Wednesday 30 April 2014

a one hundred and fifteenth poem...'relief'

‘Don’t pick your nose’, said the man.
‘I wasn’t’, said the woman.
‘It’s very unladylike’, said the man.
‘And what would you know
About being unladylike?’, said the woman.
‘For Chrissakes I’m a man, ain’t I!’, said the man.
‘I wasn’t picking my nose all the same’, said the woman.
And then, to the relief of rest of the assembled
Man and womankind, the bus arrived.

a one hundred and fourteenth poem...'not guilty'

My favourite bands are all
Named after insects: the
Be(e)tles, Adam and the
Ants, the
Crickets, and the
Bees.
Therefore, I am highly
Unlikely to commit mass
Murder using an automatic rifle,
Or blow off anyone’s knees.
And, no, I do not,
Have never, watched/played
Violent computer video
Games.

a one hundred and thirteenth poem...'ring-a-ding-a-ling'

There is a
Misnomer that human
Beings are the most
Intelligent species on planet
Earth, as well as the
Best at understanding each
Other.  However, the truth is
More that human beings are
Probably the least adaptable,
Not to mention the most
Self-destructive animals in the
Solar system, and perhaps
Only the most  
Elaborate communicators:
Simply consider your
Relationship with
Your mobile phone.

a one hundred and third story...'jackson's mind'

Jackson had a problem.  He didn’t have a prostate tumour, or a sty in his eye, he didn’t have chicken-pox, or - God forgive - small-pox.  Jackson’s problem was that he believed he was surrounded by self-interested twerps.  The self-interested twerps he had in mind were human beings, perhaps even people such as you and I. 

Jackson had a brain injury.  It wasn’t the kind of brain injury where he needed to wear a cast made out of plaster of Paris, nor was it the kind of brain injury that required any sort of surgical intervention, although in the past doctors, in their infinite wisdom, might have considered such a procedure in Jackson’s case. 

Jackson’s case, however, was complicated.  It was impossible to quantify, it was impossible to put under a microscope and take notes on.  Jackson’s problem, or brain injury, was largely a product of his mind.  His mind was a pretty lonely mind.  It had not often enough experienced sharing, loving, or indeed kindness of any sort.

Jackson’s mind had come to think that human beings were self-interested twerps in part because it was jealous of the ease at which other human beings appeared to share their minds, and often, it followed, their bodies, and so on.

Had Jackson’s mind not been so worked up about the self-interested twerps with whom he shared his small area of planet earth, Jackson’s mind might have been a little more aware of the incipient irony in its consideration of others, as well as more open to the very sharing process it felt so frequently left out of and pretended, in some strange quirk, that it was somehow above.

However, Jackson was not above anything whatsoever, in the same way the self-interested twerps were also not above anything whatsoever.  Jackson, as well as the self-interested twerps, had neither wings, nor winged-sandals, and as human beings Jackson and the self-interested twerps could not even breathe under water, run very fast, or indeed defend themselves without firearms, electric fences, pesticides and vaccinations against practically any other living organism on their planet.

But Jackson’s human antecedents, as well as the antecedents of the self-interested twerps, had developed over time in their individual and/or collective minds, the idea that human beings were of a higher consciousness than the other living organisms on their planet, living organisms that for the most part they ran away from, or indeed killed and ate out of fear, and the idea of safety in numbers.  Whole forests of trees had been given over to reinforcing the higher state of consciousness in the minds of all human beings, and a load of beeswax, a whole load of lead and graphite.

This was where Jackson’s problem stemmed from – his brain injury, if you will.  And it was all because his mind had become so unruly and corrupted that it seemed to Jackson separate from his body, and his earthbound existence. 

Books, of course, were largely to blame, and some of the things that Jackson’s antecedents had written in them.  Among the main culprits were antecedents including: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Descartes, Jean Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger (who, admittedly, took it beyond the extreme!), and Carl Jung.

While there were no pills, ratified surgical procedures, intravenous drugs, or it seemed other self-interested twerps that would be able to cure Jackson and his mind, Jackson’s mind in particular could have done with remembering that it was an inevitable and irreversible fact that he was surrounded by self-interested twerps, since all the self-interested twerps were animals, only with furniture and clothing to disguise them. Therefore, the apportioning of any blame was an irrelevance.

Moreover, Jackson’s mind could have acknowledged that in the chest cavity of Jackson’s body, there was a heart, which kept Jackson’s mind running, and Jackson’s mind could at least be a little bit thankful!

And in being a little bit thankful towards Jackson’s heart, Jackson’s mind might then think more about Jackson’s heart and what it else it was capable of, and be a little more pre-disposed towards being thankful to someone else’s heart, or something else outside of Jackson’s mind which, after all, had become so unruly and corrupted as to cause Jackson his brain injury.

And in going outside of itself, Jackson’s mind might yet have recognised the incongruity of its very own state, a realisation which could trigger Jackson’s mind to sublimate, thereby healing itself.

Tuesday 29 April 2014

a one hundred and twelfth poem...'blue tunnel'

Gemma stared down the
Blue tunnel into the
Afterlife, was reminded of
Trips to the Sealife Centre on
Southsea Pier as peace
Descended and her lungs
Filled with salt water.
Her last thoughts were of
Leatherback turtles,
Manta rays, and melting vanilla
Ice-cream sliding down the
Side of a wafer cone.

a one hundred and eleventh poem...'the dark web'

Dave, Tom, Brian,
Whoever it was, asked
Me to buy
A handgun from
The Dark Web.
Naturally, I was
Intrigued and decided
To get some
Crack cocaine for
Myself, should
I want to join in
On their murder spree.

Monday 28 April 2014

a one hundred and second story...'kakapo'

I busted up my hand yesterday.  And I smashed my computer into little pieces.  I threw it against one wall of my box-bedroom, and then another, threw it on the floor and beat the thing apart with my fists.  My right hand did most of the hitting.  By the end, the computer was in little bits, there was blood all over the floor, and my right hand is swollen today to the extent I can’t really use it.  I still need to clean the blood off the floor, and the computer didn’t belong to me.  Ho hum!

See, I drink too much.  And I have become numb to goings on around me.  I am deep inside myself, and I don’t know whether I’ll get out – but more than anything I want to.  The hidden away but persistent pain I feel day to day is a mixture of regret, anger, guilt and frustration at my inability to be good at life.

No one knows how miserable I really feel.  And its no surprise since I never say for fear of appearing even worse at life than I may already seem.  There’s probably only one person who can gauge how I am feeling, and I lie to her, and I can’t for all the bananas in Brazil understand how she feels in return: believe me I have tried, and tried, but my powers of perception are about the same, perhaps less than a blinded Kakapo.

A Kakapo is a flightless parrot native to New Zealand.  Kakapos are largely regarded as some of the dumbest creatures in the universe as we know it – they spend most of their time walking into trees, or falling out of them in a sorry heap.

It could be that if a Kakapo and I were let loose at a test-conditioned social gathering, while the Kakapo might end up dropping unconscious from the drinks cabinet, or braining itself on the corner of the drinks table, by the same juncture I would be long since knocked out on top of it.  And who would the assembled guests take pity on and seek medical attention for?  Naturally, the Kakapo.  And who, again, could blame any of them?!

Moreover, even Kakapos, in spite of their marvellously unattractive appearance – dowdy plumage, round face, heavy carriage, short legs, large feet - are able to find at least one of their species to mate with.  A male Kakapo, when courting a female, will emit a low frequency booming call from his bowel region by inflating his thoracic sack, starting off at a low grunt, continuing on for up to eight hours, the call travelling kilometres!.  This is far beyond my stamina and vocal range.  It is not that I – a homosapien – am above it.

Then there are days when I live in hope, but its a hope that lasts about as long as toddler’s sandcastle (or that of a baby Kakapo).  The tide ebbs and flows with my mood, and I am consistently astounded how much my fellow human beings are apparently enjoying life: smiling, laughing with genuine joy (not purely out of relief), sharing generously in each others successes.

Etcetera, etcetera … 

… And yet in writing most of the above I realise I have committed the sin of ingratitude. 

Life can always be a whole lot better.  Similarly, in my current place, it could be damn sight more dreadful, and I more inept.  Kakapos incidentally, are, as of the beginning of this year, on the critically endangered species list since they really happen to be so phenomenally bad at life.

Nevertheless, all I can say is that I pray someone will one day take pity on me – a human Kakapo – just as the kindly New Zealanders have done to the preserve Kakapos surviving, if not thriving, in their beautiful country. 

Friday 25 April 2014

a one hundred and first story...'my big brain'

Listen:

My hair has stopped growing.  In fact, it has started to disappear, or indeed turn the colour of my dead Mama’s.  My mouth is full of rotting crockery, and my skin is falling off my face.  My eyes are as dim as low energy light bulbs, and my ears are so full of beeswax I can’t even hear the screams of my own children at play. 

My big brain, meanwhile, is as cluttered as a sorting office where the postmen and women have been on strike for years, and I can’t begin to sift through the bits and pieces of information crammed in there.  My big brain hurts like a warehouse with no room to spare. 

And yet, my big brain taunts me, and sometimes suggests I should take the bag for life given me by my local supermarket, and suffocate myself with it.  My big brain has a fair bit to answer for, and so I try and remind it, which of course just leads me into a vicious cycle of recrimination.  Thanks brain!

Then there are my legs which since pregnancy have become like two, flesh-coloured plastic inflatables, and my arms are lumpy, and my whole body feels like a great big damp loaf of bread. 

My heart struggles.  My heart is regrettably under the cruel and unsympathetic rule of my big brain:  it makes my blood boil, which is probably no good for my poor heart. 

I’ve also developed a stitch in my tummy, and my tummy cries ‘feed me’ at regular intervals while my big brain shouts ‘FEED YOUR TUMMY!’  My husband tells me he likes me soft and round, and not to worry, and for a fleeting moment I am contented, content until my weak bladder makes me visit the bathroom, and in the bathroom my big brain forces me to look in the mirror.  A large marine animal stares sorrowfully back, or so my big brain tells me. 

My appetite these days is for chocolate, and more chocolate.  My big brain craves endorphins like a drug addict craves morphine.  My big brain is goddamn greedy! And since it lives inside me, so I am compelled to be greedy!  But I hate myself for being greedy, and often hate my big brain, especially when, as happens about once a week, a leaflet drops through the letterbox with pictures of starving children in Africa – at which my big brain takes the opportunity to remind me how fat I am and how fortunate I have been.

The only thing that can have any control over my big brain, and make it shut up for a bit, is our television.  I can sit in front of our television for at least a couple of hours every night after the children have gone to bed, perfectly satisfied in the company of both my husband and my big brain.  I am told exercise is a good way to silence my big brain too, but my big brain complains at the very thought. 

Still, thank God for television!

Indeed, my big brain and I enjoy all manner of television shows, from Saturday Night Take Out to Coronation Street, Casualty to Poirot, and we both will watch anything with Nicky Campbell in, because my big brain, and my even bigger body are attracted to him.

Ask me about the next stage in evolution and I’ll say I look forward to the day child-bearing/rearing mothers have smaller, less harmful brains, regulated by anodes and cathodes. 

Thursday 24 April 2014

a one hundred and tenth poem...'fall heads roll'

The Theatre of Dreams became
The Theatre of New Regimes became
The Theatre of Hopeless Teams became
The Theatre of Mutinous Schemes became
The Theatre of Screams became
The Theatre of Blood - 
Fall heads, rolling in mud.

a one hundredth story...'ackerman'

Ackerman blinked.  He had not seen, or even considered God before.  Nor had he conceived that God was merely a pseudonym - God’s real name being Denis. 

‘I am Denis’, said God. 

Ackerman shielded his eyes from the radium light, ‘hello’, he replied rather sheepishly. 

‘I am Denis, creator of all things’, God continued, as Ackerman shifted from one foot to another, cleared his throat.  ‘Ahem’, he replied … ‘I see’. 

‘You see, do you?’ said God, furrowing his brow, ‘you see, but you must also listen.  Let’s begin again.’

And with this God flung his arms wide, ‘I am Denis creator of the universe, the sky, the heaven, the earth, the oceans, the mountains, the rivers, the riverlets, the streams, the brooks, the … and I made you!’.  God ended with a flourish. 

Ackerman tugged at his beard: had he spent more time gazing into the bathroom mirror, he might have noticed that he shared more than a passing resemblance to Moses, or John the Baptist, pre-wilderness years. 

‘What else did you create?’, Ackerman asked a little peevishly.

And God began again, naming one related ‘thing’ after another, while Ackerman stood and stared. 

Half an hour passed, an hour, and finally God concluded with, ‘and dear boy, I invented time!’ 

‘Time?’, said Ackerman.

‘Time!’ replied God, ‘Clocks, hickory-docks, stopwatches, wristwatches, Time Magazine, The Times of L-’.  And then God paused all of a sudden.

‘What about the Guardian?’, asked Ackerman in the interim, adjusting his spectacles to sit better on the bridge of his nose.

‘The Guardian’, God tutted, ‘yes, The Guardian’.  It was God’s turn to play with his facial hair (all 4.54 billion years of it).

‘The Observer?’, Ackerman prompted.

‘The Observer …’, repeated God, ‘that’s one and the same, isn’t it?’

‘It is, and its Gospel’, Ackerman asserted.

God had started to look at his feet, naturally he was wearing winged sandals.

A jumbo jet passed underneath Cloud Nine.

‘Do I feature?’, God asked presently.

‘Not much’, replied Ackerman, smiling thinly.

‘Not even as Denis?’, said God.

‘No one knows who you really are’, said Ackerman.

And God sighed at the realisation he was irrelevant to at least 200,000 people on a daily basis. 

Wednesday 23 April 2014

a ninety-ninth story...'po-tweet'

Five times a week I take the monorail into the city: the monorail train rises from its concrete lair and crawls like a rattling corrugated iron centipede above the uniform rooftops of the suburban tenement blocks, mostly inhabited by manual labourers who make this city run.  I am a writer, as poor as dirt, and I live among them, commute with them.

The advertising agency I work for is in the heart of the city.  And gradually the landscape changes from drab, brutalist concrete to steel and glass – crystal spires, skyscrapers of all shapes that pierce and/or prop up the horizon; beacons to wealth based on incorporeal systems that largely reside inside the heads and hearts of the rich, a system that has become impenetrable to everyone else.

As we near the celestial metropolis, the wide-shouldered money men in their pin sharp suits embark, and we are obliged to relinquish our seats.  There was a story in the prole-art newspaper last year about a money man bludgeoning a pregnant lady from the tenements to death with his umbrella when she refused to give up her seat: it didn’t make the national news of course, because its par – rather, this sort of behaviour on the part of money men is considered natural: Darwin’s computer generated visage you can see super-imposed onto the facade of many a city institution.

The authorities, what you might once have called the ‘government’, have become dominated by money men, their wealth made variously in nuclear energy, arms manufacture, space travel and private security.  They have all made a lasting metal-fisted impression on what you might once have called ‘society’.  After all persistent interpersonal relationships have been replaced by apersonal antipathy among the various peoples of the city, forcibly imposed from the top down with the rigour of an industrial steel pounder.

My boss is Franklin.  He has the imagination of a gnat and the interpersonal skills of a wasp - not that it matters: as long as Franklin is able to micro-manage, which Franklin does to the nth degree, as well as run copy deadlines to the minute.  If I am so much as 1 min 02 sec late submitting a piece, say, on the company’s latest hypodermic truth serum (the company I work for is in the aforementioned business of private security), he’ll give me a penalty point, which can result in more work, or docked wages.  I have to pop caffeine tablets on far too regular a basis to keep up with my present workload.  And I can barely afford to resole my shoes.

Every quarter we’ll be visited by the Big Boss.  His name is Joel T. Stronginthearm; I am not sure if Stronginthearm is his real surname, or simply an invented tough-guy moniker.  Joel T. Stronginthearm stands on a podium at the far end of our half acre office and speaks to us via a microphone.  It is supposed to be inspirational, it is supposed to show that the mighty rich Joel T. Stronginthearm is taking an interest in poor little copy writers like me, it is, in fact, depressing.  Effective anti-depressants, however, have long been annexed under an authoritarian initiative to ensure the latest and best innovations in medicine are issued (almost) exclusively, at least preferentially, to those over a particular (and near unobtainable) income/productivity threshold.

The canteen where we take our allotted fifteen minute break for lunch – just enough time to stuff a decomposing sandwich made from reconstituted cardboard, or close to it, down your gullet; just enough time to escape the scrutiny of Franklin, but not the perennial feeling of worthlessness – remains, like the monorail trains, unsegregated: the money men, law men, politicals (call them what you will), are not stupid.  These people realise they have to be seen by the proletariat as a part of the wider community even if they are apart in their heads and hearts, which is where reality for so many these days is constructed and compelled.  Moreover, these people find the whole idea of a big society, originally fostered by David Camereton (who for us proles is a latter-day Chaplin-cum-Hitler), positively risible.

And yet, yesterday afternoon, as my day continued inexorably, I at least found a little head space to day-dream.  I met a girl, a woman, the other day in a down at heel café, surprisingly well-dressed, and she smiled at me.  Acknowledgement: it is all I require – I am not special, but in a sense, I am unique – and hope, for whatever it is worth these days (I haven’t checked the share price, for people like me cannot afford shares in Hope Incorporated), hope fluttered for a moment; the bird of hope, an undernourished, coal-blackened canary that cries ‘Po-tweet!’ 

Tuesday 22 April 2014

a one hundred and ninth poem...'morning plunge'

My head is swimming with
Last night’s red wine, but
I get up before time, wearing
Old cast-offs, stumble
Down the footpath that tumbles
Through the almond groves to
The mist dragging the lake
Fresh kissed from its
Watery slumber, ice-cold
When I dip my toe in, I
Bunch my fists, and take the
Morning plunge.

a one hundred and eighth poem...'brains'

It was a bizarre
Choice by the new
Prime-minister to
Name Mark Edward
Smith as Secretary
For Education, since
Smith was known as
Chairman of the
Awkward Squad, an
Unrepentant Speed
Addict, potty-mouthed white
Rapper, and general
Shit-stirrer. Still, Smith
Advocated: ‘Repetition,
Repetition, Repetition’,
In learning, and
Miraculously children began
To make the best of
Their one and a half kilogram
Brains.  

a one hundred and seventh poem...'bricks'

There is still
A little left
Of the old house:
The foundations we
Laid; most of the ground
Floor; a flight of
Stairs leading
Nowhere; an upturned
Paint trolley in
The living room,
Now with a carpet of
Tangled weeds, and the
Residue of fallen
Autumn leaves.
The house that
Hope built, and then
Nature destroyed
Bit by bit, and
Left us carrying the
Consequences like a
Rucksack of bricks.

Friday 18 April 2014

a one hundred and sixth poem...'superman'

It must be
Difficult being
Superman, when
Everyone is
Less able, or
More dishonest
Than you.

Thursday 17 April 2014

a ninety eighth story...'love letter to fate'

There are moments in life, wrote Gerald sorely at first, when the universe appears to be taking the piss. Then Gerald paused, chewed the end of his biro some, before deciding on mercilessly taking the piss, and continuing. 

Last night, wrote Gerald, even as I thought I was as far away from you as possible.  ‘You’ referred to his ex-partner. Among friends that hardly knew you.  Gerald had many friends that hardly knew him. There you were

One of Gerald’s friends had unknowingly shown him a short film featuring a woman that almost in every way resembled his ex-partner. 

My insides.  Gerald paused again, he was searching for dramatic effect.  Resumed, My insides entirely rearranged themselves.

Then recalling the punch line to the short film, Gerald gulped.  And my heart nearly beat its last.  But this, even to Gerald sounded a little exaggerated, and so he scribbled out nearly beat its last and simply put contracted.

For, Gerald began his next line, for I am bonded to you, bonded is a good word, thought Gerald, with a Shakespearean ring, for I am bonded to you in love … star-crossed? Star-crossed, Gerald concluded.  Though he was no Romeo.

Some things in life are meant to be, Gerald now exclaimed, recognising the need to build to a romantic crescendo, and our going together through life, a Dylan reference, Gerald smiled to himself, is surely intended for us.

I love you, he added. I love you like

And here reached a dilemma: Gerald needed to find the right words at this point in his love letter that would on paper have the same impact on his ex-partner as Lord Byron ripping off his chemise and bearing his breast to his lover; words that would summon visions of vermillion skies, and a better future.

It was a tough one, and after a few minutes Gerald moseyed off to make a cup of Earl Grey.  Perhaps, he wondered, he would see destiny in the tea leaves; or look out the kitchen window and spy his ex-partner, an intergalactic Siamese dream, waiting for him under a street light below, to whisk him away to another planet, or indeed, the next world.

Wednesday 16 April 2014

a one hundred and fifth poem...'footsie'

He wanted to
Cry, but could not.
There was
Lingering pain,
Pain he could 
Sense that never
Quite came.
So he kicked his
Dog to death
Instead.
Wrote her a postcard,
Sweet as
Banana bread,
Said: ‘please, Lily,
Take me back’;
Invited her to
Play footsie,
Like they had once
Upon a time -
Their first date.

a ninety seventh story...'blindness'

The Doc shuffled into the room.  His blind eyes, white pebbles.  He carried a walking stick in his right hand.  ‘There’s a coffee table in front of you,’ I said.  ‘I know’, he said.  ‘And here’s where I can sit down?’, he said, tapping the settee with his stick, his blind eyes, white pebbles, same as the white-washed walls.  ‘You’ve a large living room’, he continued.  It was true. ‘Well’, I began, ‘It will do’. The Doc’s ears, from which sprouted tufts of silver hair, twitched when I spoke.

‘You have a television?’, Doc asked.  ‘Yes’, I said, ‘about six paces in front of you’.  The Doc had seated himself now, sat forward on the edge of his seat, both hands resting on his stick, head cocked in my direction, blind eyes, white pebbles, like two hard boiled eggs in the middle of his face.  ‘I sure do like television’, the Doc said.  Somehow this didn’t seem absurd.  ‘Would you like me to put it on?’, I said.  The Doc turned his head to look straight at me, blind eyes, white pebbles, hard boiled eggs, looking straight through me.  ‘No’, he said, ‘it would be good to get to know you first’. ‘Sure’, I said, ‘what would like to know?’.

The Doc’s tufty ears twitched again.  I could hear my wife clattering about in the kitchen presumably fixing us a drink.  It was a hot spring day, we had the bay windows open, the sun was warm on my back, splashing into the living room.  ‘I have a request, if I may’, the Doc said presently, his hands kneading the top of his stick, blind white eyes, white flints still looking at me, through me.  ‘Sure’, I said, ‘what can I do?’.  The Doc shifted his feet, thrust his jaw out: he had a neatly kept beard for a blind man.  ‘Can I touch your face?’, he asked.

‘I used to be a doctor’, The Doc said as I knelt before him so my face was on a level with his, sat there on the settee.  The Doc’s breath smelled of tobacco.  ‘I know’, I said, ‘my wife told me’.  The Doc grinned, showed his yellow-stained teeth.  ‘Your wife is a good lady’, he said, and his pink tongue momentarily shot out from between his lips, ‘she used to be patient of mine’.  And then he reached forward and with the backs of his hands gently stroked my cheeks, felt with the tips of his fingers around my cheekbones, under my eye sockets.  I winced.  I’ve always had this thing with eyes, I don’t like anything near them, why I don’t enjoy deer hunting, the cartridges shooting off right next to your line of vision. ‘Don’t worry’, said the Doc, sensing the tension in my facial muscles, ‘before I went blind I was a good doctor’.  ‘Sure’, I said, somewhat uncomfortable for the first time.  The Doc moved his fingers to my temples.  Again I winced, felt a little sweat break on my back.  It was a hot spring afternoon even with the bay windows open.  ‘You exercise much?’, the Doc asked, and he put his palms on my head.  ‘Not as much as I should, I guess’, I said.

The Doc stroked my bald pate for a while, and I looked up at his blind eyes, blind eyes that up close resembled oysters in their shells.  He was chewing on something invisible.  Maybe he was in need of some tobacco.  ‘Can I ask another pertinent question?’, the Doc said after a few seconds.  The living room had become very small.  ‘Yes, I suppose’, I said.  The Doc removed his hands from his head, and sat back, put his hands back on top of his stick.  ‘Do you’, and he hesitated, perhaps uncertain of himself, his pink tongue shooting out from between his lips once more. ‘Go on’, I said, intrigued at this strange man before me.  The Doc began kneading his hands again. ‘Can you still jerk off?’, he asked. 

And then my wife came in carrying a tray of gin and tonics.     

Tuesday 15 April 2014

a one hundred and fourth poem...'kiss me again'

Kiss me again
Flush on the lips
And I shall
Die happily,
My heart bursting
With smiles
And you will
Be free.

a thirteenth reflection... 'creative balance'

Being creative, or attempting to be, is a wonderful thing - for the most part.  It is a great way of finding out who you are, and for generating alternative perspectives on life; it can be very nourishing for the soul.  And yet, because of the introverted nature of aspects of the creative process one must exercise a little caution, and be prepared for one’s artistic vision not to become fully realised.

In 1980, Joy Division (gleefully named after German concentration camp prostitutes) recorded their second LP, Closer.  It is a brilliant record, but also a very macabre one.  And between recording and release, song-writer Ian Curtis took his own life.  Listening to Closer in the aftermath of Curtis’s death, it is hard not to see the collection of songs as a series of oblique, sometimes overt suicide notes.  Curtis perhaps took his art and the creative process that lead to the creation of his songs too seriously; he came to inhabit the space in which songs about loss, wretchedness and death came into being and seemed all too real, all too much.

While Curtis’s songs certainly had integrity, something which artists continually strive for, as well as, as far as is possible, originality and free expression, the price creatives like Curtis have paid for integrity in their art remains over the odds.  Art is a representation of a particular philosophy, or indeed emotion, and however integral said piece of art may seem, there are always other ways of representation, just as there are other ways of being.  The trick for a creative is not to confuse or conflate the two.

Being creative is a pro-active activity, it entails a search for meaning in physical and non-physical worlds, therefore it requires energy and application, it can be exhausting, even frustrating.  This is especially so when one doesn’t realise the particular philosophy or emotion one is trying to give form and expression to.  The superbly named Mairi Hedderwick, author of the Katie Morag adventures, has spoken before of how she finds the creative process frequently depressing for this reason.  It must be remembered that to understand something doesn’t necessarily i) require pro-activity, rather the Zen art of being still and knowing, ii) the creative process isn’t always the only solution to philosophical or emotional expression, it remains after all a version of the internal monologue, which in itself can be a limited discourse.

Indeed to become exclusively absorbed in creative exploration and expression, whether it be in writing, composing, painting etcetera is to perhaps climb too far inside oneself, and in doing so run the risk of a self-indulgent failure, or worse.  Film Director David Lynch suggests creatives always need to have their antenna skywards to tune into the frequency of ideas that flows in and from the world outside and around us, but also that his years of practising Transcendental Meditation (TM) has given him ‘effortless access to unlimited reserves of energy, creativity and happiness deep within’.  There is seemingly a balance here worth heeding when pursuing a creative existence. Or, as fictional science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout (Kurt Vonnegut) opined for artistic types life can seem ‘no way to treat an animal’.

Friday 11 April 2014

a ninety sixth story...'little england'

The trumpeter stood up, puckered his lips, and blew.  The assembled crowd rose to attention as a breathless rendition of The Last Post issued forth.  It was a sad day, it was a proud day, it was a warm Sunday in November.  There were lots of medals winking in the early winter sunshine, top brass, manicured moustaches, little old ladies wearing big necklaces standing next to their red-faced husbands, silver whiskers twitching with emotion, bushy eyebrows bristling. And when the trumpeter finished, there was silence and rememberence: for the dead who gave their lives bravely, foolishly, or otherwise; for the ones that got away with it, and among the young, idle thoughts of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. 

And then the plane flew into the church steeple.

Lady Jane Fry and Admiral Horace Barnstable were the first to die.  Lady Jane’s carotid artery was pierced by the falling weather vane, Admiral Horace Barnstable suffered massive and fatal head injuries when hit by a falling gargoyle.  The trumpeter survived by virtue of the enormous and cumbersome bear-skin he had been stewing under during the entirety of the morning’s proceedings (the bear-skin was from an Alaskan brown bear who, thank heavens, did not die for nothing).

Flaming bits of wreckage were soon strewn all over the church yard, and war veterans ran amok: one old boy searched his suit jacket for his standard issue pistol that had long since been relieved of him forty years previous, another waved his parade sword in the direction of the steeple in case little, green aliens should appear and descend.  The women hid behind their husbands, their husbands – at least the sensible ones – behind whatever cover they could find, headstones mainly, which was somehow fitting and somewhat ironic.  Meanwhile, a reporter from the Wurlingham Gazette took photos of the chaos from behind a particularly large piece of graveyard architecture (the photos would end up being published on the same spread as Caroline from Chesham, Double-D cup).

All of this time, the church bells had been ringing of their own accord in spastic unison, signalling invasion, and yet the belfry was swiftly becoming an inferno as part of the plane’s fuselage had become lodged there.  ‘Call the fire-brigade!’, shouted Brigadier Swain to his wife, who was shuddering like a bloated bird of paradise beside him.  ‘What’s the number?’, she shrieked in reply as the church warden rode shakily away on his bicycle to fetch the rector.

In the aftermath the body count was seven: Lady Jane Fry (severed carotid artery), Admiral Horace Barnstable (blunt trauma), Lt. Colonel Philip Sanders-Powell (heart-attack), Viscount Alexander Wilson-Higgins (brain aneurism), Vicar Stevens (Act of God), a page boy, and perhaps mercifully, the errant pilot.

The post-mortem on the pilot was carried out some weeks later, and it was revealed from DNA samples taken from the teeth of the deceased that the pilot was a black man, christened Duane.  Duane had been drunk on rum at the controls of a stolen light-aircraft, or so the story went around, and the stolen light-aircraft belonged to Lord SuchandSuch, and it was treason etcetera; all of this when the truth of matter was Duane was just a bloody awful pilot – the plane was his, purchased with his life-time savings and money from an out of court settlement with his ex-employer, the largely Caucasian Metropolitan Police.

Nevertheless, the Wurlingham Gazette still went with the headline: ‘A black day for civil whites’.

... Such is life in Little England.

Thursday 10 April 2014

a ninety fifth story...'franzen'

Franzen thought himself above most things.  He would not even so much as leaf through The Metro on his daily commute in, out of the city - it was an insult to his intelligence, a gossip rag. Neither would he spend the time in transit opening and closing the email program on his smart phone in vain hope of a message, nor had he ever played a game of Snake in his life - he didn't need to. And he didn't feel the need to carry a branded bottle of water with him wherever he went because he knew his body was made up of 90% liquids, and that advertising was 99% guff.

Meanwhile, Franzen was 100% convinced there had to be a better way of living, at the end of the yellow brick road, somewhere over the rainbow, etcetera.  In his three and a half decades living among the human race he had succumbed to something of a philosophical and spiritual malaise, and conveniently he blamed it on everyone else who did not share his appreciation of renaissance painting: bankers, politicians (of any persuasion), law-makers, the potty monarchy, his parents, even his dog whom he addressed in a frightfully condescending manner. His dog, incidentally, was a poodle named Curly.  Curly had an IQ equivalent to that of a five year old child.

Other than Curly there were no significant others in  Franzen's life.  He lived as he would undoubtably die - oh so alone.  But, as he was frequently at pains to point, it was his choice to be alone; he had never gotten over the fact that the only woman he had ever loved, turned out, in fact, to be a man.  The man's name was Michael, he was an executive transvestite.

Franzen had myopia, still he refused to wear glasses in case someone were to misconstrue his ocular apparatus as a fashion statement.  Moreover, he was fond of relating how he was not a victim of fashion, rather that fashion was a victim of him; conversely he was also a self-styled (and self-anointed) legislator in taste.  He would walk into a bar and order two light ales, dressed head to toe in ideal summer wear; he wore a scarf, and spent a lot of money on socks.  And, naturally, he professed to like jazz - evenings, where possible, he passed in the jazz cafe, mornings at leisure in the Patisserie: he liked coffee, but only good coffee.

The friends that Franzen had somewhat miraculously acquired were mostly from far flung parts of the world, Korea, Brazil, and so on.  They were all of them just passing through; they were all intellectuals with expensive tastes, elaborate cares and not enough money to satisfy either; they were all inclined to say how much they hated the city, how they longed for clean air - yet they all remained, a part and yet apart, or in the icy solitude of Descartes.  They were quintessentially defined by what they didn't like, what they thank-God-were-not.  Definitions, divisions, black and white lines, codes, modes, phobias and phobes were everything.  And yet they knew nothing, and Franzen as much as Curly, who, after all, spent half his life barking up the wrong tree, and half his life pissing against parking meters, lamp posts and Franzen's very own trouser leg.

Thursday 3 April 2014

a one hundred and third poem...'good dog'

Julian turned up for work an hour late. 
‘Why are you late?’, asked his boss. 
‘I hate my job’, replied Julian, all sincerity. 
‘Fair enough’, said his boss,
‘Now get on with your work’. 
‘Righto’, said Julian,
And went to his desk,
Like a good dog.

Wednesday 2 April 2014

a ninety fourth story...'nose'

‘There’s something growing out of your face’, said Shirley.  ‘It’s my nose’, said Brian.  ‘I know’, said Shirley.  ‘Then why point it out?’, said Brian, ‘you know I have issues about my nose’.  ‘It isn't whether you have issues about your nose or not’, said Shirley, ‘it’s because I think you’re lying’.  ‘Lying about what?’, asked Brian.  ‘Lying about you know what!’, Shirley.  Brian touched his nose.  And then rubbed under his eye.  ‘What do you mean by you know what?’ Shirley was scowling at him from under her new fringe. She was trying not to blink.  Brian sighed, ‘you’re being daft’, he said. Shirley’s nose was twitching, as it always did when she was drunk, angry, excited.  She raised her chin.  ‘Your nose is so long and wonky just now!’, Shirley exclaimed.  Brian sat down on the stair, took out his cigarette papers.  His beard was unkempt.  And his hair was lank, unwashed.  He had dry, red skin under his eyes, a wonky nose, big mother-me eyes.  Shirley liked these.  Swimming pool eyes she called them when Brian gazed at her with love.  Shirley took a wobbly step backwards, bit her top lip and pouted.  ‘Can I have a cigarette?’, she asked after a moment’s silence.  Brian licked the end of his rollie, tapped it on his knee.  ‘You don’t smoke’, he said.  ‘I know’, said Shirley.  ‘Then why ask for a cigarette?’, Brian.  ‘I want some fresh air’, Shirley.  Brian laughed, ‘Where’s your coat?’ he said.  ‘Where did you get that tobacco?’, Shirley said.  Brian stood up and took Shirley in his arms, Shirley melted into his embrace, Brian kissed her on the forehead, then on the lips. ‘No more mention of my nose’, he said.  Shirley sniffled.  ‘Let’s go home’, she said.

a ninety third story...'the city'

I wake up.  It’s grey, early.  A dim light is coming through the curtains, around the sides.  My eyes are heavy and I close them.  Listen to the sound of traffic.  The distant hiss and roar of a jet plane passing overhead.  The white noise of the city.  There are no birds.

When I open my eyes again, it must be half an hour later.  The bedroom is lighter than before, and I can hear the children in the flat next door preparing for school.  I am glad I no longer have to go to school.  I hear a motorbike starting up.  The water pipes in the ceiling. 

The floor is cold when I finally swing my legs out of bed and plant my feet.  The bruise on my big toe still hurts when I flex it.   And the floor needs sweeping.  The city where I live is full of dirt, full of noise – full of people.  But I like it.

The city has colour, thrills, money, buildings, and roads leading everywhere.