spines all over him. He has got a nose like a pig. A name for Henry the Hedgehog is urchin, Mr. Prickels and Hedge pig. An adder came up and attacked Henry the Hedgehog but he curled up in a pile and the adder jumped back. Henry’s defence system was working. Eventually the adder died. Henry eats worms and leaves, he dreams of eating little chickens. All winter he hibernates in a pile of leaves and he is very warm.

NOTE TO READER

I thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink this is the point where, upon filling the first, red exercise book that the young poet wrote

2

John Tucker

English

E

on the front of the first book, then, like making an Escherian shape, wrote on the front of the new, empty, red exercise book:

English

John Tucker

Harecroft Hall

1

[NO NAME]

Colour circles red. How many circles?

Colour triangles blue. How many squares?

Colour oblongs orange. How many triangles?

MY BICYCLE ACCIDENT

When I was 4 I was on holiday in Sweden. My dad had just bought me a new bike. The new bike was too big for me. I was going down the hill quite fast. The breaks was to pedal backwards but I could not reach the the pedals. Suddenly the bike got faster I had a bad feeling. I did not what to do. I fell head first in a patch of nettles. My mum heard me crying she came. By the time she found me it was ten o’clock. They asked what hapened. I said it was a long story. They said never ride your bike withouta parent.

MY NIGHT TIME ADVENTURE

One night I was lying in bed and I heard a tapping on the window. I thought it was a branch. I said to myself, it's not a windy night. I looked at my watch it was half past 1 pm. Then I decided to get drest I got a ruck-sack put a packed lunch in it a rope, a compass, a touch, a knife, and a map of our county. I went out the front door. I saw my bedroom light still on so I new which window it was. What was it that was making such a racket. I tied the rope to the knife and threw it to the top of the nearest tree to my bedroom I had another look at the window, there was nothing there perhaps it was a branch. O well I said and climbed up the rope. When I got to the top of the tree I still could not see what it was that was making such a nose. Just then i heard a halfdead mouse lying on the windowsill I jumped to the windowsill, climbed down the rope, went in the house and went to my bed.

THE THIEF

Once a woman lost a lovely brooch. She hunted everywhere but could not find it. So she asked the police to send a detective to her house to assist her. The detective climbed the stairs to the room where the brooch had been kept. Soon he came down. I believe the brooch is in the jackdaw's nest in that tall tree," he said. He brought a ladder and climbed the tree. With the brooch safe in his pocket he descended. I knew where to look, because the bird left marks on your dressing table he explained. 

THURSDAY MAY 24TH

At midnight I was lying in bed. I could not get to sleep. Just then I heard some body walking very quietly across the stones on are drive. At first I was scared stiff and then I plucked up some courage and crept along the floor to the light switch I turned it on carefully not to make a nose. I got dressed. Then I looked through the window I could not anything because it was too dark. I looked at my watch it was 1:32 AM . I have got lots of time I said to my self I put my shoes on and went downstairs to get some food to eat. When I got downstairs I heard the noise again. I thought to myself, theres something suspicious going on then I heard jogging footsteps coming towards the kitchen. Just then a masked murderer came in through the door with a machine gun i pulled the rug that he was standing on and he fell down on the floor. Then I sprinted up stairs to tell my dad what had happened. At first he did not believe me. Then I said come and see for your self. He got out of bed and got dressed and got the firepoker. He went down stairs with me. We got in the kitchen but he wasn't there. We heard a voice from behind us he said hands up busters turn around dead slowly i grabbed the firepoker turned rond and knocked him out with it. My dad ran to the phone and dialled 999. A minute later the police were here. They came in. We showed them what had happened they said he is very dangerous they also said that his name was called Mike the murderar. 

THURSDAY MAY 31ST

When the stork and the fox. were sitting in the house and eating their dinner. The fox could not eat every bit of it because it was on plates. Even though the stalk could not eat it he still was polite. When they finished the stalk asked if he would come to my house for dinner. Verey well said the fox. The very next day he did as the stork said and went to his house for dinner the stork put  a very well cooked lunch into two long vases so the stork could get the food but not the fox

WEDNESDAY MAY 30TH

I think that the picture wood be O.K. for 11 – 12 year olds to play in.

Last year they were building a new house near us. I went after school to look at it w/ my little sister. Her name is Emaly. It was very interesting. We saw four builders two were in the house, one climbing up a ladder and the last one was wheeling a wheel barrow. We allso saw lots of bricks and cement. The best thing was the scaffolding. My little sister is quite nautghy. She allso loves climbing things. The first thing she said was 'I am going to climb the scaffolding.” “You mustn't go up there!” I shouted. I am going to go up there. Just then when she got to the top she fell.

She cried “HELP”. There was an enormous thud. I ran as fast as I could home, diled 999 and asked for the Ambulance. They came in a flash and took her to hospital. 

BEING IN A HUFF

One Saturday when I was just about to go out 

my dad came into the porch where I was 

and saw a scribbly picture on the wall 

and a black felt tip pen beside it. He said John 

why have you drawn on the wall? I said 

it wasn’t me it was Hannah. I’ll take ten pounds 

out of your pocket money towards some new 

wall paper. I ran up stairs and locked myself in my

bed room. In the end he found out it was 

Hannah and didn’t take the money away.

[NO NAME]

Wolf to shut

Holiday to wash

Marry to fix

Glass

Child the wind-

Fox blows through

Tooth the trees

Clock the rain

Shoe falls

Against the window

JOHN TUCKER

FORM 3

HARECROFT

ENGLISH

MY BROTHER

He is five years old.

His hair is straight and blond.

He has small blue eyes.

He has got a plump face and a plump nose.

He is terrified of snakes.

He likes to were colourful clothes.

He is very funny some times.

Sometimes he gets into terrible tempers.

He is kind and soft.

His favourite hobby is football.

He does not like playing cricket.

His favourite food is fish and chips.

His favourite couler is Blue.

He can not swim.

He likes traveling.

He likes Jive Bunny music and Star Wars films. 

He collects butter flies and Moths.

He is a good climber.

His name is Robert.

He has got a big mouth.

He talks a lot.

He likes making people laugh.

He hates having his photograph

he has got a good imagination.

SMELLS

Why is it that poets tell

So little of the cence of smell?

These are the odours I love well.

The smell of coffee freshly ground

Or rich plum pudding, holly crowend,

Or onions fried and deeply browend

The fragrance of a fumy pipe

The smell of applles, newly ripe

And printers ink on leaden type.

Woods by moonlite in September

Breath most sweet and I remember

Many a smoky camp fire ember

Camphor, turpentine, and tea

The balsom of a Christmas tree

These are whiffs of grammerye

A ship smells best of all to me.

THE MONTHS OF THE YEAR 

January brings the snow;

Makes our toes and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,

Thaws the frozen ponds again.

March brings breezes loud and shrill,

Stirs the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,

Scatters daisies at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,

Skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tullips lillies roses;

Fills the childrens hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Straw berries and gilly flowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,

Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit,

Sports men then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the Peasant,

Then to gather nuts is pleasent.

Dull November brings the blast

Then the leaves are falling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,

Blazing fire and Christmas treat.

MY DAD

When I see beer it reminds me of my dad when he is drunk and when I see a police man it reminds me of the time my dad lost his drivers license. When I see shoes it reminds me of my dad's smelly feet. My dad is the sort of person who tells you not to put your elbows on the table when he does it himself and my dad tells me not to ride my bike on the garden flowers when once he reversed the car on them. My dad helps me with my prep and most of the time I get it wrong. Sometimes my dad acts as he is three years old but he is really forty-one. When I say “I should play soccer for the England team” he just says “some chance.”

[NO NAME]

If I had a lollipop tree

I'de be as happy as can be.

I' would sit by it all day long

Eating away until there nearly gone

I'de say “that's enough lollies for today

But I'll come back to morrow and eat away.  

SIX INCHES HIGH

I was sitting on the sofa drinking lemon-ade when suddenly I felt funny and then I started shrinking and shrinking till I was six inches high. I fell down on the sofa w/ a plod. I climbed down a loose string on to the ground and then started walking across to the chess board I had left lying around. Suddenly I herd something that sounded like me beating up my brother. I looked around me but at first I couldn't see anybody but then I saw a chess pawn hanging w/ all his might on the chess board for he was just about to fall on the ground which was a long way down. He slipped and I ran and caught him, but just then a big rat came running out from under a sofa so I ran w/ the pawn as fast as I could and dived into a mouse hole which the rat couldn't fit in. We couldn't get out because the rat was guarding the hole so we sat down and talked. He said his name was “Humph”. He said he could get me back to my normal size but he would need help from more chess pieces. Humph said “When it is 7. 00, if you sit on the same sofa you shrunk on w/ all the chess pieces you will grow back to your normal size. I looked at my watch. I was 6. 30 and 56 seconds. We didn't have much time so we looked around for something to fight the rat w/. Just then Humph found the perfect thing. An old toothbrush. I got my pen-knife out of my pocket and sharpend the end of the tooth brush w/ no bristles on. Then I cut off all the bristles on the other end and started fighting the rat w/ the toothbrush. The rat was soon dead so we brought the toothbrush and went to look for the other chess pieces. We soon gatherd them all together and told them every thing. It was 6. 58 and 37 seconds so we all ran as fast as we could towards the sofa. I was the first one up followd by the white pawns then the two queens then the kings then the blakc pawns then the bishop then the rooks and last of all the knits. We counted them all. There was only 31 pieces. There was a little pawn trying to get up on the sofa so I jumped down and lifted him up. I grew back to my normal size but there was no chess pices. I put the rest of the lemonade I had been drinking before in the bin and went to sleep. When I woke up I thought I had been dreaming but then I found the toothbrush and went back to sleep. 

APRIL

In April it is the beginning of Spring. 

The daffodils are waving their yellow heads in the wind. 

In the gardens and in the woods Catkins, 

that look like lambs tails are dangling 

from the branches on bushes in the hedges. 

The days are gradually getting longer. 

We have many showers. 

It is my birthday in April. 

The first of April is called “April Fools day. 

We play tricks on people that day. 

The buds on trees are swelling and oppening. 

The birds are coming back from the hot countries. 

THE BIGGEST LIAR IN THE WORLD

A long time ago in Japan, I saw a funny looking man walk out of a big bubbling volcano. He had three eyes but that was the only difference between him and us. He wore a mask that was made from white metal, his sweat-shirt was white, his trousers were white, his high leather boots were black. He had black gloves with spikes sticking out about seven inches but the most peculiar thing about him was that around his shoulder was a big gun. It had all sorts of gizmoes that shoot lasers, fire, water, poison, spoof, bullets, you name it. So I went up to him and asked him “What's your name?” He said “Wotsit”. I asked “where do you come from?” He said “Fingermebobdownthevolcano!” I said “what's the gun for?” He said “first let me tell you a secret.” He said he's the biggest liar in his country. He said once that thousands of little aliens attacked his country, he said that he blew them all away with three blasts of his gun. He also said he was God's messenger and had helped God to make the world and had stayed alive ever since. The real truth is I am the biggest liar...this whole story's codswallop. 

[NO NAME]

Pod: God morning

Fat Guy: No it isn't

Pod: Why not?

Fat Guy: Because I said not 

Pod: But why did you say not. 

Fat Guy: I didn't say not, I said no it isn't. so what

I've got something to tell you. Guess what?

Fat Guy: what

Pod: Your...erm, er....a

 clot and I'm not. 

[NO NAME]

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

Book 4 of the boyhood proof

“THE HORRIBLE HUNTER”

The hunter, a horrible old man,

Is hunting in the forest, every moment he can.

Searching for foxes, with his hunting dogs,

Charging through the dark, dark forest,

Through rivers and through bogs.

Only his prey can see his eyes,

He never looks up to the sky.

He's a finger missing with a scar on his face,

He lives his life in awful disgrace.

His dead prey is hooked onto his jacket,

When he kills it makes an awful racket.

He puts out his snapping snares,

hoping to catch foxes and hares.

He lives in a small, tobacco smelling hut,

Deep in the forest it is put

He's got a small patch of hair,

And a horrible hypnotizing stare.

As a bullet is pulled from his belt,

You're bound to hear an animal's yelp.

A DEADLY CHARM

I am a padlock: who locks up your thoughts,

I am pollution: that blackens yourheart,

I am electricity: fast, furious and frightening,

I am a machine gun: looking for a kill,

I am a politician: dizzy, dazzled and dazed,

I am a radio: that speaks of death,

I am the concrete: that stiffens your body,

I am the computer: that controls the world,

I am dynamite: who always gets his way,

I am a micro-chip: small but clever,

I am a missile: roaring through the air,

I am a rocket: somewhere up there,

I am a drink machine: wasting your money,

I am a digital watch: who but I, is telling

you the time as the hours go by?

[NO NAME]

My cage walls are nearly pressing in at my sides.

There are multi-coloured giants stroking me and treating melike a baby.

There is a deaffening sound of birds humming in a corner.

It turns dark emmediately, by a touch of a button.

All the captured animals around me probably have the same, agonizing feeling as I do.

I feel like running away when people take me out of my cage and cuddle me.

I feel likeI've been imprisoned in a jail for no reason.

I always feel like staring at the masive, multi-coloured men, mechanically moving.

THE BADGER [draft 2]

As soon as I was imprisoned, inside my cage,

A happy feeling vanished from my mind,

It was a feeling of roaming, round the countryside,

Catching my own prey, chasing mice and digging in burrows.

But now I feel like I've been jailed for no reason.

I suppose all the other animals here

have the same agonising feeling that I have.

It seems quite weird, the massive, multi-coloured men,

Making it turn night by a touch of a little white button on a wall.

When all the humans have gone at night,

And the birds have stopped twittering,

I try to escape but I don't think a mouse

Could squeeze through the gaps in the bars.

But one day someone took me away.

He tried to tame me. I didn't want him to

but I gradually became tamer and tamer.

It was a lot better than in the pet shop,

But not as good as the forest.

I doubt anything is as good as the forest.   

THE INTERVIEW ON MY MUM

J. What is the most important event that's happened in your life?

    M Giving birth to four healthy children.

J. Why is that so important to you?

    M I myself came from a family of four children and there was always something going on, so when I came to have children myself, I thought it would be nice to have four.

J. What sort of things went on?

    M One thing is that when there are four of you, you always have someone to talk to or play with. I was the oldest and my sister and brother who were very close in age, used to get up to some terrible things like once they made porridge on the floor and once they put crispbread under the rug and walked on it just to hear it go crunch. My grandmother called them 'the termites'.

J. Are your children like your siblings?

M. A little bit. I think if you put four young children together one of them will think of something dreadful to do. My son once tried to teach the cat how to swim in a bucket of water.

THE TYGER

What kind of creature is the Tyger? I think God made the Tyger and ment him to be a normal tiger but the devil caught him and hypnotised him against God. I think the Devil puts him in everyone's dreams. I think he is just an image ment to come at the right time to take control of there brains I think he is a ghost of a normal tiger but the Devil turned him evil. I think the Tyger is an angel of Hell. He is not tangible because it says “what dread grasp? Dare its deadly tendon clasp?” I think it came from Hell by wings because it says, “In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes,” and “On what wings dare he aspire.” I think the Devil stole the minds of all the criminals and made the Tyger from them. I think the Tyger is immortal and turns your dreams to nightmares.

From ‘PAGE 11’

1. Area of whole shape = 80 CM squared

Area of unshaded part = 4 CM squared

Area of shaded part = 76 CM squared

2. Area of whole shape = 72 CM squared

Area of unshaded part = 8 CM squared

Area of shaded part = 64 CM squared

EQUATIONS

(1) 3 a + 4 = 2 a + 8

(2) 4 b + 4 = 1 b + 7

(3) 5 a + 3 = 2 a + 12

(4) 5 b + 1 = 3 b + 11

(5) 7 c + 3 = 3 c + 31

(6) 7 y + 1 = 3 y + 25

(7) 11 c + 9 = 8 c + 24

(8) 7 b + 12 = 1 b + 24

(9) 3 t + 5 = 2 t + 12

(10) 5 b + 10 = 2 b + 19

SYSTEMS 11TH MAY

1. 211

2112 ATTRACTOR

2122

1132

211213

312213

212223

114213

31121314

41122314

31221324

__________

21322314

21322314

WHINNIE'S CHOICE

I'm awake very early but it is light, and very hot outside. I'm seventeen todayand I've been thinking about it all night but decided not to drink the water. I would lose a lot of my friends and relatives and would feel alien. I could jumpoff the Empire State Building for billions of pounds but friends are better than money. Anyway, my grandmother believes in gnomes so she could advise me somehow. I asked her, “Grandma, if there was a spring in the wood with everlasting water in it would you drink it?”

“Whatever made you ask that question?”

“But would you?”

“Well probably and probably not. There are lots of disadvantages and only a few advantages.”

After that I went into my room to think about it. If I did drink it, now would be the best time to do it because I'm at the prime of my life and I have Jesse. I might as well take Tuck's advice because he's drunk the water and experienced it so I don't think I'll drink the water. Anyway I'll go out there and I might change my mind. The spring looked so lovely but something was different. Then I noticed that there was a stone missing from the top. The water looked so delicious and fresh that I walked up to it, took another stone off the top, was just about to drink it when a traveller came.

“Hello,” he said. “Could you please direct me to Treegap?”

“It's just down this road,” I said.

When he had gone I took another stone and again I would have drunk it if it weren't for the toad. He was sitting in the spring bathing. So I thought it over again.it was like a war in my head between Jesse and Tuck, with me not knowing which side to take. Then I thought that God might've tried to stop me and that God had told the traveller and the toad to disturb me when I was going to drink the water. So I've made up my mind. I won't drink the water.

THE BEAST

The Beast was quick as lightning,

Strong as an ox and very frightening,

Cunning as a fox, tough as leather,

Hungry as a hunter and not very clever.

He is as large as life, as swift as a hare,

Keen as mustard, he'll give you a scare,

Don't go near it at half past three,

Because that's the time it will have you for tea.

NIGHT (BEDTIME)

Mum said, “It's time to go to bed,”

I said “C'mon not yet.”

She said “It's half past eleven, dear,

And tomorrow's school don't forget.”

Underneath my pillow was food for a midnight feast,

I can hear an owl hooting and the shuffling of feet,

Making shadows on the wall,

Which is the spookiest of them all.

Dogs barking and dad is snoring,

Lying in bed is very boring,

Thinking of chocolate and soda crème,

Nothing to do except to dream.

MY WORLD

My world would be a chocolate factory in the clouds. It would be completely made of chocolate and if you ate a wall it would just grow back. It is invisible to any other people and only certain people can get there. The weather is always what you want it to be and if you want it to rain, snow or shine it will happen. There is a chocolate fun world as well and it is called Choc World. You can walk all over the clouds and look down at any place in the world and if you want to go there you can just take the Choc-mobile down to earth.

RELIGION

Dear Family,

I hope you are all feeling well. I have got some very bad news to tell you. I may never see you again. I'm very sorry but I've got to go into hiding somewhere where no-one will find me. All of Jesus' followers that are in danger are coming because we could be killed by Saul. I don't want to go, but I have to and I'm not allowedto tell you where so that you're not in danger as well. We have to get together and all go disguised at night time. I have two messengers that I can trust to bring us food and news safely. Just to make you more secure, I'll tell you that I have enough food and a good warm shelter.

Lots of love,

John.

PRIVATE

Squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

bongles has still got the stones,

bongles has still got the stones,

bongles has still got the stones,

bongles has still got the stones.

Squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

squawk squawk gaggle gaggle,

bongles has still got the stones,

bongles has still got the stones,

bongles has still got the stones,

bongles has still got the stones.

FRAGMENTS FROM THE ROAD TO HEAVEN BY NOJ AND THE MOB

L to the pregnant snorkel + Ossie the dog,

he should be sleeping like a log,

goes round and round chasing his own tail,

only goes upstairs for a trail,

of Maltesers nice round and pale,

we’re on the road to Heaven,

happiness awaits us there, flutter

in the sideways, flutter in the sideways,

bring your brief fling with the politics of flight.

Sullen silken sulks, we drink the same

rain, spit is clean and so is dirt.

Normal is boring. Do it later.

God made speed to save us,

God made hash to help us.

Fuck the system. Even a dick

gets big erections. The sun hanged

himself from a length of daisy chain.

Clocktick clock being clocked off by clocktick.

Clocktick clock not being clocked off by Time.

The Universal Mind’s moon meat man might.

The Universal Mind’s moon meat man meant.

The Universal Mind’s moon meat man met.

Break, bird with the skin of snake.

God rushed into the cold cod quick.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Some of my life events if not all lend themselves to a career in science I never yet attained.

When I was only seven, and liked the film All Dogs Go To Heaven, I scribed a little book that performed at least four scientific functions: it encrypted a scientific notion concerning Gravity; stored the idea of the net in writing in the attic; calibrated an algorithm that sublimates numbers and letters on a cellular level to see if the new colour, I think, could be rendered as a cellular mark; and separated the object ‘pollen’ from its name - and I did not consciously know, even though it was writ with my own right hand.

When I published it recently as The Sunset Child, I missed off a component part that was crucial: the first bit went

“teacher rite elephant nite

everything lite lesson love

learn tell everyone Esso orange.”

Why it needed that was because I “wrote the elephant” but you’d never know now from reading The Sunset Child. Nevermind. Life moves on. Hopefully if there is a new edition of the young ‘un’s book they will include said component part right near the start.

At eight I may have entertained that Barnes has scored a chicken a little bit, and encountered something else far from abstract in the cloakroom near the kitchen: a living spreadsheet. If I had to conjure an “abstract” out of being the one to make those Observations I would simply say in talking about The Lords And The New You Know Who by Jim Morrison coming true something “kinetic” becomes something “static.” It’s the same as John Barnes’s goal against Brazil. We cannot give the uncertainty back to the moment when we watch the Action Replay. We know the ball is going in. Something kinetic becomes something static.

By the age of eleven I was “incrementally” marked by the maths of the new colour on the hand even though it didn’t turn out to be the new colour in the end. It failed. My siblings and I wrote The Road To Heaven by Noj And The Mob.

Leaving Prep School, I soon enough came into possession of a cassette cut and resealed in the flimsy reel and an ideal to do away with the pause. That was one experiment. My mnemonic for the strings was Even A Dick Gets Big Erections. At fifteen I formed a second band called Oedipus Wrecks. I also led two friends to the face of stars. We were three gathered in the name that Night so it could be something from the Bible but there are other options including collective hallucination, including a vision scripted in The Lords And The New You Know Who.

I formed Secret Chord H and an Anon love poetry magazine while still at school, sweet sixteen.

Then at eighteen years old in the year 2000, I foresaw the hunt for the God Particle from looking at dust in a late ray of light angling in. I was a fully tuned-in prophet on other fronts too, even savant but have learned I cannot say what I want.

I envisioned our Plough alignment happening, but got the address well wrong, saying “maybe in India” as opposed to my back garden. I set aside an ideal for a book called The Scientific Papers about it all that would be classed as “a series of findings into itself, into the concept of art and science as a single discussion of perception.” Among the prophecies I spouted many ideas for inventions, many aphorisms, many artistic ambitions. My brother remembers that Millennial speech as the founding of a new religion. That year I wrote the highest-marked English Literature A-level exam essay in the nation at 100%.

After school I went down south to stay with Paul. My fourth band The Flood recorded an album or even algorithm on binaural earphones… the earphones were my idea to invent, back in the den in the barn, which was never mentioned once during the band. Already some of these things seem scientific, these motifs, this Excellent News. When writing a portfolio for Warwick University, furthermore, I entertained that I. T. might stand for Instant Travel too, that Portability might be the apotheosis of form…

The Towers came down, appalling us all or at least my friend Paul. I did feel the psychosis in my brain burn and burn. Still, I had little recollection of the barn where I had foreseen and spoken against it using my own brain; and was persuaded at length, against my own instincts, to continue playing in the band.

Attending Warwick University, in 2002, I found my teacher, Professor David Morley, whom it would seem was a reasonable man, had just brought out The Scientific Papers and with an almost-verbatim classification to mine own. When it happens in sheep it is called morphic resonance and when it happens in academia it is uncanny imbrocation.

My first mobile, it reverberated the rhythm of ‘William Tell’ through every technological inlet in the room before it rang. I wrote a paper about whether or not Lucy in the soul w/ demons even happens to be an actual substance. With no degree, I returned to the band in my Gap Year haunt of Cambridge and promised on the binaural album recorded on earphones I’d “plug my senses in the mains.”

Leaving the band and returning north, this is where I coined the neologism “co-imagination,” before attending a second university, Lancaster, where I got a First despite mental illness. My dissertation was on a scientist-poet called David Morley, and one portfolio took the form of defaced bank notes.

I attested to our Holy Cow, the alignment of the Plough, the Plough honed in to align for a beautiful rhythm change in the White House. The Flood fell north to share the attestation. They were the cavalry. We listened to a bit of the binaural earphone album in the camper van, and talked philosophy, whether or not God exists.

I attended the Secret Garden party after and found real skywriting; gravitated down south, attesting to a pint glass exploding from thin air in the capital. I found my name on Piper At The Gates of Dawn, as if some sensory overlay had grown as naturally as grass.

Returning north again, I built The Tower out of books I had gained that seemed to exhibit signs of magic, like one emanating the redolent smell of perfume, and another that seemed to have lost a line. I worked at a numinous, purple-bleeding PC screen in an experiment into post-humanism. I found the tape I mentioned to be a successful fusion and listening in to the suggestion of the wind cooked it in the dark blue AGA’s top oven.

When my dad died, and the purple-bleeding screen in the same instant, I found the sheet where pictures brown and blue simply bloomed or maybe grew. It could be portentous of the end of the chip. That was also when my boyhood book emerged which only now do I start to understand. Then it was time to falsify the Nirvana barcode, and nor did I forget to extirpate every trace of recognition from the mind, unloose the mind of form, method-act every adjective in ‘Howl’ to attain visual radio, broadcasting dreams.

That was when I brought out a series of self-published or vanity-press-published books and a series of amateur albums but none of it was really good enough. Now “peak time is over” and I sit in a kitchen, skint, single, mentally ill, medicated, unemployed, living with my mother in the sticks, nursing suicidal thoughts, still able to flash back to high points like the binaural earphone album, like the boyhood proof where I “wrote the elephant” or the 100% A-level exam essay but wondering where it all went wrong. The visual radio has died down, did years ago now, returned to the boring smell of water.

When I look back and they say I was never any good it’s not true, if you write the elephant as you can when you live here; but I was never the best. I was a useful tool in the attestation of other people’s genius as much as mine own. I mean it wasn’t me that did the sheet where pictures grew and my brother and I don’t really know the person that did.

It wasn’t me that organised the face of stars, or the Naturalistic Observations of my boyhood before it either, but I think when it comes to the elephant it might’ve been me. I think those in the audience listening to my speech in the year 2000 believe I founded a whole new religion all about the elephant that year – which might be why they say it all went wrong when I went down south to Cambridge and was driven mad. What really has followed on from then? More songs and poems? Are they worth keeping? I hear that if we renew the door all war will break loose – and so that puts paid to much of my philosophy, and to attempts to mirror The Lords And The New You Know Who. We don’t want any war to break loose, for in my religion there should never be violence here again.