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.