I realised I loved you
When I realised
That you're much more than the softest words,
Stitched together in smoothest cursive,
To produce the most beautiful poem.

You're much more than any word I could use to paint you with and though, the playfulness in your innocent smile deserves a chapter written all about it, you'll always be much more and nothing like the comparisons I use. And I admit it.

And when your decision to never write about me, slowly started making sense, that was when I realised I loved you.

I realised I loved you,
When you taught me
That most of the things I found romantic, are not really love. When you made me question the way I looked at you and through the crumbling foundations, I realised, that what they call love, is usually endless needing. And love does not always need, but love always  wants.

And love chooses. Love chooses to work hard for oneself, and for each other. Love decides to uplift itself. Love does not need you to be its walking stick or support. And I realised I loved you, when I decided to be what I needed from you, so you can see that I want you to stay around, for all your charms and wit and not because I'm a paralysed mess when you're gone.

I realised I loved you,
When I found that no people you love are supposed to be answers, or a destination to a long quest, no. You're not my favorite poetry, or my home, or a problem. But a person who I want to share these with. No, You're not the sun light filtering through the leaves, or the sound the water makes as it falls down a lake. You're not calmness personified and no, you're not some superhero looking for a maiden to help.

You're a human being. All sweat and farts, skin and bones, perfect moments and flaws. You're a human. And not a word I could twist around to shape any way I want.

You're messy handwriting, and heart beating for itself. I realised I love you, when I realised that my heart wanted to beat for itself too. And maybe, just maybe sometimes when we are together, our heart will beat in sync. Or not. It really does not matter. Cause we are much more than all of this.

There was a moment when he knew he had to make a decision.

He had left London that February evening on the ****** Velo Train to the South West. As the two hour journey got underway darkness had descended quickly; it was soon only his reflected face he could see in the window. He’d been rehearsing most of the afternoon so it was only now he could take out the manuscript book, its pages full of working notes on the piece he was to play the following afternoon. His I-Mind implant could have stored these but he chose to circumvent this thought-transcribing technology; there was still the physical trace on the cream-coloured paper with his mother’s propelling pencil that forever conjured up his journey from the teenage composer to the jazz musician he now was. This thought surrounded him with a certain warmth on this Friday evening train full of those returning to their country homes and distant families.

It was a difficulty he had sensed from the moment he perceived a distant gap in the flow of information streaming onto the mind page

At the outset the Mind Notation project had seemed harmless, playful in fact. He allowed himself to enter into the early experiments because he knew and trusted the research team. He got paid handsomely for his time, and later for his performance work.  It was a valuable complement to his ill-paid day-to-day work as a jazz pianist constantly touring the clubs, making occasional festival appearances with is quintet, hawking his recordings around small labels, and always ‘being available’. Mind Notation was something quite outside that traditional scene. In short periods it would have a relentless intensity about it, but it was hard to dismiss because he soon realised he had been hard-wired to different persona. Over a period of several years he was now dealing with four separate I-Mind folders, four distinct musical identities.

Tomorrow he would pull out the latest manifestation of a composer whose creative mind he had known for 10 years, playing the experimental edge of his music whilst still at college. There had been others since, but J was different, and so consistent. J never interfered; there were never decisive interventions, only an explicit confidence in his ability to interpret J’s music. There had been occasional discussion, but always loose; over coffee, a walk to a restaurant; never in the lab or at rehearsals.

In performance (and particularly when J was present) J’s own mind-thought was so rich, so wide-ranging it could have been drug-induced. Every musical inference was surrounded by such intensity and power he had had to learn to ride on it as he imagined a surfer would ride on a powerful wave. She was always there - embedded in everything J seemed to think about, everything J projected. He wondered how J could live with what seemed to him to be an obsession. Perhaps this was love, and so what he played was love like a wilderness river flowing endlessly across the mind-page.

J seemed careful when he was with her. J tried hard not to let his attentiveness, this gaze of love, allow others to enter the public folders of his I-Mind space (so full of images of her and the sounds of her light, entrancing voice). But he knew, he knew when he glanced at them together in darkened concert halls, her hand on J’s left arm stroking, gently stroking, that J’s most brilliant and affecting music flowed from this source.

He could feel the pattern of his breathing change, he shifted himself in his chair, the keyboard swam under his gaze, he was playing fast and light, playing arpeggios like falling water, a waterfall of notes, cascades of extended tonalities falling into the darkness beyond his left hand, but there it was, in twenty seconds he would have to*

It had begun quite accidentally with a lab experiment. J had for some years been researching the telematics of composing and performing by encapsulating the physical musical score onto a computer screen. The ‘moist media’ of telematics offered the performer different views of a composition, and not just the end result but the journey taken to obtain that result. From there to an interest in neuroscience had been a small step. J persuaded him to visit the lab to experience playing a duet with his own brain waves.

Wearing a sensor cap he had allowed his brainwaves to be transmitted through a BCMI to a synthesiser – as he played the piano. After a few hours he realised he could control the resultant sounds. In fact, he could control them very well. He had played with computer interaction before, but there was always a preparatory stage, hours of designing and programming, then the inevitable critical feedback of the recording or glitch in performance. He soon realised he had no patience for it and so relied on a programmer, a sonic artist as assistant, as collaborator when circumstances required it.

When J’s colleagues developed an ‘app’ for the I-Mind it meant he could receive J’s instant thoughts, but thoughts translated into virtual ‘active’ music notation, a notation that flowed across the screen of his inner eye. It was astonishing; more astonishing because J didn’t have to be physically there for it to happen: he could record I-Mind files of his thought compositions.

The reference pre-score at the top of the mind page was gradually enlarging to a point where pitches were just visible and this gap, a gap with no stave, a gap of silence, a gap with no action, a gap with repeat signs was probably 30 seconds away

In the early days (was it really just 10 years ago?) the music was delivered to him embedded in a network of experiences, locations, spiritual and philosophical ideas. J had found ways to extend the idea of the notated score to allow the performer to explore the very thoughts and techniques that made each piece – usually complete hidden from the performer. He would assemble groups of miniatures lasting no more than a couple of minutes each, each miniature carrying, as J had once told him, ‘one thought and one thought only’.  But this description only referred to the musical material because each piece was loaded with a web of associations. From the outset the music employed scales and tonalities so far away from the conventions of jazz that when he played and then extended the pieces it seemed like he was visiting a different universe; though surprisingly he had little trouble working these new and different patterns of pitches into his fingers. It was uncanny the ‘fit’.

Along with the music there was always rich, often startling images she conjured up for J’s compositions. At the beginning of their association J initiated these. He had been long been seeking ways to integrate the visual image with musical discourse. After toying with the idea of devising his own images for music he conceived the notion of computer animation of textile layers. J had discovered and then encouraged the work and vision of a young woman on the brink of what was to become recognised as a major talent. When he could he supported her artistically, revelling in the keenness of her observation of the natural world and her ability to complement what J conceived. He became her lover and she his muse; he remodelled his life and his work around her, her life and her work.

When performing the most complex of music it always seemed to him that the relative time of music and the clock time of reality met in strange conjunctions of stasis. Quite suddenly clock time became suspended and musical time enveloped reality. He found he could be thinking something quite differently from what he was playing.

Further projects followed, and as they did he realised a change had begun to occur in J’s creative rationale. He seemed to adopt different personae. Outwardly he was J. Inside his musical thought he began to invent other composers, musical avatars, complete minds with different musical and personal histories that he imagined making new work.

J had manipulated him into working on a new project that had appeared to be by a composer completely unknown to him. L was Canadian, a composer who had conceived a score that adhered to the DOGME movie production manifesto, but translated into music. The composition, the visuals, the text, the technological environment and the performance had to be conceived in realtime and in one location. A live performance meant a live ‘making’, and this meant he became involved in all aspects of the production. It became a popular and celebrated festival event with each production captured in its entirety and presented in multi-dimensional strands on the web. The viewer / listener became an editor able to move between the simultaneous creative activity, weaving his or her own ‘cut’ like some art house computer game. L never appeared in person at these ‘remakings’, but via a computer link. It was only after half a dozen performances that the thought entered his mind that L was possibly not a 24-year-old woman from Toronto complete with a lively Facebook persona.

Then, with the I-Mind, he woke up to the fact that J had already prepared musical scenarios that could take immediate advantage of this technology. A BBC Promenade Concert commission for a work for piano and orchestra provided an opportunity. J somehow persuaded Tom Service the Proms supremo to programme this new work as a collaborative composition by a team created specially for the premiere. J hid inside this team and devised a fresh persona. He also hid his new I-Mind technology from public view. The orchestra was to be self-directed but featured section leaders who, as established colleagues of J’s had already experienced his work and, sworn to secrecy, agreed to the I-Mind implant.

After the premiere there were rumours about how the extraordinary synchronicities in the play of musical sections had been achieved and there was much critical debate. J immediately withdrew the score to the BBC’s consternation. A minion in the contracts department had a most uncomfortable meeting with Mr Service and the Controller of Radio 3.

With the end of this phrase he would hit the gap  . . . what was he to do? Simply lift his hands from the keyboard? Wait for some sign from the I-Mind system to intervene? His audience might applaud thinking the piece finished? Would the immersive visuals with its  18.1 Surround Sound continue on the five screens or simply disappear?

His hands left the keyboard. The screens went white except for the two repeats signs in red facing one another. Then in the blank bar letter-by-letter this short text appeared . . .


Here Silence gathers
thoughts of you

Letters shall never
spell your grace

No melody could
describe your face

No rhythm dance
the way you move

Only Silence can
express my love

ever yours ever
yours ever yours


He then realised what the date was . . . and slowly let his hands fall to his lap.

i frankly just needed to get this out.
this is one hell of a long thing
not really poetry,
not really a diary,
maybe some sort of life
maybe a letter.
perhaps one last crazy word out
to be read by anyone
or no one
or everyone
that matters.

...

more of a wanton drunken rambling like my old works
but i guess they were a little bit more
interesting
if i had to be my own worst critic
i guess i feel i've been denying the fact
that most happiness isn't the most interesting

do i remember what was back then?
of course i do
the most interesting things were boredom
and ruin
and toil and fury
the most interesting things then were the worst
and the worst person was the most interesting

and i met the world with my eyes lensed with two bronze bottle caps
and she was a soldier who fought the silent wars
and sang the mornings after

i sang out words of disgust towards the words i was foreign to and denied the privilege of being lectured boringly about
**** your love, **** your happy family and **** your tolerance towards different people
i am nobody and none of the things you do impresses me
i was nothing and I was beginning to suspect i had to live with it

and you had to hear it
god, you did hear it
when it came the time i knew enough words to decorate the world i threw my spit and **** out in rage
i think i felt that it felt nice
or that it felt different
and that was somewhat better than what people were supposed to hear
yes, i know life is ****
it'll still be ****, wouldn't it?
your ****** smile won't do you anything

and i saw you sit quietly on the corner
waiting for me to quiet down

and i remember
vividly remember
saying to you
i'm not a good poet
i'm rude and vicious and disgusting
and i remember saying before i passed
i wanted it to stop.

...

somewhere between a good morning hangover blue and a worldwide health crisis i ate my first batch of useless pills
and it took a good one year just for me to wake up and feel on my bones
god, this feels awful
and my hair is fading
and my skin has blotches of red all over
and im incredibly bored

i don't think i'm dead yet
i must have thought
i could still curse god and some other religions and maybe the government or maybe even that guy next door who keeps singing to his kid
hell, i could probably still go out and drink and feel that high again
i'm not dead, i could get high again
i don't think I'll die anytime soon but i think i gotta live with being a corpse from now
i don't think you know how great my life is considering how awful of a body i am now
I've got more poems to shout to you
and a lot more to shout
and a lot more to shout
and a lot more...

and i realised
i was shouting
i realized i was hurting
it hurt my head first
then it hurt my entire life
and soon the only thing happening was realising
and hurting
and realising
and i realised
i wasn't just hurting
i was at some point
pain itself

and no happy memory came without that searing pain spilling hallucinations at it like glitter from a fire extinguisher
none of the days started making sense for me to remember them at all
and none of my boyhood years seemed to matter at all
hell, all the glitter made it seem like they never existed
or that they were somewhat the well made delusions of a well made lunatic

but i remember once
you came to me
and i almost wanted to scream to you to close the ******* door
but i remember once
i had a thought that day
that i liked seeing you
still there

and i think i remembered the past too, of course
i think we all enjoyed the ****** times with ****** things
but you stepped through that door wearing gladness on your smile
alongside the pity of your eyes
you came through that door and saw me
as if you saw someone worth seeing
or someone who at all
had a life

and do i remember who i was back then?
god, barely at all
or barely
since i had wanted to forget
but i knew i told you
when you held me as i was hemorrhaging from the pain of a lifetime
yes
i wanted it to stop

...

a month after that we paid for some very expensive injectable normal

and i told you how much my life was getting better as it was getting more dull

for the first time in a while i liked water
and solid food
and open windows
and barely detectable ambient noise
and life?
i didn't know so i sneaked out to find out

you didn't hear from me for three days and i didn't have to hear from anyone about me or anything about me
and i was a stranger for once and not a ghoul

and when i came back i had to wash my face because my eyes burned a little
and i had to wash off the three days of dust that clung and wafered off what must be two years of non-being

and i don't think i remember what were the first this and and's that started a mentality of rambunctious pointless yammering about stones and rivers and seas
and leaves that glow emerald after the rain
and skies over parking lots tattered like beautiful paintings
and guitars and synthesizers
and unloved things
and unloved things
and unloved..

i think for a moment then i realised i was an unloved thing
the man who was foreign and disgusted by the world
and reviled by it
was just unloved, and..
life is ****, i knew it always was
or has it always been?
i swear it was loving before
or somehow...

and another delectably painful injection
and dangerously large amounts of significantly more effective pills
and i started feeling the warmth of..
well i knew the words for them,
Neruda knew some, and even Buk.
warmth is the sun, and the morning
and your old ***** cat sleeping on your pillow
and warmth is a person
and the world, somewhat well distanced enough to be warm enough and cold enough for life
which was
warm..

and the air was nice
alongside the dying river
as the rotted trees decorated the dying world
in a moment i knew i loved it the same way i would have loved to have always seen it
or perhaps seen it when it was most alive

and do i remember who i was back then
and i do
and i did
and i...

was a ghoul.
a well fed one
a well read one
but still with an accursed mind
ruined by the death process and healing method
i was an addict.
i was a freak.
i was a broken thing
i was entirely sure i was permanently broken

and i knew the moment i started to love
for when i did love
i clung to it
every love i felt and every love i gave i cast and behold to everything in the world that felt like new and felt like poetry
and i loved you like i loved the leaves of the sunset trees
and i loved you like i loved the raindrops doomed to be forgotten
and i loved you like...

and i was addicted to love.

when it was ripped apart from me damp and cruelly i winced in pain like the first few months of a cold turkey stop

and in that moment it felt like none of the work to get better was going to matter

i started to become a loving thing.
but a sick one at that
a recovering alcoholic at that
a ****** or a bipolar or an autistic or i don't know
for a moment i was a loving ghoul
and when it did end
as all things felt in the first times would
i felt once again

an unloved thing.

and i came to you and i had still the energetic wanton drunken list of words and questions that all asked the same thing
i have loved you, life
and i had hated you
and i was starting to tell everyone
that hate didn't have as much of a life as love
and still
i am in pain
i am in shambles
i am disfigured
why is life ****?
i was planning on not letting it be anymore-
why couldn't you?

...


on a warm day after the coldest of monsoons i sat on the forest road
where i stop to sit and pray to my only faith and my first comfort-
the wind that felt like peace and calm over a world that turned so hard and complicated

i closed my asked and in defeat i said
i love you, and i had
but i want it to stop.

...

i had work that morning and i couldn't see you
and i had friends planning a gig and i was planning on throwing my energy into it
and i had family coming over that demanded the best from me
and no one knew i started trying my best for once

i was still drinking the pills,
dreading the pain,
but watching for the sunsets and perhaps the last comforting winds before the ocean currents suffer a stroke

and i was starting to decide what my favourite color was
what my favourite clothes would be
how to describe my favourite music
how to help the ones around me
understand enough of how i liked happiness
and..

well i guess life was normal
but on those few months i wasn't entirely sure
it was as if i came out of a burning building
onto the next house on the block

and i didn't have the time to find out if this really was what normal meant
if ordinary was ordinary
and if the sorrows and fear were ordinary
or if they were as abnormal as they were before
i learned the new normals of the new people
and i couldn't help thinking
well, i remember that
and i remember that
and i'm pretty sure it made me a lunatic
and sorry but as long as you're with me we're gonna try to fix that sleep schedule
and we're going to eat properly but still satisfyingly
and we can just sit in silence knowing the sadness
but you could still see on my face how i believe in you
hell, i know life is **** but i'm pretty sure you're not.

and i couldn't help being worried
i don't think they could tell who i was from what i looked
that somewhat apparently,
everyone started turning into a ghoul of what they once were
at some point

thinking about it now i thought all of you looked lovely
and i hoped you were fine with what i looked
because i don't think i have enough new stem cells to look healthy anymore anyways

and where was i...?
oh i had a job
and friends
and a boring existence
and...
wait, am i back to the start,
or did the past exist,
or am i doing this right,
or am i somehow
alive...?

it's the same thing, is it?
or some new thing
or a sheep in wolf's discount clothing
or life has taken a new form
or
or

and i realised the one thing that made me who i was
and seemed to fit as an answer to every event that i couldn't warrant a question to
was the same thing asked by everyone
as an afterthought, or a ruinous dilemma-
what is this life?
i am so torn and confused and tired and what is this life?

i know the alcoholism didn't answer it
i know suffering didn't answer it
i'm pretty sure religion and the government and the baby crying next door was close to an answer but nowhere near properly useful enough to keep us satisfied-
i died and lived again reborn with well medicated eyes to see the pretty things from the avant garde form of this impossible physical world
and yet i knew that still didn't answer it
and love
god, love
love didn't answer it
and i had a big investment on that thing
and everything was normal again
but love didn't answer it
and love couldn't answer
and even my mad insane love-
love
love
live
life-

and love.
i saw you sitting on your cold floor believing you were cursed
i saw you play the greatest note ever beamed and still believe you'll be no one
i felt the wind i worshipped sing alongside you on the song you learned in a few minutes
i held on my hand my admiration of you and my worry of you while you were telling the story of how your family did nothing
but become the very capitalism they weren't lectured boringly enough about

love,
i saw your sadness once more
love,
i see your tears have gotten you lost
love,
i saw you almost die
love,
I started loving you
and you started to live
and i started to live
and everything
everything
will die
yes,
and i am still
addicted
but i know you made me not care enough about death
if it meant that love was real..

love,
you loved me and i loved you
it hurts me now to see you suffer
as i did
in your different life the same cold floor
the same empty garage
the same burning tears
love
i saw you start doubting who you are
love,
i held your hand.

hello, poetry
i must admit
i haven't been making good poems.
you gave me so many lives to live in that i was never a single poet.
my word turned cheaply strong,
cheaply sappy,
cheaply simple-
yes, i have started thinking
that poetry could never properly describe the absolute mess we're in
not just mine-
mine never got good enough to be a constant axiom of itself anyways-
a happy man wrote about war.
a sad man wrote about the cirrus clouds.
a lonely girl wrote about the best wedding,
the one i loved wrote of her fear of pain-
no, poetry does not make us a single poet
if anything, it just showed me how much of a sucker i am for love
no, our complicated existence never meant we were liars or idealists
yes, i wonder about your lives sometimes.
life is ****, and i understand what you wrote,
god, aren't we all tired...

i miss you, always.
i looked at you and saw life itself
i held your hand and held my tears
knowing what life did to one of it's loves.
you are not an unloved thing and i know because i never was
because how could someone like me
who was like me
be allowed to be cursed with the blessing of a normal life
a redemption in disguise
a chance to live and choose what he loved and be allowed to love everything-
i know it could be because life is a funny little ****,
and god is a bundle of fiber optic cables and yes and no's and just a nanometer of a "sure, you can have both."
and fear hurt love before
and love fears once more,
and you are not an unloved thing because i love you-

because i love you..
what is life? i don't know.
i tried finding out, and ended up almost dead.
i tried living it, and almost died.
i tried loving it, and realised it couldn't love itself the way i couldn't love myself.
what is life?
what is life?
what is...

...

i realized i am alive.

i quit my job, drank once more, talked a little quieter but talked a lot more.
i read and read and god ******* **** that headache can ruin a life and where the **** is my cigarette?

i tried not loving anything for a second. it was alright.

i tried being a barker for a few days. surprisingly fun.

i tried walking a little faster. i could still see the trees.

i tried forgetting you. i failed.

i remember why. i dreaded losing memories. even the memory of pain.

i tried ***** once again. i could probably hold my liquor better than these guys.

i am trying to live. i know i will die.

i am quite certain that i'm alive and well right now.

and after months of living and trying and being, after knowing every normal and every abnormal, i was ready for that dreaded AP test-

i tried to love you again, life. i missed you dearly.

i felt your sadness, and your happiness, and then braced for the confusion-

and i love you still.

and when the last question came, when i faced myself with the same last question as i have always faced...

i failed. i couldn't stop. i don't think i will anytime soon.

right now i guess i have a good answer.

what is life?
I don't know.
I tried living it to find out and ended up still alive.
I have known it simply, and casually, and in complicated ways.
I have hated it, fought it, hid from it.
I have loved it. I still do. Maybe later I could tell you why.

but what is it?
maybe it's us
or just you
or just me
don't let that get to your head though. share the sunset.

i have decided to not bother with that question.
don't bother with that question.
i love you.
i'm glad you're alive.

...

i realised i could still frown
and sigh
and cry.
i realised that all that I've earned was never sanity or mental acuity or happiness.
i realised i'm just a person.
i realised i'm confusing to read.
i realised most of us are.

...

today i ate two pieces of ham and drank nothing but water
i started to quit smoking a few days ago and i think I'll be fine.
i think of her and it makes me wince for a second, followed by a smile that takes a while to wipe.
i think of all the stuff i will be talking about with my friends.
i think of the ache on my picking hand and the callus on my fretting hand.

it's a normal day.
it's a hard life.

i think briefly on my previous thoughts and realize
man, did my mind go through the worst.
when i wasn't a person, I'm pretty certain most people saw me as an unhinged jaw. idk

i think of what i wrote today.
one last ramble.
briefly, i think about hiding my other poems for the time being.
hello, and sorry, poetry. honestly I'm kind of confused as to what poems i want out right now.

i think of all the confusing days i had, and all the hard times, and all the times i grieved because of me and the hard times.

me from the past was an unloved thing. you're gone now, but i can still love you. i'm sorry i'm a bit late.

i think of the life i left behind. i think of the world that remained and stayed alive with me.

i do not consider myself a born again, or a miracle. life is still **** and I'm in a minimum wage job right now.

but i am alive and living right now

i am alive and living right now

i am alive and living right now

...

and to love, and to life.
aren't we all quite tired.
but i am proud of you,
glad for you,
hope you forgive me.

and i will suffer this weird little thing with you
and i will care for you as you have tried for me
and i will listen to your complicated world, your ineffable grace, the silence thereafter.
look, i'm quite tired as well
but the sun is rising...

.. .....

Gandalf: a character ( wizard) from the legend that is lord of the rings
...

chapter - 0:



he was walking past the useless lake on a breezy autumn day when the gust of wind brought with it the scent of a thousand abandoned garage bags littering the corner of this semi unorganised semi-civilised halli part of a mega city.

his home was about three thousand kilometres away and a dozen hundred dialects removed from where he chose to pursue his 'higher' education.

a term he took literally and to heart.

he was almost always high, if that's what you call being semi awake and always clawing somewhere deep, both mentally and sometimes even physically.


but as soon as the cacophony of a thousand different bad smells hit his soul, he knew the trip was over.

he jolted back to existence from an escalating thought process leading him to the discovery of a new and a better universe.

he took a deep breath and immediately regretted his decision, almost screaming in horror.

and while he was battling a lost battle trying to defeat an invisible and impossible to contain force of population and pollution,

his smoked eyes latched onto a figure emerging from the corner of his smoked eyes.

he suddenly realised where he was. and it wasn't where he thought he was about two seconds ago.

leaf-less and life-less trees stood where he could swear was just an empty slightly orange and red sky a few milli moments ago  

the lake had turned from blue to a shade of green or was it still blue ?
he wasn't interested at all, so he just gave up reasoning in mid-process..

what difference does it make ?

but suddenly his mellowed mind  realised the threat, and his attitude changed from i-don't-really-give-a-**** to oh-****.

there was something else there too, and he, like a ******* cat- turned around just in time to see what it was,

and the time stood still. he couldn't believe his eyes.

it was    gandalf.

**** it. he was sure. ******* gandalf.
with a ******* stick, his beard and that grey whatever. gandalf.

he took a deep breath again. it didn't hurt as bad as before. maybe it was growing on him. he took another breath just to make sure it wasn't. it wasn't.


and as gandalf started becoming bigger and bigger, he could see his mighty white beard dancing in the wind more clearly. he could sense his aura radiating a wonderful positive force that was almost impossible to describe with a naked eye and with an F  in communication skills.

gandalf was finally a stone throw away from the boy. he could throw a stone at him. he could but he wouldn't. no, he thought about it but no. it wouldn't make sense. it was too insane of an idea too. he wasn't yet ready to accept his true human nature that enjoyed the absurdity of violence.

though he was a hard-core stoner.  ah irony and puns.


instead he took the more scenic route and almost mumbled " gandalf?! what?!?! "


it took the old white man a second to register but he managed a sudden " gand elf, what?!? "

it wasn't awkward yet. but it was india. so it kinda' was.

the boy almost trained in apologising professionally and profoundly, mumbled " oh, no.. I'm sorry.. I just.. you know.. there's this .. dude.. people do cosplays now.. and I was a little high... ahem.. I mean I was thinking.. I mean I saw.. you.. I mean, I swear you're looking like a ******* gandalf.. I mean gandalf ?!?! "


another gust of wind and they both frowned.

gandalf responded " who .. what the **** is gand elf ?!?!"


the boy " he was supposed to be a dwarf like something.. but he become a wizard and tall, you know .. fought a dragon.. and rode giant birds.. ?!?! "


not gandalf " what the **** are you talking about, what is wrong with you, you're not making any ******* sense and I, I'm .. hey, you see.. just saying, I'm very good at making sense, that all "


the boy " so, are you like a ******* teacher or a .. scientist?!? "


not gandalf? "ummm.. well you can say that.. something like that "


the boy " what do you mean, for all I know you could be a perverted ******* who also happens to wander the woods doing weird cosplays and killing people. "

not gandalf " the ****, kid ?! jeez.. simmer down.. that TV is insane, you guys ******* love it.. **** man.. I should have stopped that from happening... and video games! god, they ****.. I should have just killed the lot of you.. " and on went a rant the strange man


the boy " wo.. wo.. whoa.. wait, you're talking like you are better than the rest of us...are you on crack ? what are you even saying you ***... you're more like someone who pulls on broken strings on a hand down guitar on some shady corner of an immaculate subway... you're just a boomer, are you not, mister ? "


strange man not gandalf " well, in a way I am.. I am.. well, I am everything and everyone" he whispered..    a satisfying smile almost breaking out


the boy " the ******* mean ******* ?!? "

this was too much for the old man who was just having a walk and minding his own business

he whispered more angrily his time " oh you punk, you little punk I'll tell you! I'm ******* god, you **** .. yeah, **** it.. I'm not even kidding.. I'm ******* god, yeah!... **** it *****!. "


he took his hand and pointed to the sky and the clouds parted.


the boy couldn't believe his eyes, and almost suddenly the clouds began to form a shape.

he couldn't make it out at first, all he could see was that the old man who claimed to be a god, drawing something in the air.

he looked up and finally realised what it was.

God was drawing a giant duck in the sky.

and as he was staring up in a mixture of disbelief and horror,  the old man spoke loudly " that's you.. you sick ****.. it's your little duck. "


old-man-now-god-went on "... I mean it looks like a big duck 'cause you couldn't see it otherwise.. but drawing to ratio... it's your little duck.. and the whole world can see it now.. and they know it's small.. and not as big as it appears because it had to be big enough for everybody to see.. "


the boy was now going insane. anybody would. people just don't turn up, part clouds and draw ducks in the sky.. that doesn't even happen in movies.



the boy went on- a little horrified of what he had just witnessed " what kind of a god are you, I mean... what in the god's name was that ? how did you do it. ?"


God responded with squinty eyes " which part of i-am-a-*******-God did you not understand.. you.. you stupid mortal. "

from the depths of darkness a flicker of light emerged in the boy's mind, and he realised something very important..


the boy " hey, you can't be god, god won't ******* curse! he's god. " screaming cautiously at the stranger...


God had heard petty arguments and had gone through all that phase of  people taking some time to turn around and warm up to the idea of the literal god in front of them, he'd been over that all his life.

but this was the single dumbest thing he had ever heard since he made the decision to create the universe in a hurry.

God thought to himself " I should have paid more attention. meh. "

one more thing- the boy went on " why are you a he ? not a she ? I mean if you're a god why be ... I mean an old man with a stupid beard. why not somebody hot, and cool... and with a nice body and a face... slightly better... or maybe much better..  you get the point, right ? I mean.. you're god, right ? "

God just stood there and soaked in his own filth.

the boy went on hysterically " oh my... did you hear my answer even before I said it ? did you ? I mean can you ?... and did you ? or was it you that gave the answer.. 'cuz if you made the universe.. you made me too, right ?. "


God was annoyed. like really annoyed at this point and he blurted out " you think I made you ? you think one fine day I woke up and I thought to myself.. oh! I've created this beautiful but empty place full of darkness and the cold, spectacle of fire dancing in nothingness- breathing life in ***** of all kinds circling around the stars and what not.. and you think I was like 'what am I missing ?'... oh yes, right! I'm missing one ungrateful ******* snake with a little duck. "


the boy stunned " God ?!.. No, **** no! "

god almost curios " why would you say that. why did you even speak , why! "


the boy " my duck .. you know.. ain't that ... small. "



God almost smirking " shut up, *****. "


the boy " oh, yeah.. right you... really know how to abuse your own species. jeez. "


God " I didn't make you ... I ******* dropped my dope in the ocean once and you ******* things came out of it. "

he went on " I thought you'd die on your own but nah.. life's too nasty.. ugly and ... you know... it's.. admittedly... quite beautiful. "

time stood still as soon as he said that.

and it was a beautiful moment. both god and the boy trying not to turn red or cry.



" but the sad part is.. " God whispered with the love of a thousand cuddling pandas " you guys found me, I mean... oh my God! that brain thing really worked ... extraordinary! my subordinates tell me ... very expensive.. err... I mean to design... "


the boy " people work for you ? what ?! that's like.. you have a staff ?!.. weird. "


God " *****, i'm ******* god.. I don't have a staff.. I ******* make the staff. and no that's not even an iota of weird.. but you know what's weird ...truly weird, a fact so crazy that it'll blow your mind and give you enough wisdom to tear through the fabric of the world I've made and undiscover all its secrets, science and gossip?!  "


the boy was now as curious as a teenage boy in teenage, he replied " what?! tell me.. is it here on earth ?!"



God " yes, it is my child.. indeed it is! such joy!... and it is also right here where we stand. "


the boy's mind went into an overdrive.. maybe this was all his design.. the almighty has come to show him the path.. out of these woods he's lost in.... and also a path of divinity and happiness.. and also he had watched Bruce almighty a dozen times or so... he was ready.


almost in a poetic voice filled with a general sense of elation.. the boy asked god " tell me.. please what is it pleaseeee ? "


the god smiled, in a way only a father smiles to her new born daughter.. knowing she's going to be paid less, has to go through the cycle of being temporary insane every month ( or that's what female's had been telling him .. it doesn't matter.. you a guy.. you see a woman in pain.. you *******... that's 10 hours of her ******* the life out of you. and you still wouldn't be a good listener or attentive according to her even if you give up in the 9th hour.

the boys repeated desperately " what is it! I'd be a good boy but please tell me pleaseeee! "

and the god smiled. he smiled and pointed to him. " that there , that is it.. that ugly ******* little duck of yours. "


and immediately burst into a laughter more grandeur than any sound in the world. I mean right after radiohead but whatever.


the boy saw his finger and tried to trace it's path. and almost in a moment.. it was over.


he had lost it- he screamed at the creator " you think you can make fun of me 'cuz you a big guy ? you think you can make fun of me because you're the most powerful thing there is and can literally turn me into 50 hands and no ducks... just living life in pure agony.. " he trailed off looking a bit distant towards the ending..

God " jeez. kid. you don't have to be so dark and imaginative unnecessarily.. see, okay I'm sorry... I hurt your little heart...which by the way I have made and do own the materials to.. and that's why you're alive... basically all of you and everything.. now to think of it.. it does make me a big guy... or more than that... but that's not the point. "

he went on " the point is i should've known better... because you know I made it all.  even the concept of being better..  booom! blows your mind ain't it.. chuck it.. and the point is.. I should've known better, so I'm  sorry!.. you can tell people I said sorry but they're not 'gonna believe someone like you "


the boy " **** do you mean someone like me?! " back in his form


god " oh you know... someone with a small...... ******* duck !"

and the god fell down laughing hysterically and immediately as soon he said the words..

rolling all over the soft grass and the boy's face.


the boy had enough- he screamed " **** like you can spend two minutes being a human... who's to tell you didn't have a small duck and then just made yourself one big enough " his voice trailing in the wind


god hadn't been spoken like this since the invention of languages.. oh how much he despised languages..a ******* constant annoying noise in his head specially the bengali.. **** them.

God spoke back " oh, so you think being a snake is better than being the almighty ?! "


the boy " I'm not a snake.. I'm a human.. what school did you got to ? "

God " you can be a ******* rock for all I care ... just be nothing.. you know.. instead of being everything.. the idea of it... it's is rather.. you know... so beautiful. "


and at that moment the boy realised that even god wasn't immune to something that he didn't know.


the god " I'll do you a deal, you be two seconds in my place and I'll be two seconds in your place... and then we'll know.. I'll know the fear of being nothing and you can know the escatsy of being everything. deal dawg ?"


the boy " but.. like two seconds .. awful less of a time to enjoy any kind of escatsy "

God " running late, mate. "


the boy " okay okay.. let's do it "



God smiled a bit and immediately a giant light came down from the sky roaring with a thousand thunderstorms...

wind was growing stronger by the second and it was almost impossible to hear anything... or analyse anything for that matter...

God screamed at the boy " it's going to go in your *** and out of your mouth.. and your soul will be passed to mine.. "

the boy screamed back in oh-my-god-that-face horror barely making any coherent sense.


God rolling on the floor laughing
" jeez. I'm kidding you punk.... that face tho.. so woke.. so woke..."

it took some time but he picked himself back up and screamed at the boy " it's going to happen... three..two.. one.. " and boom


the boy felt what can only be described as the best ****** anybody has ever had.


the god felt like what can only be described as the hardest kick to the nuts in the history of universe.

two seconds after... bam! everything stood still.. like nothing had happened.


both stared at each other for a while..
God went first " so, ... ?! "


the boy " yeah. "


God " pretty tense...yeah.. *******.. I mean.. God!.. you guys are awful to be.. it *****.. I gotta' change that thing... you know... about people taking their own life... and going to hell... I get it... I mean..  yeah.. you know... like whatever."

God went on " how was yours. "

the boy " yea.. pretty chill.. ... "

God " that it, boy ?! "

the boy " yeah. .. mostly "


God " hmm.. woke.. woke... so were you clever enough to do something for yourself ? "

the boy " oh..yeah..pretty much.. nice cars and girls.. stuff.. " his voice cracking with a very refined i-don't-give-a-**** attitude


the wind was still now. butterflies were flying between the blooming flowers and singing AC/DC for some reason. it was pleasant.


god snapped his finger once and said " so.. yeah i should go now... apparently somebody's supposed to take a picture of me in the sky.. gotta flex up.. chow~ "


God snapped his finger a second time and lo behold!  like that he was gone ****!...


the boy stood still for a moment longer. he smiled and walked away.




(4 days later...)



god was in the alps...looking out of the large window wondering how dreadful it is to be human..  

and as he was crawling in and out of different dimensions he smelt something. something interesting.


it was alcohol. ( he's god so it's very easy for him to figure out such little things.)

so he went over the fancy bar and poured himself some *****.. " ah potatoes.. at least they turned out to be just right.." he thought out loud.

and then he proceeded to drink himself to death.. countless times. 'cuz he could do that. he was god.


over and over again. glass being neither full or half or even ******* empty.

drink after drink. and soon late enough he went into a deep slumber because of course god loves a good sleep. who doesn't ?


he slept through the entire life span of many insects and until the breaking dawn.

the first rays of the sun hit the mighty alps as well as the face of this almighty being on a white bed in a red hotel by a blue lake who had forgotten you do your own curtains in the human world.

his first thought was to destroy the sun- it took a lot to not lift his finger.

slowly but surely he regained his infinitum consciousness, and got in touch with the multi dimensional universes sprawling all over every  second in past and future simultaneously... but **** that 'cuz the head ache oh! so painful.. almost made him forgot he could just not want it and it won't happen.

God did not enjoy most human banalities.. but he did enjoy a rather a peculiar one...even more than drinking and kissing death. the one of peeing.

and he had to ***. bad.


God, with a hint of a smile lifted his finger and boom he was right by- where the deed is done in a civilised community. he imagined what would people think if they came to know why he's always more often than not a 'he' than a 'she'.

he was in his stark boxers, standing almost naked with a smile on his face enjoying the rush.

pink floyd started playing out of the thin air. an autumn's calm spread through the veins of this sudden universe. I kid you not, shahrukh khan was there with his arms wide open.

slowly the god began the almost holy ritual.

pull down the garment. admire. take it out. admire. do the deed, keep admiring. put it back. sigh. very well organised and neat.

so god took a deep breath, looked at the alps one more time, looked down with a smile on his face, and slowly pulled down the garment... his consciousness in a rush.

and then god screamed. there was a duck.

When did I come crashing down?
When did I reach the bottom?

I never realised
Just how much I seem to cry,
Every night without fail.

I never realised
How bad I really was
Till I blacked from loss of blood.

I never realised
How much it hurt
Until I could no longer feel.

I never realised
That I no longer cared
If I never woke again.

Maybe I'm getting weaker,
Slowly giving up all together.
I never realised, well I guess I did
I just lied to hide the truth and pain.
Truth is I never knew the right words to say.

When did I lose my rich on reality?
When did I only long for death?

Females and males are one in the world,
although that is not the belief that has been furled.
We are told that one gender is better than the other,
it seems it's just one stereotype; one after another.

Equality can become realised if only we believe
and take the initiative to take action and achieve.
Why shouldn't men and women be treated the same?
To have equal rights and equal pay, that should really be our aim.

Men, gender inequality is your issue too,
although you may not agree, I'm afraid it is true.
You should have the right to express your emotions and be what you please,
You should not be pulled back by stigma, but instead be who you are at ease.

Instead of fighting, we should be pulling together,
and make this journey a joint endeavor.
We are of equal value if only we open our eyes,
at the heart of change is where we become most wise.

Now or never? If not us then who?
the interest in this movement must come through.
Equality is not a privilege but a human right,
all genders on the spectrum should be able to shine bright.

May 1999, on my way to school on day I saw you I wanted to be with you. On the way home, I saw you again. I saw you most days.

    By June, I realised you went to our school. I felt like I knew you, but I'd never talked to you.

     In September, you were in my class. I flet a rush of hope that I finally talk to you.

      In October, I did finally talk to you. Because of a science project. Your name was Mike and you were a wiz in class.

      By January 2000, we were good friends and did a lot of projects toghther.

       At the end of June, I had changed schools. I realised that I can't live without you.

When you stepped in my door,
I realised I was Paradise
in my heart and soul.
You were so surefooted
because you came up from the high.
So long I longed for it.
O Fathima, only to kiss your feet!

The time was so sweet,
beyond anyone’s dream
only in pure beauty
I was rendering,
screaming to new highs.
I did it my way!
Lovely bouncing on
my polished pitch,
the rivers forget to flow
back to the seas.
But no one knew
where my toe melts!
Until you did
and took me for a tread
closer to your spring,
my sweet dream:
O Fathima, only to kiss your feet!

Your so pleased man wished
to rain down with love,
but humble you hid your feet!
You blinded the moon, snowed it
away under the seven seas.
No wonder it's
your winning footing.
Like the Prophet said:
I found me the heaven
beneath the mother’s feet.
O Fathima, only on your feet!

I woke up to a beautiful summer morning. The sun was shining and the rainclouds were far away. I decided I would spend the day on the beach. I always enjoy visiting the beach as it gives me an opportunity to laugh at people's hideous bodies. But where? And then, suddenly, a wonderful idea came to me: why not go to a nudist beach as they always attract the ugliest people with the worst bodies imaginable. And you get to see their naughty bits too, for added humour.

So I rushed to my computer to check the Internet for possibilities and, to my utter amazement, I discovered there was a naturist beach only fifty miles from my beautiful home. As I read the details of the beach and the directions, I had a sense of déja vu; I realised with a frisson of ****** anticipation that it was the very same beach described by Victor the ****** in his wonderful story "Confessions of a ******" which held pride of place on my toilet reading shelf.

I was at the wheel of my incredibly expensive and luxurious car just as soon as my servants had packed my essential requirements: icebox with chilled vintage champagne, lightweight folding gold-plated sun-lounger, vicuna picnic rug and of course my lunch hamper. My chef had rapidly prepared a delicious impromptu luncheon of smoked salmon, steak tartare and a selection of other goodies. I decided to dispense with the services of my chauffeur in the interests of preserving the confidentiality of my destination.

In less than an hour and a half I was there; and the place was exactly as Victor had described it in his immortal novella: a long stretch of mixed sand and pebbles, backed by dunes planted with wild grass, waving romantically in the sea breeze. Idyllic, and crawling with naked perverts as a bonus. I parked my car and transported my equipment to the dunes. I regretted not having brought one of the servants as the hamper and icebox were quite cumbersome and heavy. I was perspiring gently by the time I had unloaded everything and set it all up to my satisfaction.

I took some care in selecting what I felt was the optimum location as I needed to combine the potentially conflicting benefits of wanting to see as many naked people as possible (hopefully including some *** action) with the need for privacy. After all I am famous. I finally chose a spot where there were several ghastly specimens on view for a few laughs and where I could also see a potentially interesting couple who might be exhibitionistic perverts. The man was about 45, shaven-headed, skinny and prematurely wrinkled all over by the sun (yes, I do mean all over) and he had an interesting tattoo on his back: "I love hot ***** ***", which I saw as promising. The woman was plump with pendulous ******* and very prominent buttocks; additionally - how can I put this delicately? - her **** was totally bereft of hair.

Before settling down to my lunch, I felt a little perambulation would not come amiss. So, as bold as brass, off I went for a little **** stroll through the dunes. I will not describe in full detail the visual horrors I encountered: hirsute old men playing aimlessly with wizened, shrunken todgers the size of a thimble; obese old biddies, their rolls of sun-tanned lard hanging round them like rows of bloated udders on a pregnant sow; tattooed bald queens, muscles bulging under lashings of sun-oil, their pierced genitals glinting wickedly in the sunshine; the list was endless. How could such grotesques revel in revealing their corporeal repulsion to the eager world?

And then I saw him! It had to be him! In a dip in the sand dunes lay a middle-aged, paunchy little man, intently watching a couple of old ******* groping each other incompetently. It could only be Victor the One-Legged ******! After all, just how many unipod Peeping Toms are there?

I strolled over to him, coughing discreetly so as to give him a chance to stop his furtive *******. 'Do excuse me for disturbing you,' I said, 'but are you by any chance Victor the famous ****** whose confession I read only last week?'

'Why yes,' he admitted, 'but how on earth did you recognise me?'

I smiled and pointed to the cast-off artificial leg lying next to his beach towel (which, incidentally, was emblazoned by a giant "V", a bit of an identity hint, I felt). He patted his stump ruefully and laughed uproariously so that his average-sized ***** flapped like a pennant in a Force Eight gale. 'I forgot,' he bellowed deliriously.

'I'm just about to have a spot of lunch,' I said. 'My personal Michelin-starred chef, Jean-Claude Anusse, always over-caters ridiculously as he knows I often pick up people on my excursions, so there'll be more than enough. I'm afraid it's nothing special: some smoked salmon and some assorted cold meats, possibly a spot of pâté de foie gras, if I know Jean-Claude. And, naturally, enough champagne to drown a hippo in. Please do say yes, as I have so many questions to ask you about your hobby.'

'That's very kind of you.' mumbled the astonished Peeping Tom, 'I should be very happy to accept your generous offer. Incidentally, to whom have I the honour of speaking?'

I was, frankly, shocked when I realised Victor had not recognised me, and then I remembered I was naked. That explained it. 'Why, I am none other than Edna Sweetlove, poetess to the stars, creator of the Barry Hodges "Memories" poems and biographer to the intrepid and incredible superhero SNOGGO,' I murmured sotto voce, not wishing to be mobbed for my autograph.

'Edna Sweetlove!' he exclaimed, 'you mean THE Edna Sweetlove?' And so saying he glanced down to my genital zone in order to answer the question which so many of my fans have asked over the years. He grinned as he saw the solution to the great mystery.

Victor quickly strapped on his prosthesis and accompanied me (slightly lopsidedly) to my little luncheon site. He helped me unpack our repast and then made himself as comfortable as a naked one legged ****** could reasonably expect to be without a chair.

I must say Chef and his team had excelled himself in the thirty minutes I had given them: smoked salmon roulades, a magnifique plateau de fruits de mer including a three-pound giant lobster, steak tartare, a whole cold pintarde à l'ail, a few dozen sushi rolls, a monster summer pudding, and naturally a Jeraboam of Krug '92. No wonder the hamper had been so ******* heavy. I could see Victor was impressed as I offered him a chilled flute of the most expensive champagne he had ever tasted. 'Better than the pathetic, poverty-stricken muck you were going to gobble, I expect,' I commented in a friendly way.

'Mmmmmmmmm! Absolutely delicious, Edna. I was certainly not expecting this! exclaimed the grateful freak. But before we start on what looks like a truly exquisite nosh-up, I must give you a word of warning.'

'A word of warning? What about, Victor dear?'

'Well, you see, there's no, um....er,' he blushed charmingly.

'No what, Victor? Don't be embarrassed, sweetie. This is Edna you're talking to. Spit it out, baby.'

'Well, um, there's no ******* on the beach, Edna,' explained Victor uncomfortably. 'So, if you need to pump ship, you have to do it native-style "au naturel" in the dunes over there, which can be a bit messy what with all the filth lying about the place in that area, not to mention the lavvo-voyeurs hanging round. Or else you need to swim out a bit and unload into the sea. Judging by what's on offer at your stylish picnic, we'll both be bursting for a good old **** and crap afterwards.'

I shrieked with laughter and explained there was nothing I liked better than a widdle en plein air or a double act dans l'eau. We then tucked into lunch with a vengeance. It was ******* delicious, even though I say so myself. After about fifteen minutes' happy munching, interspersed with witty small talk, Victor suddenly went rigid. 'Look over there!' he hissed and indicated the middle-aged couple by the windbreak.

I looked and I was surprised. The plump woman with the big *** was on her knees in front of her partner, giving him a vigorous *******, and he was lolling back in ecstasy, a broad smile on his face. He seemed to be looking straight at us, almost visibly willing us to watch. He winked repeatedly in a conspiratorial fashion; maybe he had St Vitus’ Dance. Or even worse, he wanted me to get stuck into the action with them.

'They're regulars here, they normally put on quite a good show,' explained Victor excitedly, his hand reaching down automatically to his rapidly stiffening ****.

'Victor!' I admonished him, 'I would prefer it if you didn't **** yourself off during lunch. How about another oyster, you silly old ****?'

'Sorry, Edna, I forgot,' he replied shamefacedly. 'No more oysters thank you; they only make me more randy than I already am. But I'll have another lobster claw if I may. My compliments to your chef.'

So we sipped our champagne and enjoyed our luncheon as we watched the couple give us their little exhibition. After a few minutes *******, the fat lady turned around and leaned forward on her hands and knees and her gnarled bald hubby ******* her doggy fashion from behind with some gusto; this made her beefy buns bounce about like two ferrets fighting in a sack.

I glanced around us and realised that, totally unbeknown to me, the little spectacle had attracted quite an audience. Nine men, young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, stood staring transfixed by the petite scène erotique before us, all ******* wildly. 'Oi!' I called out. 'Can't you see we're eating?' I admonished them, but to no ******* avail whatsoever.

Victor was visibly torn between his innate desire to watch the copulators and masturbators and with his understandable wish not to offend his lunch companion by manhandling himself unrestrainedly. But, thank God, his natural good manners prevailed and we continued to converse and enjoy our meal in the midst of this Bacchanalian scene of depravity.

I watched dispassionately as the couple came to what sounded like a very satisfactory mutual ******, accompanied by the observers' seminal tributes to their performance. I naturally had filmed the entire scene secretly on my state-of-the-art mobile.

'If you give me your email address, Victor my love, I'll send you a copy of that little show,' I promised. He nodded in gratitude. 'Victor  the ****** at yahoo dot co dot uk,' he mumbled rapidly, 'no dots, Victorthevoyeur is all one word.'

Once we had polished off lunch, I told Victor I would like to interview him with a view to writing a short story about his life's work. He was touchingly flattered and, with a little judicious prompting and probing, told me his saga, which I recorded on my Edna-phone. I naturally don't want to pre-empt my forthcoming mini-biography of Victor, but suffice it to say that Victor told me how and why he became a ******, he regaled me with some of the staggering things he had seen, he gave me a list of some really ace ******* locations, he shared all his best peeping places with me, he gave me the ultimate lowdown on the world of Britain's most celebrated *** snooper and I was touched by his burning honesty. I felt a tear ***** my eye at this tragic tale.

All too soon it was time for us to part. After thanking me profusely and making me promise I would visit him one day so he could repay my generosity, he re-attached his metal leg and limped away towards his beach towel. I knew he was raring to go as the best of the action normally took place in the early evening.

'Farewell, dearest Victor,' I called out as he tripped clumsily over a fellow pervert who had been eavesdropping near us.

She said, ‘You are funny, the way you set yourself up the moment we arrive. You look into every room to see if it’s suitable as a place to work. Is there a table? Where are the plugs? Is there a good chair at the right height? If there isn’t, are there cushions to make it so? You are funny.’
 
He countered this, but his excuse didn’t sound very convincing. He knew exactly what she meant, but it hurt him a little that she should think it ‘funny’. There’s nothing funny about trying to compose music, he thought. It’s not ‘radio in the head’ you know – this was a favourite expression he’d once heard an American composer use. You don’t just turn a switch and the music’s playing, waiting for you to write it down. You have to find it – though he believed it was usually there, somewhere, waiting to be found. But it’s elusive. You have to work hard to detect what might be there, there in the silence of your imagination.
 
Later over their first meal in this large cottage she said, ‘How do you stop hearing all those settings of the Mass that you must have heard or sung since childhood?’ She’d been rehearsing Verdi’s Requiem recently and was full of snippets of this stirring piece. He was a) writing a Mass to celebrate a cathedral’s reordering after a year as a building site, and b) he’d been a boy chorister and the form and order of the Mass was deeply engrained in his aural memory. He only had to hear the plainsong introduction Gloria in Excelsis Deo to be back in the Queen’s chapel singing Palestrina, or Byrd or Poulenc.
 
His ‘found’ corner was in the living room. The table wasn’t a table but a long cabinet she’d kindly covered with a tablecloth. You couldn’t get your feet under the thing, but with his little portable drawing board there was space to sit properly because the board jutted out beyond the cabinet’s top. It was the right length and its depth was OK, enough space for the board and, next to it, his laptop computer. On the floor beside his chair he placed a few of his reference scores and a box of necessary ‘bits’.
 
The room had two large sofas, an equally large television, some unexplainable and instantly dismissible items of decoration, a standard lamp, and a wood burning stove. The stove was wonderful, and on their second evening in the cottage, when clear skies and a stiff breeze promised a cold night, she’d lit it and, as the evening progressed, they basked in its warmth, she filling envelopes with her cards, he struggling with sleep over a book.
 
Despite and because this was a new, though temporary, location he had got up at 5.0am. This is a usual time for composers who need their daily fix of absolute quiet. And here, in this cottage set amidst autumn fields, within sight of a river estuary, under vast, panoramic uninterrupted skies, there was the distinct possibility of silence – all day. The double-glazing made doubly sure of that.
 
He had sat with a mug of tea at 5.10 and contemplated the silence, or rather what infiltrated the stillness of the cottage as sound. In the kitchen the clock ticked, the refrigerator seemed to need a period of machine noise once its door had been opened. At 6.0am the central heating fired up for a while. Outside, the small fruit trees in the garden moved vigorously in the wind, but he couldn’t hear either the wind or a rustle of leaves.  A car droned past on the nearby road. The clear sky began to lighten promising a fine day. This would certainly do for silence.
 
His thoughts returned to her question of the previous evening, and his answer. He was about to face up to his explanation. ‘I empty myself of all musical sound’, he’d said, ‘I imagine an empty space into which I might bring a single note, a long held drone of a note, a ‘d’ above middle ‘c’ on a chamber ***** (seeing it’s a Mass I’m writing).  Harrison Birtwistle always starts on an ‘e’. A ‘d’ to me seems older and kinder. An ‘e’ is too modern and progressive, slightly brash and noisy.’
 
He can see she is quizzical with this anecdotal stuff. Is he having me on? But no, he is not having her on. Such choices are important. Without them progress would be difficult when the thinking and planning has to stop and the composing has to begin. His notebook, sitting on his drawing board with some first sketches, plays testament to that. In this book glimpses of music appear in rhythmic abstracts, though rarely any pitches, and there are pages of written description. He likes to imagine what a new work is, and what it is not. This he writes down. Composer Paul Hindemith reckoned you had first to address the ‘conditions of performance’. That meant thinking about the performers, the location, above all the context. A Mass can be, for a composer, so many things. There were certainly requirements and constraints. The commission had to fulfil a number of criteria, some imposed by circumstance, some self-imposed by desire. All this goes into the melting ***, or rather the notebook. And after the notebook, he takes a large piece of A3 paper and clarifies this thinking and planning onto (if possible) a single sheet.
 
And so, to the task in hand. His objective, he had decided, is to focus on the whole rather than the particular. Don’t think about the Kyrie on its own, but consider how it lies with the Gloria. And so with the Sanctus & Benedictus. How do they connect to the Agnus Dei. He begins on the A3 sheet of plain paper ‘making a map of connections’. Kyrie to Gloria, Gloria to Credo and so on. Then what about Agnus Dei and the Gloria? Is there going to be any commonality – in rhythm, pace and tempo (we’ll leave melody and harmony for now)? Steady, he finds himself saying, aren’t we going back over old ground? His notebook has pages of attempts at rhythmizing the text. There are just so many ways to do this. Each rhythmic solution begets a different slant of meaning.
 
This is to be a congregational Mass, but one that has a role for a 4-part choir and ***** and a ‘jazz instrument’. Impatient to see notes on paper, he composes a new introduction to a Kyrie as a rhythmic sketch, then, experimentally, adds pitches. He scores it fully, just 10 bars or so, but it is barely finished before his critical inner voice says, ‘What’s this for? Do you all need this? This is showing off.’ So the filled-out sketch drops to the floor and he examines this element of ‘beginning’ the incipit.
 
He remembers how a meditation on that word inhabits the opening chapter of George Steiner’s great book Grammars of Creation. He sees in his mind’s eye the complex, colourful and ornate letter that begins the Lindesfarne Gospels. His beginnings for each movement, he decides, might be two chords, one overlaying the other: two ‘simple’ diatonic chords when sounded separately, but complex and with a measure of mystery when played together. The Mass is often described as a mystery. It is that ritual of a meal undertaken by a community of people who in the breaking of bread and wine wish to bring God’s presence amongst them. So it is a mystery. And so, he tells himself, his music will aim to hold something of mystery. It should not be a comment on that mystery, but be a mystery itself. It should not be homely and comfortable; it should be as minimal and sparing of musical commentary as possible.
 
When, as a teenager, he first began to set words to music he quickly experienced the need (it seemed) to fashion accompaniments that were commentaries on the text the voice was singing. These accompaniments did not underpin the words so much as add a commentary upon them. What lay beneath the words was his reaction, indeed imaginative extension of the words. He eschewed then both melisma and repetition. He sought an extreme independence between word and music, even though the word became the scenario of the music. Any musical setting was derived from the composition of the vocal line.  It was all about finding the ‘key’ to a song, what unlocked the door to the room of life it occupied. The music was the room where the poem’s utterance lived.
 
With a Mass you were in trouble for the outset. There was a poetry of sorts, but poetry that, in the countless versions of the vernacular, had lost (perhaps had never had) the resonance of the Latin. He thought suddenly of the supposed words of William Byrd, ‘He who sings prays twice’. Yes, such commonplace words are intercessional, but when sung become more than they are. But he knew he had to be careful here.
 
Why do we sing the words of the Mass he asks himself? Do we need to sing these words of the Mass? Are they the words that Christ spoke as he broke bread and poured wine to his friends and disciples at his last supper? The answer is no. Certainly these words of the Mass we usually sing surround the most intimate words of that final meal, words only the priest in Christ’s name may articulate.
 
Write out the words of the Mass that represent its collective worship and what do you have? Rather non-descript poetry? A kind of formula for collective incantation during worship? Can we read these words and not hear a surrounding music? He thinks for a moment of being asked to put new music to words of The Beatles. All you need is love. Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away. Oh bla dee oh bla da life goes on. Now, now this is silliness, his Critical Voice complains. And yet it’s not. When you compose a popular song the gap between some words scribbled on the back of an envelope and the hook of chords and melody developed in an accidental moment (that becomes a way of clothing such words) is often minimal. Apart, words and music seem like orphans in a storm. Together they are home and dry.
 
He realises, and not for the first time, that he is seeking a total musical solution to the whole of the setting of those words collectively given voice to by those participating in the Mass.
 
And so: to the task in hand. His objective: to focus on the whole rather than the particular.  Where had he heard that thought before? - when he had sat down at his drawing board an hour and half previously. He’d gone in a circle of thought, and with his sketch on the floor at his feet, nothing to show for all that effort.
 
Meanwhile the sun had risen. He could hear her moving about in the bathroom. He went to the kitchen and laid out what they would need to breakfast together. As he poured milk into a jug, primed the toaster, filled the kettle, the business of what might constitute a whole solution to this setting of the Mass followed him around the kitchen and breakfast room like a demanding child. He knew all about demanding children. How often had he come home from his studio to prepare breakfast and see small people to school? - more often than he cared to remember. And when he remembered he became sad that it was no more.  His children had so often provided a welcome buffer from sessions of intense thought and activity. He loved the walk to school, the first quarter of a mile through the park, a long avenue of chestnut trees. It was always the end of April and pink and white blossoms were appearing, or it was September and there were conkers everywhere. It was under these trees his daughter would skip and even his sons would hold hands with him; he would feel their warmth, their livingness.
 
But now, preparing breakfast, his Critical Voice was that demanding child and he realised when she appeared in the kitchen he spoke to her with a voice of an artist in conversation with his critics, not the voice of the man who had the previous night lost himself to joy in her dear embrace. And he was ashamed it was so.
 
How he loved her gentle manner as she negotiated his ‘coming too’ after those two hours of concentration and inner dialogue. Gradually, by the second cup of coffee he felt a right person, and the hours ahead did not seem too impossible.
 
When she’d gone off to her work, silence reasserted itself. He played his viola for half an hour, just scales and exercises and a few folk songs he was learning by heart. This gathering habit was, he would say if asked, to reassert his musicianship, the link between his body and making sound musically. That the viola seemed to resonate throughout his whole body gave him pleasure. He liked the ****** movement required to produce a flowing sequence of bow strokes. The trick at the end of this daily practice was to put the instrument in its case and move immediately to his desk. No pause to check email – that blight on a morning’s work. No pause to look at today’s list. Back to the work in hand: the Mass.
 
But instead his mind and intention seemed to slip sideways and almost unconsciously he found himself sketching (on the few remaining staves of a vocal experiment) what appeared to be a piano piece. The rhythmic flow of it seemed to dance across the page to be halted only when the few empty staves were filled. He knew this was one of those pieces that addressed the pianist, not the listener. He sat back in his chair and imagined a scenario of a pianist opening this music and after a few minutes’ reflection and reading through allowing her hands to move very slowly and silently a few millimetres over the keys.  Such imagining led him to hear possible harmonic simultaneities, dynamics and articulations, though he knew such things would probably be lost or reinvented on a second imagined ‘performance’. No matter. Now his make-believe pianist sounded the first bar out. It had a depth and a richness that surprised him – it was a fine piano. He was touched by its affect. He felt the possibilities of extending what he’d written. So he did. And for the next half an hour lived in the pastures of good continuation, those rich luxuriant meadows reached by a rickerty rackerty bridge and guarded by a troll who today was nowhere to be seen.
 
It was a curious piece. It came to a halt on an enigmatic, go-nowhere / go-anywhere chord after what seemed a short declamatory coda (he later added the marking deliberamente). Then, after a few minutes reflection he wrote a rising arpeggio, a broken chord in which the consonant elements gradually acquired a rising sequence of dissonance pitches until halted by a repetition. As he wrote this ending he realised that the repeated note, an ‘a’ flat, was a kind of fulcrum around which the whole of the music moved. It held an enigmatic presence in the harmony, being sometimes a g# sometimes an ‘a’ flat, and its function often different. It made the music take on a wistful quality.
 
At that point he thought of her little artists’ book series she had titled Tide Marks. Many of these were made of a concertina of folded pages revealing - as your eyes moved through its pages - something akin to the tide’s longitudinal mark. This centred on the page and spread away both upwards and downwards, just like those mirror images of coloured glass seen in a child’s kaleidoscope. No moment of view was ever quite the same, but there were commonalities born of the conditions of a certain day and time.  His ‘Tide Mark’ was just like that. He’d followed a mark made in his imagination from one point to another point a little distant. The musical working out also had a reflection mechanism: what started in one hand became mirrored in the other. He had unexpectedly supplied an ending, this arpegiated gesture of finality that wasn’t properly final but faded away. When he thought further about the role of the ending, he added a few more notes to the arpeggio, but notes that were not be sounded but ghosted, the player miming a press of the keys.
 
He looked at the clock. Nearly five o’clock. The afternoon had all but disappeared. Time had retreated into glorious silence . There had been three whole hours of it. How wonderful that was after months of battling with the incessant and draining turbulence of sound that was ever present in his city life. To be here in this quiet cottage he could now get thoroughly lost – in silence. Even when she was here he could be a few rooms apart, and find silence.
 
A week more of this, a fortnight even . . . but he knew he might only manage a few days before visitors arrived and his long day would be squeezed into the early morning hours and occasional uncertain periods when people were out and about.
 
When she returned, very soon now, she would make tea and cut cake, and they’d sit (like old people they wer

PLANET NAIROBI (When the sun goes down)
Nur…
They were on the verge of losing this battle… it was only a matter of time, and he knew that. Through the window, he saw them advance, with a fierce swiftness that would have put anyone opposed to them at unease. Trembling uncontrollably, he reached for his weapon and held it firmly, ready to martyr himself for his family’s honour and legacy if need be. For they were not, and never would be known as a family of cowards, they were royalty... and he would rather go down fighting than cowering, that was the bottom line. But he knew that his sword, as well forged as it was, would be no match for Rath and his five hundred man strong battalion. So, biting his lower lip he waited for the pounding footsteps to reach the top of the stairs where he stood, the one solitary guardian to the throne. Martyrdom was his destiny.
“Let he that stands between Rath and the throne fall like the city walls!” Rath’s dominant voice bellowed as it got closer, too close for comfort.
He braced himself.
Suddenly, the doors burst open. And Nur... Prince Nur, finally got to come face to face with the scourge that had terrorised the lands of the sea for so long. A man of whom he had heard about from stories as a child growing up. A man that had haunted his dreams for as long as he could remember. Nur realised that he had always been afraid of Rath, long before this moment, how was he supposed to fight this man when he was clearly at a disadvantage? For it was common knowledge that to go into battle afraid, was to go into battle prepared to lose.
Rath was a gigantic figure, and exuded the air of one who was accustomed to crushing his opponents and hadn’t experienced defeat in a while... if not ever. This man stood at almost eight feet tall, with rock hard muscles that seemed to pile on top of more muscle, threatening to tear through his dark skin. His long locks of unkempt hair fell over a face that could only be described as menacing. He had a permanent scowl that was complimented by his black, soulless eyes. And as they stared each other down, Nur couldn’t ignore the presence of sheer evil he saw in those eyes, a shiver of dread ran down his spine. He raised his blade.
“A child?” Rath barked, “A petulant child? Is that what this Kingdom’s defences have come down to? An infant?” He waved a dismissive hand at Nur.
“A prince!” Nur responded defiantly, raising his blade even higher and more confidently. This man may have been the epitome of terror, but Nur would be ****** if he was going to be talked down to in this manner, this was his palace.
“A prince huh? Prince Nur I presume? Your father was a brave man, I respected him. Even if I met his acquaintance only for a couple of minutes, before I slaughtered him. But I do respect a king that fights alongside his men, as opposed to other cowards I’ve had the pleasure of killing that had barricaded themselves in their chambers and let others fight their battles for them. King Thur was a rare breed... but a dead one all the same.” He laughed remorselessly as he said this. “And soon you will get to join your warrior father foolish one.”
Nur lost all sense of fear. Infuriated, his nostrils flared as he swung the blade with all the ferocity he could muster, slicing deep into Rath’s right forearm. Time slowed to syrup as he saw his adversary’s blood stain the sword, but realising that it wasn’t a fatal strike, he turned around swiftly, switching his stance just in time to see Rath’s massive blade come down on his head. Then there was a deathly silence.
The afterlife was nothing like he had pictured. It smelt of... he couldn’t quite place that peculiar smell. It wasn’t pleasant, but neither was it unpleasant, just unfamiliar. Then he turned around and saw her. He deduced that she was probably the source of the smell. He noticed that smoke came out of her nostrils and mouth every few seconds after lifting a sticklike object to her lips. Nur mused at how wrong the high priest in their kingdom had been when he spoke about the place in the sun... the afterlife. It wasn’t anything like he had described.
But wait a minute! He realised that the sun was still above him, in the sky. He could see it. He could feel it on his skin. So WHERE WAS HE? He felt dizzy, unable to comprehend. Only a minute ago he was in the royal palace, facing certain death. And now he was... he didn’t know where he was, or even what he was. Was he dead? Transcended? Was this just his soul? If so, then how come he still had his senses? All these questions raced through his mind at the same time. He turned toward the lady, who seemed unaware of his presence. She was tall and very light skinned compared to him and her hair was tied in ponytail at the back of her head. He couldn’t make sense of her attire though, she seemed to wear a lot of clothing, garment over garment that covered her arms and legs. She was also extremely beautiful and had a slim womanly body most warriors would **** for, he noted, and felt himself flush. He tried to see what she was squinting so intently at and concluded that she was just staring into space as she drew, he realised now, on the tiny stick and blew out more smoke. That was when he noticed how high up they were, this palace stood almost five times as high as theirs. It was overwhelming to say the least.  He got up and walked over to her, deciding to leave his blade behind so as not to come off as a threat.
“Greetings?” He said politely. She jumped as if she had just seen a ghost, dropping the stick she was holding. He had clearly startled her, so he took a step back lifting his hands in the air to signify that he meant her no harm. She breathed rapidly and began to speak just as rapidly in a foreign tongue. Nur couldn’t understand what she was saying, but the hostility in her tone and her demeanour was hard to miss. He took another step back, ready to defend himself from an attack if need be. He had heard tales of an island with warrior women who could match, and beat, even the strongest male adversary in combat. He decided to tread cautiously.


Nasim...
Nasim Naikuni was beyond peeved. Who was this ******?  He had scared her half to death and almost made her fall off the roof, not to mention burn her favourite grey, three thousand shilling trouser suite when she dropped the cigarette. And what annoyed her even more was that he didn’t seem to register how ******* she was. He just stood there with a blank expression on his face, like a schoolboy waiting for his mistake to be explained to him. Nasim couldn’t stand slow people, they got under her skin. She was yelling at the top of her lungs, which was taxing to say the least, seeing as she had been smoking just seconds ago.
“Are you slow?” She shouted, tapping at her temple repeatedly. “What makes you think you can sneak up on me like that you fool? You almost killed me. Do you realise that?” Then she stopped and studied him, out of breath. She noticed that he seemed unable to understand English and so she switched to Swahili, “Nini mbaya na wewe?” What’s wrong with you? Still there was no response.
She gave him a once over. He dressed strangely. His large, golden brown pants that fluttered in the wind seemed to have been made from an expensive material, though it was like no material she’d laid eyes on before. It bordered somewhere between silk and suede. His shirt was also made of a similar material, but leather brown in colour, matching his leather boots that were laced and reached just under the knee. He stood an inch or two shorter than she did, but she guessed that was probably because she was in heels. He had long hair that seemed to fall halfway down his back in one long braid. He looked almost exotic as he tried to communicate, but she couldn’t place the language or his ethnicity, for his skin-tone was chocolate brown but his hair looked almost like an Asian’s, dark and straight. He spoke in a tongue she had never heard before. There was also something really classy about this boy, whom she guessed to be around eighteen years of age or so. It was like looking at a darker, more pampered version of Sinbad the sailor.
Nasim relaxed a little and decided to give the fellow a chance to introduce himself, in whatever way he intended to do so. He seemed to pick up on this and started explaining something to her, making a couple of gestures, and at some point she thought she saw him mimic a fight, and then  point to the sky. Nasim still didn’t know what he was talking about, but felt a semblance of communication begin to take form. He directed her attention to another part of the roof, probably where he had approached her from. And she saw the blade! With catlike agility she swung her purse at him, the blow caught him square on the jaw with a thud! The bottle of perfume she religiously carried around in it serving a different purpose on this day. He hadn’t seen it coming and so had no chance of stopping it. He staggered backwards as she made a run for it toward the staircase but felt a hand grab her ankle causing her to tumble onto the hot cement floor. At that moment her heart sank, for she knew that she was done for.


Nur...
Nur was perplexed, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve the assault. The lady had seemed to be calming down, but all of a sudden she had lunged at him with a weapon he had first assumed to be a bag. Though, she didn’t strike with the strength that a warrior would have, and also had made an attempt to flee. This told him two things. One, she wasn’t accustomed to combat... and two, she had attacked more out of fear than strife. Which meant that she posed no immediate threat to him. Also, she was the only person he had met so far and his only hope of figuring out where he was. He couldn’t afford to lose her, not just yet, so he decided to try something he was ashamed he hadn’t thought of sooner. Nur spoke into her head.
‘I mean you no harm.’  He said, and waited. No response. He tried again, concentrating harder this time. ‘Can you hear me? I mean you no harm’
‘LET ME GOOO!’  Her thoughts screamed.
He could understand her, they had made a connection. Progress...

One year later. Nasim...
“Good afternoon people? You’re hangin’ out with me Nasim Naikuni on your favourite show Voices, where you can throw any question you have regarding life... and living it, at me and the voices in my head will answer them for you... yeah, you heard right, the voices in my head. I’ll be takin’ your calls for the next hour. Let’s begin shall we?” Nasim spoke into the microphone just before a voice-over added...
“NASIM NAIKUNI, THE ONLY RADIO PRESENTER THAT’S LITERALLY GONE BONKERS!” And then was followed by some rock music. ‘So what?... I’m still a rock star... ’ Pink’s lyrics belted out as Nasim removed her headphones to take a breather before she talked to her first caller. A breather... and also to have a bit of a chat with the voice in her head. She walked out of the studio into a corridor where she was out of sight, and concentrated, her eyes crinkling from the effort.
‘Hey, are you there?’
‘Uh huh.’ The prince replied.
‘Okay, we’re on in roughly three minutes. Make me look good babes’
‘Don’t I always?’
‘True dat. What are you doing?’
‘Breakfast.’
‘It’s one in the afternoon... ’
‘This is not my planet, therefore I’m not obliged to follow its rules. I can have a one o’clock breakfast if I want to.’
‘Brunch.’
‘What?’
‘Brunch, what your having would be brunch. Breakfast... aaand lunch?’
‘You see? You get all high and mighty on me about this and you even have a name for it? If it is so wrong to have breakfast at this time, then why would your people give the meal a name? I’m just saying.’ Nur said mockingly.
‘I give up’ She replied with a sigh.
‘Nas... Nas?’
Silence.
She walked back into the studio.
“Caller... you’re on air. Shoot.” Nasim said softly, leaning into the microphone.
“Hey Nasim, lovely job you’re doing by the way.”
“Why thank you dear, but I don’t deserve all the credit you know?”
“Yeah I know... you and the voices in your head... ha-ha! Anyway my name is George, and I’m kinda’ in a predicament at the moment. You see, I have a wife and a family... two kids, but I kinda’ got into this relationship outta’... obligation as opposed to real love...”
“Obligation?”
“Yes. I met my wife five years ago in uni’ and we dated. But looking back, I only got into the relationship because I felt I’d led her on and she loved me soo much, I just couldn’t disappoint her. So I got stuck in a phony relationship, at least on my part. Next thing I know, we are pregnant and... It’s been we ever since.”
“So you want to what? Get out of your marriage?”
“I want to be with the person I truly love...”
“Hooo... **! Scoreboard! Now we have lift off. And how long have you known this person that you truly love George?” She said this with a tinge of amusement in her voice.
“Six years... and we’ve been going out for the past two.” He sounded ashamed.
‘He sounds ashamed.’ She heard Nur say observationally.
‘No kidding.’ She retorted.
(In the past year or so, Nasim and Nur had come to an understanding somewhat. After she had struck him with her purse and the little scuffle they’d had on the rooftop, and after convincing herself that she wasn’t going crazy... or that the cigarette she had been smoking wasn’t laced with marijuana or some other hallucinogen, she finally gave in and listened to the voice speaking to her in her thoughts.
‘Please, just give me a chance to explain. I need your help lady!’ He sounded desperate.
She felt sorry for him, but still suspected she could be going nuts.
He continued. ‘I don’t know where I am. My father is dead and I don’t know where I am or how I arrived here, and you’re the only one that can help me right now...’
Nasim, touched now, replied. “How am I supposed to do that? And how are you doing this telepathy thing? Are you really doing this?” She shook her head violently, like a wet dog trying to dry itself, “I’m very confused right now.”
He looked even more confused. ‘Talk to me in my head, I think it is the only way we can communicate with each other.’
She didn’t know how to.
‘It’s simple, concentrate.’ He said reassuringly.
She tried. Still nothing.
‘I could hear you a moment ago, I don’t understand. Let’s try this slowly, repeat after me... Nur.’ He told her.
She heard him, and was thinking what?
He repeated, ‘Nur.’
She tried thinking the word he’d asked her to repeat as hard as she could but he didn’t seem to be getting anything. She decided that the cigarette must have been laced with something. Here she was, on the roof top of her work building trying to master telepathy, with a stranger who just happened to own a sword. This had to be a dream, a nightmare.
‘I must be high.’
‘Yes! Yes! You’re high!’ She heard the excited reply.
‘What?’
‘You did it!’ Nur said happily, ‘you figured it out. And yes, I was also meaning to ask you about how high we are.’
She had done it. Nasim could hear him and answer back, she felt oddly proud of this accomplishment. Then she asked puzzled. ‘High? You get high?’
‘I am high.’ Came the naive reply.
‘Oh...’
‘Why are we so high up? The palaces on our island are half the size of yours, are you that many in your palace that you need to build it so tall?’
Then she understood. And laughed... ‘Who are you? And how did you get here?’
‘My name is Nur... Prince Nur... how I got here? That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ He was being honest.
And thus begun an adventurous relationship between the two. Nasim took him to her apartment that day, passing curious and disapproving looks all the way. The most difficult part being trying to explain to her boss why she was coming from the roof in the company of someone who dressed like a ******, as he put it. She made up something. And he gave her one of those I’ll accept your story just because... looks. Nasim found that hilarious. But she was glad she had asked Nur to leave the sword behind to be recovered later. That would have been a tad difficult to explain. They got to her apartment block and were met by more disapproving looks from a group of nosey old women, the type that love to mind everyone else’s business but their own, as they walked to the lift. And when they got into apartment F6 on the second floor, she introduced Nu

Hope surges upward from your core and to the heart. It warms your blood as your heart crushes into itself twice every second and unbelievably, your mind starts to think of a million and one possibilities. Your hand tingles and finally, after what seemed like eons, you think you are feeling hope again. You start suppressing it out of reflex- an unconscious, uncontrollable action. You push it down, right back to the void it came from but its too late and your lips are curving upwards into a gentle smile. You anticipate euphoria -almost can feel it at the top of your fingertips and you finally let yourself believe and hope.

It comes crashing down without warning. For a second, you still smile because your mind could not process the disappointment yet. Then - hurt, sadness, shock - flits through your mind. You still hold on to your hope like a child who refuses to let go of candy. Your smile wavers. But just like grabbing onto handfuls of sand, hope will fall out through your tightly clasped fingers. You realised that your hold on hope is no longer and instead, it is replaced by cold, unforgiving reality.

Like an icy slap to your face, like an unexpected kick to the stomach, like a bite from a dog you have always love- that is how disappointment feels like.

He had been away. Just a few days, but long enough to feel coming home was necessary. He carried with him so many thoughts and plans, and the inevitable list had already formed itself. But the list was for Monday morning. He would enjoy now what he could of Sunday.

Everything can feel so different on a Sunday. Travel by train had been a relaxed affair for once, a hundred miles cross-country from the open skies of the Fens to the conurbations of South Yorkshire. Today, there was no urgency or deliberation. Passengers were families, groups of friends, sensible singles going home after the weekend away. No suits. He seemed the only one not fixated by a smart phone, tablet or computer. So he got to see the autumn skies, the mountain ranges of clouds, the vast fields, the still-harvesting. But his thoughts were full to the brim of traveling the previous November when together they had made a similar journey (though in reverse) under similar skies. They had escaped for two days one night into a time of being wholly together, inseparably together, joined in that joy of companionship that elated him to recall it. He was overcome with weakness in his body and a jolt of passion combined: to think of her quiet beauty, the tilt of her head, the brush of her hair against his cheek. He longed for her now to be in the seat opposite and to stroke the back of her calf with his foot, hold her small hand across the table, gaze and gaze again at her profile as she, always alert to every flicker of change, took in the passing landscape.

But these thoughts gradually subsided and he found himself recalling a poem he had commissioned. It was a text for a verse anthem, that so very English form beloved by cathedral and collegiate choral directors of the 16th C (and just that weekend he had been in such a building where this music had its home). He had been reading The Five Proofs for the Existence of God from the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, knowing this scholar to have been a cornerstone of the work of Umberto Eco, an author he admired. He had also set a poem that mentioned these Five Proofs, and had set this poem without knowing exactly what they were. He recalled its ending:

They sit by a lake where dead leaves
Float and apples lie on a table. She
ignores him and his folder of papers

but I found later the picture was called
‘In Love’, which coloured love sepia.
Later still, by the time I sat with you,

Watched your arm on the back of a chair
And your hand at rest while you told me
Of Aquinas and his proofs for the existence

Of God I realised love was not always
Sepia, that these hands held invisible
Keys, were pale because the mind was aflame.

He remembered then the challenge of reading Aquinas, this Dominican friar of the 13C. It had stretched him, and he thought of asking his wordsmith of thirty years, the mother of his daughters, to bring these arguments together in a poetic form for him to set to music. She had delivered such a poem and it took him some while to grasp it wholly. He wondered for a moment if he actually had grasped it. But there was this connection with the landscape he was passing through. She had mentioned this, and now he saw it for his own eyes. She had been to Ely for the day, to walk the length of the great Cathedral, to stare at and be amongst the visible past, the past of Aquinas. He remembered the first verse as only a composer can who has laboured over the scheme of words and rhythms:

The Argument from Motion

Everything in the world changes.
A meadow of skewbald horses grazes
Beneath a pair of flying swans
And the universe is different again.

And no sooner is potency reduced to act,
By a whisker’s twitch or a word,
A word, that potent gobbet of air
Than smiles and tears change places.

And everything has changed. Back
Go the tracks beyond seen convergence
To a great self-sufficient terminus
Which terminus we might call God.

And so it was in such a spirit of reflection that his journey passed. He had joined the Edinburgh express at Peterborough to travel north, and the landscape had subsided into a different caste, still rural, but different, the fields smaller, the horizon closer.

Alighting from the train in his home city on a Sunday afternoon the station and surrounding streets were quiet and the few people about were not walking purposefully, they strolled. He climbed the flights of stairs to his third floor studio, unlocked the door and immediately walked across the room to open the window. Seagulls were swooping and diving below him, feeding off the detritus of the previous night’s partying in the clubs and pubs that occupied the city centre, its main shopping area removed to a mall off kilter with the historic city and its public buildings. What shops there were stood empty, boarded up, permanently lease for sale.

Sitting at his desk he surveyed the paper trail of his work in progress. Once so organised, every sketch and plan properly labelled and paginated, he had regressed it seemed to filling pages of his favoured graph paper in a random fashion. Some idea for the probably distant future would find its way into the midst of present work, only (sometimes) a different ink showing this to be the case. Notes from a radio talk jostled with rhythmic abstracts. He realised this was perhaps indicative of his mental state, a state of transience, of uncertainty, a temporariness even.

He was probably too tired to work effectively now, just off the train, but the sense and the relative peacefulness that was Sunday was so seductive. He didn’t want to lose the potential this time afforded. This was why for so many years Sunday had often been such a productive day. If he went to meeting, if he cooked the tea, if he ironed the children’s school clothes for the week, there was this still space in the day. It represented a kind of ideal state in which to think and compose. Now these obligations were more flexible and different, Sunday had even more ‘still’ space, and it continued to cast its spell over him.

He put his latest sketches into a sequential form, editing on the computer then printing them out, listening acutely, wholly absorbed. Only a text message from his beloved (picking blackberries) brought him back to the time and day. There was a photo: a cluster of this dark, late summer fruit, ripe for picking framed against a tree and a white sky. Barely a week ago they had picked blackberries together with friends, children and dogs and he had watched her purposely pick this fruit without the awkwardness that so often accompanied bending over brambles. He wondered at her, constantly. How was this so? He imagined her now in her parents’ garden, a garden glowing in the late afternoon light, as she too would glow in that late-afternoon light . . . he bought himself back to the problem in hand. How to make the next move? There was a join to deal with. He was working with the seven metrics of traditional poetry as the basis for a rhythmic scheme. He was being tempted towards committing an idea to paper. He kept reminding himself of the music’s lie of the land, the effectiveness of it so far. It was still early days he thought to commit to something that would mark the piece out, produce a different quality, would declare the movement he was working on to be a certain shape.

And suddenly he was back on the train, looking at the passing landscape and the next verse of that Aquinas poem insisted itself upon him with its apt description and tantalising argument:

The Argument from Efficient Causality

We are crossing managed washlands.
Pochards so carefully coloured swim
Where cows ruminated last summer
In a landscape fruit of human agency.

And I think of the heavenly aboriginal
Agent of all our doings in this material
Playground of earth I can pick up,
Hold and crumble and cultivate

And air that is mine for the breathing
And the inhabited waters that cling
As if by magic to a sphere. What cause
Sustains the effects we live among?

For there is no smoke without fire
And as we sow, thus we reap. Nihil
Ex nihil, therefore something Is,
Some being we might call God.

So ‘nothing out of nothing, therefore something is’.  Outside in the city the Cathedral bells were ringing in Evensong. The sounds only audible on a Sunday when the traffic abated a little and the sounds in the street below were sporadic. He thought of going out into the Cathedral precinct and listening to the bells roll and rhythm their sequences, those Plain-Bob-Majors and Grand-Sire-Triples. But he knew that would further break the spell, the train of thought that lay about him.

He sketched the next section, confidently, and when he had finished felt he could do know more. There it was: a starting point for tomorrow. He could now go towards home, walk for a while in the park and enjoy the movements of the wind-tossed trees, the late roses, the geese on the lake. He would think about his various children in their various lives. He would think about the woman he loved, and would one day assuage what he knew was a loneliness he could not quench with any music, and though he tried daily with words, would not be assuaged.

There was once a girl with a fear of mirrors.
A fear so frightening,
it followed her round wherever she went.
Zombie films were fine
and spiders didn't bother her,
she would have happily seen a ghost
and the dark was her best friend.
But the mirror haunted her.
"Look at yourself..."
it would whisper,
"Fat,
ugly,
baby face,
crooked teeth..."
Even in bed,
when night veiled it's reflection,
it spoke.
The duvet over her head wasn't much of a shield,
the voice taunting her,
ringing in her ears,
until she woke up,
a sticky, writhing mass in the middle of the matress.
"Good Morning."
The day time was no better.
Shop windows acted as put-me-up mirrors,
cutlery in cafes the same.
There was a solution to walking in the day time,
head down,
head down,
head down,
don't make eye contact,
head down,
but a rogue puddle could stop her in her tracks.
Her watercolour reflection swam menacingly on it's surface,
the voice rising dreamily from it like a mermaid speaking under water.
But she'd take a whole city of puddles
if she could avoid the carnival of horrors that was shopping for clothes.
There,
no matter where she stepped,
mirrors of all shapes and sizes would spring from corners,
the reflections getting redder
and uglier
and sweatier
and more pathetic
each time she span into a new one,
pretty,
thin,
popular girls preened themselves in the corner of her eyes,
friends with the mirrors.
She could hear the voice speaking to them,
but it's words were kind and friendly.
Looking down made no difference as mirrors adorned the floors,
up the same,
the ceiling a funfair nightmare of crazy mirrors,
the whole shop a kaleidoscope of her disgusting,
repulsive,
loathsome face.
She couldn't even cry.
The fear was so great,
that she couldn't risk seeing a reflection in one of the tears.
Even her sorrows mocked her.
The only way was to bottle it up,
to smile,
act like nothing was wrong,
look in her bag when her friends were looking in the mirror,
close her eyes at the hairdressers,
throw a sheet over her own, hateful mirror.
Throw a sheet over herself.
Nobody could hurt her if she didn't let them in.
One day,
the girl smashed the mirror in her room.
She grabbed a shoe and struck it with such force,
that the awful face before her splintered
and crashed to the floor in a thousand pieces.
When she looked down,
hundreds of dark eyes blinked back at her.
It's shell still remained hanging on the wall,
a black rectangle that looked like it could be a portal to another world.
She could still see herself in it.
She shut her eyes and squeezed them hard,
but the mirrors were behind her eyelids,
printed onto her brain,
painted onto her pupils.
The mirror was inside her.
The girl was now a looking glass of self-loathing.
The voice whispered inside her head.
"Just look at yourself.
Look at yourself,
look at yourself,
look at yourself,
LOOK."
She realised she would never be able to escape the mirrors.
She realised that she would smash herself into nothing but broken glass if she didn't just
look.
So she did.
As each day went by,
with every new mirror that crept up on her,
she looked inside it,
looked at herself.
The first time sweat beaded and dripped down her neck
and her hands shook.
She thought she would faint,
thought she was going to run,
thought she wouldn't do it,
but she did.
She looked.
She kept looking for a long time,
scrutinsing her every feature until she realised,
it wasn't that bad.
She looked,
until eventually,
as time passed by,
she managed to smile.
Until eventually,
whenever she closed her eyes,
the mirrors on her lids nodded "You'll be okay.".
Until eventually,
the fear wasn't so scary anymore.
Until,
eventually,
she let herself cry.
And she wanted to see herself in the tears.
There was a once a girl who liked mirrors.

Change

Verse 1
It starts right deep inside of me, a true grasp on identity
The present moment is the place to be, regardless of who's watching me
It’s plain to see, comprehensively, no real gain comes easily
Whether to the left or right of me, time in motion, truly free
To persevere is the truest reward, ride this train be truly on board
This right here to truly afford, come together, one accord
A single mind retrain able, good grades are attainable
Accomplish the impossible, you can be unstoppable
A single step to take, of directions moving on
Keep it moving in forward motion, articulate my song
With an aim of harmony, we can but soldier on
We must create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

There are challenges that are facing me, complex to simplicity
Teams move forward socially, share discussions vocally
To stand as one, it’s just begun
Separation can’t become
A team with victory truly won
A united cause, brought as one
Determination is the real deal, certified replacing the seal
Energy the people can feel
A new beginning, fresh appeal
A brand new chapter practical
Solutions that are workable
Greatness is achievable
Concepts are conceivable
A new journey to take, whether short or whether long
Keep on moving forward, embracing a new song
With amicability, we all will progress on
Let’s create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Chorus
There is ever present change, many thoughts to rearrange
Together we can change the world, let’s rewrite the page
There are many forms of strong, yet we all must soldier on
Together as one, together as one
For each and every fight, is a chance to so unite
Every lesson in the wrong, it can be rendered right
There is opportunity, be the change you want to see
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
In time, beyond the impossible
Breaking through every obstacle
By faith from the intangible
Objects, they are exchangeable
Yet lives are irreplaceable
Real change is attainable

Verse 2
To offer forth a helping hand, notions yet to understand
To be welcomed in a foreign land, disharmony is sinking sand
It’s clear to see, comprehensively, operate more tactfully
With wisdom understandably, let the innocent be truly free
A greater love that can’t be defined, to comprehend the passage of time
Appreciation truly is mine, reverence beyond the sky
Of nature undeniable, progress transformational
Advancing the responsible, of wonderment sensational
A single step to take, cultivated going strong
Keep it moving in forward motion, can we all just get along
With advancing harmony, on a road that may be long
Let’s now create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Advancing with a point of view, discernment of what’s really true
Comprehension of what’s true for you, of new horizons to ensue
With a faculty of proficiency, movements of efficiency
With complex capability, time in motion, skillfully
Experience that can be applied, universal always onside
Letting go of innermost pride
Truthfulness, no need to hide
Application practical, let your goals be reachable
In him all things possible, passionately powerful
With awareness to awake, with weakness rendered strong
Keep moving in forward motion, articulate my song
With all tranquillity, uncover what is wrong
We can now create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Chorus
There is ever present change, many thoughts to rearrange
Together we can change the world, let’s rewrite the page
There are many forms of strong, yet we all must soldier on
Together as one, together as one
For each and every fight, is a chance to so unite
Every lesson in the wrong, it can be rendered right
There is opportunity, be the change you want to see
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
In time, beyond the impossible
Breaking through every obstacle
By faith from the intangible
Objects, they are exchangeable
Yet lives are irreplaceable
Real change is attainable

Verse 3
Let actions be effectual, real change be perpetual
Creative with the intellectual, let guidance be instructional
Be rational, co-operational, shared ideas are practical
Measuring the mathematical, alignment formational
Aiming high reach for the sky
Given standards you can defy
With courage here the aim is to try
Moving forward, mystify
Far from the undesirable, feelings unreliable
Testing the improbable, reality is changeable
A bolder step to take, of directions moving strong
You can always go beyond the place that you came from
With realised clarity, we gain sense of the wrong
Let’s now create a place, where we can all belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Change may be uncomfortable, let fear be inexcusable
Steer from the reprehensible, payback is repayable
To so forgive, inexhaustible
Of oneness that is plausible, the broken rectifiable
Connected, relational
Associate and we can relate, don’t waste time, a pitiless state
Memories that we cannot retake, in position, get in place
Abundance that is plentiful, examples observational
Joyfulness obtainable, experience the seasonal
Of actions yet to take, we’re keeping the game strong
Keep moving in forward motion, wherever you came from
With avid harmony, we all will soldier on
We can now create a place, with a feeling to belong

Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Bridge

With mind-sets evolved, there is true insight
Let’s create a place, to truly shine our light
There is wisdom to release, to regain our inner peace
Together as one, together as one
Compassion in the land, with a heart to understand
A true united force, let’s lend a helping hand
With due simplicity, re-establish harmony
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
True change may be uncomfortable
Yet it is unmistakeable
New steps that are approachable
Of thoughts from the conventional
Mindful and relatable
Hopeful and aspirational

Verse 4
To go beyond, no greater time, reclaim your light it’s time to shine
In relaxed mode we will decline, natural gems can be refined
Branch of the vine, be aligned
Masterpieces of design, purposed for potential prime
Stand in line, for such a time
Become a part of the solution, let’s create a revolution
Educate the institution, truly merge into a fusion
Reduce the confrontational, join the inspirational
Movement motivational, achieve the aspirational
The journey will be great, endurance may be long
Keep moving in forward motion, can we all just get along
With solid harmony, a team can become strong
Let's now create a place, with the option to belong
Of problems to be solved, of all the games to win
If the foundation is laid, by then we can begin
A sense of harmony, let's take the vision on
Let’s now create a place, where the people can belong


Let’s begin and start a new change
For in time we truly can change, subtle change, ample change, some folks just ain’t trying to change
Aim real high towards the change
Constant force, there’s always change
Release control with all the change
For yes in time we can truly change
Smaller change, greater change
So much here to rearrange
New concepts are hardly strange
Stand united welcome change
Restoration welcome change
Conservation bring the change
Re-establish forward change
For yes in time we will truly change

Chorus
There is ever present change, many thoughts to rearrange
Together we can change the world, let’s rewrite the page
There are many forms of strong, yet we all must soldier on
Together as one, together as one
For each and every fight, is a chance to so unite
Every lesson in the wrong, it can be rendered right
There is opportunity, be the change you want to see
Let’s set ourselves free, let’s set ourselves free
In time, beyond the impossible
Breaking through every obstacle
By faith from the intangible
Objects, they are exchangeable
Yet lives are irreplaceable
Real change is attainable

Written by Geraldine Taylor ©️

it's the 50th anniversary edition of william burrough's naked lunch, with the original cover, looking at all the annexes is like watching modern history with Russian annexing Crimea, anyway...

indeed the nature of addiction, i chose mine to
cure my insomnia - i *chose mine -
the less nasty less mythical name for it is indeed
metabolism - any hard-craft alcoholic walks into
a bar - drunk ******* and egoistically gluttonous
idiots come out like giraffes - vomiting into
the gutters, more Marilyn Monroe moments
showing off knickers even without the metro gust -
you drink enough and watch people drinking
for the psychoactive ingredient for dis-inhibiting
effects (buttered up talk, smooth there, quasi
Don Juan wannabes) - as Burroughs said: PLAN
YOUR ADDICTION - become addicted if some other
weakness is beating you - amtitriptyline doesn't
work without alcohol to what's desired as the lullaby
effect prior to K.O. - don't measure up to a veteran,
he'll beat you with experience, given it works -
i can imagine why hallucinogenics aren't metabolically
affecting - too much implants concerning the
world beyond, and god, and the secret of the universe -
you can't get addicted to these things - because there's
the bad trip, and you're off the hook - no more spiritual
trips looking for answers - repetition of the everyday
kills it off like flicking off a light switch - but, years
after the Beat movement, the Beats really did underestimate
the addiction of marijuana - they thought it was
the ****** drunk... oddly enough marijuana is linked to
alcohol and ****** addiction, it too is metabolic -
i'm not a medical expert... but i have heard of stoners
and their munchies - anything relating to food,
to metabolism is included, marijuana is the middle-guy
between the standards and Disney -
you heard of being monged, right? marijuana is as addictive
as alcohol - originally a giggly drug, a conversation
starter - marijuana - ends up being
an Jason Segel and Ed Helms film Jeff, who lives at Home,
it's this uncontrollable effect that proper intentions of
marijuana have: supreme thoughtlessness - or
the present vogue concerning "mindfulness" -
Jeff basically overthought himself on the high - he didn't
detach himself from thinking, now he's paying the price -
he's making completely random associations -
and why do stoners always waste their time in front
of t.v. or television - marijuana is a purely auditory drug -
******* to the park, pretend to be a fake Buddha imitation
and create the void in yourself to make your mind
the M25 at 3 a.m. - but this innocence with the Beat
movement associating itself with marijuana is partly
why it was legalised - the government wants rejects and,
to be frank? retards - that's why they legalised it -
they knew with the munchies jokes that marijuana had
the same metabolic addiction components as alcohol and
***** - you're metabolic dude! once addiction sets in
you're no longer in control of brain-freeze - you didn't
think it up on the psychoactive Everest - when the nice
sensation was still there, marijuana realised you zombie much
later - all the in-jokes of stoner culture suddenly passed you,
simulation dementia ensued - i'm way past the psychoactive
asset of alcohol, no slurred speech, no nothing -
but i retain the psychoactive point of metabolising excess
alcohol: if i didn't, i would sleep! i wouldn't sleep!
don't get me wrong, i get the point that i can't really
experience the negatives of reaching the psychoactive purpose
of alcohol and ***** in a street or join the football hooligans -
and surgeons drink to calm the nerves and calm the hand -
but alcohol is more cool headed and less phantasmagorical
than ***** addiction, for one thing your palette improves -
you find the most boring tasks liberating -
but the nights are the real nights, esp. if slumped on the sofa
watching t.v., unless you don't have a backlog of un-watched
Versailles or Billions episodes, you really need to go for
a 4 mile walk and breath the air - then half-sleep for
about an 2 hours (because you have limited money and
sometimes you pass a day without Auburn Whitney) -
you become rigorous - the prime solipsism - no time for
girlfriends, doesn't matter, my genitals weren't mutilated
as a child, no one forced a ****-*******-marriage-ring
on my finger - i can actually enjoy addiction - i end up
eating one meal a day - of course my face looks candyfloss
puffed up - but my soul is partly helium pubescent -
alcohol addiction is not ***** addiction even both
are primes of metabolism takeovers - no hung-overs too,
no blackouts - no fake "i can't remember" stories
when something ****** up happened - and certainly no
innocent look at the fact that marijuana is also a metabolic
addiction - unless of course you limit psychic ingestion
(excluding music, music is great to arrive at thoughtlessness),
but as most stoners (the next alcoholics) prove,
garbage the mind with American Dad and then get hungry -
binge eat - the stomach can drag the brain right down
into the acid pit and fry it - zombies galore - you won't be
able to catch yourself stopping thinking, the stomach
will do that for you, and you'll enter the zombie apocalypse:
just like my neighbour - there's a rat-like ritual involved,
for example, most people get sleepy from marijuana -
so it's not an addiction standing at a bus stop
pretending to be waiting for a bus and smoking?
that's addiction - the metabolic Gargantua has already caught-up,
addiction is primarily a solitary affair - it just depends
what you do with it... i'd be ashamed with my alcoholism
if i didn't write poems - the counter-effect is that i feel
some sort of social-inclusion when the day finishes -
i feed the cats, write invoices for my father (40% of
18 - 35 year olds live with their parents, because all
the foreigners bought all the houses intended as: buy to let -
is my money going down my drain, or is this
a post-Freud Oedipus stigmata killing familial relations
altogether?), cook, clean the house once a week,
cut the cats' nail and brush them - and to counter
what i don't do? can you imagine listening to a symphony
with only violins playing? not so genius hearing that
sort of Hollywood story with only cameo characters speaking.

If not for hellopoetry
I would have given up
The writing was starting to take its toll
Left me emotionally exhausted
I was forced to take a break
For all my energy it had drained
Sleepless nights, endless lines
Trying to switch off my brain
Left me depressed
When sentences formed
A story I'd tell
About my life in hell
Sometimes dramatised to a new level
Sometimes I have seen myself become the devil
All my emotions that stain the page
The blood, sweat and tears
Written into each line
Left me losing moments in time
And for this writing became a crime
Didn't feel like I was utilising my mind
Until recently I realised this was the only legacy
I would leave behind
I've seen this art in a whole new light
Through words on a page, I've shown my fight
I've shown all my emotions, I have been totally open
Gave my all in every line
Sprinkled in a flavour of rhyme
If not for hellopoetry all I'd have is blank pages
A mind full of lines, forgotten in time
Took some time to unwind
And that is when I realised
These writings and I are bound for life
I've learned to embrace this now
Finally proud of all my works,
how has it taken me this long
To fall in love with this art
If not for hellopoetry
An appreciation I would never have tasted
And this whole community I've embraced it
Don't care if you love or hate it
It's made me make some changes
If not for hellopoetry
There are talents I may never have uncovered
Some of us are still so young,
Still, more room left to improve
The elder ones raising us up
Understanding a whole new love for this art
I once said These lyrics were written in blood
Straight from the arteries from my heart
That metaphorically speaking
I spread all I am, all across the page
Bled the led with what I felt  
So much heart into every verse
All this time it was never a curse
It was something special I've been gifted
To get all these thoughts out of my system
If not for hellopoetry
I wouldn't be here...caught within this poetic atmosphere

©2018 Written By Benji James

Ah, doth swayeth the grass around the heavily-watered grounds, and even lilies are even busy in their pondering thoughts. Dim poetry is lighting up my insides, but still-canst not I, proceed on to my poetic writings, for I am committed to my dear dissertation-shamefully! Cannot even I enjoy watery sweets in front of my decent romantic candlelight-o, how destructible this serious nexus is!

Ah, and the temperatures' slender fits are but a new sensation to this melancholy surroundings. How my souls desire to be liberated-from this arduous work, and be staggered into the bifurcating melodies of the winds. O, but again-these final words are somehow required, how blatantly ungenerous! What a fine doomed environment the greenery out there hath duly changed into. White-dark stretches of tremor loom over every bald bush's horizon. O-what a dreadful, dreadful pic of sovereign menace! Not at all lyrical; much less gorgeous! Even the ultimate touches of serendipity have been broomed out of their localised regions. Broomed forcibly; that their weight and multitudes of collars whitened-and their innocent stomachs pulled systematically out. Ah, how dire-dire-dire; how perseveringly unbearable! A dawn at dusk, then-is a normal occurence and thus needeth t' be solitarily accepted. No more grains of sensitivity are left bare. Not even one-oh, no more! A tumultous slumber hinders everything, with a sense of original perplexity t'at haunts, and harms any of it t'at dares to pass by. O, what a disgrace t'at is secretly housed by t'is febrile nature! And o, t'is what happeneth when poets are left onto t'eir unstable hills of talents, with such a wild lagoon of inspirations about! Roam, roam as we doth-along the parked cars, all unread-and dolefully left untouched, like a moonlit baby straightening his face on top of the earth's liar *****. Ah, I knoweth t'is misery. A misery t'at is not only textual, but also virginal; but what I comprehendeth not is the unfairness of the preceding remark itself-if all miseries were crudely virginal, then wouldst it be unworthy of perceiving some others as personal? O, how t'is new confusion puzzles me, and vexes me all too badly! Beads of sweat are beginning to form on my humorous palms, with lines unabashed-and pictorial aggressions too unforgiving too resist. Ah, quiver doth I-as I am, now! O, thee-oh, mindful joyfulness and delight, descend once more onto me-and maketh my work once again thine-ah, and thy only, own vengeful blossom! And breathe onto my minds thy very own terrific seizure; maketh all the luring bright days no more an impediment and a cure; to every lavish thought clear-but hungrily unsure! Ah, as I knoweth it wouldst work-for thy seizure on my hand is gentle, ratifying, and safely classical. How I loveth thy little grasps-and shall always do! Like a moonlight, which had been carried along the stars' compulsive backs-until it truly screamed, while the bountiful morning retreated, and mounted its back. Mounted its back so that it could not see. Invasive are the stars-as thou knoweth, adorned with elaborations t'at humanity, and even the sincerest of gravities shall turn out. Ah, so 'tis how the moon's poor sailing soul is-like a chirping bird-trembled along the snowy night, but knocked back onto abysmal conclusions, soon as sunshine startled him and brought him back anew, to the pale hordes of mischievous, shadowy roses. Ah, all these routines are similar-but unsure, like thoughts circling-within a paper so impure. And when tragic love is bound, like the one I am having with 'im; everything shall crawl-and seem dearer than they seem; for nothing canst bind a heart which falls in love, until it darkeneth the rosiness of its own cheeks, and destroys its own kiss. Like how he hath impaired my heart; but I shall be a stone once more; abysses of my deliciously destroyed sapphire shall revive within the glades of my hand; and my massive tremors shall ever be concluded. O, love, o notion that I may not hate; bestow on my thy aberrant power-and free my tormented soul-o, my poor tormented soul, from the possible eternal slumber without tasting such a joy of thine once more! I am now trapped within a triangle I hated; I am no more of my precious self-my sublimity hath gone; hath attempted at disentangling himself so piercingly from me. I am no more terrific; I smell not like my own virginity-and much less, an ideal lady-t'at everyone shall so hysterically shout at, and pray for, ah, I hath been disinherited by the world.

Ah, shall I be a matter to your tasty thoughts, my love? For to thee I might hath been tentative, and not at all compulsory; I hath been disowned even, by my own poetry; my varied fate hath ignored and strayed me about. Ah, love, which danger shall I hate-and avoid? But should I, should I diverge from t'is homogeneous edge I so dreamily preached about? And canst thou but lecture me once more-on the distinctness between love and hate-in the foregoing-and the sometimes illusory truth of our inimical future? And for the love of this foreignness didst I revert to my first dreaded poetry-for the sake of t'is first sweetly-honeyed world. For the time being, it is perhaps unrighteous to think of thee; thou who firstly wert so sweet; thou who wert but too persuasive-and too magnanimous for every maiden's heart to bear. Thou who shone on me like an eternal fire-ah, sweet, but doth thou remember not-t'at thou art thyself immortal? Thou art but a disaster to any living creature-who has flesh and breath; for they diverge from life when time comes, and be defiled like a rusty old parish over one fretful stormy night. Ah, and here I present another confusion; should I reject my own faith therefrom? Ah, like the reader hath perhaps recognised, I am not an interactive poet; for I am egotistic and self-isolating. Ah, yet-I demand, sometimes, their possibly harshest criticism; to be fit into my undeniable authenticity and my other private authorial conventions. I admireth myself in my writing as much as I resolutely admireth thee; but shall we come, ever, into terms? Ah, thee, whose eyes are too crucial for my consciousness to look at. Ah, and yet-thou hath caused me simply far-too-adequate mounds of distress; their power tower over me, standing as a cold barrier between me and my own immaculate reality of discourse. Too much distress is, as the reader canst see, in my verse right now-and none is sufficiently consoling-all are unsweet, like a taste of scalding water and a tree of curses. Yes, that thou ought to believe just yet-t'at trees are bound to curses. Yester' I sheltered myself, under some bits of splitting clouds-and t'eir due mourning sways of rain, beneath a solid tree. With leaves giggling and roots unbecoming underneath-ah, t'eir shrieks were too selfish; ah, all terrible, and contained no positive merit at all-t'at they all became too vague and failed at t'eir venerable task of disorganising, and at the same time-stunning me. Ah, but t'eir yelling and gasping and choking were simply too ferociously disoriented, what a shame! Their art was too brutal, odd, and too thoroughly equanimious-and wouldst I have stood not t'ere for the entire three minutes or so-had such perks of abrupt thoughts of thee streamed onto my mind, and lightened up all the burdening whirls of mockery about me in just one second. O, so-but again, the sound melodies of rain were of a radical comfort to my ears-and t'at was the actual moment, when I realised t'at I truly loved him-and until today, the real horror in my heart saith t'at it is still him t'at I purely love-and shall always do. Though I may be no more of a pretty glimpse at the heart of his mirror, 'tis still his imagery I keepeth running into; and his vital reality. Ah, how with light steps I ran to him yester' morning; and caught him about his vigorous steps! All seemed ethereal, but the truthful width of the sun was still t'ere-and so was the lake's sparkling water; so benevolently encompassing us as we walked together onto our separated realms. And passing the cars, as we did, all t'at I absorbed and felt so neatly within my heart was the intuitive course; and the unavoidable beauty of falling in love. Ah, miracles, miracles, shalt thou ever cease to exist? Ah, bring but my Immortal back to me-as if I am still like I was back then, and of hating him before I am not guilty; make him mine now-even for just one night; make him hold my hands, and I shall free him from all his present melancholy and insipid trepidations. Ah, miracles; I doth love my Immortal more t'an I am permitted to do; and so if thou doth not-please doth trouble me once more; and grant, grant him to me-and clarify t'is tale of unbreathed love prettily, like never before.

As I have related above I may not be sufficient; I may not be fair-from a dark world doth I come, full not of royalty-but ambiguity, severed esteem, and gales-and gales, of unholy confidentiality. And 'tis He only, in His divine throne-t'at is worthy of every phrased gratitude, and thankful laughter; so t'is piece is just-though not artificial, a genuine reflection of what I feelest inside, about my yet unblessed love, and my doubtful pious feelings right now-and about which I am rather confused. Still, I am to be generous, and not to be by any chance, too brimming or hopeful; but I shall not be bashful about confessing t'is proposition of love-t'at I should hath realised from a good long time ago. Ah, I was but too arrogant within my pride-and even in my confessions of humility; I was too charmed by myself to revert to my extraordinary feelings. Ah, but again-thou art immortal, my love; so I should be afraid not-of ceasing to love thee; and as every brand-new day breathes life into its wheels-and is stirred to the living-once more, I know t'at the swells of nature; including all the crystallised shapes of th' universe-and the' faithful gardens of heaven, as well as all the aurochs, angels, and divinity above-and the skies' and oceans' satirical-but precious nymphs, are watching us, and shall forgive and purify us; I know t'at this is the sake of eternity we are fighting for. And for the first time in my life-I shall like to confess this bravely, selfishly, and publicly; so that wherever thou art-and I shall be, thou wilt know-and in the utmost certainty thou canst but shyly obtain, know with thy most honest sincerity; t'at I hath always loved thee, and shall forever love thee like this, Immortal.

I have always been fascinated by mythology. I remember seeing my older sisters with a greek mythology book, and wishing I could be in high school so I can know it already. I was interested in the mythical creatures, in the gods and goddesses, in the battles, and just like everyone, I was interested in the love stories. I wanted to learn it with passion for I heard it was the inspiration of almost all the modern literature that I love. I could still remember feeling excited to be in class and discuss it. And now that I have reached high school, and I also reached my dream of studying greek mythology and not only that, because I reached it with you. We learned about the titans, the gods and goddesses, the olympians, the monsters, the stories. We were both engrossed and captivated by it, that mythology was the only thing we ever talked about. We even related it to real life, we related people to the characters. Whenever we see a person we know, we would think of the character that best resembles them, and we will start calling them their characters that we decided them to be. We called our friend Athena, we called your cousin Apollo, we even called someone the Minotaur. And that’s what our teacher told us, that not because it’s fantasy that immediately means it cannot happen in real life. The stories there, are reality, the only difference is, they added magic into them. We loved greek mythology so much that we related it to everything. However I realised something, we related it to everything except to ourselves. So I asked you, “Who are we?”. You told me, “Baby, we’re no one there, for we will make our own mythology. We will make the greatest one, so beautiful that it would surpass the best literature of all time.” Your favourite one was Plato’s quote, you would never shut up telling me the story that “humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” And you would always tell me, that you wished to tell Zeus you found yours already. I expected myself to love the romance most, for myself to have the love stories as my favourite. But instead, I loved the opposite,  I loved the tragedies.


I don’t know why, but I found myself loving the tragic stories. I found myself loving the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The ultimate tragic love story, in which Orpheus would have brought Eurydice back to life if only he had done what Hades said. Orpheus went to the underworld to ask Hades to bring back Eurydice, but Hades had one condition, he should not look back while his wife was still in the dark, for that would undo everything he hoped for. He should wait for Eurydice to get into the light before he looked at her. But then, Orpheus couldn’t control himself, he looked at Eurydice and hugged her, then suddenly Eurydice was drawn back to the underworld.


And who would ever forget Pyramus and Thisbe? The star crossed lovers who had families who hated each other and whispered sweet nothings through a crack in the wall that separates their houses. And they decided to run away, but when Thisbe showed up under the mulberry tree, a ****** jawed lioness was there. So Thisbe ran, and just when Pyramus arrived, he saw the lioness ripping apart Thisbe’s shawl. Thinking that Thisbe died, Pyramus stabbed himself. And when Thisbe returned and figured out what happened, she stabbed herself too. To this day, the formerly white berries of the mulberry tree are stained red with the blood of these tragic lovers.


Here comes my favourite story of all, the myth of Icarus. Icarus and his father attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. And because of hubris, Icarus ignored his father’s instructions and flew too close to the sun. Then the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.


When I was reading the stories, epiphany suddenly hit me. Perhaps the reason why I loved tragedies so much because we’re turning into one. I finally got the answer to my question when I asked you who we are. Maybe we are Orpheus and Eurydice, we loved each other too much that we would do everything just to be together. But we ignored all the warnings, we thought love was the only thing that really mattered. We never got to control our feelings and we forgot everything, because of that, we were separated from each other. Or we could also be Pyramus and Thisbe, we are the perfect definition of lovers who almost made it, who almost achieved happiness, who almost became the greatest lovers of all time but then we never became one, we became tragic ones. And darling, perhaps Icarus resembles us the most. We are both Icarus, our wings, are ourselves,  and love, is the sun. Everybody told us not to get too near the sun, for the wax in our wings will melt, we will lose our wings because we are too close to the thing that could save and destroy us both. And just like Icarus, we disobeyed the rules.  We flew too close to the sun, look at us now.

As we were walking out of each other’s lives, I realised something. We were not meant to create the greatest story of all time that it would top the best literature. We were never making our own mythology, because we were just bound to become another tragedy. Another tragedy that people will love, and I still don’t know why, but people tend to see something beautiful in it. And maybe, just maybe, people will also see something beautiful in our tragic story. But just like Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe, Icarus; one thing is for sure, my love. We will achieve a thing we both wanted,  **we will never be forgotten.

I broke up with McDonalds
On Valentine's day
People said she was no good for me
I had to get away

So I told her, It's not you,
It's just a phase I'm going through
But as we all know -
Dumping fast food is not a pleasant thing to do.

So I broke up with McDonalds, didn't see her for a while
Was doing pretty well - there was the occasional drunk-dial
When I walked up to the window
And I slipped into the queue -
But then I came back to my senses
And realised the thing to do...

Was to keep on walking
Keep on walking
Right past her
Ignore the temptation
To suckle
On those golden arches
Ignore those bed-like burgers
And those oh-so-easy fries
Divide our shared world up
And sever all ties!

Yes! I broke up with McDonalds and my life is better for it
When my girlfriend serves up rabbit food I simply adore it
I was scared of life alone with no kebab to walk me home
But...
      What I once spent on burgers...
                                                     I now spend on...
                                                           ­                      Haribo!

Oh Haribo! Haribo!  
You are a fruit tree in a sack
And although it feels wrong to see you
Behind my girlfriend's back
She can not be hurt by wrongs she does not know!
No - the new love of my life is Haribo, oh Haribo!

But then one evening after work
My girfriend came home early.
Caught me curled up on the couch  
Soaking up her girly  
DVDs
In front of me
A bowl of
Not nuts, nor seeds...
But fizzy, yes fizzy,
Cola bottles  
That were  
FIZZY!

How could you do this?
My girlfriend screamed at me.
Cannot you see the damage that they do-eth to your teeth?
(She'd been reading Shakespeare)
No, my eyes are on my face, I can't see in my mouth.
Right, she said, If you think I'm joking then I'm going to kick you out.

So she kicked me out the flat and that was that she said.
Not quite...
I grabbed my stash of Haribo from underneath the bed.
I told her all the things about her that I really hated

And the moral is:

Relationships with things that you can't eat are over-rated.

I didn't want you,
I wanted love
and I have realised
that they are not the same thing.

You were a mould
that I poured my insecurities in,
a computer I tried to program.

But you are a sky,
stormy and clear and rainy and warm.

You were so blue when I longed for red.

I didn't want you.
I wanted the thought.

Dear Emma and the rest of the Sumatran orangutans of Chester zoo

To you, today was just routine. To you, in your bubble of a world, just another friendly face came to talk to you again. To me, this visit was bittersweet, in fact I would say 80% bitter. In seeing you, in meeting your gaze the guilt and shame ripped through me like like a tiger's claws. Ah yes, the tiger, 7 years have past since they had disappeared. People have all but forgotten already, there were plenty of tigers safely locked away right?
You probably don't know this and I doubt that you can read this, but I write this letter to you anyway, do what you want with the letter. Look at the photograph I have included of your Asian relatives that I took during my travels nearly 20 years ago. Or you could discard it, tear it, eat it I don't care as long as you receive this. For nearly 2 centuries your people have been captured and killed and we destroy everything you know. Our growing population pressurised us, we strove for urbanisation, painting a thin venire of chrome. Our colour of comfort, but we made it worse for ourselves as our most important livelihoods were replaced by dust villages and starvation. You were not immune to our pillage I'm afraid, from that first time Charles Darwin met Jenny our blessing became your curse. 3 weeks ago the last of your Asian brethren died. We saw your demise coming, some of us tried our hardest to halt or postpone it, setting up rescue stations and reserves. But the mindless machine wirred on, it wasn't until the last 90 miles of forest remained that the Indonesian bigwigs realised what they had done. In a blind panic they planted new tree seedlings, maybe somehow in the hopes that more bears, frogs, birds and orangutans would materialise from the roots? It was already too late but perseverance drove them to try everything. Everything. Nyaru Menteng offloaded their remaining 8 charges to Western facilities where artificial habitats had been created. The rest of them watched over and monitored the remaining native population, sending out vets and human doctors to keep them alive at all costs. I watched every second of it, followed the blogs and the news. It hurt so much I didn't think I could follow anymore, grief stricken with each "progression" but I was compelled to carry on. And finally, there was one.
A male, Gregory. He never grew his cheek flanges because he had no competition. No drive to find a mate. He knew as much as we did that he was alone. No one knew why they kept him there, all knowledge of reproductive biology was forgotten and replaced with superstitious magic. We kept him there, stayed by his side, fed him and doctored him until finally at the age of 39 he died of a heart attack. The news was like a punch in the guts for all of us. It was announced as breaking news all over the world, pongo pygmeus and pongo abeli officially extinct in the wild. A minority mentioned that many captive orangs still remained in zoos and sanctuaries and that we should not be so sad. But they were quickly shushed like an outspoken attendee of a funeral. Those remaining would not last forever either once inbreeding became too rife, plus, their artificial living arrangements meant these fat, shut in orangutans would live a second rate life, plagued by the same mental ailments that the rest of us urbanites suffer. They would never know the joy, fulfilment, danger, even, of the wild. And these zoo populations were like ghosts or holograms of what used to remain. 
I was afraid for the last 3 months to visit you again, incase you knew and you would turn your head away from me in disapproval. Your disgusted expression would render me speechless. But logic told me this would not happen and I had finally plucked up the courage to see you again. As always you brachiated towards the window and pressed your face against it while I talked to you and pretended to stroke your hair. You were oblivious and ignorant, I envied you. I cried and you wondered why, other humans understood and some looked forlorn themselves. I could see you and your granddaughter looking in concern at our apparent sadness. I tried to look brave for you, I played with your granddaughter as normal. 
Though I had no direct influence over your demise I feel just as remorseful as the loggers did, I was careless in my choices. Living such a sheltered city life and not realising until my second decade the true dangers facing you. I chose too late to be mindful of my grocery shopping, avoided palm oil, never watched films with trained animals in. My few actions made no difference, until very recent years I was still the minority. Don't mistake me for someone self pitying, I don't want you to think I was thinking only of my own feelings and being a martyr. If anything self loathing, I've always been a misanthropist but as of late I've abandoned my species altogether. Apart from my immediate family of course. You were not the only ones that went, Asian elephants too disappeared around the same time. Mackaws of South America have almost completely been depleted. The once hopeful 200,000 chimpanzees whittled down to the last 5000. Bonobos gone already from the wild since the last 100 were taken to sanctuaries and zoos to "rebuild the population" but there were very little captive bonobos to begin in. Gorillas: 1000 (only mountain gorillas are left, ironic isn't it? We focused so much on that one race we neglected the rest). African elephants: 4. Giraffes: 100. The list goes on. And we too, **** sapiens, the most numerous of large mammals are feeling the pinch. It started with Japan over 20 years ago, people retreated more and more into the office, no longer caring to build families and the population declined. The rest followed suite, bursting at the seems we could no longer steal more land for ourselves, more destruction meant less air to breath, less food. People have started to fight their reproductive urges, like the Japanese, retreating into a single life in a cubicle. Sitting by the screen. We are committing a species wide, slow suicide. I consider this a blessing, the rest of nature can finally get even. Some are scared and upset, others relieved. The divide is equal.
I have come to visit you every 3 weeks since I was 21, I am 40 now and in that seemingly short space of time I have seen the world change dramatically while you sit and climb and think your own isolated thoughts in your little bubble. 
Please accept my sincerest apologies. No matter if you read this or not. I am so so so sorry. On behalf of myself, on behalf of my species. Please forgive us.
Yours Sincerely,
Sophie

All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

I have nothing to say because you've made me realise how stupid I've been and nothing can make it better now.
It can't be fixed. It's broken. Shattered.

How stupid I was to believe what we had was ever strong enough to withhold everything you made me feel, the weight of the pain, the duality of our emotions
how naïve I was to believe in the unachievable, that I could reach the unreachable

I've realised how much I have been used, just something on the side that's always there for convenience, for the experience, but never for the love that I deserved

And how stupidly naïve I've been to keep playing your twisted game, to keep convincing myself that your lies were the truth - even through doubt and accusations I believed in you, to keep allowing myself to fall deeper and deeper into the quicksand that was consuming me, the water that was drowning me, the light that was blinding me that was

stupid, stupid, stupid

I've realised how much one tiny thing can affect you and make you feel so much that you don't know what to feel, so you just feel nothing, empty, worthless

I've realised how quickly you can go from being everything to someone, their whole world, then the next moment you're everything you never thought you'd be  - a broken music string, a shard of broken glass, something that was once part of something beautiful, but that they no longer need, easily replaceable yet imperfectly replicable

How someone transforms from a caring companion to a silent stranger without you noticing or believing, and you waste your days and nights stupidly, relentlessly torturing yourself with thoughts about the exact moment that this transformation may have occurred, torturing yourself about all the things you should have done, should have said, but you didn't, suddenly carry the weight of all the sadness and heartache in your life

But of course this weight is still yours. And the carrier is still you.
Or rather the shadow of what you should have been.

I still have nothing to say. A million thoughts but no words. I will not let words betray me - my thoughts keep me safe. I will not let emotions consume me - small hope keeps me sane. it is

stupid, stupid, stupid

to believe that I don't deserve to carry this weight all the way out of the broken path of pain and regret, to release it in the light of new possibilities and new ideas and new behaviour because I am now free
- I can be who I want to be and think what I want to think and say what I want to say -
I will no longer be broken glass but a mosaic, no longer a broken string but an instrument, because no one is obstructing the construction of my goals and no one is disrupting the formation of my dreams and no one is making me believe I don't deserve what I want, that I don't deserve more than what you gave me.

I've realised how stupid I was to believe in you.

We’d been to concert at the Town Hall. It was a Saturday night and still early for a Saturday Night Out. So many people on the streets. The girls barely dressed, the boys bouncing around in t-shirts. Older people threaded along the pavements walking purposefully, but ‘properly’ dressed, and now making their way, as we were, for the station.

I know He noticed her because He stopped, momentarily. We were holding hands. He loves to hold my hand. That evening I remember squeezing his hand firmly as if to say how pleased I was He was here and I was not walking to the station alone. I have done this, walking to the station alone, so often. It is good to have someone close at such times, someone to talk to about the performance, the music, what is going on around us. We walked right past them.

I noticed the man first and then the child. He was very tall, very dark, wearing a black leather jacket I think. He was not scruffy so much as untidy, dark and untidy, with curly hair that did not know a comb. He was busking. He sang an incomprehensible song in a language I didn’t recognize, playing an electric guitar plugged into a small amplifier by his feat. He turned from side to side as he sang as though looking for an audience. I remember his trainers and the soft guitar case open on the pavement with a smattering of coins. Then, this child.

Over the last two days I’ve examined the scene in my memory. I’ve sought to recall as much as I can about this little girl. She was not that little I think for her age, perhaps seven or eight. Stocky. Thick golden brown hair. A sensible skirt covering her knees, a fawn jumper with some sparkly decoration. Tights or long socks perhaps. Proper shoes. I keep examining my mind’s photo. What I recall most vividly was her large smiling eyes and her expression. This is my daddy, it said. He’s singing and I’m here looking after him. I’m his smiley girl here on the city street. It’s late. Other children back home would be in bed, but I’m here smiling at the people passing.

Yesterday we talked about this couple, the little girl mostly. He brought the subject up. He’d been thinking about her too. He’d been puzzling over the two of them. As a pair they seemed so physically different, hardly father and daughter. It was the (possible) daughter’s gaze, her twinkling eyes that had spoken to him - as they had spoken to me. This is my daddy, those eyes and that smiley face had said. And she was holding a bear.

Why did I not mention the bear until now? Of course, she was holding her bear. She had both arms around her bear. She was hugging her bear to herself. It was a mild evening for March – she wore no coat. He looked a good bear, not too old or small, not the kind of bear she’d been given in infancy, perhaps recently acquired but well-loved, well-hugged. A bear that seemed entirely right for her age, for her slightly old fashioned clothes. The sort of clothes I might have worn as a child. I think of a photo of me at that age dressed in a Cloth-Kits dress, with an Alice band, with glasses and lots of curly hair.  

He said ‘I’ve been wondering about the two of them. Did they have a home? Where would they go to when it became late?’ Was there a mother? Was she working somewhere on that Saturday night and the father had to take the girl. Was she wearing her best clothes? She looked OK. A glowing, healthy face, a face that reflected the bright, coloured lights of the city street.’

Suddenly, I realised there were tears in his eyes. I thought, He is imagining a story. He is imagining a story of this seven year old who should have been tucked up in bed with her bear, like my little boy with his blue blanket. He was imagining her life., her past in some Eastern European town, where she went to school, where she had friends and relatives, where she had been born and brought up, and been loved. And now the girl was here in this not so distant city. Perhaps illegally, without the papers, smuggled in as so many are. Her father, swarthy, even a tinge of the Roma perhaps, but she so different. It was the golden brown hair. Thick hair, a ribbon tied in it. A pink ribbon.

He had thought of his little girl, now fifteen, only when she was that age, seven. Oddly similar in some ways, the thick hair, the smiley face, a different but ever present bear, an infant’s bear, not a bear she’d take with her except in a bag. A bear not to be seen with at seven, but loved.

‘I’ll call her Katya,’ He said. The girl, not the bear.

And later He did. Every few days He would mention her – just in passing. ‘Do you think Katya’s  at school today?’ ‘I was in the city this afternoon, but I didn’t see Katya.’

He wrote about her and her father. A little story. I haven’t read it. He just told me He’d written it; He’d thought of following them in his imagination. He was a little embarrassed telling me this, and He didn’t offer to show me the story, which is unusual because when He mentions He’s written something He usually does. And so I wonder. I wonder how long this memory will stay with him and whether He will follow this couple (and her bear) into the future, create a story for them to live in.

Perhaps it will bring him the peace He does not have. The peace I try to give him when He is with me at home and we sit in my little house, at my table eating toast with Marmite after I’ve been out late whilst He’s sat on my settee and read – in peace at being in my home. I know He feels cast adrift from his family and He can’t be part of mine, yet a while. Perhaps it’s like being in another country. Perhaps He thinks, at least that busker had his child with him, his shining star, his ever-smiley girl.

Yet He is thinking of his smiley girl, smiley still at fifteen, still loving her dad despite what He’s done, despite the fact that she sees him so seldom. Despite the fact that He is only occasionally with her, and she knowing I, his lover, his young woman, his companion and friend, has captured his heart and thoughts.

I think of Katya too. I think of my older girl, so loved and circled about with love and admiration by her respective families and our friends. She is so special and so beautiful, as I was special at eleven, as I think I was beautiful at eleven, just on the brink of that transformation that will take her towards becoming a teenager – and the rest.  

We were lying in bed the Saturday morning before seeing Katya and I was telling him about my childhood. He’d asked me about zebra finches. Walking in his nearby park He had admired their bright red beaks in the park’s newly-restored aviary. I told him about a parrot in a park close to my childhood home, a parrot I passed as I went to school. I described for him my walk to school, meeting up with my friends, passing the parrot. I know how happy it made him to hear me talk about such things. He said so later, embracing me in the kitchen. ’I so love to hear you talk about your childhood.’ I could feel he was moved to say this. It was important. I realised then just how deeply he loved me. That it was important. That he imagined me as a child. That He wanted to know that part of me. He’s rarely asked about the stuff in between. Of my former lovers I’ve said a little. He has said a little about his past liaisons and affaires, but knows I am uncomfortable when he does. So we leave this. But childhood, That’s so different, because it is that precious, precious time of shelter and care: when we begin to discover who we are and who and what we love.

Where is Katya now? In a messy room she shares with her parents in a house shared with economic migrants, where she has a few belongings in three plastic bags. In one, her best clothes she wears to stand on the city street on a Saturday night with her daddy. In another a jumble of not so clean clothes she rotates each day. She has her sleeping bag, her bear, her warm coat and gloves. There’s a few magazines she’s found about the house. English is puzzling. She learnt a little at school back home, and from the TV of course, those American soaps. If she was here in my house I would stand her in the shower, wash her thick hair, put her clothes in the machine, sit her on my bed in my daughter’s clothes with some picture books, introduce her to my cats, we would bake some buns. I would give her a small gift of my love to take away with her and she would look on me with her smiley face, her sparkling eyes and let me hold her bear.

And later when I saw him I would tell him that Katya had been with me for a little, and tears would fall, mine and his, knowing that only in our dreams could we make this so.

You kissed one side of my neck and then the other, with a smile.
When you’re behind me and rest you hand on one hip to take a selfie, I have to place my hand on the other.
Quickly, you realised you love a girl of balance.
You lost her to tendencies and rules that love can’t fix.
And I know my OCD will affect you to.
Yet you still call me your little OCD girlfriend.

Within 11 days you realised 4 was my number.
It’s no longer quirky, just habit and safety.
But you, you could have waited till the 12th day
You ******* up a system in a bid to help
To make it worse the first argument lasted 21 minutes so even that wouldn’t fit the system.
You’ll never get it will you?
Yet I’ll always be your little OCD girlfriend.

Each colour may seem like a little, cute way of keep organised.
But without them it’s a black abyss in desperate need of structure.
A visual balance.
So even if it seems simple, it’s me.
And me, I’ll always be your little OCD girlfriend.

Clockwise.
That’s the way I’ll walk round you.
That’s the way I’ll make you turn if I’m in your balanced arms.
Don’t block my path.
Don’t roll the other way
Don’t try and change me
You know the rules
Because I’m your little OCD girlfriend

Now forget the clocks, number and colours, they are small fry in my OCD pond.
Balance
That’s my weakness.
That’s why I might hurt you
That’s why it takes time
But remember: what happens to one side must happen to the other.
Your love will be my balance.
As your hands learn a new way to explore my body
As your lips touch me twice,
You’ll remember I’m your little OCD girlfriend.

And now, their desperation and panic sink to an all-new low. They actually begin an attack on my sexuality, my familial relations and even my ability to have an ****** ...

  An ******?

  When you stop laughing, take into consideration that they are also regressing throughout all of this because this dysfunction that they suffer from is deeply rooted in their youth. Thus all the silly name calling and accusations that they could not possibly be able to know or prove and yet they state them as fact, like a child. I.E: A child calling out: "Your mama is a *****". Now those words come flying out from a frightened child when they really have no idea whatsoever about this target's mother. It is just an attempt to hurt. Nothing more.

But in this next bit, you can really see this desperation and panicked choice of subjects to try and use "against me", as-it-were. They don't know what else to do. Their ego is on autopilot, telling their fingers what to type ... and their ego is regressing back to childhood. Thus the childish subject matter.


(Name Deleted) Jeff the TROLL..
Has never and will never reach ****** ****** with either female or male partners.

Has never had a stable and fulfilling love life.
Will NOT and can NOT never ever love anyone UNCONDITIONALLY.
Has never been loved UNCONDITIONALLY by anyone male or female.
Has always been consumed unto bitter and fierce hatred of anyone who has!!.
A deep and bitter jealousy leading to violent hatred consume this TROLL.
Get back under your bridge Jeff.
Any replies from you in future will be deleted unread-even your long overdue apology.
AUM

 0 
 1 reply 
15h

Jeff Gaines  SOOOO MUCH FUN!

Ok, (Name Deleted) ... THAT was your most humorous YET!

Your actions are truly textbook of a person with your deep psychological issues. So ... if you will not read any more of my responses to YOUR trolling, then I needn't worry about you then sending a new volley to this one ... Hum? Good, I'm glad. This is truly getting boring. It's not too challenging to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person ... and a predictable one as well.

Sadly, we both know that your silly, over-inflated ego will NEVER allow you to NOT read something written about you. And you not responding would be a cover for your pathetic attempt to have the last word. (Again, we both know THAT won't happen)

Funnier still, you call me a troll, then go to one of my pieces and begin yet another troll campaign on the same day that you claim to not read any more of my responses.

So, you are trying to say ... "I will continue to troll/bully you, but I will read none of your responses, so I win". (hands on your hips, stomping your tiny foot on the floor, no doubt)

You say you are married? I pity this person ... your behavior is that of a post-pubescent, angry little boy with serious ego and self-esteem issues. Her life must be a living hell, as I would bet money that you are an overbearing control freak with an intense king-baby syndrome to boot. Of course, I could be completely wrong and it is SHE who wears the pants in your household and THAT is why you must come here to find some sense of "control" in your world. But that is all conjecture that I do not wish to even BEGIN to address.

Your need to appear like some type of "guru" or all-knowing person who is better than everyone else is deeply seated, so I think it started very early in your life.

As I've said ... 'TEXTBOOK".

So textbook in fact, that I have decided to make this entire exchange into a piece about trolls/bullies and bullying. But don't worry about that ... I will leave it up long enough for you to read it, leave one of your hysterical troll responses to further prove my observations ... and I will have had the last word.

Then, predictably, you will write something about me on your page, then block me so that I can't respond (thus making your poor, decimated ego feel like it had the last word), which will not only further prove my observations about you, but it will lead folks over to my page to read my piece about you.

It'll be fun!

Now, on to your latest huffing and puffing:

"troll"

Once again, you accuse me of something that YOU are guilty of.

Once again, you are crying about me doing something that YOU did first. (I can't stop laughing about this. Just like a bully to cry and whine when he himself is punched in the nose and doesn't receive the response that he is seeking when HE does the punching!)

*** - Kettle/Gander - Goose, little man.

I am only guilty of responding to your trolling ... which is my right. Because, as is well established, you began this little soiree when you called me an "Unreconstructed alcoholic with no personal sense of shame" in a comment about a piece I had written about a friend that had recently died! Sadly pathetic, indeed.

Then, as I've stood up to you, you have spiraled down, like a burning airplane, in your pathetic child-like name calling and such to the point where you did schoolyard (at best) name-calling ("Electronic ****"? I LOVED THAT ONE!) and attacked my race, my religion and political stances (I picture you, a terrified little schoolboy, trembling in a schoolyard, shouting these things as you wee your pants in fear).

Then. you actually threaten me with physical violence (punching me in the nose). Now ... when NONE of that ridiculous posturing and panic-stricken chest-beating has worked, you take a jab at my sexuality and interpersonal relationships?

You are the one with "No personal sense of shame" here. You are publicly getting more and more pathetic and your ego won't even let you see that! Your imaginary pedestal is way too high, (Name Deleted). The fall from there is really going to hurt you.

Attacking my sexuality, love life and relationships?

Really?

There are few straws left for you to grasp at, huh?

Again, having never met me, something you couldn't POSSIBLY make accurate conjectures about. ANYONE reading this would laugh, knowing where this is truly coming from.

My FAVORITE was the bit about me never achieving an ******! It took me SEVERAL minutes to stop laughing about that one.

How old are you (Name Deleted)? 12 ... 13, maybe?

No matter your actual birth age, these silly claims and insinuations are definitely NOT those of a grown-aged man. They are straight out of the playbook of an early teen. To make such an unfounded accusation is nearly disturbing on SO many levels.

Wow ... just ... "WOW".

You spew them from your imaginary ivory tower, the one that makes you believe that you are above everyone else, so they MUST be facts, right?

And in true (Name Deleted) form, you state them like facts to the public.

A public that can readily see that it is all coming from a wee little man, standing on an imaginary pedestal trying to convince the world that he is a "somebody". You should have taken my earlier advice and just closed your mouth. But it is all too late.

Deep nasal breaths (Name Deleted) ... DEEP nasal breaths.

I've no need to respond to this silly notion with tales of my ****** bravado or adventures, nor my past love life. That is none of your business and a true gentleman NEVER kisses and tells.

Besides, THAT is the action of schoolboys and men who are lacking in the "endowment" department ... as is attacking OTHER men about these issues.

I won't bring my family into this either. (Taking shots at my familial relationships (Name Deleted)? Hmmm, I wonder if this a Freudian confession of your own family issues. But I won't go there. It's a can of worms best left on the shelf, I should think. It does pose some possible explanations for your behavior and persona though, doesn't it?)

So ... I hope you stick to your word and "not read/delete" this so that I needn't respond again. But, (long sigh) I highly doubt that you will. Your life AND your behavior are CONTROLLED by your fully delusional ego.

Watch for my upcoming piece, which will feature this exchange for ALL of the world to see. It will be cut and pasted verbatim, and I will even add a few additional notes.

I'm going to use it to help educate others on how to recognize and handle egotistical, cowardly, wanna-be bullies such as yourself.

Please, allow me to at least thank you for writing all these responses and demonstrating in such a textbook fashion, how your type acts and reacts and even letting us see inside of you a bit, thus letting us see what makes you tick.

And most importantly ... THANKS for the laughs.



This last one is where we can see the bottom of their barrel. As predicted, they can NOT “not read/erase” something that is written about them. Their ego would NEVER allow this. They MUST read and respond because THEY must have the last word. So, we are back to schoolyard names like “**** wipe”, attacking my sexuality and chest beating by attempting to assert that I have somehow “FAILED”. (You see? They HAVE to win, so it is easier to just let them think that they did.) After this, they can only lash out with slurs against my Mother and such. I think I've made my point here.

And now you, dear Reader, will have seen nearly the complete downward spiral of a bully/hater/troll when you stand up to them. I thank them for their 'help” in making this new piece and then show that I am the better man and offer to let them have the last word. I've no idea what that will be, but if you would like to see it, just go to the piece titled “Message To A Friend” (Link in notes below), it will be there soon enough. Their desperation to be dominant is so readily apparent here, it is sad. As I said, they can't help it. Their ego is on autopilot because these issues are so deeply ingrained in their self.



(Name Deleted) To Jeff the TROLLISH LOSER.
WOW so many words just to prove you are a piece of white liberal **** wipe.
You must really hate life with your filthy mouth spewing out
non stop TROLL NONSENSE--as if its a Fight or a Battle to be fought with any stranger just to prove you are a MAN!!!.
WELL JEFF YOUVE FAILED.
YOU are not a MAN but you do have a Male Body.
Never will be a Man.
Always a sexless TROLL.
.
 0 
 1 reply 
13h

Jeff Gaines Well, (Name Deleted), I want to sincerely thank you for all of this. You don't realize it now, but you have helped me to compose something that will, in turn, help other people. It is very admirable. I/we have taken something awful and made it into something positive.

Balance in the universe doesn't get any better than that. Besides, from here, there's not much left but you making verbal attacks on my Mother and such. Even I won't let you reduce yourself to that.

I wish you well. I hope all of your dreams and wishes come true, and moreover, I hope you get the help you need to finally find peace. A peace that will let you stop trying to belittle others with your condescension and bullying demeanor. I truly hope that you can release the tortures that keep you with this agonizing persona. It must be horrible for you.

And again, THANK YOU!

Leave any message you wish after this so that you can sleep well, knowing that you had the last word. I know how important that is to you and your ego, so have it ... as a gift from me to you in appreciation for all of your help here. I promise ... I won't respond. It's all you, Dude. My job is done here.



This one, sent to me on a completely different page/post, involves the “truce”. They did this on the comment section of another piece called “I'm Sorry If You Miss Me” (Link in notes below). They couldn't do this where we had been in our volley, that might appear as a weakness to someone who'd been watching it all.

They offer an olive branch (for all that's worth), but with it, they also offer to take me to enlightenment and save me somehow. None of this is sincere in ANY way. It is once again, them, trying to condescend to me that I am in need of THEIR help. That I am less, and they are more. Just as I described in the beginning of Part I.

(Also note that upon realizing that this has all been an analyzation of them and their behavior, they attempt to spin it around that it is THEM analyzing ME. Once again, textbook predictability)

If for some silly reason, I took this “truce”, they would feel that they have dominated me and nothing would change. As you read it, you will see just what I mean, especially in the way they go on and on about how accomplished they are at 'helping” others and how they can lead me to some new and better existence, as I am such a “sick human being”. The megalomaniac is really showing through here:



(Name Deleted) Dearest TROLL,
TRUCE?

Though you so obviously write vicious TROLL Gibberish you so obviously cant spell the word gibberish correctly.Not very Self referential eh?.
Diminishes your projected self mage of being a 'nice guy' somewhat eh?.
I have analysed your crippling problem and can offer you the only way out of it.
The presence of an individual Mind superimposed in strategic command over all your brain centres in the last hour before birth has led to you being NON Self Realised(which is your problem basically).
You don't know your Cosmic Identity--and the Mind in your head has led you to believe that you are not the Individual Isness but are the Mind created operating device the Conditioned Identity.
This replaces the ID and takes control over the Glucose and Oxygen supply to all Brain centres from the Individual Isness.
Send me a Poste Restante address and I will send you(for FREE)a copy of my only CD--on which I play Alto Saxophone and Alto Clarinet andAmplified C Silver Concert Flute and my wife who is my life companion plays Electric Bass.
We use the name Maneesha which is Sanskrit for Beyond Enlightenment.
The CD which is called 'Rolling Home' is as recorded--every track in one take-no electronic messing around!.
It was recorded under strict Tibetan Tantric rules of performance--I was a Flute playing Pujari in a Temple on the Burning Ghat in Varanasi where I played for Hindu Cremations for 6 years in the 1970s.
The intention is that the listener--you--will become Mindless .According to the sacred texts of the Vedas one must become Mindless as that is the only openly accepted way to reach the final end of Yoga Meditation.
Temporary union with the Isness of the Unverse.
Yes I know you will go off into paroxysms of laughter at my very absurdwritings but I must offer as you are a very sick human being--and your TROLLISH sickness will only get much worser as you age.
I have offered.
You will ridicule me.
Your choice.



And there you have it, dear Reader. A (disturbing) look, into a very disturbed mind. I am not, nor would I ever condone or recommend doing what I have done here. I did this for you. I had the idea while reading one of their demeaning comments on someone's daily. So, when they came to my daily … I put my hook in the water. The best thing you can do is give no reaction. Soon enough, they will go off in search of the attention they so desperately need and leave you in peace. As I have shown you here, engaging them brings a never-ending string of buckets … buckets FILLED with waste-of-time.

All you need to do is keep in mind this one simple thing when they write horrible things in your comment sections, or you encounter one in your life …

Something you are doing, or have done, is SO amazingly awesome, that it brought out ALL that darkness in them!

Just ignore them and they will go find someone else to pick on. Give them an “LOL” and ignore all that follows, or just delete their comment and block them. Your time is limited and so very precious. Don't give one second of it to these types of people. It simply isn't worth it.

Besides … You have MORE amazing things to accomplish!

                   Big Love,
                           ~Jeff

I was doing it
A L L W R O N G

Because I thought about it,
I thought of
David Levithan
and his books
and I thought of
Alex Sanchez and
HIS books,
and
I thought about
Julia Anne Peters and
HER books.

And after I was done
thinking I realised
I was doing what
I hated.

Boy meets Boy isn't
a gay story.
It's a story about love.

Keeping You A Secret
is not a
lesbian love story,
it's just a love story.

Rainbow Boys Trilogy is not
a gay trilogy it's
a story about growing up and
getting along and
being in love and
being scared and
being stupid
and being brave
and being
a
friend.

I'm just thinking about them as
being about gayness because
they are gay,
even if you take away everything they
are love
stories
and
that's
it.

Love Is The Higher law--
about 9/11.

I Am J--
Being yourself--
a common theme.

Wide Awake--
finding courage and
finding yourself.

All these books,
and I've been looking at them
W R O N G.

I mean,
ten years ago
Boy Meets Boy
and
Keeping You A Secret
and
Rainbow Boys
was a
H U G E D E A L,

but now...
not
so much.

Maybe it's from living in a
household where gay
didn't exist,
Don't get me wrong,
I still want a book about
a character living in a
fantasy world or
utopia as a..
clone, maybe.

Or a dragon slayer.