19\10

The grey movements bare claw branches
Dazzling light over Lion & Unicorn
Radiates power thru window
Globes of light – orbed like eye-lens –
An Earth explosion howls and speaks to me

The world flashes
Swells and bursts and reveals
Wet footprints bulge in “O” shapes
Thick shadows like sharp black tongues
Fish-hooked barbed wire
Anti-clockwise snail greasy tracks
Trodden one foot on life,

Ave Maria frozen in the gutter
The window steams
And outside one man almost falls to his death,
Dead and bright garden tarpaulin pulled over – held down
By plank of wood, heavy wooden bush, the wooden garden and

Clean clean invisible air freezing cold.
The glowing hysterical road – Dies irae –
Is screaming as two people melt into the ground
Dancing the sky reddens softly
And awful lights of yellow and blue

Dean Street explodes in cataclysmic white,
Lion & Unicorn fight in the street –
Everything set low, the world turns dark.

Broken the full moon drools sit and smile on night
And morning the church is boarded up –
Spires shooting up like vines or weeds
Graffiti plastic bags and empty empty flat

Chimneys on flat hills with the fullest of blue sky
And dead pastel green soil and sick icy road.

Standing around and trainspotting
Then vanished from the air;
Marked wastes cold dark the damp smell:
The ruined
Blackberry

Living thru the eyes of others
Angel eyes I’ll refuse to pray
So you cannot damn me anymore,

Guns sharp swords in the hands of young children,
The air is whispering but the clock is talking,
Heartbreak I can’t change my violence,
Playing with the machine of creation:

See this bottle?
It’s not a bottle,
It’s a machine.

Will you marry it?
One of chief princes settles his violence
Red sky softens and rule of war begins.

My Methods for Writing

What I do is (when I'm in the mood or if I can put myself in the mood to write) drink very sweet coffee. (I drink tea most of the time, but that relaxes me, and I don't need to relax). I put music on loud, which can b something heavy to help me think, but I can also go for lyrical songs form Bob Dylan, The Doors, etc. Then I need to have some books out in fron of me; inc. what I'm reading at the moment (Dharma Bums), some random novels, books of poetry (all I have is Philip Larkin and William Blake and some anthologies, one of which has my own poem in).

With my glasses on and cross my legs sitting on my bed, make sure no one can come in, I get writing what falls into (or out of) my head. Write in notes and fit the pieces together, at the same time looking at lines of poems (not the full poem) from books and websites.

Poets that I'll definately be reading: Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan, Charles Bukowski..

I think it's safe to say that I hate writing. But it's the only thing that keeps me sane. I remember sitting in a pub in Lancashire, talking with one of my creative writing tutors, and she asked me why I like to write, and I remember I said to her that I don't, but I feel lke I have to.

Who was it that said never create anything?? I'll look that up.. But I only half agree with that. It's one thing artists, mothers, and gods can do. "Playing with the machine of creation."

... Picked up guitar again. Bought some plecks (or picks). Missing high e string, so switched some round and have a lower sounding out-of-tune guitar.

Hate Writing - Citizen Kane - Bed Bus

I just don't feel like writing anymore - written like one line all week. If writing is my enemy then I feel better away from it. I seem to be writing in small bursts, I can't do it normally, if I write it has to be a proper piece. A great poem or story. Otherwise I hate it. I'm such a lazy writer, don't even know if I'm improving anymore. I should just keep what I've got, I mean Rimbaud gave up at around age 19. I'm just sayin'.

All I've been doing is watching films. Citizen Kane and Donnie Brasco recently. My music has gone towards The Velvet Underground.

Going to quit my job if I get this new job. It's hard to quit in a recession (some smart arse on tv says its now officially a recession), but a few of us got formal warnings for a number of things we've done and not done - being late, shirt untucked, name badge missing, talking and messing about. Don't get paid enough to be spoken to like a child.

Going to get writing over the weekend - even if it does seem pointless where I am right now. Here the note I wrote down yesterday I think it was: "Angel eyes I'll refuse to pray, so you cannot damn me anymore."

Had a dream last night that my bed was a bus. I was getting driven around Preston and I was avoiding the people I knew in uni. Then I was being driven around the streets at home, and I jumped off near my street. I think it cost me £1, which is cheaper than the normal bus.

A Fever - And Frank Turner Gig

My temperature is burning the paint off the walls. I'm not too well and this fever is making my heart go fast. Funny that I went into work this morning, felt myself getting dizzy as I walked around, but I laughed it off. Drinking Lemsip or Beechams and it stings my lips, and there's something on the inside of the cup.

Saw Frank Turner on saturday, and it was probably the best gig I've been to (maybe after the Dylan gig back in 2007). Me and my friend got really drunk. We shouted our heads off (which ruined my voice the next day). Frank was talking with the audience and starts talking about a bar he played in in Liverpool, and my friend shouts "Slaters!" (Meaning Slaters' bar) And that was funny. But then my friend looks at me and goes, "No I think he meant Hannah's bar." So it finished and we had some more drinks, and I wanted my coat back because it cost £50 and it was in the cloakroom for £1. We left and went to Korova, which was shit on Saturday and ended up back were we started. It was just about having a laugh with funny conversations with him and when we decided to leave, walking down the road, some racist starts talking to us. We're just going "yeah, is that so, mate?" until he leaves us alone.

We got the bus home. We had this conversation about music and musicians, and the music of 'now.' I mean everyone knows the great musicans and bands of the past, like The Beatles and Bob Dylan, but people now, like Frank Turner, are the musicans we're experiencing now. And when it gets to 30 40 years in the future, we'll look back and say were a part of that.

So I've been hungover and sick since then, but it was worth it. Anyway, I've been worse than this at uni. I wrote this short story the other day, but it doesn't make sense, but I think for me it's just practising my style.

Excerpt from 'Dharma Bums' - On Poets

'They were all meeting in the bar and getting high. But as they stood and sat around I saw that he was the only one who didn't look like a poet, though poet he was indeed. The other poets were either hornrimmed intellectual hepcats with wild black hair like Alvah Goldbook, or delicate pale handsome poets like Ike O'Shay (in a suit), or out-of-this-world genteel-looking Renaissance Italians like Francis DaPavia (who looks like a young priest), or bow-tied wild-haired old anarchist fuds like Rheinhold Cacoethes, or big fat bespectacled quiet booboos like Warren Coughlin. And all the other hopeful poets were standing around, in various costumes, worn-at-the-sleeves corduroy jackets, scuffly shoes, books sticking out of their pockets. But Japhy was in rough workingman's clothes he'd bought secondhand in Goodwill stores to serve him on mountain climbs and hike and for sitting in the open at night, for campfires, for hitchhiking up and down the coast.'

(Kerouac, The Dharma Bums p.13)


I read this while sitting on the train going to work. I really like the different images of poets and the difference between the upper-class intellectual and the scruffy working class poet.

Tobacco Warehouse

It was cool because afterwards, when we headed home, the sun was going behind some clouds and we were swimming on our out-of-focus words. It was all unfocused by then, I mean it was always unfocused like the lens of a camera was distracted by something close-up or far-off.
We rode the train ten minutes before the sun showed itself again. When it did it shined delicately through the windows. I sat facing you. You said 'What stop we getting off at?'

'Waterloo,' I said.

'That's fine,' you said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I'll get there, my friend loneliness.'

'It's warm today.'

'Weather's fine. It's the people you gotta watch.'

'I'd rather not watch them,' you said. You folded your arms and stared out of the window, the light bristling off your face. The morning Summer light highlighted your facial features and you looked like someone else, like a child.

'I could do with a smoke,' I said.

'Didn't know you smoked,' you said.

'Yeah.'

'When we get back let's go the beach.'

'In the morning?'

'It'll be fun.'

'You're mad,' I said.

'Come on, it'll be empty round this time.'

'The beach is empty all the time,' I said. 'Anyway, I'm too tired with work.'

'Oh come on, what happened to wanting to be young again?'

'I grew up.'

'You only said that a couple of hours ago.'

'I grew up since then.'

'We're going the beach.'

'Peter Pan never went the beach.'

'Yes he did. He lived near the ocean.'

'Well this city is near the Irish sea, not the ocean. And fine, I'll go the beach. I'll like to smoke there, it'll be cool.'

I sweated underneath my workclothes. You looked at me and looked away and then I looked out the window, watching the world wipe past my eyes. An English boy like me doesn't see everything, only what I see, and even then I can't do anything with it but see it. Admire it and walk on. I saw a girl working in a cake shop today. I thought of her making cakes for a living. Eat your work, I'd say to her.

'Would you want to get off here?'

'Here? No. I don't live here.'

I'm sure you got younger on the train. I felt the distant change in people's bodies; all of a sudden bodies no longer seemed beautiful, they were just things. Like my toothbrush or socks. People own socks like they own their bodies, no one shares toothbrushes. I looked at you and liked you.

The sounds of the train were so clear, so loud and fast. The empty and lost feeling of locomotion and impending arrival to at least somewhere was a feeling always there. Something always always going to happen, but never never arriving. You stared for a long time out of the window, you sniffed once and I watched your eyes flicker from one moving tree to another. You were as immature as me sometimes. No one could touch you as we passed the Tobacco Warehouse on the docks to the West.

New Job - Bob Dylan - And Ulysses

Finished 'Naked Lunch.' I'm on 'Dharma Bums' now, by Kerouac.

I'm applying for a new job. It's at the university library, and seems the perfect job for me. And it pays £17,000 a year. That 4 times as much as I'm getting now. If I got that job I could finally get my own place. I've got until the 23rd jan, and my app seems good since I got a degree, but I'd have to put referees from my uni tutors, even though I haven't seen them in little under a year. Now way I'm using anyone from the job I have now as referees.

Going to see Frank Turner on saturday. Can't wait, going to be a good day. Drinking comes early. Bob Dylan's getting closer too, and I was talking to a guy at work (an older fellah) about Dylan. It was cool because he said he'd listen to Dylan in the 60's. Went to see him on London Road, and Joan Baez was playing too.

Watched 'I'm Not There,' which is an amazing film, can't believe anyone has the nerve to criticise it. Also been listening to Damien Rice, can't beieve I haven't listened to him before.

Got back into my reading of Sylvia Plath for a little bit. I don't know why, but every time I read something I end up copying that style. I know I do have my own style, but I do tend to mimic another style after reading it. I end up forgetting what I'm writing. It was like that with Burroughs and Bukowski, I've done it with Coupland and Kerouac. What I really want to read it Ulysses. I've got it some where.

Photos, 8th Jan '09

My Visions Take Me Slowly

Picture scene:
Rocking forth of complete talk on the mantle,
Day-green, its madness bolted to the floor -

Bolted stillness, well she doesn't talk anymore.

Another scene:

A bathroom with acidic stench
Of bile and salt booming music thru floor -

Sitting down on toilet vomit thru mouth and nose,
Hot terrible sick burning the brain and tongue and mouth roof,
Searching thru madness for a swallowed golden tooth.

Over the sand very smooth very quietly
Our feet glide mushroom cloud cool breath
Of cold plants, the shadow slides inwards,

I am turning silver; I am drained outwards;

When naked dreams are talking to me,
"Why don't you talk to me?" my dad screams,

I am become my own vision,
Inside the bronze sculpture is one of stopped,
Incomplete, the chiselled soldier and odd meat,

Now enter this world, universe of slow numbers

Moves your rook.

Tired - American Poet - And Short Story Thoughts

Been dead tired recently, that's with getting up around 5am almost everyday for work. Only working the mornings, but it's killing me. End up sleeping thru the day and feeling far too tired to write - and if I read then I'll fall back asleep. Must have some sort of iron deficiency or something. Not that tired right now, little bit of coffee helped.

Just read some Robert Pinsky, an American poet. Really good. Going to start writing more, as in simple notes because I don't even do that anymore, I'm too lazy to be a writer. Saw a girl at the train station today (she looked like a porcelain doll) and she had this little note book, writing stuff. I wondered what she was writing, and then I thought why don't I write while I'm out and about? I'm thinking up stuff all the time, but it'd just come out crap on paper. Even a mate at work had a notebook, noting down bits of comedy becuase he does stand-up. I thought about writing comedy, thought of some stuff, never wrote it down.

Not done anything on that short story. Don't want to. I just wanted to put it on here. I think I like it, but not sure. It's not religious or anti-religious (I'm neither), but it's just interesting to use religion, and mix it with the narrator's thoughts on socialibility. I know most parts don't add up, doesn't matter as it's a first draft. The last bit with him turning into a robot was strange because I was just writing off the top of my head, describing the metallic taste turning him metallic. It has a funny social-sexual theme going on; the final words were meant to be funny, though. Like, he's becomes a social robot and so does everyone else with socialising and drinking alcohol and taking drugs, and disregarding religion for whatever reason, and they just say to get him up. Whatever, it was a little like my christmas eve.

Untitled Short Story (unedited)

I am a social liability. I am inside everything like a God of alcohol. I am pehaps a physical being, restored to the point of destruction - and the voices ringing inside outside the greasy ear of mine call 'all the best boys,' and a rhythm of continual bathing in society begins. It's a chilly night... he has lost his voice... he has become the very thing he couldn't believe that when he cannot speak he cannot live. When he has no voice I can speak for him. 'Two bottles of Scotch, my friend.'

'Two?'

'What are you? Counting them out? Yes, two.' I say to the side, 'cheap son of a bitch.'

When every ounce of pleasure has gone we go to get some more. Pleasure measured in ounces is hard to come by.

There are now three of us. We have been talking around a table for 3 hours. An aging man of social responsibility hates the flag. A girl coughs behind me. Sounds of electric buzzing periferate the atmosphere below thin wafts of smoke from the sly cigarette before someone gets kicked out. I am an automated, never-before-seen man of destruction. A God machine.

'Have to get to church in an hour,' I say.

'Didn't take you for a church-goer man.'

'I'm not - '

'He's not.'

'I'm not. I just have to meet someone. I'll be back here if you want to wait for me.'

'We'll go with you.'

'No. You're pissed off your faces.'

'Nooo... We'll go in and... hail Jesus!'

'... It's praise isn't it?'

'I'm a Buddah.'

'No your not.'

'Yes I am. How would you know?'

'I know you. You don't do anything to be Buddhist.'

So we walk in the torso of the night and it's killing to be in this cold and everytime I'm thinking of selling myself some exquisite social idea brings me to the next place, but walking the mile down the road freezing in our psycho societies, we're shouting, we're burnishing our voices, we're trying to be giants.

'None of us can.'

'Look at them.'

'Who?

'None of us.'

'Those girls - gone down there now...'

'We're going this way.'

'We can't even get in at this rate.'

'Where?'

'The church.'

'Eer... you aint comin in... your too drunk...'

'So... I'll show that Jesus!'

Laughing I tell the other one, 'Don't let him come in. Please.'

Laughing, he does, and they leave me and my Jesus. Inside the exquisite corpse hung up, the son of lamb a walking disease too skinny and stiff up to his armpits. And where is my Buddah? And where is Mo and the the others. I don't know but I feel like I'm in a pool of blood, up to my knees, and this poor Arab eyes staring at me like a homeless man begging for change and my friend at my left begging me to sit down and I do.

The sermon went on for an hour. I left. 'I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow,' is what I said when I left and I ran back to South Road and the frosty air clamping down on my knees turning my bones to ice and icicles like swords protruding from my eyes. I am running like a barbaric man ready for meat. The sky is dark but almost the colour of gherkins and I turn a corner, running and panting like a sick dog, and I get home... I mean I get back to the pub and there they are. And one shouts, 'Here he is! Son of Man! The man himself!'

'Shut up you fucking pisshead.'

'Bar's closed.'

'Shit.'

He offeres me his Guinness and it tastes of metal like drinking blood and I taste it on the back of my tongue, and my tongue turns metal and my insides turn metal and veins to copper wiring with that red and blue plastic coating, electric soul and all fantastic sexual fantasies are metallic, a bad reaction to the beer I'm having a terrible social erection; what's more painful is we're more or less unchanging unless fighting for some cause.

'I don't have one.'

'One what?'

'A cause.'

'Did you know the onion is a natural aphrodisiac?'

'No I didn't.'

Weeds that smell of onions grow between inch-thick iron and Frankenstein bolt, shit-coloured rust and swollen obscene torsos shaped like guns when bent over. Nurse figures playing on the mind, shoving thermometers that don't read any temperature, my finger on her trigger. And on my own.

'What you need is something special, my friend. Your getting uptight.'

I feel like I'm screaming through my nose and through inches of steel and iron and the taste of rust is like scabs. It's gonna be alright. Society has taken me for a ride and it bled on my metal. I see fleshy atrophied lightbulbs gripping thin-bodied pallid celing, Wah-Wah sound in dead of night, un-living eyes staring down at me behind a million echoes of 'Get him him up, quick.'