The old green door creaked when it opened. The same way it always did. The same old pitiful, sad sound it had made for years.
Sad because, like the rest of Jimmy's Bar it wouldn't be broken the way it was if someone would only take the time to fix it, in this case to grease the hinges, and then maybe the joint wouldn't be such a dive.
But that was the way it was, and the old green door pretty much summed up the whole place before you had even stepped in.

It was an everyday scene, this dreary November afternoon like any other: the glasses from the night(or nights) before were still stacked up on the far end of the bar, waiting to be washed, or just used again. The regulars, as they were known really didn't care if they were drinking out of a ***** glass or having a shot or a short out of a pint glass or beer or a stout or a bitter or an ale or a cider or even a water or milk(to wash down or soak up the days drinking) out of the same old ***** glass they had been drinking out of all week long.
Anyway, when the door creaked this time, it was old Tom Ashley that made it creak.
He shuffled in like the broken down bindle-stiff he was. Yawning like a lion and rubbing his unwashed hands on his four day beard. His grey hair as bed-headed and dishevelled as ever.  He was wearing the same crinkled-up blazer he always wore, tailor made some time in his youth but now in his advancing years was ill-fitting and torn at the shoulder, but still he wore a white flower in the lapel, and it didn't much matter that he had picked it from the side of the road, it helped to mask the smell of his unwashed body and whatever filth he had been stewing in his little down town room above the second hand book store. It wasn't much, but it suited him fine: the rent was cheap, and Chuck, the owner would let him borrow books two at a time, so long as he returned them in week, and he always did. He loved to read, and rumour had it, that a long time ago when he was in his twenties he had written a novel which had sold innumerable copies and made him a very wealthy man. The twist in the tale, went that he had written said novel under a pen name and no soul knew what it was, and when questioned he would neither confirm nor deny ever writing a book at all. It was some great secret, but after time people had ceased asking questions and stopped caring all together on the subject. All that anybody knew for sure was; he did not work and always had money to drink. It was his only great mystery.  T.S Eliot and Thomas Hardy were among his favourite writers. He had a great stack of unread books he had been saving in shoe box on his window sill. He called these his 'raining season'.

But for now, the arrangement with Chuck would suit him just fine.
He dragged his drunkards feet across the floor and over to the bar. All dark wood with four green velour upholstered bar stools, that of course, had seen better days too.
He put his hands flat on the bar, leaned back on his heels and ordered
a double Talisker in his most polite manner. He was a drunk, indeed but 'manners cost nothing'' he had said in the past. Grum, the bartender(his name was Graham, but in the long years of him working in the bar and
all the drunks slurring his name it gradually became Grum)smiled false heartedly, turned his back and whilst pouring old Toms whiskey into a brandy glass looked over his shoulder and said, ''so Mr. Ashley, how's
life treatin' ya'?'' Tom was looking at the floor or the window or the at the back of his eyelids and paid no attention to the barkeep. He was always
a little despondent before his first drink of the day. When Grum placed the drink on the bar he asked the same question again, and Tom, fumbling with his glass, simply murmured a monosyllabic reply that couldn't be understood with his mouth full of that first glug of sweet,
sweet whiskey he had been aching for. Then he looked up at tom with
big his shiney/glazed eyes, ''hey grum,
now that it is a fine whiskey, Robert Lewis Stevenson
used to drink this you know?'' Grum did know, Tom had told him this nearly every day for as long as he had been coming in the place, but
he nodded towards Tom and smiled acceptingly all the same. ''The king of drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, he said'' Grum mouthed the words along with him,  caustically and half smiled at him again. Tom drained his glass and ordered another one of the same.

A few more drinks, a few hours and a few more drinks again
passed, Tom put them all on his tab like he always did. Grum,
nor the owner of the bar minded, he always paid his tab before
he stumbled home good and drunk and he didn’t cause too
much trouble apart from the odd argument with other customers
or staff but he never used his fists and he always knew when
he was beat In which case he would become very apologetic
and more often than not veer out of the bar back stepping
like a scared dog with his tail between his tattered trousers.
Drinking can make a cowardly man brave but not a smart
man dumb and Tom was indeed a smart man. Regardless
of what others might say. He was very articulate, well read
with a good head (jauntily perched) on his (crooked) shoulders.
By now it was getting late, Tom didn't know what time it was,
or couldn't figure out what time it was by simply looking at
the clock, the bar had one of those backwards clocks, I
don't know if you have ever seen one, the numbers run
anti-clockwise, which may not seem like much of task to
decipher I know, but believe me, if you are as drunk as tom
was by this point you really can not make head nor tails of
them. He knew it was getting late though as it was dark
outside and the  lamp posts were glowing their orange glow
through the window and the crack in the door. It was around
ten o’clock now and Tom had moved on to wine, he would
order a glass of Shiraz and say ''hey Grum, you know Hafez
used to drink this stuff, used to let it sit for forty days to achieve
a greater ''clarity of wine'' he called it, forty days!'' ''Mr Ashley''
said Grum looking up from wiping down the grimy bar and
now growing quite tired of the old man’s presence and what seemed
to be constant theories and facts of the various drinks he
was devouring, ''what are you rabbiting on about now, old
man?'' ''Hafez'' said old Tom ''he was a Persian poet from the
1300's as I recall... really quite good'', ''Well, Tom that is
truly fascinating, I must be sure to look in to him next time
I'm looking for fourteenth century poetry!'' said the barkeep,
mockingly. ''Good, good, be sure that you do'' Tom said,
taking a long ****-eyed slurp of his drink and not noticing
the sarcasm from the worn out bartender. He didn't mean
to poke fun at Tom he was anxious to get home to his wife
who he missed and longed to join, all alone in their warm
marital bed in the room upstairs. But Tom did not understand
this concept, he had never been married but had left a long
line of women behind him, loved and left in the tracks of his
vagabond youth, he had once been a good looking man a
''handsome devil'' confident and charming in all his wit and
literary references to poets of old he had memorised passages from ,Thoreau,Tennyson ,Byron, Frost etc. And more times
than not passed these passages of love and beauty off as
his own for the simple purpose of getting various now wooed
and wanting women up to his room. But now after  many
years of late nights, cigarettes and empty bottles cast aside
had taken their toll on him he spent his nights alone in his
cold single bed drunk and lonely with his only company being
once in a while a sad eyed dead eyed lady of the night, but
only very rarely would he give in to this temptation and it
always left him feeling hollow and more sober than he had
cared to be in many long years.
The bell rang last orders.
He ordered another drink, a Gin this time and as he took
the first sip, pleasingly, Grum stared at him with great open
eyes and his hand resting on his chin to animate how he
was waiting for the old man to state some worthless fact
about his new drink but the old man just sat there swaying
gently looking very glazed and just when the barkeep was
just about to blurt out his astonishment that Tom had noting
to say, old Tom Ashley, old drunk Tom took a deep breath
with his mouth wide, leaned back on his stool and said...
''hey, you know who used to drink gin? F. Scott Fitzgerald''
''really?'' said the barkeep snidely ''Oh yes'' said Tom
''The funny thing is Hemingway and all those old gents
used to tease Fitzgerald about his low tolerance, a real
light weight! He paused and took a sip ''but err, yes
he did like the odd glass of gin'' he said, mumbling
into the bottom of his glass.
Now, reaching the end of the night, the bartender
yawning, rubbing his eyes and the old man with
close to sixty pounds on his tab, sprawled across the
bar, spinning the last drop of his drink on the glasses
edge and seeming quite mesmerised by it and all its
holy splendour, he stopped and sat up right like a shot,
and looking quite sober now he shouted ''Grum,
Graham, hey, come here!'' the sleepy bartender was
sitting on a chair with his feet up on the bar, half asleep,
''Hey Graham, come here'' ''eh-ugh, what? What do you
want?'' said the barkeep sounding bemused and
befuddled
in his waking state, ''just come over here will you,
please''
the barkeep rolled off his chair sluggishly and slid
his feet across the floor towards the old man ''what is
it?'' he said scratching his head with his eyes still half
closed. The old man drowned what was left of his
drink and said ''I think I've had an epiphany, well err
well, more of a theory really w-well..'' he was stuttering
. ''oh yeah? And what would that be, Mr Ashley?'' said
the bartender, folding his arms in anticipation. ''pour
me another whiskey and I'll tell you''
''one mor... you must be kidding me, get the hell
out of here you old drunk we're closed!'' the old man
put his hands together as if in prayer and said in his
most sincere voice, '' oh please, Grum, just one more
for the road, I'll tell you my theory and then I'll be on
my way, OK?'' ''FINE, fine'' said Grum ''ONE more and
then you're GONE'' he walked over to the other side
of the bar poured a whiskey and another for himself.
''OK, here’s your drink old man, and I don't wanna
hear another of your ******* facts about writers
or poets or whoever OK?'' Tom snatched the drink of
the bar, ''OK, OK, I promise!'' he said. Tom took a slow
slurp at his drink and relaxed back in his seat and
sat quite, looking calm again.
The bartender sat staring at him, expecting the old
man to say something but he didn’t, he just sat there
on his stool, sipping his whiskey, Grum leaned forward
on the bar and with his nose nearly touching the old
mans, said ''SO? Out with it, what was this ****
theory I just HAD to hear?'' ''AH'' said the old man,
waving his index finger in the air, he looked down
into his breast pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes,
calmly took two out, handed one to the barkeep,
struck a match from his ***** finger nail, lit his own
the proceeded to light the barkeeps too.
Taking a long draw and now speaking with the blue
smoke pouring out his mouth said '' let me ask you a question''
... he paused, …  ''would agree that everybody
makes mistakes?'' the barkeep looked puzzled as to
where this was going but nodded and grunted a
''uh-hum'' ''well'' said the old man would you also
agree that everybody also learns... and continues
learning from their mistakes?'' again looking puzzled
but this time more  intrigued grunted the same ''uh-hum'' noise,
though this time a little more drawn out and
higher pitched and said ''where exactly are you going
with this?'' curiously.
''well..'' let me explain fully said Tom. He took another
pull on his cigarette and a sip on his drink, ''right,
my theory is: everybody keeps making mistakes, as
you agreed, this meaning that the whole world keeps
making mistakes too, and so the world keeps learning
from is mistakes, as you also agreed, with me so far?''
the barkeep nodded ''right'' Tom continued ''the world
keeps makiing and learning from its mistakes, my
theory is that one day, the world will have made so
many mistakes and learned from them all, so many
that there are no more mistakes to make, right? And
thus, with no mistakes left to learn from the word will
be all knowing and thus... PERFECT! Am I right? The
barkeep, now looking quite in awe and staring at his
cigarette smoke in the orange street light coming t
hrough the window, raised his glass and said quite
excitedly ''and when the world is then a perfect place
Jesus will return! Right?'' ''well Graham...'' said the old
man doubtingly ''I am in no way a religious man, but I
guess if that’s your thing then yes I guess you could be
right, yes''
He then drowned the rest of his whiskey in one giant
gulp, stubbed out his cigarette in the empty glass
and said ''now, I really must get going ,it really is getting quite
late'' and begun to walk towards the door. The
bartender hurried around the bar and grabbed Tom
by the arm,
'' you cant just leave now! We need to discuss this!
Please stay, we'll have another drink, on the house!''
''Now, now,Graham'' said the old man, ''we can discuss
this another night, I really must get to bed now'' he
walked over to the door, and just as his hand touched
the handle the barkeep stopped him again and said
quite hurriedly,'' but I need answers, how will I know
everything is going to be alight? You know PERFECT,
just like you said!'' the old man opened the door
slightly, turned around coolly and said ''now, don’t
worry yourself, I’m sure everything will turn out fine
and we’ll talk about it more tomorrow, OK?'' the
barkeep nodded acceptingly and held the door open
for the
old man, ''sure sure, OK'' he said ''tomorrow it is,
Mr Ashley''
Just as Tom was walking out the door he stopped
looked at the   barkeep with large grin on his face
and said very fast, as fast as he could ''you-know-an-interesting
-fact-about-whiskey-it-was -Dylan-Thomas'
-favourite-drink-in-fact-his-last-words-were -"I've-had-18
-straight-whiskeys......I-think-that's-the-record."­!! HAHA '' he
laughed almost uncontrollably. Graham the barkeep looked
at him with a smile of new found admiration and began to
close the door on him.
Just as the door was nearly shut, the old man stopped
once
more, pulled out a roll of money, looked in to the
bartenders
eyes and put the money into his shirt pocket, then putting
his left hand on the bartenders shoulder said ''oh and
Grum, one of those great ol' women I let get away, once told ,me:
''if you are looking at the moon then,everything is alight'' and slapped
him lightly on the cheek.
. Then finally, pointing at the barkeeps shirt pocket said ''
for the bar tab'' then went spinning out the door way with
the grace of a ballroom dancer(rather than the old drunk
he had the reputation for being) and standing in the
orange glow of the street and seeing the look of sheer
wonderment on the bartenders face still standing in the
old green door way and shouted ''LOOK UP, THE MOON,
THE MOON!'' The barkeep, shaking his head and laughing,
peered his head out of the door and took a glance at the
moon and grinned widely then closed the old green door
for the night. It made the same old loud creak when he shut it.

                                       FIN

Chapter one:

  The strange entanglement of the sun, twisted in kooky bedlam with The Great King Moon in winter.

Have you ever looked down at yr feet on the long walk home & wondered if you’re really moving forward any more or if all your really doing is just moving the ground? Don’t answer that, its a rhetorical question. Of course you have. We all have. You think you’re moving in the right direction, following the north star or the compass in your brain or maybe just your nose or your thumb and fore finger. You  believe that you’re gonna make it somewhere, you have to believe. What else is there. The truth is, you’re going nowhere, we are all going nowhere, we just spin on the slanted axis & never really go anywhere. We have been conditioned to believe that this is the way the world works but I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t, you gotta buck up, **** up or ******* ‘*** let me tell you, yr ‘dreams’ mean nothing to anybody ‘*** living, real living is not connected to REM. That’s all just more ******* you’re gonna have to put up with people trying to sell you. Lick the boot, get over the barrel & bite down on your watch strap. That’s all there is to it. The mind is a magnet. If you find yourself staring in to the abyss: Jump right in. Swan dive. Hold your breath & wait. Everything will be OK. I promise you.

I’m writing, ah writing! Writing this worthless piece of *****// manuscript of means for you. For me, for the future, for love, for lust, for hatred of all things hating, for your mother & farther, for my friends, my beautiful angelic, clinically insane friends, for time, for the soles of my shoes with hundreds of miles under their laces, for your fat greedy pockets, for the moon, for the sun to spit on, for the wind to taunt, as he does like the great cowardly, perverted invisible fiend that he is, for nothing, for not quite everything, for your aching lovers, for your broken hearts, for the worlds water, may you always be clean & run free, for the great biblical liars, for the sorrowful wonder of the great homeless & may all their wants come to be wanted, for *******, for fumbling, for the vast oaken heavy doors on bars that keep us safe from the  horrors outside, for guilt, for sugar-blue smoke, for all the kids sitting in **** stained squat houses with half a horse embedded in their face, for my schools that gave up on a bored child, for warmth & fire & woollen clothing, for Paris where I can fulfil my great dream of becoming a sullen cliché, for the gravel-mounted marching marvel, may you never lose your way, for the Parthenon, for Aubergine, for The Firefly, the swan, bleeding,for growing up, for all the music makers,all people should play all instruments to any degree(rather than just, age & shrivel), for Howl for Carl Solomon, for every down & out that ever clawed his way up the street & through the yellow door, for all the animals that gave their lives to keep me fat & red faced, for Christ sake, for the invisible man in the sky, causing all war & so much death-thank you, for the wild west, for Bert & John, for the great literary mastodon to look down his reset nose at & ask me why. Why?

The way that old dial telephones look & feel. The questions that need no answers. Feeling down, down & out, upside down & inside out,upside in & downside out on the pavement at five am. Waking up in unknown beds & crawling down drain pipes. Getting lost in a place you have lived your whole life. Being in the woods simply to be in the woods. Drinking coffee even though you hate the taste. Never telling a stranger the truth. Living under a false name. Drinking yourself to death in the dark lonely-crowded corners of ***** stained wood floor warehouse floors. Feeling solid-sterling-gold for feeling so terribly horrifically half-corpse-like the only way you can really feel is completely statuesquely angelically magnificent and the only way is down(you really have no idea how far I fell that morning) , Only going out when it rains. Only going out in the dark. Staying up all night dreaming and sleeping all day. Remembering to forget, forgetting to remember to remember to be forgetful. Understanding that you and no one else understands nothing but eat-drink-sleep-****-death. Smoking until yr tongue bleeds and yr eyes burn like that fire in the sky in the fearful month of June. Wishing you knew how to tie a noose & writing ”suicide” on yr calender on a day you have no planned engagements. Shooting to the moon & back in the bee-bop-bo-bo-batter-batter-chitter-chatter like jazz on the neon streets of the earths mother. Crawling in to a stone cold bed after walking for six days & feeling bored & lonely again in ten minutes.

That’s why, I’m glad you asked. If I’m going out, then I’m out going with some steeze in a cloud of smoke, yr wife & I’m not taking you with me.

For all these things & more is the reason I write. To write for the sake of writing. For, some people write, just to write & they are truly the the lost meaning of it all.

Automatic travel rambles to plug up the holes in yr lonesome pockets. Blues.

Chapter two:  

Creeping moss-stick under-flowering the useless but grateful Tuesday poet, Jim Gravestone Sr.

The ghost of the monorail, living only in upturned memory sits slow & smooth/low against the Sunday evening rapture. You gotta know which way is down. Down. The dew on the grass & the creamy-green residue of the night before is just too close to a real drama. Absolute dahma. Down in the cold rising damp & the stain on your shirt.

He sits , sits like you, like me & like old Tom Mooney the prison king. If you ever saw such a sad sight as he, I do believe you would roll out your tongue on the pavement right there & then & wait for the road sweeper & all his secret, early morning charms & the great wolf man, pork chop sideburns (lupine dreams)to clean you up & clean you out. I do declare!

For he knows-for he has seen. Seen the sun rise from his pearly throne up on the dark side of the moon, the very face of Bowie, right there in the eye socket. He sees all. You can live your life, & you do, & you should, but he, O’ he, he has really been there & where & back again. You carry on with your sleepy routine of mule-back coffee office doom death jobs(you sleepy Bohemian, you)  & in you spare time trying to keep your nose from filling up with water & your private parts entwined with somebody else’s most private of parts, & on the side lines of you spare time you can deal with your family & all the friends that you’re sick of but hold on to, only for the fear of being left alone in the dark with nothing but all of the above. Then again you always have your studies(STDS)all of the ologies, of course.

Sleepology, cocaineology,rainolgy, sunology, lonleyology, depressionology, suicideology, talkology,empypocketsology, meaninglessology, masterbationology, coutntingyourmoneyinpintsology,walkology, onenightstandology, jumpthetaxiology, begology, borrowology, stealology,feelology, upallnightology, sleepalldayology, Xology, ologyology, etcology etc…ology etc.

Just find something you can care for ‘*** [insert atheist god/idol] knows that nobody is going to do your caring for you, even I they do in fact care for you.

I have been beginning to notice,that I(and I may not be alone)

always look at the past through a marigold monocle.

This, meaning nothing now ever seems to be joyous or gay or splendiferous until it is a past memory.

A cobweb. A rafter. A leaf on the ground. …I guess.

         Chapter three:

I know you know it but people that you don’t know, really are a funny, funny thing…

I stand outside the rain & watch the people passing by; really the most depressing experience of my ever increasing years. Un-jolly fat men with whiskey-nose & scuffle-feet stanzas of gibberish, talking gibberish & gibberish being their inner most self. Pre-war women with Arctic-blue hair, faces melting, everything pointing down, shuffle. Kids pushing prams full of ugly babies towards a house of who-gives-a-**** & ******* & I’m-gonna-die-here and what of it. Is there really no more to life. Listen to the top 40 on the radio, clueless, oblivious. Cogs. All cogs. Military troglodytes following them back in a dead eyed daze, dreaming of killing in the real and virtual. No you may not have a cigarette. Leave me alone, please. Let me listen to my watch ticking in peace & at least pretend that you don’t exist.

The human body is comprised of several ‘substances’

including..

Mercury,

hydrogen hydroxide,

fountain pens,

the lost dates of calenders,

various small woodland animals,

including…

Voles,

rabbits & field mice.

Other such things as…

Misplaced birthmarks(of the brain)

feelings of remorse and regret,

the stolen trinkets of past lovers,

and of course,

white blood cells,

pesticides,

and the second hand

from a 1956 ’Hamilton Rail road’ pocket watch.

E.L August 7th

           Chapter four:

Last night, last night was the last night it was the night last

Picasso raincoat. Imagelessness. Bottomlessness. I lost my umbrella & my Holden Caulfield head-wear, again. I was skipping on a rain cloud, corduroy boy and scarecrow girl, reunited in a soft entanglement sticky in the senses. Hoof! The only way is up when you walk down these stairs, snakes and blisters, but you’ll sweat it all out in babble cream conversation and love in your eyes. Tell me a story, tell me a story, tell me something to prop my chin up in this brown tunnel. Your name it is something I cant care to remember but of course I never really had a name of my own either, so we shall be the great wonder of the nameless masses, the ones born to no name and never wanted one anyway. A name is nothing but a label, a calling card, call me anything, call me king Charles II just as long as you do call me, the sound of a voice, your voice, any voice reeling off a comprised anagram of the alphabet is enough to get my short attentive ears to perk up and twist my noggin backwards towards the direction of my inbuilt gypsy sonar. So anyway, I was going to talk about something, something great… but now its gone and all I have is bloodshot eyes and sweaty liars palms to prove to the world that I had an idea once, I swear I did.

Here’s an idea for you to dig you heels into:

The world keeps making mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, its natural, nothing to fear, it happens all day every day. BUT, with every mistake we make, we then proceed to learn from that mistake, so.. stay with me here… Once the world, the whole world meaning everyone in it, has made every mistake they can make and of course and one would hope of course, that they have also learned from all of these mistakes; once this has happened, there will be no more mistakes to make, right? Therefore leaving the world perfect as a whole, no mistakes to make, learnt their lessons on every lesson and we can all go on with living a perfect existence, yes?…

No.

I’ve really thought long and hard about it -could never happen, people are not perfect, they never will be, if they were I wouldn’t want to know any of them, and the world, well the world is an imperfect place, and the same rule applies.

But let me hit you with another bit of knowledge to round things off and maybe put a positive spin on things. Hoist ye marrow-thumbs around this;

One of the many few early times that my legs forgot how to use them selves, I was sitting on the pavement, trying for one to reattach these two now useless appendages stuck like butter to my lower torso, but foremost trying to light a cigarette with my useless cold hands and equally useless matches, fearful of the sneaky clear coward, invisible old Mr wind, when a kindly stranger, half my size, red my hair, opposite my *** and now opposite my broken legs appeared like a person will appear when you mind is in other minds, a smile, a sympathetic look and two working hands to fire up the stick in my mouth. I said my thanks, babbled about babble and the generation of gibberish and im sure many other things inconceivable to the sober ear of a dame such as she, the bringer of flame and enlightenment, not of the smoke but of the simple mind, an idea is what she left with me and it never left. She stopped my rambling typewriter of a tongue and said ‘shush’ she held my head in her hands, looked at me straight,so I thought she might be death or god or that I was passing out,she all green eyed and like the woods, looked at my eyes like they were tethered together and dropped the bomb on me, she said ”if you are looking at the moon, then everything is alright” kissed my warm on frozen forehead and was gone into the night, never to be seen again.

That’s all the advice you will ever need, & so ll I will leave you with.

You never left a name, but I never wanted one anyway.

Midnight moment

beautiful rags

midnight joy.


Nevermind your little light,

set apart your golden dreams

that offen break,

& come to play.


Chapter five: There are things I want to write but I am not going to write them.

The End.

‘Stay gold, Pony Boy’

I don't think I'm a very nice person.
Dead people can have *******.
The weirdest part of this morning was the tropical bird that was road ****, but I thought was a bag of salt and vinegar crisps, in London.
Always ******* up, ******* up all ways.
I'm your green grocer.
Mental collapse is quite close.
**** my ****.
A gale of wind.
Sitting by a canal in the sun with a coffee at 7am.
My time is now.

That isn't sarcastic, it's brilliant.
I saw a werewolf drinking a Piña Colada .
Need an adventure.
like peas in a pub.

The good old days...
      The good old days...
I miss ''The good old days.''
          
            I really do.

The human body is comprised of several ‘substances’
including..
Mercury,
hydrogen hydroxide,
fountain pens,
the lost dates of calenders,
various small woodland animals,
including…
Voles,
rabbits & field mice.
Other such things as…
Misplaced birthmarks(of the brain)
feelings of remorse and regret,
the stolen trinkets of past lovers,
and of course,
white blood cells,
pesticides,
and the second hand
from a 1956 ’hamilton railroad’ pocket watch.

Hot & high in summer. Sleeping in am empty house full of strangers. I don’t remember eating anything the whole time I was there. We had a fish tank, all full of Siamese fighting fish, fighting each other to death every night in the neon-glow of blood & algae. We used to bet on them. Money was a rarity- what ever we had: Match sticks, cigarettes, tooth-picks, anything you can find in the bottom of your pockets. On more than one occasion the winner of the bet was permitted to eat the losing fish for sustenance. The winner would devour the poor frail, flailing body raw, with his nose pushed right up against the glass of the tank to let the winner know, if he did not continue to win, this too would be his unfortunate fate & the demise of his, lets face it, already sorry existence. The death-tank. The blood bowl & the lobster boat.
There was a dog living in the house, a black eyed, black furred mangy thing. Nothing to look at, but he was loyal & cared for us all as much as we him. Some days we would go without, so to not see him hungry. A hungry man is a sad sight to behold, but a poor dog with his rib cage showing through matted fur is too much for any man with a heart still beating to bare on his conscience. One time, an unknown,uninvited, unwelcome ****-bag of a man kicked him in the belly & few of the rough old boys dragged him outside & ''took care of him'' we asked no more questions on the subject, but safe to say, we never saw that man again & people knew not to mess with our dog. Given the chance, & not being taken by surprise like he was, we knew the mutt could take care of himself, he was a mean ol' thing if need be. He was a growling old junk-yard pooch, a real mean machine. The dog was known as The Colonel, I never thought to ask why, but in a strange sort of way, it seemed to make sense. The dog, & indeed none of us knew it, but looking back, he was running the ship. Our fearless leader, ready to starve, **** or be killed.
One cool, grey evening, The Colonel ran away. A bunch of people were sitting around in the big main room we called the hull, the mess hall, the control centre. A few chairs, a table for playing cards, a radio & a window at the back with black bags taped over it to keep out the sun. Most of us had no sleeping patterns to speak of, we just passed out where ever and whenever we felt the need to, so it was agreed that the sun being let inside our scruffy fortress was nothing but a nuisance. We were all sat around talking the usual babble & waiting for sleep to come-a-knocking.The sand man. I was lying on the carpet with my legs elevated up the wall, barefoot & hungry. ''Where's The Colonel?''
''oh ****, somebody left the gate open''
I slid off of the wall & up to my feet & ran out of the front door(which was also left open)looked in the front garden, nothing. The garden was so full of broken/useless crap that there really wasn't space for a dog anyway. Piles of black bags that never made it to the tip, the stench was enough to make your eyes water. Wine bottles, whisky bottles, beer cans & cheap white cider bottles flickered wonderful cosmic colours like the northern lights of Finland. Old bicycles, a whole mountain of them left to turn orange as a rusted door hinge. As far as we useless lay-abouts were concerned, once a bike got a flat tire it was as good as dead & left to rust, bicycles are really just a communal mode of transport, like a bus or train, the only fee is not getting caught, & we never did; breaking a lock is no problem with right applied pressure at the right angle of the frame & after some practice a combination lock really poses no problem either: simply pull the lock at both ends, spin the dial & all will fall in to place. Voilà!
I walked out to the front gate & peered down the street. The sun was coming down at the end of our little road where the cats prowled with their heads held high. Especially the king cat, the big cheese, big kahuna, top cat, hep-cat. He was bigger than all the other moggies, toms & tabbies. A big proud smoke coloured thing that prowled like a panther, battle scarred & mean looking. All of the other cats moved out of the way when he slid down the street. Twinkle-toes. He was the king. Sheba.
And through the orange peel sun glow & the rose tinted, airline-smear sky, at the end of the road I saw a crowd moving towards me. I squinted & held my hand to my brow like a sailor eyeing the horizon. When the black figures had come into focus I saw that running along side them was The Colonel. I'd know him anywhere.
The old dog charged the street like a battalion & pounced on me. Caught his front paws over my shoulder & took me to the ground with him. He was glad to see me. Friendship is a funny thing... he could tear me to shreds, but we were friends, I trusted him.
I rolled out from under the dumb playful mutt, wiped his slobbering welcome off of my face with my sleeve & when I looked up I saw an outreached hand & a smile, I took firm grip & pulled myself to my feet. It was Marie.

Observations & conversations, written the the shallow heights of the sinister winter.
The year that the would ended, successfully, unsuccessfully
''who were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old & cried''(AG)
The same year we lost Bert & nobody cared & as a mark of respect, all of my guitars were given away as
parting gifts & so the songs did not cease to be written but only written now on key-junk & toy-scramble
& far as my plans are planned this is the way I will stay, & no, your're right, it's true I haven't played  show in  months. My fingers now smooth & twice as yellow, just like when I was older than I was tomorrow & you ask me if I have ever been forever & the notebook brimmed over full of eavesdropping & secret secrets I expose in writing that you'll never read  & long walks home & Picasso pictures of strangers that I've never seen (gasp!) The great mythological hat flapped, low heeled, opaque smoke covered goon of the night, only to be seen propping up lamp posts for a light to scribble by  & then gone in to the night again like Jack The Shadow when he was young & always one eye open when the cars drive by, to save the blind eye, in one eye anyway & now & then blind in both by text message of newfangled but out of date technobabble & uncool is the new cool. Tired, writing.
The gravel mounted marching marvel, which never really made any sense to begin with  but(have you ever read Tender buttons?) nothing else really ever makes sense too, just like when I discovered that time doesn't exist, but O' the contradiction of the clock ticking. simultaneously asking favours from the moon, saying ''come on, please, tonight could really be the night, one more, anything,  anyone will do'' praying, but only in jest & grand sarcasm just like the day that Chaplin died(although, yes it's true I do enjoy the merriment, but in the end it only brings me down once again to think how its only once a year that people stop hating each other & then only for the want of THINGS) & now birthdays too have fallen through the holes in the floor in a see-no-evil-hear-no-evil attempt to keep from aging & even now I feel a little older(tick tick tick). Always fearful of change, constantly fumbling for more change in futile empty pockets in the back bar to keep from being seen & then back around the river again to sleep & dream only the most mundane of dreams to wake up scared that you have no ideas left & your creativity, which was all you ever had has finally dried up before you really got to use it, & the pain in your nut-box, maybe you've really gone too far this time & maybe you really have woken up dead this time & woe is everything & you never got to be a cliche & move to Paris & write & starve  & drink with Hem & Fitz & watch Fitz faint & work in a hotel with Orwell & all the Russians & be treated like **** by Strickland(even he was fictional & if he wasnt he died a leaper any-who).
you know you've always been a leth-wretch & a glutton for sorrow, but who cares about happiness, all things temporary etc etc. & I remember saying '' I think to make any great art, you first need to die a little'' when I was drunk & the next day feeling a fool, but ''better a witty fool than a foolish wit'' etc etc. when I got the beermares & the flashbacks of secret hand holding under the table & us(I), waiting until we were alone & never spoke of it again(again)& now the standard issue of time apart before we forget again & the whole thing will unravel again with shocking to the detail similarity as before & the time before also similar, for which I wont go into details for fear of you reading this & having probably already written it yourself, you being a much greater writer than I & we both know it, but still you would never say it & I only babble about myself in a chain smoking, nonsensical, bending on a loop, only ever thinking out loud fuzzy feedback ash tipping of the mind but still I wouldn't give away any secrets. I'm still surprised I gave you my real name, but my oh my, isn't hard being a spy.

Since I last saw you,
You appear to have joined a motorcycle gang
You have signed a record deal
You have ''come out of the closet''
You are living on some sort of commune
You got engaged to a troglodyte/knuckle dragger
You got married to some sort of inflatable doll
You have gained weight
You have traveled the world
You have lost your appeal
You have done too many drugs
You look older, worn out
You haven't changed at all
You disgust me
You became a nudist
You started selling things ''off the back of a lorry''
You died
You started dating a guy twice your age
You got thrown out of your band
You might as well be a stranger.

1





My hand was shaking while I stirred my coffee with a fountain pen.    I had not slept in close to three days.
Mourning the death of a slumber,I wore two thick black ribbons of funeral-skin under my eyes and, with hair thinning at the sides,  a tatty old gaberdine suite and, my now unslept, unshaven, pale-sad face: looked even more pathetic than usual. My name is Edward Laine.

Sitting in a corner-booth, alone in a café. Crowded and buzzing with all the usual angelic, well slept faces that usually I didn't mind but, now just made me feel utterly depressed and almost morose with jealousy.

I had left my room upstairs for a break from writing and staring at the the nicotine stained walls and the blank page in my typewriter, with a hope that a change of scenery might ease-up the rusted cogs of creativity which were now running dry and creaked and squealed in my weary temples.

As I sat and stared at the blue lines of my notebook, I began to write my thoughts and description of the woman sitting across the room from me. Writing for the sake of writing. I wrote:

'' She sits and stirs,
much like I and staring
at the reflection of her
eyes in her glasses.
All honey-drip hair & alabaster,
red shoes & sun dress.
Thinking great secret
thoughts of which I can
only assume are much greater
than mine.
For, people of the nameless masses
all have real hopes, dreams, loves,
relationships & genuine worries,
while I only care about myself
and this wretched scripture
I have wasted the last four years of my life writing''

I paused, chewed the lid of my pen and looked up from the page with a sigh and continued to observe my nameless beauty.
She, with the afternoon sun on her face, shining down frown the great orb and through the dusty window pane, let her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose and looked across the room at me and smiled. I attempted to smile back but came off looking false and uncaring. Which usually would be the case but, this time I really did mean to really mean it.
I rubbed my yellow finger tips in to my puffy eyes, slid my hands though my hair and held my head in my hands.  

When I lifted my head up I pulled my hair up at a rakish angle giving the classic Einstein look to my already sorry demeanour. And,when the room had un-blurred and come back in to vision, to my surprise(which showed quite noticeably in my face and even made  me jump back in my seat a little) the woman was  standing in front of my table.

                  


                          2





I was perched on a step, drunk, dizzy & trying futilely to light a cigarette. It was maybe 2am, outside some bar in December.
A girl in heels, tight jeans & stripes sat down next to me.  I barely noticed her presence until she had taken the cigarette out of my mouth & the matches from my quivering, now useless hands. She placed the cigarette at a rakish angle in her teeth, struck a match. Now placing the lighted cigarette in my mouth & blowing a  thin stream of blue smoke in to my face, she brushed her long brown hair behind her right ear & said ''want to get out of here?''

                            …


Kissing & caressing in the taxi, I had no idea where we were going, & did not care. When in the cloud of love or lust & intoxication, nothing else seemed to matter. If the driver decided to drive the black cab off of a cliff with the metre running, neither of us would have cared a ****. Breathlessly heaving, the windows were steaming, her bra was off & my belt was undone.

The taxi stopped, she paid the driver, opened the door & we both tumbled out in to the yellow glow of the suburban street. I was in a place I did not recognise, I was drunk & had no idea who this strange creature was that had brought me to this place was. It was  true, it was love, it was magnificent.

                          3



When I came to, I saw from under the table, her red shoes & stockings walking out the door. My coffee was all over me, the chair was broken. She had beat me over the head with it. We had met before. The only other detail I remember from that night was crawling out of her window once she had fallen asleep.
The love of my night. My nameless, shameless one.
She-wolf, bone-grinder, hip-winder. The one. The none.
Come back, you left your diamond ring in my teeth.

The gravel mounted marching marvel
sits upside his un-flowered garment tree-tower
like a garbage man, empty in hand.
Cross-legged and lonely in the southen south sea starred sea-line.
The mongrel-boy only lives in the world of the momentary scene.
Split-peeping Tom of the latch-key life style.
Under-wired by a foul contempt for self doubt & self pity
SELF.
If you ever saw me eat a lemon you would make that face too,
you undercover she-wolf, you.
All you ever do is sit around and ask me questions about Eden Phillpotts
and I just dont have the answers, I'm sorry,
but I'm not sorry that im sorry.. sorry.
You sorry sonnabitch.
How can I ever be expected to build this chimney with you breathing down my neck
like some great mythical ***** producing factory worker?
All the pills in the pile will never fill the hole in your vast empty belly
and all the powders in the pill box will never amount to a mound large enough
to fill the crater in your pasty face.
Shoot from the hip.

I have been beginning to notice
that I(and I may not be alone)
always look at the past
through a marigold monocle.

This, meaning nothing now
ever seems to be joyous
or gay or splendiferous
until it is a past memory.
A cobweb.
A rafter.
A leaf on the ground.

…I guess.

Ground flesh, stumble-grins, arguments without anything pertaining to anything else, only downside down-slide, grumble, rumble & spiff.
If you ever take out a loan at this bank you better not take down any trees '*** they'll chop you back down, believe me.
Only the fire may burn in yellow & gold, you gotta burn in black,
horrid gold, horrid shtuck, never take a trip too soon, never ride in a car with a man in a green fedora or a 8-ball on the gear stick.
When I fell down the stairs you caught me and said 'dont you know that you can die?'
'no, no, whats that?'
'never mind'
and you were gone.
I think I'm really going crazy, I'm losing my hair and my teeth feel loose, soon I'll be nothing but a shell of hollow bones & ideas that never made it to fruition.
The world is really crumbling all around me, the people are melting, the babies are crying, the cats are singing songs of doom & the birds have all forgotten how to fly.
I have the answer, I have the solution, I can be the savior of manki...
..ooh look, donuts/***/television/THINGS

The Boogaloo plays on the rin-tin, tin-can speakers at my Mexican hang out.  
Spinsters smile in sun-glow, while I cower in the shadow,
being not buzzed but bothered by some sort of flying ant;
floating around the purple flowers on the sill in which I sit.
I am waiting for the autumn.
The sun has got his mace out. The sun has got his Cat-O-Nine-Tails out,
and he is whipping me without a whisper of mercy.
I will feel fine when the night falls,
when sun becomes moon, when sun kills moon,
when the old man dying in his ship with the great fish strapped to the bow dreams about the lions once more and how it is a good thing that man does not have to fight the moon each night.
Today is the day they said that the world would end.
I am waiting, waiting patient, still, like some great stone Buddha,
for the rapture, or the four horsemen or the stargate,
the end all of the be all.
People around me seem calm.
I am calm too.                                                             ­                                                                 ­  

The lizard people are coming!!


later we drank and smoked and drank some more; running in the rain and falling off of buildings like nothing had ever happened.
”Just one more step”



{thoughts on tomorrows Rapture to be added in the next few days... probably}

Ride your bike at night with no breaks & no lights
no street lamps in the country & PEDAL
as fast as you can so everything is a deadly blur
A MILLION MILES A MINUTE
believe that the road knows where are you are going
& that it loves you & that it is soft & that
'pain is just weakness leaving the body'
//meat-head *******//blah
I no longer wish to write like jazz
but to only be honest
alas, once again my hands are a opaque swizzle
of pink flesh & I find myself wanting to voice my
words with my bones & scream GALLEEB SHIMB CRANK ROARR-
EEEEEE like I always do

Friday night I danced in the dark with great humiliation
& not caring(much)drank down brown ale & talked to no girls
I realised that music was dying & what then but eatsleepdrinkfuckdeath again&again;&again;&again;
spoke of films I knew nothing about but nodded anyway
like I always do
once again attempting to walk the 25 miles home for lack of pockets & broke in to the train station where we slept & smoked under the milky light of no glasses.

That night, I drank more than the piano
I drank the piano under the stool
you sat down next to me,God knows why,
the place was empty.
But I obliged your choice & asked you for a cigarette
none the less & all the same- for your trouble.

As we talked, you squaked, but I was all yours,
and as you spoke and I stared at the wall,
just to the left of your left eye
I told you all about Edward laine, my alter ego
and you seemed to get on just fine.

When our night was over, you added my name to your list
and wrapped yourself up in my broken arms.
...and I knew on day one that day two would never be
'*** with you all chichi and me just me,
we could never be, could we?

All the trees with polythene leaves like ghosties trapped in branches.

Dancing drunk with headphones on//& you are the taste in my mouth.

My only ambition is to one day, some how, if only for a moment, be completely angelic.

I dreamt that my eye lids were reflective thoughts on the balcony.

I guess it just boils down to one final rule - EVERYBODY HAS GOT TO **** SOMETHING.

Walking home with Satchmo.

It’s never too late, fall down the stairs.

If I had a car I wouldn’t have to pay rent.

The lights on the buildings shut off when they see me coming.

Walk by the river until there’s blood in my shoes.

You dress like a jumble sale & hide your teeth when you smile.

Two left feet & two right shoes.

Go outside. Drink if you want to - (HM).

Tiger stripe- midnight counting down the hours until i can see again
& on the way home(alone...yes)I swear I saw something in the hedgerow//rhyme//shudder
something, something, SOMETHING BIG
it was moving, it was watching me & licking its lips
it knew my name, my real name
it said
they're right you know
it...IT
it sounded like Miles Davis on those recordings when you hear him say something off mic to the engineer
it said
is that what you wanted
are you happy
what do you want
what do you want
what do you want
i was running
it was chasing
it was tethered to my boot heel
it was on wheels
it howled like a BETCH
the lights of passed houses lighted up
the wife was saying
what was that noise, honey, honey, what was that noise.. go look
the husband was sleeping
the husband was buddha'd
i ran to my car
locked the door
put on the shipping forecast
slept on the backseat

morning came
SCHLINGG!

The way that old dial telephones look & feel.The questions that need no answers. Feeling down, down & out, upside down & inside out,upside in & downside out on the pavement at 5am. Waking up in unknown beds & crawling down drain pipes. Getting lost in a place you have lived your whole life.Being in the woods simply to be in the woods. Drinking coffee even though you hate the taste. Never telling a stranger the truth. Living under a false name. Drinking yourself to death in the dark lonely-crowded corners of **** stained wood floor warehouse floors. Feeling solid-sterling-gold for feeling so terribly horrifically half-corpse-like the only way you can really feel is completely statuesquely angelically magnificent and the only way is down(you really have no idea how far I fell that morning) , Only going out when it rains. Only going out in the dark. Staying up all night dreaming and  sleeping all day. Remembering to forget, forgetting to remember to remember to be forgetful. Understanding that you and no one else understands nothing but eat-drink-sleep-****-death. Smoking until your tongue bleeds and your eyes burn like that fire in the sky in the fearful month of June. Wishing you knew how to tie a noose & writing ”suicide” on your calender on a day you have no planned engagements. Shooting to the moon & back in the bee-bop-bo-bo-batter-batter-chitter-chatter like jazz on the neon streets of the earths mother. Crawling in to a stone cold bed after walking for six days & feeling bored & lonely again in ten minutes. Running out of ideas and stopping to write, running out of ideas & stopping to ramble, slowing down, slowing down, slowing dow….

When I was younger & the idea of personal transport was still a novelty,
me & my friends would drive around town & shout 'nice things' out of car windows at strangers,
''you look lovely'' etc.
In later years I walked around late at night,
writing similar notes on scraps of paper & putting them in telephone boxes
& on benches for people to find.
Around the same time, my friend Charlie wrote,
''It's nice to be nice'' on a wall near the local college
in permanent marker

You
Should
Try
To
Make
Your
Head
Explode
At
Least
Once
A
Day.

You said ''say goodbye to us saying goodbye''
Just as the rain rolled down your cheek, & I,
I thought that it looked to the people inside,
trying to stay dry
that you were crying at something I'd said.

You said ''say goodbye to us saying goodbye,
this is the last time''

.................................................................­....................
Well...
I am still managing to keep my nose above the tide,
but making music is still no way to make a living.
The book is still nowhere near being finished &
my hands are black with ink.
I am so beautifully lonesome
that I don't know whether to cry
with joy or sorrow.
Yes, I know that you're in town,
& yes, I know that you still don't want to see me.
I understand, it's fine.
I will call you when you're rich & successful
& I need to borrow money.
Just like we planned.

Gonna get a job sorting mail
like Bukowski,
Go to Paris, & write a book.
I'm such a ******* cliche.

How are things your end?

Love,

E. L

The
   only
       fun
            I
            know
                   is
                    the
           adventures
                     read
                        in
                  books,
                      &
                       I
                  ain't
                  got
                  no
             money,
            can't
           get
          by
         on
       just
     my
looks.

I can't see you anymore,
'*** you,
you burned out my eyes
with your cigarettes &
that way you look at me.

I am just a hook on your foot,
& if you ask me to,
I will go.
If you want me to,
I will go.

Why are you so afraid
to die?
It only happens one time
& then you're gone,
it only happens one time...

Some people

write,

just to write

and they are

marvellous.

It was another Sunday
stirring bourbon
in the wing-backed chair,
in the same old place
I always end up in
when im flush.
I saw you at the bar,
said my hellos, smiled
& excepted your drink offer
and sat back down on my own
to squint at the yellow pages
of a Russian novel and try to forget
that I was me(or something, whatever)
and change my scenery.
It didn't take long until
you were dragging me away
up the stairs to kiss me and
turn me to stone, again
(or so I thought anyway)