TRANSPORT
He found himself on a plane.
He found himself on a.
He found himself on.
He found himself.
He found.
P.
ON A PLANE
Yes I was on a plane – and feeling very nervous, I started to meditate. My mantra is ‘so-hum’ which means ‘I am Him’ or ‘soul into universe’ or ‘soul into God.’ I closed my eyes and thought the word ‘so’ on the in-breath and ‘hum’ on the out-breath to try and ease my nerves.
I heard it described (meditation) as the mind putting on a clean shirt for the first time. The same book (I forget what it was called) mentioned that after a while you could tune in to the song of your skin cells; could walk down a beach and be in a meditative state as you walk; could confer healing energy to other people. It had also long since been one tenet of faith in my belief-system, one value if you like, that meditation is the way to realise your creative potential.
In my meditation sessions I discovered the is-ness of an orange, fierce and bright, increased dramatically after but half an hour of meditation. I had read somewhere that the poet’s metabolic rate sometimes came across in the metre of their work; and extending this in meditation, which slows down the heartbeat, I contemplated whether or not the heart breaks in iambic pentameter – and the way the heart beats to the rhythm of 1. In a sense my meditations thus far were about discovering something that underlies the variability of perception. So now on the plane I sat and closed my eyes and prepared myself for the inner flight of it all.
However, before I had even got three breaths in, I was interrupted by the fine looking woman sitting next to me. She obvs didn’t know I had set my mind on meditating through the hectic flight - and asked me what I did whereupon I said I was an author. She asked me what I had published and I said the last one was called Soundcloud Rain.
“It’s a Sound Art experiment into secret chord H,” I explained, “in that I sat there with a list of song lyrics on my file and heard the voice of Hannah, my sister as if on some kind of intercom, telling me what to do to it. I did what she said, and published the book only to find out it wasn’t really Hannah! It was only my own auditory imagination!”
This fine looking woman, she laughed and said Soundcloud Rain sounded like fun.
I said it was, yes.
She asked me if I had any further projects on the go.
I told her I presided over 1000’s of files.
I had a friend from Ireland, I explained, who said the only other thing to keep aside from the rock songs, from my own pen or in this case pencil, was my Prep from back at seven years old. This fine looking woman she asked me why I cared for my seven year old Prep so much and I said:
“I can sell it to you if like: you’ve heard of Jim Morrison of The Doors. He wrote The Lords And The New Creatures. It is still difficult to imagine anything better coming out of America. It meant America had bragging rights for soooooo long until a young English kid came along and gave us the seven year old homework of the witness himself! He just turned up and got the job done and left his seven year old homework behind in hibernation in the attic at the foot of the oldest fell in The Lakes! It’s absolutely appalling, but that’s something in its favour. As I say it’s the real seven year old homework of the real witness.”
“So I suppose that kid is you,” she said.
“Yes,” I responded.
This fine-looking woman, let’s call her Beatrice, she asked me how long it was and I said not very long; and then she asked where she could read this seven year old homework online and I said there was my blogspot page but I also had a Portable version – typed up and printed out – on me.
“It’s incomplete,” I said, as I rummaged in my bag for it, “because someone stole the original. The original, handwritten version was a work with a heartbeat, a kind of one-off made object, one that made the sound of footsteps in the locked attic where it was kept for so many years at the foot of the fell; and it can’t too easily be replicated and duplicated by computers. Still, there is a printed off version here.”
I h-a-n-d-e-d her the printed off version and she got busy reading it like a texture-inspector, or forensic scientist of narrative and meaning!
2
JOHN TUCKER
ENGLISH
E
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,
a plane, 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.
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.
INTERMISSION
Along came the trolley serving drinks and snacks and while Beatrice was reading my seven year old work I got us some Vodka.
I actually bought four Vodkas, three for me and one for her.
It’s so expensive to buy drinks and snacks on aeroplanes now – but then again flying is so cheap.
It’s getting to the stage where travelling by train in England is more expensive than flying abroad.
I wondered what she made of the stuff I wrote before I fried my brain – a long time before I fried my brain.
Personally I liked ‘Friday October 13th’ because by now I had actually heard the 1960’s song ‘Bike’ by Pink Floyd where Syd Barrett sings of having a cloak that’s a bit of a joke, there’s a tear up the front, it’s red and black, I’ve had it for months – and to think this seven year old self – before he had even heard ‘Bike’ – had now written the line “I have a scar+ that is red and black,” with a + sign for an F… it just seemed like psychedelia had arrived at evolutionary science.
I know my dad took acid before I was conceived and I wonder if that has been transmitted, but my mother says “you get your intelligence from your mother.”
She also says nobody can keep up with my imagination.
[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 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
REACTION
It’s not that you’re cooking the books as such, John, just that as you say there are bits of the original, hand-written version missing in the typed-up version.
What of the poem about Sir Bedivere at the end of English John Tucker Harecroft 1?
What of the three line poem about a piece of bubblegum delivered to the young child at the end of the meal when eating out in an European restaurant?
What about the poem concerning the T-Rex as promised early on?
What about the passage on Robin Hood – which is surely crucial for a discussion of the wood?
What about the passage on American motorbikes?
What about the fact that if you open up book 2 and book 1 – which go in that order – you also find class exercises such as one about a stoat or weasel that lives in water which you have not included as a result of their not being your own creative work?
Please see me after class.
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.
SELF-REFLECTION
Well, like they did to The Madcap Laughs by Syd Barrett, I have at my brother James’ asking cut the text in two and swapped them round so the last half is first and the first half second. It already had
2
John Tucker
English
E
on the front of the first book to start with in 1989, and
English
John Tucker
Harecroft
1
on the front of the second book, so if it wasn’t already The Light Speed Book it definitely is now. Apparently the boyhood bits of this text, first time round represented “the moment I was beautiful.” Yet to say it in the English language, not that there’s anything wrong with the English language, seems distinctly unpoetic. What should it be? - possibly “after The Lords And The New Creatures came the homework of the witness himself.” Already at the mention of Morrison’s book everything sounds unpoetic and at the mention of mine it doesn’t exactly sound even sane. Still, I can’t think of a better way of saying what my own seven year old homework meant.
Tomorrow is the day of publication. I have to say I am excited and grateful to Chipmunka (the mental health publishers) for the opportunity to publish what is by now called The Light Speed Book. What you might not notice underneath it all is that I am one of 4. John, James, Robert and Hannah are born in a season each, spiralling Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer in birthdays and marching right left right left in handedness. The book has to both pursue the course of my siblings in age-descending order – and the school year elongating in seasonal order. It has to also account for me getting older and growing bigger too. We don’t believe our sibling foursome arrangement actually is a Swastika but fair as fair can be. Whatever the case if light speed cannot be broken – as Einstein tells us – to revert the order of Book 2 and Book 1 – which initially flowed in that order – would be to return things to a more normal state, surely?
You must see that it was the work of my brother to cut the Light Speed Book in two and put the second half first. That does not mean the first time round when it was my seven year old homework – that was me, who put
2
John Tucker
English
E
first, and so to return them to the normal numerical order would probably also be fair. Anyhow if I hadn’t written a Self-Reflection, the first thing in the book as it now stands would be what was written most immediately after the last thing in the book as it stands. It would be a more structural or even post-structural expression for Light speed (c) being broken or not. Really it would be fake, I think, but I am not Einstein nor was meant to be. I hear voices and they are not necessarily quavers or syllabubbles or sonic machinations at the periphery of sound as I have previously said but “people.” Why they may be baying is that the previous book I bought out was an experiment into secret chord H – but that’s a lie because I have heard voices for years – though never had when actually in a band called Secret Chord H.
A new experiment into breaking light speed you would find is already an old experiment into breaking light speed that pre-dates secret chord H to my childhood, to the age of seven and even includes something about H in the piece about the building site that ends “they came in a flash and took her to hospital.” Well, if I were writing an expression – as I have done for the breaking of Light speed – even though it cannot be done – I mean if it cannot be done I would do better to employ H as a metaphor from music and try and write an equation for how Light speed cannot be broken.
Is it that c over G = H?
If soooooooooo that may be why Einstein drifts off to Mozart at the end of the day whom it would seem has been a good one, a day of honest endeavour.
c/ G = H
and yet still there is more to come for we haven’t even falsified the notion yet to see if it is science or metaphysics. I don’t even know what it means but falsified it would seem that it could be instructive to consider
c/ G does not = H.
Then there it is! Whatever it is, I would say it was definitely something, and maybe the mad mathematician has become like the poet of old in constructing the framework of a fantasy world with which to deal with energies repressed at the base of the spine and in the unconscious. All I may mean is that a) the breaking of light speed and b) the attainment of secret chord H are both given to us by our elders and education as impossibilities. Yet these then become the experiments, the tests which we like the best even if we collapse into line at the end of the day and admit defeat, admit that the given presupposition is right, admit these things cannot be done – one the ear and one the eye.
We are conditioned to think in certain ways and when we rebel we enjoy those experiments the most but often have to concede in the end that the rules we were conditioned to obey were right… at least I do not wish to be the one to stand up and say “you can break the speed of light,” nor “I have drifted from G to H on the guitar.” These urges to break the rules are urges of a passionate nature, for the attainment of H and the breaking of c both become metaphors for something that lies unknown and beyond, some kind of pleasure that may be illicit. Hence this may be time to posit the front cover! When closing the door at the end!
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.”
EXPRESSIONS FOR THE BREAKING OF LIGHT SPEED [OR NOT AS THE CASE MAY BE]
Although I am the guy that said, at one point, “I. T. might stand for Instant Travel too,” I am still as yet only an amateur at science and maths; and yet am trying in adulthood to clarify a position about Lightspeed and bring the paper I wrote at seven to the level required for an adult readership. I suppose you have to ask yourself if the expression
2
John Tucker
English
E
English
John Tucker
Harecroft
1
is an ample expression for the breaking of Light Speed – and I thiiiink it is – when you split it over the cover of two books. I think it could be about Light-speed being broken (or not) by Gravity between the earth and the moon – which is instant – and if that is the case, you still have to remember that gravitational pull has no motion.
I could show you a few other expressions too, including something by my younger brother James P D whom it would seem did two doodles at around the age of eighteen. One was an anti-clockwise spiral of words by Badly Drawn Boy (though imperfectly quoted on purpose) going something like:
sunshine inside of you
old sun warm sun
spreads over you
soleil all over you -
and the second doodle was what I have come to call the new Da Vinci circle, which itself goes
@
<BEE> [long squiggle]
Infinity Symbol
The new da Vinci circle has been used in Soundcloud Rain as the structural principle of a series of albums. At one point ages ago I turned up the barn on my own and read what appeared to be the whole international language alphabet in a tabular arrangement of symbols in boxes on that page; but returning to the den in the barn where it was left, to reread it, it was not there, only the new Da Vinci circle.
I think I read that tabular arrangement on the sheet because to make an experiment into the international language alphabet was one of my own ideas, conveyed to my brother. In 2000 I made a brilliant speech in the barn, outlining artistic ambitions, Icelandic inventions, philosophical aphorisms and great prophesies too – I spoke against September 11th and also predicted the God Particle, among other things.
So that might be why I was able to envisage what seemed the whole international language alphabet in a tabular arrangement of boxes. At a later stage I made the discovery that the other one of his two doodles had grown pictures, when our dad died, pictures that seem to represent the lyric to one of my songs; but then again as Dr. Robert says in my not laying the sheet down all I can say is maybe: maybe the pictures that grew depict the lyric to one of my songs.
My brother James P D of course does not believe Light speed can be broken because he takes Einstein’s view and one only need search Youtube for a video to discover very quickly that only things with no mass can travel at the speed of light. If Gravity between the earth and the moon is instant and therefore breaks the speed of light, it is still the case that Gravity has no motion. It simply bends the spacetime continuum.
Anyhow I don’t think my brother’s diagrams were really to do with breaking Light speed even if they appear to be in a similar area. Also “in a similar area” is a further song lyric I was writing only quite recently. The tail end of the song simply goes as follows:
E = L to the pregnant snorkel,
L to the pregnant snorkel = MC squared,
flutter in the sideways gravity of the smile of light.
To “flutter in the sideways gravity of the smile of light” is one thing but it is still not expression for breaking light speed as such. It’s more to do with The Road To Heaven by Noj And The Mob – which sees an Utilitarian Martianist slowspell of ‘Love’ in symbolism. I have also been debating what the value of c/ G = for a long time now. It is not clear when representing Light speed (c) being broken by the Gravity (G) between earth and moon, whether the fraction is even c/ G or G/ c!
It could be that c/ G = a subjective value now.
Certainly it is true that c/ G does not = G/ c!
Again, here I am not even really talking about Light-speed being broken as such but about the ratio between Light speed falling and Gravity pulling down on the sheet where pictures grew. So out of the four expressions I gave you the numbers I wrote on the front of my first book are really the only ones designed to actually represent Light-speed being broken.
I also contemplate what it would be like if two people united by love were standing one on the earth and one on the moon. At the time of writing what I am calling The Light Speed Book I was passionately in love with a girl called Carrie from the year above – and if we were standing one of us on earth and one on the moon and she was in love with me like I was her – would there not be cause to re-evaluate Einstein?
[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
NOTE TO READER
Well I don’t know. What am I waiting for? Already sooooooooooo much delightful stuff has emerged from the attic but there may be one more overhaul, one more hoard awoken. For example, what value is there for a school project on the dinosaurs by THE WITNESS FROM THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES? I have such a thing but when it emerges am not going to put it in my poem and song book am I? It is far too erudite and formal for that! So I sit here and await what emerges. Actually this is the moment I changed schools! My dad took me out of Harecroft Hall and put me into Chetwynde, where I wrote my first poem after having become the witness from the wood. There are others too but I would still deem it my piece on Blake’s ‘Tyger’ that I like the best. They should’ve recognised when I wrote that that something had happened to me, but they didn’t. As a fan of the doors now, I like to read the witness’ first Lit Crit especially if it is on a Blake poem! If the author of said Lit Crit also went on to write the highest-marked, English Literature A-level exam essay in the nation, I would say his first instance of criticism should be highly valued. One might turn to it as, say, Ted Hughes once turned to T. S. Eliot’s first poem, where Hughes actually said a poet rarely strays too far from his very first instance of writing poetry. If the same is true of criticism or not I do not know. I should have you know that I also went on to put Blake to music – several of Blake’s songs – including Tyger, Tyger – also The Laughing Song and The Lamb. So now I have bigged it up you are only going to be disappointed but at least you know there’s something in this book that is beautiful.
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.
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. In fact I've even started planning what I'll put on the grave stone.
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.
NOTE
New Prep School. Down south. Caldicott. Said to be the most expensive in the nation. Rugby-playing school where I for one was a soccer-player. In fact they looked down on soccer, didn’t play it at all. I was the school’s outstanding soccer player and it was all a waste – and well, I was a good English student too. Of all that was written there, we only have reconstructions left. I happen to like the way, however, the project that was now buried in the attic at the foot of the nation’s oldest fell just automatically pertained to the condition of music. They told us that culture is transmitted as well as genes for example we retain the French for the meat as it is eaten and the Anglo-Saxon for the meat as it is farmed because after the Norman invasion it was the Normans that did the eating and the Anglo-Saxons that did the farming! They might also mean things like Pink Floyd’s Piper At The Gates of Dawn which was already incorporated in my very early work in some senses; and I believe it was also there in the next piece I am to show you, meaning the demented goose at the end of the Floyd song ‘Bike’ may have found its way into word-forms which are only incompletely remembered herein. What happened was I went through puberty and as I did this song just kept coming into my head in the boarding school dormitories at night and I believe it to do with the demented goose at the end of ‘Bike!’ It was rhythmical and looking back it was evidence.
BARNES HAS SCORED A CHICKEN
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.
INKY REVERIE
While she read the text – and at around this end of ‘Bike’ moment – I started to drift – to drift off into an inky reverie.
We were going from Italy to London via Germany.
One of my favourite poets was German – Michael Hofmann – who began with the ideal of writing poems the shape and texture of bricks!
He was said to be one of the best of the 1980’s; and I think given the Light Speed Book and its emergence when my father passed that I was one of them too… that is, I started in 1989.
It was Ted Hughes’ Laureateship but I don’t want to go over old ground.
I was now adrift in an inky reverie.
What was I thinking?
I was designing a passport for customs on the conscious/ unconscious border.
I was listening to the tips of soft, tantalising fingers.
No – I was taking a camera to the edge of sleep only to find it had no film in it.
I was returning to the deep green store, lying down on a pile of leaves beside a bonfire.
No – I was sitting in the kitchen at Cumpstones, a house at the foot of the oldest fell Black Combe contemplating which of my many set pieces I would put in and which to leave out.
THE FIRE AND THE SEA
This is where I eschewed the workload of trying to pass Common Entrance exams one holiday while back at home and wrote some garden bricks (as we were learning to do in class). One was called ‘The Fire’ and one was called ‘The Sea.’ They were each prose poems with rich and vivid description, written in blue fountain pen ink on white A4 paper. The first described what was observed – the sitting room fire – its hundred tongues – how as it danced I was entranced by it. The second described what was imagined and remembered but not observed – the sea. Some one mile or so away, the rhythmical engine of the Irish Sea was grinding. W/r/t these two two prose poems or ‘garden bricks’ I think I was trying to encrypt something specific which I shall not give away. At the time I was coming top of English every term at the most expensive Prep School in the known universe and though you’ll groan at the self-aggrandisement therein the headmaster said it was good to see. There was of course a lot of curricular writing going on, such as when we all had to write a book of poems based on Animal Farm; and each member of the class wrote a whole poem collection based on the book and all of them were said to be good. Still, I think ‘The Fire’ and ‘The Sea’ represented the first extra curricular writing I had done or at least for a long time. I soon started to write rap as well, outside of music class, and once brought one in to music class and played it with a Casio keyboard’s beat and some notes and the music teacher said the words were excellent. Later I wrote more and much more besides. Nothing of ‘The Fire And The Sea’ remains except memories, or rather, except the things themselves. There was no sense of recalibrating the political sphere through elemental writing, just a kind of necessary creativity. Now for my final trick I would like to show you what my brothers and sister and I got up to one holiday towards the end of my time at Prep School.
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 gravity of the smile of light.
There’s no such thing as the Nirvana barcode.
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.
(1994 reconstructed)
OSSIE THE DOG
(a children’s story written in mental hospital)
“My feet are killing me,” said Ossie the dog to him self as he walked about the heaving city. It was a hot day and he had been up to no good chasing cats, eating discarded food from bins and still had no place to call home. He was a very daft dog but not unlikeable. For example of his daftness, he was afraid of jetties but not water itself. He had been walking round the city all day, where cars were emitting their acrid exhaust fumes, and was tired.
He decided to stop on a roundabout for a rest. As he sat there looking out at the world passing by a police car came passed, sirens wailing, needing the loo and crying for its mummy to change its nappy, careering off to a split metre death up a mulberry tree. There was a flowerbed on the roundabout too and to cool his paws Ossie the Dog dug them into the soil. “That’s funny,” he said to himself. “I can feel something hard under the soil. I wonder if it is a bone.”
Hoping the hard object he could feel under the soil was a bone he dug into the soil and found a metal box. He exhumed the metal box and opened the metal box and found a necklace inside, a necklace with a key on the end of it. The necklace had a strange aura all about it, and when Ossie put it round his neck he was immediately dragged asleep.
In his dreams weird Aboriginal, Aztec and Egyptian symbols started to appear – and when Ossie woke he just knew that if he took the key to a particular hill in The Lake District, and found a particular slot in the rock, and turned the key it would unlock aurora borealis all over the country for one hour.
So for once Ossie had a mission, a purpose in life. He stuck out his paw and hitched in the back of a van delivering goods for Uppercrust all the way up the M6 carpark to the edge of The Lake District. That was as far as the driver was going. He let Ossie out and told him to be cool.
Ossie got walking again and crossed the border. There were traffic lights on the border of the Lake District although Ossie didn’t know this, and when he got passed them and inside The Lake District itself things became very strange very fast – he had a vision of a cloud of powder’d light billowing in, saw a stone wriggle on the floor, perceived what looked like visual radio broadcasting dreams, dreams that billow like a weeping willow in the wind.
Through this unknown territory he walked and walked until he came to a river of green beer with a little wooden bridge going over it. He was not afraid of green beer but he certainly was afraid of bridges. He wasn’t going to walk it.
He sat down at the entrance to the bridge and inspected the necklace some more. It glistened in the daylight. Once again it dragged him asleep and once again the dream was full of ancient symbols. When he woke he was determined to cross the river, but he decided to swim rather than risk the bridge, just in case he ended up in the river itself.
He plucked up the courage and slid into the river and immediately swallowed several gulps of the green beer and was unconscious. He woke in a cave around a campfire. There was a second creature there beside him, a bear, who started to speak.
“Hello my name is Barry the Bear,” said Barry the Bear. “I found you washed up in the river on the bank.”
“Oh,” said Ossie. “I managed to cross the river did I?”
“Yes,” said Barry.
They realised Ossie must’ve tried to swim the river, taken some gulps of green beer and gone unconscious. It was lucky that Barry the Bear saved him.
“I found this necklace round your neck,” said Barry the Bear as they sat in Barry’s cave around a fire. “It looks like it could be quite precious. You might want it back,” said Barry.
“Yes thank you,” said Ossie the dog. Then Ossie told Barry about the plan to unlock aurora borealis all around the country as the dream had told him was possible. Barry asked if he could come along so Ossie said yes. He would be glad of some company and did not know the geography of the area very well.
So they packed some food and some bare essentials into a bag and set off walking. Ossie, from his dream, knew the ancient hill was called Black Combe, and had told Barry, to which Barry responded that he knew the exact hill. They just had a long way to go.
First they needed to pass through a forest. In the forest there were shadows on tiptoes, shadows without bodies sneaking about, in silence, like thieves. If you flinched at a shadow your mind would fill with pain. The environment was dark and scary. It also rained as they made their way through, but eventually they came to the edge of the forest and were free.
At the edge of the forest they naturally stopped for another snack, eating bread and drinking water. Then they set off again, on foot, towards Black Combe and had a good old conversation along the way. In fact you could say they became good friends. By the time they got there it was 11 AM. They stood at its foot and looked up and saw there was a further cave on the face of the foothill. This made sense to Ossie from his dream. The cave was where the keyhole was hidden so they ascended up the scree-scattered path and got to the cave and entered the cave and Barry shone a burning torch about until they found the slot in the rock.
Ossie put the key in and turned it and lo and behold outside aurora borealis lit up the sky everywhere that could be seen. It was a joyous and celebratory moment.
“Isn’t that amazing?” said Barry, gazing at the sky outside the cave.
“Yes,” said Ossie. “I rather think it is.”
*
It was like death had an orgasm in the sky. So they decided seeing as they were tired to stay the Night inside the cave and build a fire there. They got to the back of the cave and found a portal.
“Look at this, I found a portal,” said Barry.
“Let’s follow it,” said Ossie the dog.
They snuck in, and found a tunnel. It was lined with free beer dispensers, fruit machines and torches. They walked for half an hour and there was a dead end, with a sledge hammer beside it. Barry the Bear picked up the sledge hammer and smashed and smashed the rock until a hole was rent in the rock through which they stepped out and were in the old USSR, on a snow-filled day.
“Bloody Hell, it’s cold,” said Barry.
“I don’t want to be here at all,” said Ossie.
They decided to step back into the tunnel and turn around and go back from whence they came. When they got back to the cave, Barry said Ossie should forget that hot and sweaty city life and live in the fresh air of the countryside with him and eat nice fish from the river. Ossie said okay and so they lived as friends happily in Barry’s cave.
They made the journey back to the cave, and when they got there started to drink green beer from the river. Barry and Ossie became good friends, and would often joke and laugh on the green beer river’s banks about anything that came to mind, not being particularly bright but being good of heart which is more important than being particularly bright.
One day as they made their way to Heaven, Barry pulled out some weed and said “I’ve been saving this for a rainy day.” It made everything go weird, made them see through fresh, alien eyes, induced heightened sensory perception, magical defamiliarisation, opening their pupils wide as dinner plates to seize the object of vision.
*
Vision might warrant some words. Blake was deemed a visionary for breakfasting with angels, for seeing the sun as Holy not just a 2 pence piece. Allen Ginsberg was visited by the ghost of Blake, and taught the notes to the Songs of Innocence and Experience, but was mad, deemed insane. Generally if your vision reveals God, like a theophany, it is regarded as a genuine vision and if it doesn’t it is regarded as a mad hallucination – like in Rimbaud. This is what happens when vision gets indoctrinated by the Church.
Ted Hughes said the Church brands Nature as evil. He saw a monster in the river in childhood and built up to writing about it too. There have been other Naturalistic Observations – James Joyce came before Ted Hughes and Jim Morrison after. These are not the only people who have made Naturalistic Observations either for it is believed that since Jim Morrison wrote The Lords And The New Creatures there has been a witness who has attested to several specimens.
It is not clear whether there is a Logical Bond between Narrative and Naturalistic Observationism. That is, it is not clear whether Joyce writing Ulysses affected what Ted Hughes observed, and Hughes writing The Hawk In The Rain affected what Jim Morrison observed and Morrison writing The Lords And The New Creatures affected what the subsequent “witness” observed. For all the witness from The Lords And The New Creatures, the present tense living soul, may have become responsible for what had to be attested to in writing before it was attested to, as had to happen. In that sense he would grow into the role before it was viewed, the mistake, and the rest of the visual imagery.
He may grow up dying to write like Jim Morrison – and yet be unaware that he has an ample text dating back to when he was seven – before the attestations! - buried in the attic by his parents. He may be trying to make his writing more eloquent, or more opaque or whatever it is, usually dependent on his reading, and one day find that right at the start of his life he already wrote a text that does the job.
As they walked they talked about the nature of visionary fancy at great elaborate lengths did Ossie and Barry the Bear and all of a sudden Ossie the dog came to a door and he looked inside…
“Father”
“Yes son”
“Thank you for preserving my seven year old homework. Oh, and mother? Thanks for helping me write it. I don’t remember much about it, but that you were often with me, guiding me, here in England even though you are Finnish which I thinks shows. So there it is. Prep.”
STILL ON THE PLANE
It didn’t take Beatrice that long to read my Prep School Prep. We discussed it a little bit on the plane as well. I told her, “you know, the work actually implies that IF light speed can be broken, by the instantaneous pull of gravity between the earth and the moon, then...”
I trailed off.
I said:
“if you read closely you find the work contains great scientific functionality despite having the aesthetic beauty of a wart. The young poet for example also predicts the net, encrypts an original idea I should not give away, calibrates an algorithm that sublimates letters and numbers on a cellular level to see if you can change the colour of white skin through maths, and of course separates the pollen from its name.”
I didn’t say this but Jim Morrison of The Doors has a theory called “the metamorphose theory” in The Lords And The New Creatures that states when an object is removed from its name, habits and associations it is free to become endlessly anything – and the young author in this case conducts a kind of proof of that theory on the object of his dad’s round, brown ball of pollen which he found in the chocolate cupboard and couldn’t identify.
Knocking the battery off the pollen so to speak was the main reason I fell in love with the work when my father passed and it emerged from the attic. I had no idea I had written anything of scientific functionality until then and yes I do think the young author just did enough to fulfil all of those scientific functions I mentioned which in time come clear to you.
Beatrice then asked me if I would like to join her in the toilet in five minutes. I said yes and she went off to the toilet. Five minutes later I was there and she’d left the door unlocked. I slipped inside and slipped inside. I joined the Mile High Club. I banged her up against the door. It soon became the case that semen spills like silver water inside Albion’s daughter inside a tight little cubicle so not good for sex, but which we managed to cram ourselves into nevertheless.
THE QUEUE OUTSIDE THE DOOR
While we were still shagging, someone, someone needing to pee came to the door and found it locked.
They had to wait outside.
They probably heard a little moan, a little groan, from Beatrice.
Still a pixel of sex is ineffable, impervious to the workings of the pen.
So there’s no point describing the random shag.
It was one of those occasions where everything fits into place.
Normally such an American hamburger attitude to sex – a gratuitous attitude – is reserved for the homo sexual world – and to find a bit of cheap and happy sexual intercourse on a plane pleased me.
The person in the queue outside the door grew every more needy, needing to empty their bladder, while inside the cubicle there we were, whole.
As I say, semen spills like silver water – I wore no condom to leave on the floor with a load inside it.
We flushed the toilet so as to make the right sounds, and came out of the cubicle to find this person standing there, desperate for a wee, a man.
I imagine that when that guy saw us and recognised what we were up to he got turned on himself and had a wank inside the cubicle.
If you’re thinking what I am thinking, you’re thinking the toilets on planes are sooooooooo small they can barely fit one body let alone two and that this sublimation of the actual and apocryphal is down to the hunger and taste of my mother whom it would seem needed something adult-like to spruce up, to energise the text.
Good luck to the young man who took our place in the cubicle.
POST-COITAL
Beatrice and I went back to our seats feeling elated by the exhilarating fuck and its inherent adrenaline rush. Quite quickly we resumed our literary exchange. She asked me where she could find my previous book Soundcloud Rain. I had a copy of the paperback on me and showed her. She opened it and started to leaf through the pages. Already by page one she told me I had gone and ruined the seven year old proof! I had given that encrypted, original idea away for nothing where before – in the proof she had just read - it was embedded! There was something I was getting at but not saying explicitly! There was a node!
As I have said it wasn’t really me that arranged the structure of Soundcloud Rain and truth be told art is best when it comes from within. You shouldn’t listen to voices. Nor should you sign it all by some imaginary poetry hive-mind or Communist ego-loss experiment or omnijective interface of random access co-imagination. One’s work should be one’s own. I find the whole John Tucker is the missing link to the superhuman corridor thing infuriating in a similar way. Like my father before me I also believe a writer has a right to a name otherwise an Exclusion of the Individual Machine can close ranks against you. I only hope the original, handwritten version of The Light speed Book went to a good new home and is in good hands, in the hands of someone like Professor David Morley, who unlike myself is a proper scientist.
LANDING IN LONDON
The plane landed in London.
That’s where I used to hang with this guy called, well, we’ll have to call him something different herein – let’s call him Dr. Gerald.
Once, I took him, that is my generation’s leading psychiatrist, to the face of stars.
It was truly, truly amazeballs.
He is still with me in E. R. among more sadistic voices.
Anyhow, I could go on for pages – a list of my Naturalistic observations as witness, a list of new learnings derived from them, tentative theories as to what is going on, the reason it was me made witness explained, history of similar occurrences in the field of Naturalistic Observationism – but something tells me all I need say is that I lead my generation’s leading psychiatrist to the face of stars!
It’s even possible to see it in the song about the dog.
It could be why I get stopped by random strangers in the street who tell me I am a genius.
If I told you all of it - the correct prophecies – the experiments – the musical concepts – the observations – you might be forgiven for thinking I had put my life to good use many times over but not quite yet my art.
That is what I have to work on.
You have to let your talent grow like a cannabis plant in a secret location from a tiny seed in a hopeless situation, nurture it, cultivate it, until it comes to fruition.
Three were there gathered in the name of Moroccan pollen.
Gathered in the name of Suede.
Gathered in the name of – well, at one point we used to make organic drum n bass with mouth sounds while walking round The Lake District in leather jackets from Camden Town.
We were the hyper-cool trio, a band of perceivers called The Men In The Moon.
If I said a special perception is forming of the men inside the moon, you should beware that already they are just cliches.
Anyhow, it has been deemed that considering the nature of my CV, the art I make could end up being too powerful unless I am careful.
The philosophical stance inherent in keeping only a book of rock songs and a book of seven year old homework I like in that situation.
Still, there’d be nothing wrong with augmenting my set-list with, say, a wayward underground classic taking the form of defaced bank notes.
Sometimes on ecstasy it makes you feel like your mouth is full of cold, heavenly, crystal water and when you speak it spills.
Then you become the inevitable vegetable chasing the wave-forms of the dusky dawn.
There are times in life you may cry without knowing why but if there is light it will find you for light seeks people as much as people seek the light and you must not let it blind you and cover your eyes in Ancient Night.
Ancient Night might seem hopelessly dark sometimes but there is redemption in darkness, the darkness holds the brightest light.
To wait in darkness can be nourishing for the soul even if the answers you seek never arrive.
Uncertainty is also nourishing for the soul.
I heard it said that the beauty of uncertainties is the only absolute.
So to end on a note of radical incertitude is no shame.
Indeed, to end on a musical note would be in keeping and in key too.
EXPENSIVE CAR BLUES
I wasn’t actually on an E (though you’d be forgiven for thinking I was!) as I said goodbye to Beatrice, after getting her number, and made it back to the car.
It turned out I had to pay in excess of £300 for the parking because I had parked in the short stay, thinking it was the long stay.
What happened to the dream of white?
The answer is “I don’t know.”
Anyhow, I got in my car and managed to find the right way home from the airport.
As I drove home from the airport I listened to some music.
Einstein always drifted off to Mozart at the end of the day (I heard).
With me it was more a rock band.
With me it was this new band which were recommended to me by Dr. Gerald!
They were quite good, kind of psychedelic punk if you permit such a thing.
They weren’t quite John Lennon, nor Jim Morrison either, but they were not too bad – at least, I enjoyed listening to them while I was driving!
TWO NEW ROCK SONGS
I
MOTHER
Mother I love you,
mother please don’t die,
mother up above you
the silly gang in the sky.
If sleeping is a weakness
I get it from you
but the spirit’s winter bleakness
is going to pull through.
Don’t want to decorate you,
anatomise you either,
don’t want to rate you
for there is no other.
Your beauty is impossible
but still it is true.
I hope there’s nothing Oedipal
going on with you.
Imagination is a muscle
and language is a creature
or so you used to tell us
like an English teacher.
II
ECSTASIA
Ecstasia, it will find you,
ecstasia will track you down,
wearing your bro’s blue T-shirt,
somewhere in a different town…
a comedown can be difficult,
a comedown can really hurt,
but it’s going to be easier
in your brother’s blue T-shirt.
Love, it will wound you
then forgive you all the same,
and one day death will find you,
and nobody is to blame...
I’m waiting at the foot of Black Combe,
I’m waiting for my true love,
and E has no value here
when you come down from a Dove…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John F B Tucker for all the world was more the lion from the heart of Poem Records than The Lord of The Flies. He deemed his seven year old work to be an artefact of psychedelic science. Our mother’s opinion was that John should stop blaming Jim Morrison and The Lords And The New Creatures for what John observed and take responsibility for himself. It would be something in his seven year old homework if it was his own doing. As for the Sound Art experiment into secret chord H he still hears her – not Hannah’s voice really, he is told – so could call her Little Miss Take. Now he’s gone backwards and forwards dithering about what text to present because voices are hinting at things, and there’s no editor here for his work, therefore no end. We deem that it has to be this work and that the work may have been for Carrie from the year above, whom he never got to speak to but was insanely in love with. We found a further poem in John’s History exercise book from the age of seven that hints at this. It could fit in to the sequence but would also end the project nicely. We deemed that it was genius and as you will see it’s random. It seems to be a drawing of Buggs Bunny whom it would seem pops up at the end of the show to say “That’s All Folks,” in the cartoons of yesteryear, which John and myself, his brother James, would watch every afternoon in our old, London NW6 house. Even though by now John and Carrie can’t quite hook up, it’s still good to know there was a mating-queen-in-the-flesh when the work was started, and to return the work to her. We don’t know what was wrong with the author John F B Tucker nor what his book is about still but if it ends up being about love even if it is the unrequited love of a seven year old we deem that it is alright.
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.
DOOR ON HIGH
Actually it’s an awful thing to do to Carrie.
Now we need a cat to slink across a platform.
One thing I must retract according to the voices is that if a flower-press ending on cannabis = a dialysis a love poem hoping to impress poor Flora = more a motor…
I just wish to present my boyhood prep...
It was me that turned up to earth and provided the seven year old homework of the witness from The Lords And The New Creatures…
then later I started pissing around with my guitar and writing songs.
What to call my 7 year old homework, my boyhood proof is a difficult question.
It knocking the battery off the pollen so to speak means it could be called The Proof of the Metamorphose Theory for that is a theory from The Lords And The New Creatures that states when an object is removed from its name, habits, associations it is free to become endlessly anything.
There’s also Le Poet De Sept Ans after Rimbaud.
Then there’s The Invention of Wallpaper and Other Miracles after Syd Barrett.
Aldous Huck Finn came to me once.
Little Johnny’s Experiment is an allusion to Brian Patten.
The Light Speed Book is a possible title because my previous was an experiment into secret chord H and to then show an experiment into breaking Light Speed is almost analogous.
There have been other names such as the suggestion of my brother James to just call it Prep.
Mother says Footsteps In The Attic because it made the sound of footsteps when it was locked in the locked attic.
There’s also, like, Homework in Quarantine.
You might even call it The End of Bike.
Truth be told I would steer clear of drugs.
Drugs can be a real menace and usually lead to bad things.
Drug-taking is monumentally selfish and on a long enough timeline drugs ruin lives.
So I won’t call it The Proof of the Metamorphose Theory because the object on which that proof is conducted is pollen – the round brown ball of pollen.
To call it The Light Speed Book is not very Doorsian but more Einsteinian.
Then again to not call it The Light Speed Book misses out on the opportunity to create a binarymachine, to contribute to the history of duality.
Blake wrote The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience.
Rimbaud wrote A Season In Hell and The Illuminations.
Henry Miller wrote Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer.
Jim Morrison wrote The Lords And The New Creatures.
I came along as I have said and wrote the seven year old prep of the witness – then years later started messing round with a guitar.
Soundcloud Rain is what became of the latter and the former still has no fixed name.
My brother James meanwhile – he provided the sheet where pictures (probably depicting one of my lyrics) grew; AND the sheet with the new da Vinci circle.
Dad used to say he had failed with his eldest two and it was Dr. Bob and Hannah who he held out hope for being a success in life.
For me to have turned what I provided already into the new duality -
a) an experiment into secret chord H
b) an experiment into breaking light speed
with but a little tweaking would make me happy. Still I do not wish to raid science for a mangled paradigm. The name of my book is not coming to me. I don’t think my dad would agree with my calling it The Light Speed Book, but files have to have names if they are to be saved and the present file at least while I write is called The Light Speed Book.
The Light Speed Book is an awful name for a book really isn’t it?
James and I agree on that – it is of all the names that have been conjured possibly the worst.
I would be tempted to go with my mother’s name: Footsteps From The Attic.
During my degree I was rather good at understanding metrical feet.
I was good at understanding metre; but therein may start to give away my embedded node.
This book is what comes after I say to my brother “GARDEN is the password to my imaginary world.”
There is a catflap on the radio there.
Sunlight forms a golden pool
on the closed eyelids of the fool
as he lays out on the garden’s lawn.
These are half-formed snatches of poetry that remain in my brain, knocking round the back of my brain, since childhood.
I also kept thinking of the word STARVATIONIST as a kid and even at 41 it will do.
For one I still haven’t told you what my embedded node is.
I know, it’s in Soundcloud Rain, but herein is where it was originally encrypted, not given away.
Also, my book was in the attic for soooo long...
so there you have two reasons why I was a STARVATIONIST POET.
So maybe that is my own best effort.
Down at the bottom of my soul.
THE STARVATIONIST - I think it’s a good name and a good school, a good ism, a good performance.
I could say it’s an artefact of psychedelic science left over from my early childhood and framed as an adult work.
Still I don’t think it should be The Starvationist.
I could call it something like The Night of the Long App.
Or I could make up a word like Dogglegist Estocant.
Then I remember there was a further possibility:
BARNES HAS SCORED A CHICKEN!
That’s very tempting, but really would I like it if my favourite player John Barnes came out with a book called TUCKER’S SCORED A CHICKEN?
No. Well, not exactly, but I don’t want to annoy my favourite player.
So it has to be The Sunset Child.
The soft parade long since began on sunset, Jim Morrison used to say.
It will have to be The Sunset Child.
Girl, we couldn’t get much better.
I would be able to smile when I meet the world.
Grow back, derelict brain.
It will all grow back if it wants to.
It might be what Paul means when he says a leaf is a vote.
A filing system had a heart attack to bring back a little still.
Unplug your guitar cables and see in all directions at once.
It’s when she said a stream of Z’s.
It’s through the news that you renew your snooze.
I’ve lost control because the voices rock n roll.
George Monbiot on his blog says in Totalitarian Capitalism even breath is costed but if the witness from The Lords And The New Creatures carries out great tasks of attestation for the Revolution “not for a penny” that is not strictly true.
PUBLICATION DAY
Mum is making chutney.
She needs to do something.
She sends me down the garden, to the greenhouse, to get some green tomatoes but there are only a handful so we’ll have to use red ones.
I am reminded of a further title, once upon a time, on my blog, for the boyhood Prep, which is The Red Pages.
Omnibus Press published The Lords And The New Creatures in a traffic light colour page motif of pages of orange and pages of green respectively.
That’s where I get the idea for The Red Pages from.
There was no heads up.
There was no warning.
It was – the first thing – just thrust upon me.
There were several specimens overall.
I don’t think mum wants to let go of this book – wants me to put a final draft out there.
Obvs. if it were called The Red Pages one would expect actual red pages.
Anyhow for my noble service to the poetry world I was eventually paid a triangular, wing-shaped, concrete poem – about being on a plane – that ended with the letter P – but never any money.
The poem was the gift of Dr. Calculator Ptom on the word-chord piano as far as I know.
When Dr. Calculator Ptom says “the universe is a projection of the mind,” it is not a fossil of The Lords And The New Creatures.
I said back to him “I thought of a more poetic way of saying that. The sniper’s rifle is an extension of his eye.”
He said he was jealous unless it was a quote from someone like Jim Morrison.
He was right, I had nicked it from Jim Morrison.
I think there are fossils of art as well as life.
Anyhow, I left the kitchen, where mum was making chutney, so that I could concentrate, get some of my own reflections down, but getting here up to my bedroom, that anagram of boredom, find little to say.
I’d probably have to go back down the kitchen where mum chops vegetables to glean some more inspiration.
The way it seems is that if you write a poem about your bike crash you might have to have a bird with the skin of snake thrust upon you – which doesn’t seem right to me.
Of course if the early Naturalistic Observations were “my fault” I suppose so then was the face of stars.
Back down in the kitchen I boil the kettle.
There are two large books on the table: one called Animals, one called Plants.
They don’t want me to do this one because there is always more to say.
There is never an exhaustive or comprehensive account.
I’ve covered acres of Brainforest writing about The Lords And The New Creatures, trying to find things out, and now have said so little.
Having purchased a publication I still see little else worth publishing…
If I told you what I know – what I learned from this project - the opacity would be blown...
I would be sorry if I came on and delimited all that was known and in the style of the end of The Lords And The New Creatures.
NO, REALLY DO TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW
If the gravitational pull between the earth and
the moon is enough to break light speed,
a clock is still only as fast as a cheetah.
It is not impossible to observe a new creature
or two under the sun. Plastic can grow. The
colour of white skin be incrementally changed
through maths. The animal kingdom knows
what we write. The stars can be manipulated
at night. Pictures can develop without hands -
brown and blue, they’re done by Winnie the Pooh -
and my mother ate the rest of the tuna sauce,
without pasta for she is on a diet of course
and you can take a horse to water and drink
the horse and did those feet in ancient times
rain down, rain down and walk the sun?
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