Thoughts

You pray to the void, A said, which made me angry, not because I am faithful to any higher power that warrants prayer but because he assumed to know that which I do pray to, and I pray for him to leave me alone and I pray everytime I hear a siren on the offchance that I am omnipotent and I pray sometimes that these times will never end, somehow, and so I suppose I am praying to avoid.
Ill-lit discontinuities, resentments in rusty places harboured, until mouths become barnacled shut and eroded away by bits of green glass bottles, broken and glinting in words that shine like you've never heard them shine before. Walking and talking on no sleep no wake and by noon I'm already tattered a hundred times over, unaware and apathetic about stars beyond the galaxies bordering my mind, hemming it in. Dicing together my fragmentary thoughts on the fridge door. When I play guitar, it creaks like it's dying and I start crying. Friends I've made like J are one man miracles, one man crime waves turned to new leaves of sweet potato plants crawling around the corners of the ceiling. Flash in the pan people, and I wonder if I'm one of them. We wonder about one another how long we'll be there for. We re not meant to be here anyway, and we are both capable of being so happy and so sad all at once, that there is no space for emptiness, and that's a lovely consolation when you feel like a ghost. Only J is being reborn, blushing and comparing himself to a fourteen year old and aching face from smiling, and I am ageing, trying to pull off the grown-up shoes and walking with a limp, as I invariably will, no matter how far I walk in them, for I'm out of step all the time.

In other news,
multiple regression analysis
repeated measures analyses of variance
polythogonal and orthogonal variables- contrast codes, the Helmert coding, the Tukey HSD
sphericity

Not always on the bright side

Turning over old leaves, finding a stray piece of cirrus cloud with a tarnished lining

and wearing it around a finger like it's platinum enough to sink a ship,

and turning away from the glare of foreign fields where there is no cloud at all

to even let some go stray, and where he sun is boastful and bloated in he sky and beaming

about it all day, because on the bright side, sometimes,

things are only looking better for being bronzed,

especially when on your side it's looking a little grey and there's

nothing wrong with grey, anyway, and the grass is probably astroturf,

and the skies all blue ceilings and the smiles are cut out of catalogues that

are cried over by teenage girls. So spending time letting eyes grow into he dark

because it's not really dark, just darker, and shadows only mean there's light,

and in the dark you might catch the sight of star, freckled on your windowpane

at night, or if not, it will certainly be there, winking at you:

I'm not thinking positive, but why would I only think one way? 

(Anti-Platitudes Campaign). 

Question marks are dropping and pooling around my ankles
and I can't feel my feet. Bloodless, but full of blood that belongs
to everyone but me, it seems,
and when dare to confront the mirror I am not sure who I see
because I have been crystallised and fictionalised
and handwritten in laughably horrible lies.
I can't say I don't know who or what I am anymore
because that would suggest there was a time
I was sure, but that's not right. Still, I barely know my face.
I don't know, I don't know
but it could be
my doppelgänger I see. I hope she's got my place
because she'll do it a lot better than me. I'll let her be.


   

Bukowski: misanthrope or heart of gold?

"People are not good to each other. Perhaps if we were, our deaths wouldn't be so sad." 



 I made this mostly in honour of my neighbour and new friend John whose hero is Charles Bukowski and who, before meeting me, had never spoken to any other person for whom the name Bukowski means anything. I happen to have two of his poetry books in my poetry section and found so many fascinating interview tapes of his spoken opinions I couldn't resist doing one of my video vignettes of this complex man. Despite all his misanthropic attitudes and his self-proclaimed detest for the human race, he can't conceal a deeper seated compassion for others and concerns about how people within society treat one another, as well as revealing some hope of a 'new beginning' that you wouldn't imagine he holds, considering his poetry is so dark and raggedly furious.

Joy

Underground

A ridiculous joke of a poem

Poets are meant to watch nature work, and weather.
Now, I've never claimed to be a poet
but have written my fair share of poetry
so if I ever were to decide a that's what I was to be
would I qualify? With poems that distinctly lack
in allusions to grass, insects, trees, water, sky?
I watch the window to see the light shift
through from blue to purple to black to grey
and then all the way back to blue, for another day.
Time to start, even though I didn't try
to sleep at all, just sat up scribbling poetry.
Grass grows, yes, and the process is quite swift
but not noticeable, like birds, that sing, and squawk
and rivers rush by, but there's only one murky one here
from which dead bodies are pulled out each year.
And trees have leaves that sound like they whisper
if you want to be poetic about it, but they don't talk.
Insects have more eyes and legs, and the invertebrate
doesn't talk or sing, so overall, the watching
of weather and nature must be tiring, to just wait
for it to repeat itself, for something worth writing
in a poem- the sun sets (yet again), rain falls (wet again)
grass growing (still) and leaves falling (chill)
and birdsong isn't the best, and not exciting
and insects won't inspire you unless it's in biting.
So I guess I'll never be a real poet, because I never
really pay attention to nature, or watch the weather.
I'd rather write about people. I think, for obvious reasons:
they don't repeat themselves constantly, forever and ever
the same sun, the same rain, the cycles and seasons.
I'd rather write about people, all changing together.

A case of Basket Case, music video

Lost words

These are words that were once part of our vernacular but due to the infrequency of usage were phased out of the language. However, so many of them are perfect for expressing things that we currently don't have the means to put into words, so I want to bring some of them back, because there must have been a time that people who had access to such a broad vocabulary could communicate better than we can, and also produce vastly superior rhetoric.

abluvion (n).- substances or things that are washed away

admurmuration (n.)- the act of murmuring

advesperate (v.)- to approach evening

aerumnous (adj.)- full of trouble

agathokakological (adj.)- made up of both good and evil

all-overish (adj.)- feeling an undefined sense of unwell that extends to the whole body

arrision (n.)- the act of smiling at

balter (v.)- to dance clumsily

bedinner (v.)- to treat to dinner

chrestomathic (adj.)- devoted to the learning of useful matters

consensescence (n,)- growing old together

constult (v.)- to act stupidly together

desiderium (n.)- a yearning for something that one once had but no more

elozable (adj.)- readily influenced by flattery

engouement (n.)- an irrational fondness 

facidendum (n.)- something that should be done

fleshment (n.)- the sense of excitement that comes from initial success

foiblesse (n.)- a distinctive weakness, or a weakness for something

foreplead (v.)- to ask too much in pleading

forplaint (adj.)- tired from complaining

gobemouche (n.)- one who believes anything, no matter how absurd

griseous (adj.)- rather grey 

happify (v.)- to make happy

idiorepulsive (adj.)- self-repelling

ignotism (n.)- a mistake made from ignorance

inadvertist (n.)- a person who persistently fails to take notice of things

indesinence (n.)- want of proper ending

indread (v.)- to feel a secret dread

induratize (v.)- to harden the heart

introuvable (adj,)- not capable of being found, specifically of books

jentacular (adj.)- of or pertaining to breakfast

jettatore (n.)- a person who is bad luck

kankedort (n.)- an awkward situation

latibulate (v.)- to hide oneself in a corner

letabund (adj.)- filled with joy

malesuete (adj,)- accustomed to poor habits

matutinal (adj.)- active or awake in the morning hours

microphily (n.)- the friendship of people who are not of equal intellect or status

minionette (adj.)- small and attractive

misclad (adj.)- inappropriately dressed

misdelight (n.)- pleasure in something wrong

naturesse (n.)- a generous act

need-sweat (n.)- sweat from nervousness or anxiety

nefandous (adj.)- too odious to be spoken of

nemesism (n.)- frustration directed inward

noceur (n.)- a dissolute or licentious person, one who stays up late at night

obdormition (n.)- the falling asleep of a limb

obganiate (v.)- to annoy by repeating over and over

occasionet (n.)- a minor occasoin

pertolerate (v.)- to endure steadfastly until the end

petrichor (n.)- the pleasant smell of rain on the ground

philodox (n.)- a person in love with his own opinions

propassion (n.)- the initial stirrings of a passion

psithurism (n,)- the whispering of leaves moved by the wind

quaesitum (n.)- the answer to a problem, the thing that is looked for

redamancy (n.)- the act of loving in return

remord (v.)- to remember with regret 

repertitious (adj.)- found by chance or accident

resentient (n.)- a thing that causes a change of feeling

rue-bargain (n.)- a  bargain that one regrets or breaks

safety-firster (n.)- a person who is unwilling to take risks

sesquihoral (adj.)- lasting an hour and a half

subtrist (adj.)- slightly sad 

tacenda (n.)- things not to be mentioned, matters passed over in silence

twi-thought (n.)- a vague or indistinct thought

umbriphilous (adj.)- fond of the shade

unconversable (adj,)- not suitable for social converse

undisonant (adj.)- making the sound of waves

unlove (v.)- to cease loving a person

velleity (n.)- a mere wish or desire for something without accompanying effort 

videnda (n.)- things worth seeing

vocabularian (n.)- one who pays too much attention to words

well-aired (adj.)- having sweet-smelling breath

wondercloud (n.)- a thing that is showy but worthless

xenium (n.)- a gift given to a guest

yesterneve (n.)- yesterday evening 

zoilus (n.)- an envious critic

zyxt (v.)- to see

the most frightening thing

statistically unlike me

It applies

Io

He is a friend of a friend and the gesture closest to friendship that I gained with him releasing my grasp on the opportunity to get to know him, so his real name won't settle in my fiction of him. I will call him Io, the name of one of Jupiter's moons, so that when he is read he will be cloaked with the Galilean mystery of uncharted extra-terrestrial territories and known only as an enigmatic celestial body, or else as a myth.

Io had seen some rough seasons by the time I met him. By that time, his skin was like a lunar surface. At a distance, he glowed pale and luminescent, but up close he was ragged craters, all gritty and scars and teeth. The rougher he looked, the rougher time had been, and the softer his edges became. Any distinctive outlines gradually eroded away and an abrasive asymmetry remained, leaving him looking like just another one but also just another weird one, spilling over into himself, lighting his own eyes from the reflection of others'.

Some thought he was dense, some called him ill. Doped up, autistic, some spectrum of something that could explain his strange sameness, his darkly-lit atmosphere, the way he loomed at parties, an awkward eclipse. After some talks through computers into the long nights I had come to feel as threats, I saw his fearlessness, as infinite space. I had known boys like him before but they had gone to great beyond only to come back with wan faces, indifferent. They were finite because they did not have the fog that formed across Io's eyes, forcing him to be be always squinting through it, always searching, comparing, measuring space between stars. He did not react to the earthly gases that choke the rest of us with truths we come to swallow and stomach.

Pupils expanding like the universe, by the time I met him, he was already playing with the alignment of the cosmos. Soon he was obsessive and so distant his obsessions became orbits of themselves. Astral, unstoppable, inexplicable just as long as the sky is immeasurable. He meticulously experimented with levels of conciousness, crossing his hemispheres, climbing between the different cortices from lower to higher, observing his body as it detached from his mind. He unhinged himself an inch more with each chemical reaction he burnt with flames pale blue, black, grey, brown.

Then he began to collect crystal quartz and carrying them around with him. He claimed that, without them, we would not have our radios, our televisions, our radars. We would not have those powers of detection he felt he was mastering. He was communicating with light refracted from prisms, with lenses, with electric charges. I swear he must have been somewhat starved of oxygen from his imagined cosmogyral conquests because by the time I had stopped getting to know him, by the time he was unhinged too far from my reality, he had become shrunken and discoloured. I heard that he created a shrine in his bedroom and stopped seeing the people who once called him a friend. Only the neighbours had the chance to notice him now he stopped attending parties, to instead stay at home speaking to crystals, tipping the scale of star maps, or standing on his lawn every night in Fulham, with quartz clutched in his fists. The friend through which I had become acquainted with Io told me that he'd said the crystals were parts of his rocket ship, fragments of the vessel that had once brought him home, but he doesn't have a home anymore, no home for me, says Io, for he is just a foreign moon, once explored, now only meant to circle a lonely planet that we can't seem to find.

Johnny Cash in retrospect

I made another documentary style film about another of my once drug-addled heroes, Johnny Cash. Like Edie, he reflects on the past and contemplates a brief future.

William

I was overcome with a sudden and urgent need to write this, and to tell him, as I see him, for him and whomever else to see.

When I am left to talk to myself, I often find my thoughts wandering to wherever William is. Often, I call on him and most of those times, he comes. He comes to smile, he comes to prove, he comes to give in fewer than a handful of guitar chords whatever it is that my mind often wanderlusts after: how can I write this in some way that will make sense to anyone but me? Sylvia Plath wrote two on two occasions I can remember distinctly about her own heartbeat, once in The Bell Jar and another time in Elm. In the semi-autobiographical novel, herself in fiction, Esther, contemplates her own heartbeat when she tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide and again when she attends the funeral of a friend. Now, I'm not going anywhere morbid with this. I'm just trying to point out how being reminded of 'the old bray' of her heart demonstrated how determined her body was to survive, and how precious her life actually was. William is my braying heart. I don't need to feel for my pulse to be reassured of that which I'm sure many people don't need to be even assured of once but I very much do, and all the time. 'I am. I am. I am,' the heart would beat out, telling her, you lived, you live, you'll live. William's body language translates to my vital signs and I am no good at reading people but there's nothing obscured about the clear message he sends with a smile, with a word, with his self. There's no unsettling ambiguity, no hidden meanings, nothing but what I need to know all the time: you lived, you live, you'll live. I don't even need to ask for what he continually gives. I don't know if I've described it well enough. Have you ever met someone so giving that you wonder what is leftover for them when the day is done? Have you ever known someone to know you so well that they know how badly you rely on others, and how ashamed you are of it because it's so desperate a need, but instead of pointing it out to you or shying from it, they give themselves to be relied on. And they let you try to prove yourself right- they let you take advantage and take for granted and forget what they do for you, because you almost want them to leave you with only the evidence that you're meant to be lonely and deserved it all anyway and shouldn't live, and shouldn't have lived, and all that- they let you crush them under the weight of your need but stubbornly refuse to give that hateful part of your self any satisfaction. They stay, until you realise that they aren't going, that you live, that they will live with it, and you have to live with it too. And that isn't a bad thing at all.  Have you ever had someone who is just so wonderful that they will do anything for you but let you hate yourself? Let me introduce you to William. You don't deserve him, and neither do I. Nobody does. Perhaps I'll meet him in another life, when I can be the one who feels the impact when he takes a fall, instead of the other way around. In another life, I'll beat alongside his heart like a second heart.