Interlocked Fingers Unlocking

All day, or most of it in bed - on account of the cold. Heating turned right down to preserve the franklins, so I can go out in old clothes and not eat...and try to impress someone. The mind thrives when the stomach shrinks, but I look pale and my eyes are red. Tomorrow there's work, and the following three days after that, so I have to eat or I suffer pangs and feel sick. However I'm enjoying the silence; besides tomorrow we'll be laughing at work, laughing at other people and lastly ourselves. I might be delivered from the cold cycle and the fear that my paintings are mediocre sans humour - Pavel ~

Itchy Teeth

I have a sudden, almost violent urge to proclaim temporary insanity and grab the duffle coated moomin by her vinegar tits and dance a merry dance with her. In a scissor motion, I cross my arms like two Wilkinsons and gesture lewdly at my loins, same as Stone Cold. What do you want! I taught a Spaniard the meaning of popping a sprog from a faff, and blushed scarlet in the process. Head bursting with spiders, take aim me lads!

Sick and tired of people wasting my time, coming in from the cold. Want a giant mallet made of jelly that I can liberally belabour them about their cloth ears and tell them to make some purchases. If they were any slower...the image of a giant iron spoon mixing a bowl of molasses and treacle.

And yet.

See Me Now?

Sweaty teeth.

Dry hands.

Clammy toes.

Rancid gums.

Moist loins.

Rain outside.

Nivenesque Dressing Gown.

Need I say more?

Dead Again

There you go, on bony feet behind the temple, under and over the leaves. A conflagration of thorns like Herzog, hands like lumps of living ice tucked into the deep mouths of pocket, turning about, clenching keys or coins, or both. Looking at fingers red raw, a law unto yourself. Thinking of demons sitting on the shelf, an incubus made of iron sitting on my chest or a horse's breath from a coin.

Two dogs, alike only in appearance and density of destiny. I wanted to be them. I loathe myself. 

Alive Again

Peaceful in the throes of a cold afternoon. Bladderfull, piss like Lucozade the last few days, ants in the bladder marching. Heavy chest, an abrupt call to the tax office - life's minutae. The creases in the Malay's trouser legs, he walked like robocop, he smiled at me. I wondered what it would be like to try and talk to the people in the restaurant - wondering if they'd ever smoked like I have, felt the heavy green curtain come across their perception of things. It's not something you want with you forever. It has it's place but that's that and Amen to't. Lost too much time in speculation that has lead, like the ants in my bladder to an insignificant conclusion and the pressing touch of mortality. At least you can be sure it's your lungs filling with tar and liquid; destructive. I am too prone to demolish things in my haste. Sure I killed some airspace last night waving my hands to some swinging soul. Oversized silver coins in my pocket and wine like petrol.

And then the prospect of moving - silence and clever conversation, witty repartees, the desire to be better within oneself. More at peace dare I say it. It could happen. 

Club Vs Knife

He returned to that moment, stood at the window as they were packing away the carnival. Tarpaulin over coloured lightbulbs, the jutting limbs of iron and springs. A possible frost over the grass, where he would sit with her a year later, watching the stars change. The gloomy church with the cyclopean steeple; the remembrance of a vital day.

Edward is Sadness
Edward is Fatalism
Edward is Doubtful

He was assured of change and it didn't affect him. Infact he relished the thought of being proven right again. If his pain was a construct - it was built sturdily. But for now there was her, a tin of tobacco and some green - twice smoked. Once Geraldine came up and sat with us. Then the unfolding afternoon; Gypsy music; Lee Dorsey; Dylan. Later I would tell someone how unbearable it was to hear it again - Because I fucked her I said to a stranger. As if fucking were that simple. It never is. My private share of cynicism; private belief. The little death - disassociate your brain from your dick. My hand has never let me down.
Watched a short film of Bukowski kicking his fiancee in a fit of rage. You cunt how dare you sit next to me and say those things. You sit here and you say we're gonna get married and you're gonna live with other people - how dare you; fuck you!


And I'm thinking to myself, if I carry on like this that's how I'm going to end up.

ACRIMONY

Shit in one hand and collect wishes in the other. See which hand gets full first.

TwothousandandgreatTwo

There's the male organ and the dick it's attached to.
There's the tug of the spine that makes the muscle jerk.
Manifold worries and uncertainty.
The skunk that delivereth us unto the moment.
The crushing stress.
The stressful crush.
Drum & bass.
Drills, sparks and chains.
The word amazing.
The backlit proscenium arch of the window at four thirty a.m.
Two, maybe three kids whose heads are begging to be stomped on so their eyes burst like boiled eggs.

I want my joie de vivre back :(

Bookish

My great fear - if I will admit to it is that I'm running round the inside of my own head, and nothing's changing. Reading to expand my brain, my intellect and my vocabulary instead makes me bitter and distracted. Habits, defeats, cycles, clean teeth, the sexy Italian waitress chewing gum, nonchalant and maybe even dismissive. Her eyes looked Egyptian, fish like. Run away run away, Ed your anger will make you sick.

Failure

Reading a book on failure I realise I sit in the category neatly summarised by Confucius: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do. The defeat that puts faith in future victory, that defers it for a later time. So where's the fucking victory then? Am I to suppose; am I to hope - to fall back on optimism? Deep down, maybe I am a piece of shit. Despite being utterly annoyed at Valerie Solanas for saying it, maybe she was right. Men deep down know they are pieces of shit. It's tiresome to be told by someone else though.
Instead I'll opt for empty rhetoric that might serve to kill this bastard hour, lead me to another hour that is linked to the next and so on. Disgust at the mother laughing at the Creed show because it's upsetting for a Sunday. Cunt. I don't have a dream of redemption for myself; you remain a cunt and I'll never see you again. I'm a piece of shit and you'll never see me again.

Leaky, Vital Entity

She's the picture of a dork - someone who recieved the plash from a pitcher full of dork. A picture perfect picture of putrid - smeared green, wave after wave of angry Oestrogen wafting out; like the time at Il Divo - mad women and their husbands. Her tongue is a knotted leather whip, lips cracked, the nanny nurse, the overbearing harridan foe. Sick sick sick! You make me sick. Worse than a hanger on or a drifter, somehow bleakly burning into my attention, wanting communication, a sliver of lava, a smouldering bowl of liquid lead presented in a half skull. Angry woman, I can imagine today as a test, stood overbearing - head tilted, culpable and spotless to everyone else but to me. Inner eye bulging with ferocious judgement.
But to see me this morning, best pals with next doors tom. He was curled up against the fence, the very picture of satiety. In his own way, actually quite Eastern looking, Russian. He didn't run away as I approached, with my cat call (a chirp or two you know). Instead he just waited. Accepting the first touch and the electric thrall of species meeting. Then a flinch, settling into my knowledged hands. Sad to leave him as he smiled and spoke to me. Furry testicles! No wonder the fury of mating is so fierce in felines.
Then prison. One comment making me mad all day; the place I am mentally, even more so.

On your Axe

The cold shake of limbs, the gorgeous suggestion of freedom. A sky at five thirty three, full azure blue setting into a great big salmon pink, the leaves like tasseled coins - some burnished shake on the branches and I am here, regretting the choices I have made, in the sky cabin, curled in upon myself and resolute. Teeth on edge, losing faith, losing time before I give up altogether and declare the whole thing a farce and believe Peter's sad words. Folly. 

Monks

Dear Matthew Lewis,
Last night was brilliant. David le Dandy brought over a bottle of Bordeaux; La bas by Huysmans; some A2 paper and his compressed charcoal kit. I brought some sugar paper from Poundland and a pastels kit from Spectrum, that witches lair in the dork (sic). For two hours or so we drew each other in preparation for a performance we may be doing later in the year. David was weeping with laughter at his own creations which may give you an idea of how great they were. I laughed til the tears rolled down my cheeks. Both from my own drawings and David's. Truly I felt more confident and at ease with my art than I have been in four years. We must learn to let go. It is the works that somehow exist on the periphery of praxis that become the real deal. I have been so blindly pompous and conceited all this time. Since I was nineteen, maybe before then. Of all the people we lie to - it's ourselves we lie to the most. So...why this love of crudity and disproportion? Why so stubborn all this time? It's what defines me and makes me stand apart, blowing raspberries at art destiny and history - why worry if it's just a posture? Others have thrived on much less, much more trivial concerns. Jorg, that bastard! He said my ideas could be torn apart and scattered at a moments notice. But he forgot he could just as easily be taken apart piecemeal by someone above him. Stop playing God. Wake up and enjoy yourself. I have a brilliant drawing of me looking like I have crept from Primordial ooze and shook the silt from my scales. It's stuck on my slanted ceiling. The idea is I'll wake up and immediately laugh. Victorious in something I can't pinpoint, even before the day proper has begun. My room is slowly coming to life: anyone who traversed the cabin will remember my wonky magic. And so, it's getting better, and I'm ready to pursue again. Poised.

LOVE Sean Beaningsten Creator , E

Wonderment

Men count up the faults of those who keep them waiting. This seems to me a perfect appendage to today's chapter. I feel strange and distant, caught inbetween small trappings of anger and worry and yet a blissful assurance; so rare these days; in my own abilities. Just to sit down and paint for a few hours - stopping only because I felt sick from the turps I was inhaling, then folding out the colours from the brushes on an old work shirt. It is a small satisfaction to do this. To use something functionally, that I would otherwise throw away or in a less likely mood, burn in a hole puckered oil can with four imaginary hobos / oracles. 

I guess I feel like a bit of an outsider still, but I must relish this time, I know from experience it won't last. Better to be aware than indifferent. Ultimately anything that brings me a crumb of what I want will keep me going, albeit with mighty hungers. To look at me you wouldn't immediately think I was a devourer; then again I think we all have the capacity to surprise ourselves. How many more surprises for me then, outside of my sky room, sour mouths? Right eye sore. Right hunger. Wrong way to keep me interested. 

On Hilarity & Horror

Martin 'let it bleed' Creed ringing his division bell, summoning this imp from his hot little hovel to impishly glare at his workforce, full of hatred today, and weary as fuck. Too dried up and angry from Miller the last few days, on the bus, positively seething as Miller did at the great forward trudging bustle of life - snorting the ferment of disillusion. Feeling now as I did some seventeen years ago; equally as baffled and angry. More lines on the chops though. Fuck awful music, dying to be homeward bound to scrape the names of those I despise on the stone walls then directly, and without ceremony, to tell them directly to their faces 'vous etes tres mauvaille traville ici' (misquote of Mobutu Sese Sako).

The Unlife & Death of Baby B

Three hours sleepless but in an ecstacy of touch - careless in extremis. When being exhausted is elation and the heat of skin on skin melts away the worries of silence: remembering the flurry of leaves as rats run in tandem amongst the railings by the car park in the middle of fucking nowhere, and the arched shadows are a dark green that you won't find anywhere else in the city. Maybe the mute challenge of the Taboo Cinema - all awash with a flat black paint and one door open leading to an obliquely lit interior. You see nothing, you sense more. But in passing I see a place I exumed dead earth, weeds and stones, up another weird crooked little road with unecessary double yellow lines...with Jacque. The day/s my legs shook with weakness and menacing baldies stared at us withered under a withered tree, with flower boxes full of dirt. I couldn't even hope to explain. All this and then home again, only slightly put out by the loss of my Tony Krauss platinum blonde wig and yellow tights. Me girly gets full respect for being nice even on pinkies. Same can't be said for everyone. I slept in a full sweat, I stink. I win!

Bartlebooth's Worries

In the fast approach to evening, the imp watches the sky change her clothes. He is concerned by the feeling that every other imp he knows has some higher purpose - some necessary goal in life that pushes them on, if not lifts them. 'The buggers!' he says half to himself and the wind. As an imp - a good trickster imp at that - he has learned his trade wading into the great roaring river of life, snatching kisses from illicit missus'; eating and drinking in the smoky confines of attic rooms; defying the gravity of walls and car engines; showering pages with cursive flair; his voice a spectrum of colours; in his heart - a tight knot of bursting joy lined with wrinkles of disappointment - he sees himself a small figure amongst the Magogs; the demons; the frost queens; the very real minotaurs; the hard working cyclopes in their forges; the nymphs at play and working hard at breaking hearts in orchards and stinking bashments.

One imp. That's all. Just a lowly imp. But he has his own purpose; his own idea of a higher purpose. And if it fails, so be it. There's still time to find another.

The Jamaican Coke Rush

We were glad to be ignored by the urchins they had crawled from their respective corners, gangster lean with the usual quota of two street girls - fatty and thinny - to be honest they were all shadows and silhouettes to me at all costs. On the corner - lit from the weak flare of tangerine streetlights, or pulling quietly on a cigarette or spliff. The beauty of outsiders. Walking towards the main roads, liquidly rolling into view, a beefcake with his top off - it was hot enough. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I ask myself - is life worth living should I blast myself? We start laughing because the thought was simultaneous - but as he walked towards me he wasn't Matt anymore, not for the moment he was another outsider walking at me making the oldest of conflicts flutter into dark life in his chest. I, perturbed and out of sorts, Matt happy. Naturally infectious though in the night, and so I coped with my ego. I put it underfoot - the dragon under Saint George's heel - same as that old print we had at the top of the stairs - opposite the windowsill that gave me the fantods when I was a nipper because it was DEAD SPACE. The thought of it frooked me out as much as the prospect of eternal life - I dislike phantoms. And so lying awake in a kind of fearful ecstacy - now awake with a less than celestial cluster of thoughts in my head and dick in hand; sticky sheets; wet feet. Angry again, there's no escape from being churlish or stuck behind the gates at that time in the morning. A stupid, ugly cunt in the shop, face like a twine of rope, numb boyfriend - a unit - the thing Shiona taught me to slip out of before it was too late and everything became predictable. I really want her to go away.

A remarkable Jaw

Last night was strange for everybody. No-one could sleep. It was stickily humid; the sort of heat that coats bones in increasing layers of pig iron. Dry mouthed and salty tongue'd the unfortunate insomniac wrestled with his increasing tiredness whilst his brain bubbled with cyclical nonsense. Caged up in his own conciousness, the deep thick bloom of night, silently amassed with a trail of stars, offered him no rest. Raging he paced up and down the spiral stairs that lead to his room, still pulsing with heat. The silence had a superadded edge of irritation for him. Dying to embrace, to fall into the lull of sleep. Not for another hot, sticky hour.

A bad mood followed all day, until a dignified looking man with silver on his jaw walked in and nonchalantly leafed through a magazine. The expression on silverface (the name the insomniac had flown upon) was so intense that the previous night's horrors were melting away in a new sort of heat. THE HEAT OF ASBESTOS GELOS!

THE IMP

A much needed visit to Manchester to meet my wound maker / healer last week has left in its wake a strange trail. For the duration of that day, I was someone else. Someone unfamiliar to myself. Manchester does that to me. In itself it is a constantly changing city; a proper hermit crab - now with extra jewels encrusted on its shell. The changes made me weary, like I didn't belong anymore. Indeed ask a few people and they'd tell you I now class Birmingham as my home. Strange roots are planted here.

That day was as magical as I could've asked it to be. Unashamedly walking the corridors of my memory, crossing the same wooden floors I did over two decades ago. Taller now, quieter, more observant of my surroundings. More eager to project remembered conversations and meanings upon static, stuffed exotic birds: Mantiq al-tair by Farid al-din Abi, being one. Or noticing the strange colour of the muslin that housed two mummies; still excellently preserved. And of course the Lion. He hasn't changed in four years, and still gives me the fantods. And the giant Japanese Spider Crab that has always been synonymous with the museum for me. When alone, I chanced upon a diorama that drew attention to the fact that museum categorization is flawed. I was impressed. Back to late afternoon tea...and a sore throat.

Now I am sad. Going away always entails having to face the return. How much like Heyst do I wish to extricate myself from the tangle. Maybe I don't want to come back.