HAPPY

The Last Days in the Castle

This red sand castle stands at waters licking; echoing halls of hollow stoned ethic and quickset theology.
Its profile silhouette studded crosses and crescents and creed-cored credentials; flags that flutter in empty promise; the days of tomorrow shot through with red white and blue and power for the few.
Here he set up his stall of translucent effigies for no one to worship; sharpened the knives on what was left of the grindstone of wonder; his lack of belief fell from the imperfect mould handed down by his mother on a day of dark horror at the path that she chose through the maze so delicately structured to obscure the cog wheels and machines and magicians dark sleeves.
In the warm light of slumber, between the teeth of the night and the swallowing morning, he sucked down the sharp taste of every wrong turn, every sidelong glance at the faces that loiter behind the blinds of the past.
And smiled as he swallowed; a grey smile for all those tomorrows unbeaten and lined up domino-spotted and leopard skin vague in the halls of the red castle with its unexplored and hopefully furnished rooms for the future’s bright children as yet undamaged by the actions of fools.

Dark Chocolate

I'm going to be away for a while - recharge the batteries (using only solar energy).
I'll leave you with a little something to suck on...

Dip in dear readers, dip into this box
Of very expensive and decadent chocs
Our overfilled soft centres won’t put up a fight
You’ll love our foreign policy; our Turkish delight
Barrels of Rum for banana republics
Walnut whip crack for Falluja’s refuseniks
Caramel encased security measures
Nut-cased dictators plundering national treasures
Partake in the madness of a truffle berserker
Or a Strawberry surprise in a Taliban burka
Palestine Pralines for your Bar Mitzvah treats
Our Fair-trade coffee cups are clear conscience sweets
Colombian gun-runner, CIA lemon drop duster
Baghdad bomber, casbah nut cluster
Cadbury’s heroes in desert camouflage
Nestle double thick with Halliburton mirage
Atom bomb burgundy vanilla surprise
Sweet sugar plum and history’s demise
Chocolate orange agent of evolutionary change
DNA bubbles genetic biscuit range
And when the box is half empty we’ll fill it once more
With Black magic and milktray to cover the gore
Of dead children in the Congo, Lebanon and Dafur
Of a whimpering world that can’t take anymore
Don’t worry dear readers about expanding waistline
The future is here – it’s a bitter deadline.

Trance Incidental Medication

The Book of Samothrace - Barry Windsor-Smith (1977)

What is it that you expect to find when you wander the halls in this house on the hill of discontent?

This house of ghost echoes that sigh in the memory of passion; that cry with the voices of playing children on the shores of yesterday; that breathe the dust of unsettled hearts; that sow the seeds of tomorrow and bleed from the broken fingernails of middle-aged cliff-hangers.

Do these velvet drapes obscure the answers to the questions you dare not ask of yourself?

Is it the colour of truth eclipsed not by clouds of propaganda’s weather front - rain forecast for your holiday dreams of nothingness – but by the storm that brews in your teacup?

What do you choose to justify your inaction: the welcoming arms of barbiturate melancholia; the flicker of cathode ray tube; the delusional optimism of alcohol; the clinical, bladed leaves of the tree of wisdom?

Are these my thoughts or yours; do they still spell the same words after crossing the divide between your mind and mine; leaving as they do like wisps of smoke and arriving cast in concrete.

Do you see me now as I am or as you wish me to be – all cracks paved over with wishing plaster and wild imaginings; or home to roost like a cynical fox in the henhouse of hope?

And that which you do find here - purposeless streams of words strung together on a necklace of haiku pearls; loose links on a Markov Chain of alloy thought with a pendant of sun-dried mud slung madness – would you wear it in public?

As summer’s broken promises turn to rust on the arms of autumn’s sprocket clock; will there be time to spit these lines into the bowl that you keep by the side of your updated and four posted bed; will there be a solution to the game of tarot patience spread like windows on your quilted knees?

Wishes cast as the stars and planets align; the forces gather to blow this blue haven from here to kingdom commerce and the oceans break from the uterus of tomorrow – your bed may float on these waters of time whose horizon is obscured by graveyards of scattered dictionaries; letters and syllables; ape-descendant utterings; chants of blind faith and bold indoctrination; words that have no pride in their own meaning; kidnapped, tortured to confess that they are not who they claim to be.

All that remains is to pull back those invalid quilt covers; swing your neglected legs out into the void that gazes up the legs of your pajamas; and standing on your own at last, allow you heart to know that it is an organ of molecules gathered by chance.

View From The Treetops (6 Dec '06)

A couple of recommendations...

This lot are beautifully difficult to catagorise, but with lyrics like:

If love is a bolt from the blue
then what is a bolt but a glorified screw
and that doesn't hold nothing together

...they're well worth a listen

and

Intelligent and erudite storytelling with beautiful artwork - witty and sharp.
Works for both kids and adults(whatever that means).

If love is a bolt from the blue...

The Past

Nostalgia reeks of regrets; especially when it’s linked to a smell-memory, there can be no defence against it – it goes directly to the core and swims in the maelstrom.
Iskandor refused to live with regrets, knowing that to do so – given his predisposition to melancholia – was to flounder.
So when the nostalgia rose in his chest that morning – a Christmas past filled with the smell of synthetic snow and flashing in his mind images of familial harmony – he was unprepared for its intensity.
His fingers stopped their duties at the keyboard, the cursor flashed indifferent on the screen where the code gazed back at his unfocussed stare.
Reason dictates that a man confident in his abilities is an asset to society. Iskandor felt the dark threads of disappointment, of failure, licking at his gut. He found himself standing; logging out of his workstation and heading for the door under the bemused stare of the floor manager.
The sniffer at the security turnstile blinked red as he passed, he pushed through the glass doors that lead onto the street, encountering a blast of heat that caused his shirt to immediately stick to his back.
He noticed that someone had scrawled “Question Reason” On the concrete wall of the Descartes Science wing.
Iskandor felt a wave of dizziness as anger rose within him – his blood pressure disrupting neural activity to the extent that he needed to stop. He crouched with one hand on the manicured grass to steady himself.
He retched a mucal teardrop in the sunlight, drawing attention from a passing courier whose deadlines would not allow him to stop and offer assistance. Reason was clear on the priorities of personal action.

Iskandor wondered what came next; he imagined the scenario if he chose to head home:
They’d be waiting in the living area when he entered the apartment. They’d be gentle; friendly but firm. They’d be wearing pale blue jumpers. Their nametags would read ‘Jon’ and ‘Mishka’ They’d sit him down in front of the plasmembra.
Reason would not be that gentle.

Iskandor checked the credit on his chip; the numbers glowed dull yellow on the inside of his eyelid: 75k517 – enough to get him out of the city – he headed for the station hoping for a clear run.
It was rumoured that it was possible to live outside of Reason – if you travelled far enough.