Thus, in a world where everything is detestable, hatred becomes huger than the world and, having transcended its object, cancels itself out.

-E.M Cioran, A Short History of Decay, p.78

Creative boredom. God’s deflecting arm. The delusion of freedom and the need to justify desire. Music playing in every room the situation now defunct. It grew claws green like canker. You can be a magician too in time distortion as artless as caged tigers’ plumes of crescent moons furled unfurled whimsy broken bottle top grin mouth wide stare stop starter motor grease flames pop cans naked greed swallows crackle on the wing stopping and staring is the new going out; why not say “living your best life” while I puke in a bucket; narcissists smothering each other. 

Breeze through racket disturbed non-human’s maybe mammals perhaps canine think it’s easy do yuh? You could smack a bat back with that if you like or jump in a lake. What’s it about I don’t think you really care; well since we’re on the subject.

Threaded eyes describe vulnerability in a terse discourse mounting the plains of Hampstead. Get a hot tub and make the most of it. Vomit cocktail.  Couldn’t even get a job in a book store and I tried. Hung out to dry fuelled by paranoia so bad it literally takes my breath away; a force that sweeps in embalming me in misstep looking out on the same familiar surroundings with frozen staring eyes the pointless actions of a thousand idle days played out in unison: ghost like all around at once.  The summer heat has arrived early on the coat tails of the pandemic. Open windows expose us to the unending noise from the street; a steady contortion of voices, machines and motors. It is a season of dread made more so with the hovering uncertainty surrounding recent events. The euphoria of new literary discoveries or even a small task well done can quickly dissipate into full blown terror in the space of a few minutes. Most days despite the exercise I feel like I lost my brain somewhere at the turn of the century; that it may turn up again eventually, sticky with matted fluff under the back of the sofa.  The stoicism of winter was kept alive by the chill and those glorious early darks; now exposed to the glare of the sun until far into the evening there is nowhere to hide; by the time darkness falls there is nowhere to go, even if I had the energy to go there.  My anguish returns in increments coeval with the easing for the so called ‘lockdown’; at its height I was a free man, lighter than air; enjoying finally some form of equilibrium with my fellows: maybe at times I even felt I had the ‘edge’. In any case there were possibilities; now as each day passes these get cancelled one by one as I return back down to my rightful place. Lighter than air impossible. Heavier than lead. Potentials squandered destiny strangled to death and left on a park bench surrounded by empty cans, crap, waste and such. Now is the time to luxuriate in ennui; perhaps this self-regarding muck will find a wall to stick to one of these days. At least the act of writing it feels like ‘doing’ something. There, I feel better already. That lecturer really confused the shit out of me with his critique of my use of commas.  Between 5 and 8 is the only time you get any peace around here old bones jolted awake in night terror snoring fits calling out names from the past sleep talking exposing broken nerve endings to foetid twilight. Gross enthusiasm is what is required to get through ‘hump-day’. At least the medication helps. 

Take a look under the sofa, a child’s plastic cutlass that lights up and a plastic ball that folds flat.

Lying horizontal looking forwards at objects that make up a life sitting waiting for the next movement; gathering dust in middle age thinking about the dead and when it will be our turn.

It pains me every day that we couldn’t get along. Your tyre tracks worn out in the mud mine skidded off somewhere else; I wonder when was the exact point they diverged and god when will my boy’s go this: I hope they never do.  Loafing in a universe of dread and joy; the deeper the joy the deeper the dread. Like Machen says:

There was thick fog, acrid and abominable, all over London when I set out for the West. And at the heart of the fog, as it were, was the shudder of the hard frost that made one think of those winters in Dickens that had seemed to have become fabulous. 

(Arthur Machen, ‘Munitions of War’ in Holy Terrors)

In jellyfish nights the knife throwers are luxuriating waste deep over forced sticky hands.  Feverish brows knitted with pollen and pine; a turtle the size of a dinner plate chews the depth midstream River Lea. Everything is wanting against the fallen fluff carpet; those frilly fronded rhizomes beckon a poison wind: much deeper than the biologic self allows today.

         The Lush-Life of Dr Strange

A critique a fling a fandango 

It’s your birthday boys

A black broken nail of a day

A bright fulsome gratitude of light like falling petals turned to woolly fluff day

A never end 

Some time ago now we wrote about all things beginning with self; this was weeks before what has happened. So, it was a prophecy see. The notes from 22.03.20 just after these observations run thus:

                        Spring in full effect. Viral pandemic (people were still sceptical at this point)

                        Completely unprecedented situation       on edge / freaked out / restless.

 Gross satisfaction self love self service know yourself self belief home self work self social self sense of self love self loathing self sacrifice the death of self the divided self self ish self harm 

Self isolation

 Dr Strange trip sequence late capitalism collapses in on itself in a DMT vision of a flatlined reality where fingers sprout hands that sprout fingers

In the centre of this there is a well drop a stone into it 

Never-ending

Than the stone plops out of the sky abrasion sleepwalks towards empty fridge spilt out

Pools of blue and red bubbling lights touching from inside the outside distanced from the flow

Goad a lowball lollop deflated boobs over the fence

Singing rebel songs with corn beef hash

Close the door on your way out

Sing a son line to a broken finger

Decide to ride the cheer of the cat

Throw your arms into unfamiliar rooms

Clap the super-sonic honk

Pressure the blue hazed high way

Separate prism from pattern

This is an instructive poem

Skid to a halt

Wipe jet wounds

A photographic book had been torn up and strewn along the hedgerow. What hard harmonics shore up here against the back of the wind. Clouds of midges like blankets of airborne moss stalking the rim of the reservoir. 

In moments like this all is so much air pushed around so much skimming; colliding with the ear drums crushing the air in the chest smothering the heart. The days roll by like abstract oddities; we flit from book to book from poetry to prose and look for the glimmer or crack of light from which to prise open something new.  Lotus position lothario in tie-dye stand up against backwash of Orthodox loud hailers assault this cage is a madness brother. Like Pound in Pisa writhing in his cage. We hang on hyperborean to our witness to the witness of pot noodles and fag ash smells of brains stunned into silence from years picking through the trash mounds. Of big greasy slaps of peanut butter of rained out bus shelters; that warm lovely smell of stale piss in a corners. Aghast against so much of it; the shittiness of it all backs up against the headphone beast who stops mid-lane and will not move. 

Just a bit of help sometimes is all it takes; as real as lightning and bastard fractals on a trip a dozen heroic platitudes against the sky staring straight up a tree trunk until the upper fronds reach out granulated into the ether then trip and spray into tendrils melting, fatty folds oozing into every orifice.

Heavy With Proteins

Encrust, Time of ‘lockdown’. Where to begin? Who is this for?

Cuneiform rising animal fast results attack and if not better why and if not buying shall we?

Enough leisure defined by place in market stop your tattoos are almost obsolete now particularly the child like ones the doodles. 

Unresponsive plateaux of mud bound casements moulding extra-terrestrial limed grease octenal repose blessed are we Amazon delivery rift valley opens up a swathe Laputa crashes down I hear this delivery rush. Muscles clenched to whiplash smart soiled destroyer of the DLR sequestered shocked out of silence whatever floats your boat glommed in gut busted plumbing company the Rolls Royce of cunts with flags unfurled best years dead and gone the women look like men and the men……

Contralateral to ‘The Model Traitor’ life swung on non-static excursive pogrom follow directions for decomposition to logical end. Freshwater jellyfish lope sideways through the reeds; fronds mingle with electric stings giant hornets hang in the air. Muscles clench to lust core belted voices shore up harder across saturates stapled blister camps. Hot rush of better dust eclipse scandal re-wound at best a truce. Personal pivot indifference leading towards incline. The waste of shiny pants soft locking anthropomorphic resonance fucks the debt dollop crippled deviant compliance. Homeworkers union prise up lawn “fuck society” and now “fuck Boris” on the side of half submerged floating shithouse River Lea. Empty tattered membranes into recycle bin gloat downriver divide crushed mandibles over sleepless super highway grace the echo step of kid’s nightmare repeat. 

Exoskeleton of endangered metals forms coral reef Channel sea shit nets Benzoylacetate sewage networks midnight grove job hustle; feral under A12 now come.

Battered hornets surprise attack bee hive rapid kill plaintive hermetic anger loud male ironist in park; flatlined reality of what it is today the hunger scent of a certain sect. Closed curtain job; jolted by hot spooks tongues hammering out the chorus line something about mosquitoes, lost love, cheese and onion. Heavy with proteins lets shake on it.  

                                                                    20

Harmonic savagery reverberate shadow play unsuspecting link to line repose against silk weekend.

Inner Londis spree screening piecemeal extended to hope winding patterned blown through sticks.

Great swill to charm prophet’s owner occupier market chasm centre too frigid to hold memory discount.

Done now, dormant don’t think of reformatted daylight spent turning over plans credit score nil new arrival of data swallows appears enchantment endemic galvanized plunges.

Beer away bubbles drip scam dumps no sitting or staring or starting. Hero’s all inside whatever remit to accommodate force of public relations wound. How the game was lost. Sit on the edge of fakery plus two minus the dog. The new normal like Tiresias in a shopping arcade; plump well fed unattached looking for love; 6000 years until the end of the world.

Bare rock blast furnace chunky over knit horizontal chiller unit ceremony alone big buzzers inward stamen stab upwards in supple pliant verges. 

Turn in air with sacks against plague yard under the water line out of line, too late to catch up. Sitting here now it’s all pressure fast rising.

                                                                    18

Speech crawls a slow corona; cobbles tense in bubbled corrosion. Sensing slippage seeping collides without, swung up or overloaded full to the brim. Tea drips over walrus avatar lost friendships fog the Thames stream currents makes faces of lonely ghosts; most wash up near Tilbury or further or never. Bruised fingers snap a sharp reality clicked into place; mid-stream mystic smokes over Albion river rain is here but not here; empty trains shuttle back and forth to Liverpool St. These empty places exact their revenge eventually. Hoover it up the blood says. 

                                                                         19 

Collectively, rashly, the swains boat follows the river swell east towards the mouth of the estuary. Stranded mid-stream dirge of coelacanth’s brown black mud stinging the eyes face and hearts heavy with leaded glances. Oars lifted now wading forwards pulling the bell’s fire gouging in its wake a mud bound scrying trail. An ironed out flat sky; “You’ll never get there’” they cry, “turn back it’s fruitless.” Pointlessly with purpose we slough on over drift strata of rusted carts and failed millennial outposts; memories of Thameside alpine excursions faces towards the blizzard.