Picture it; you're in the most successful band on the planet, the whole world wants to know your every move. Privacy is at a minimum, you shower in admiration, get tangled in autographs, smoke with fattened celebrities and mingle in VIP frivolities.
World tours are stamped on the suntan and magazines are as dizzy as the fans for your attention. Millionaire poster pull out. You!
Suddenly something snaps. You look around at four all too familiar walls and realise that all the action has been happening in your bedroom. The only spotlight your imagination, the crowds merely star struck hunger pains.
Reality hits and a tornado of sad faces rips through the dolby cocoon, tearing out the frenzied ocean of racing pulses.
The stage curtains, which opened as happily as a children's fairytale, now close with the savagery of an orphanage. You are alone, once again draped in splendid isolation for nobody to see.
The scene I have described is vague in detail because the details themselves are built on confusion and emptiness, but I for one have experienced this dramatic daydream first hand and am certain I am not alone.
Everybody has imagined at one stage in their life (usually during childhood) of scoring the winning try in a rugby world cup or of 'breaking a leg' whilst trying not to trip over the works of Shakespeare onstage but to have these fantasies crawl around in the mind from childhood onward is a constant burden on the brains reply button for whenever the urge to dance in the spotlight arrives it must be pressed and the desired script acted with fury to an invisible, yet strangely real audience.
It is this urge which I believe to be the center of infection. One cannot suppress the desire to become a flower amongst thieves if the seed is planted at birth because it grows with fierce intent and over shadows all that posess no reflection.
Here it would seem the seed is talent. A gift from God to be unwrapped by the reciever and shown in all glory to the world.
Whether I have been given the treasure remains to be seen in the real world but here inside my head I have been blessed with so many talents that I scarcely know where to begin to tame them all.
Every day I wear a different mask, and those masks are worn to inflate various disguises depending on what I have read in newspapers or heard on the radio.
On Monday I might be a renowned philosopher seeking the chance to put a dreadful deed into contex, whereas Tuesday may bring guitars, cocaine binges and cameo roles to the door of my imagination. Whatever ideas I may have during these days I must see them through the eyes of a different character, and I realise now that living this way is not unlike fuelling life with alcohol and other drugs. A bad day can be made better and a good day bliss.
However living in this comatose cartoon drains energy from every part of the body including the spirit and nothing is worse than waking up to the fact that all along you have been feeding a curious ego to satisfy an audience of selected people.
I am not a master on the tricks of the mind and can only assume that getting trapped inside fantasy is a face of quiet schizophrenia, or occasion when there is an imbalance of chemicals swirling inside the brain. But without getting involved in psychiatric wizardry I am confident that the feelings I have described can be summed up in one word; escape.
Friday 30 October 2009
Thursday 29 October 2009
Kiss Catch - The Ghoul Finds Love
We are all friends here. I have often skipped over the hurdle on the subject of Love (the capitol L type) but now I feel the time has arrived to spin out my ideas on it. Well maybe.
I have written little odes to a number of ladies but never TO a lady. It is an obvious difference of course. I can see my future relationship being an up and down affair with a crazy bag lady from some obscure village. With an added pinch of serpents luck she will have a withered hand and a nose to poke the fading embers of love with.
I see it now, 'you may kiss the bride!' As I lean forward she takes out an eyeball with her parrot beak.
My first Love was a bottle of sauce that I kept hidden in an inside pocket whenever out. She wasn't too demanding in the beginning and evenings were spent simply kissing her smooth neck and swigging from her glossy mouth. I had a glorious nine year romance with her, but by the end she had shattered my confidence, taken every penny piece and had even started to criticise the way I dressed.
It wasn't honesty with her. In the first stage of our relationship I managed to squeeze in a mistress. She was like a nodding dog in many ways and there is nothing more irritating than a woman who hangs on to your every word as if its gospel. I liked her that much is true but looking back the only way I could have loved her was by loving a different part of her every day. A tedious thing and far too timid for my volatile nature.
All of the others I dated were unique. Cider was a stubborn wench but she had energy, a real livewire. I was never alone in the morning if she was by my side, she could tickle a hangover away with ease and bring me out into the world. Vodka could be a little more tetchy: she shined a light on my darker moods which could cause havoc but if I respected her she could be absolutely charming. I treated both lager and wine equally as they did me, the result was I was never alone but never could tell if they had been cheating on me.
The worst of the bunch was whiskey; she was a vile, vindictive bitch and I couldn't do any amount of right in her eyes. She used me to get back at my gentle nature by clouding my views and feelings and unveiling my hatred.
Port and champagne always had silver spoons up their arses, I fled from their clutches every time.
They were all good time gals but in the end they took it out of me. I look at them standing in supermarkets now eyeing up other men. I am only slightly jealous and the dust looks good on them.
I don't know who or what to love next. It seems such a bitter word after basking on a topsy turvy ocean. I saw my ideal woman bathing in its innocence once. She was so beautiful that part of my spirit left me to be with her. A quiet lady with loud rubies on her tongue, I think she had fractured her thoughts but I was able to pick up on the break and loved her for it. I could have stood watching her all day, the spiders in her smokey hair didn't bother me. A feline jackdaw and all the time my inconsistant jawbreakers were mouthed in silence.
It might have been a dream but I like to think that such a woman exists. The blonde ornament with hoof heels and rubber eyelashes excites me as much as an overweight zero with her burst-water-pipe looks. That type of woman is kept like a pocket watch and only gets taken out by being mistaken for the picture locket of ones wife.
She ought to be left alone as I shall leave her here.
I have searched for my ideal lady many times in the past but since I only flirted with my vanity I always ended up with my reflection. I quit looking after a thousand headaches and a million strange faces and I was alone for a hellish period of time. It took me back to school days where I was considered to be the freak that nobody wanted to touch. A childhood sweetheart was never meant to be. As the other boys in class were beating their puny chests in exagerrated triumph I was left counting my fingers but I was never envious. The girls in class did not have the courage or glitz to fuel any fantasies, they were too busy spitting damp paper at the heads of the fat and freckled.
I read about sex on a discarded lollipop stick I found next to a dead squirrel in fields ajoining the school. No doubt it got to the truth before I did.
In those days I imagined love making as a pissed up grope in the park with a schoolgirl in white knickers and half a bottle of cooking sherry stolen from the kitchen. Maybe I still do, I've never shared my body with anyone long enough to find out.
The same can be said of Love. I would like to say that I learnt about Love through reading Keats, Byron and other magical scribblers but I didn't and the lovely creature eludes me to this day.
And what will happen if I do discover Love? Will I settle down in the quiet seclusion of a wedding band in a nine to five house with a brace of children? I sincerely hope that the combined natures of myself and future queen will avoid that claustrophobic life style.
I do not wish to be married amidst a racket of trumpets and a hurricane of confetti with cameras snapping merrily away like caffiene hungry crocodiles at the anorexic bridesmaids and grown men with hangovers. Wedding photos have a wonderful sense of humour.
Give me a church wedding by all means, scatter the daffodils along the aisle and illuminate the apostles with candlelight but lock ceremony away, close it in a book. A marriage is gutsy enough without over-dressing it in frilly bells and icing that twinkle like loose change in a dingy betting shop.
I will find Love one day either standing in a queue or weeping at the funeral of a God, and when I do I will lay down and sleep with my frail figurine until we both discover truth and serenity. Divine knowledge shallbe given to us wrapped in old newspapers and hatred will fold its arms and wait for death.
I cannot see my own footprints at the moment but I can hear tomorrow in the distance. It is coming on a dragon's back with the smell of eucalyptus on its breath and a flower behind its ear.
Let us dance and raise a toast to Love.
I have written little odes to a number of ladies but never TO a lady. It is an obvious difference of course. I can see my future relationship being an up and down affair with a crazy bag lady from some obscure village. With an added pinch of serpents luck she will have a withered hand and a nose to poke the fading embers of love with.
I see it now, 'you may kiss the bride!' As I lean forward she takes out an eyeball with her parrot beak.
My first Love was a bottle of sauce that I kept hidden in an inside pocket whenever out. She wasn't too demanding in the beginning and evenings were spent simply kissing her smooth neck and swigging from her glossy mouth. I had a glorious nine year romance with her, but by the end she had shattered my confidence, taken every penny piece and had even started to criticise the way I dressed.
It wasn't honesty with her. In the first stage of our relationship I managed to squeeze in a mistress. She was like a nodding dog in many ways and there is nothing more irritating than a woman who hangs on to your every word as if its gospel. I liked her that much is true but looking back the only way I could have loved her was by loving a different part of her every day. A tedious thing and far too timid for my volatile nature.
All of the others I dated were unique. Cider was a stubborn wench but she had energy, a real livewire. I was never alone in the morning if she was by my side, she could tickle a hangover away with ease and bring me out into the world. Vodka could be a little more tetchy: she shined a light on my darker moods which could cause havoc but if I respected her she could be absolutely charming. I treated both lager and wine equally as they did me, the result was I was never alone but never could tell if they had been cheating on me.
The worst of the bunch was whiskey; she was a vile, vindictive bitch and I couldn't do any amount of right in her eyes. She used me to get back at my gentle nature by clouding my views and feelings and unveiling my hatred.
Port and champagne always had silver spoons up their arses, I fled from their clutches every time.
They were all good time gals but in the end they took it out of me. I look at them standing in supermarkets now eyeing up other men. I am only slightly jealous and the dust looks good on them.
I don't know who or what to love next. It seems such a bitter word after basking on a topsy turvy ocean. I saw my ideal woman bathing in its innocence once. She was so beautiful that part of my spirit left me to be with her. A quiet lady with loud rubies on her tongue, I think she had fractured her thoughts but I was able to pick up on the break and loved her for it. I could have stood watching her all day, the spiders in her smokey hair didn't bother me. A feline jackdaw and all the time my inconsistant jawbreakers were mouthed in silence.
It might have been a dream but I like to think that such a woman exists. The blonde ornament with hoof heels and rubber eyelashes excites me as much as an overweight zero with her burst-water-pipe looks. That type of woman is kept like a pocket watch and only gets taken out by being mistaken for the picture locket of ones wife.
She ought to be left alone as I shall leave her here.
I have searched for my ideal lady many times in the past but since I only flirted with my vanity I always ended up with my reflection. I quit looking after a thousand headaches and a million strange faces and I was alone for a hellish period of time. It took me back to school days where I was considered to be the freak that nobody wanted to touch. A childhood sweetheart was never meant to be. As the other boys in class were beating their puny chests in exagerrated triumph I was left counting my fingers but I was never envious. The girls in class did not have the courage or glitz to fuel any fantasies, they were too busy spitting damp paper at the heads of the fat and freckled.
I read about sex on a discarded lollipop stick I found next to a dead squirrel in fields ajoining the school. No doubt it got to the truth before I did.
In those days I imagined love making as a pissed up grope in the park with a schoolgirl in white knickers and half a bottle of cooking sherry stolen from the kitchen. Maybe I still do, I've never shared my body with anyone long enough to find out.
The same can be said of Love. I would like to say that I learnt about Love through reading Keats, Byron and other magical scribblers but I didn't and the lovely creature eludes me to this day.
And what will happen if I do discover Love? Will I settle down in the quiet seclusion of a wedding band in a nine to five house with a brace of children? I sincerely hope that the combined natures of myself and future queen will avoid that claustrophobic life style.
I do not wish to be married amidst a racket of trumpets and a hurricane of confetti with cameras snapping merrily away like caffiene hungry crocodiles at the anorexic bridesmaids and grown men with hangovers. Wedding photos have a wonderful sense of humour.
Give me a church wedding by all means, scatter the daffodils along the aisle and illuminate the apostles with candlelight but lock ceremony away, close it in a book. A marriage is gutsy enough without over-dressing it in frilly bells and icing that twinkle like loose change in a dingy betting shop.
I will find Love one day either standing in a queue or weeping at the funeral of a God, and when I do I will lay down and sleep with my frail figurine until we both discover truth and serenity. Divine knowledge shallbe given to us wrapped in old newspapers and hatred will fold its arms and wait for death.
I cannot see my own footprints at the moment but I can hear tomorrow in the distance. It is coming on a dragon's back with the smell of eucalyptus on its breath and a flower behind its ear.
Let us dance and raise a toast to Love.
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Do We Need To Listen?
Britain once thrived on new ideas. The magic of the UK market. We do not need pickled buisnesmen, fat on fat, to tell us what is or is not a good idea. They are drunk on others ideas. Pilfering honest concepts. Talent shows and buisness shows are terrible ideas, thought up by greedy minds. Trouble is we are easily fooled by plastic teachers.
Holiday Of A Lifetime
Life: four letters which fill in the blank between Birth and Death in a swift lash of the tongue perfectly.
Letters that once placed in the appropiate order, undoubtedly make up the most precious word in the dictionary, and regardless of its size, the biggest. The reader will find these statements obvious and apparent, but the word LIFE means more to me than following a daily routine then shaking its sand from my shoes as the itch of sleep arrives with the turning of a duvet at night.
Breath is secondary due to its emptiness. A heart that simply exists to breathe is not entirely functional as it beats constantly without rhythm or purpose at scarred images of life as it was. The past is dead.
The elixirs of Life to me is morning cigarettes, fingernails covered in coffee cream, dust gathering on ancient maps, the smell of petrol in a garage, soup by candlelight, cobwebbed biographies, standing on a windswept wave crashed beach and laying idle on a pile of work desperately seeking my attention.
All of these give me unlimited pleasure, and give to my heart the reward it so rightly deserves. Breathing is such a tedious task if done alone, and one must be careful at this stage of Life because as soon as the fragrance of living becomes a quiet odour, the heart itself turns into mere whisper.
Eack of us who are given the priceless gift of Life ought to have at least one glimmer in their spirit, one sparkle, regardless of circumstances. Life should be treated as a unique, new experience for the body and a holiday for the busy soul, it shouldn't always be taken so seriously. Shakespeare wrote that all the world is a stage and I believe we should all play the jester, or a child. But not a sensible one.
Every day I hear people whining about this or that, smoking their fingers to the bone as they cry, but all they achieve through airing their grievances is slight satisfaction, which is ultimately as futile as the empty heart I spoke of.
I am of course aware of atrocities which have taken place throughout history (and still do), and I can never begin to comprehend the suffering of victims. But for the ones who have been spared the real pangs of misery, to me they sit like the dull weather and I muse upon their perceived frictions in life with some hilarity. Comparing the complaints to kitchen utensils, toolboxes, sugar bowls and other inanimate things.
Consider a pair of shoes for example. Every day they get worn out, drowned in puddles, walked in dog shit and eventually get scuffed through time only to be discarded with the eye holes firmly shut.
That is similar, if not exact as the situations we face in Life, which is why I urge people to take a firm grip and walk in those shoes on the broad horizon of Life and make the heart a shrine to circuses and clowns and not shuffle around in chain gangs forged from self pity.
The years are short enough in this world without shrinking them further to curdle them in petty sighs.
Life is a chance from God to seize whatever amount of pleasure we can get before our souls are returned to the hectic realm of mysteries and hauntings. Returned to sender. I do not know of any other gift afforded to such an amount of people (religious or not)than the beautiful chance to Live a Life.
Life is the biggest of all jackpots and if some people wish to spend the windfall frantically pacing about with worry on their shoulders it is their choice. But I intend to smile through pain, sheltering under the shadow of the jesters attitude and laughing all the way into the Afterlife.
Letters that once placed in the appropiate order, undoubtedly make up the most precious word in the dictionary, and regardless of its size, the biggest. The reader will find these statements obvious and apparent, but the word LIFE means more to me than following a daily routine then shaking its sand from my shoes as the itch of sleep arrives with the turning of a duvet at night.
Breath is secondary due to its emptiness. A heart that simply exists to breathe is not entirely functional as it beats constantly without rhythm or purpose at scarred images of life as it was. The past is dead.
The elixirs of Life to me is morning cigarettes, fingernails covered in coffee cream, dust gathering on ancient maps, the smell of petrol in a garage, soup by candlelight, cobwebbed biographies, standing on a windswept wave crashed beach and laying idle on a pile of work desperately seeking my attention.
All of these give me unlimited pleasure, and give to my heart the reward it so rightly deserves. Breathing is such a tedious task if done alone, and one must be careful at this stage of Life because as soon as the fragrance of living becomes a quiet odour, the heart itself turns into mere whisper.
Eack of us who are given the priceless gift of Life ought to have at least one glimmer in their spirit, one sparkle, regardless of circumstances. Life should be treated as a unique, new experience for the body and a holiday for the busy soul, it shouldn't always be taken so seriously. Shakespeare wrote that all the world is a stage and I believe we should all play the jester, or a child. But not a sensible one.
Every day I hear people whining about this or that, smoking their fingers to the bone as they cry, but all they achieve through airing their grievances is slight satisfaction, which is ultimately as futile as the empty heart I spoke of.
I am of course aware of atrocities which have taken place throughout history (and still do), and I can never begin to comprehend the suffering of victims. But for the ones who have been spared the real pangs of misery, to me they sit like the dull weather and I muse upon their perceived frictions in life with some hilarity. Comparing the complaints to kitchen utensils, toolboxes, sugar bowls and other inanimate things.
Consider a pair of shoes for example. Every day they get worn out, drowned in puddles, walked in dog shit and eventually get scuffed through time only to be discarded with the eye holes firmly shut.
That is similar, if not exact as the situations we face in Life, which is why I urge people to take a firm grip and walk in those shoes on the broad horizon of Life and make the heart a shrine to circuses and clowns and not shuffle around in chain gangs forged from self pity.
The years are short enough in this world without shrinking them further to curdle them in petty sighs.
Life is a chance from God to seize whatever amount of pleasure we can get before our souls are returned to the hectic realm of mysteries and hauntings. Returned to sender. I do not know of any other gift afforded to such an amount of people (religious or not)than the beautiful chance to Live a Life.
Life is the biggest of all jackpots and if some people wish to spend the windfall frantically pacing about with worry on their shoulders it is their choice. But I intend to smile through pain, sheltering under the shadow of the jesters attitude and laughing all the way into the Afterlife.
Friday 16 October 2009
Call Of The Detenators
Its comforting to know that weeds believe themselves to be flowers yet flowers are content to think themselves weeds. It strikes a wonderful balance to an otherwise shambles. If it wasn't for this fact there would be too many toxic peacocks, and much too many deaths.
As a modest man with varied interests I find it doesn't do to push opinions down others' throats. Fine to hold an opinion of course, but taking it by the scruff of the neck and parading it for the masses reeks of terrible manners.
Look at the rabid religious and divine alcohol abstainers if examples are needed. These holy cows think their perches to be a Godly marble and shower us with sober, self righteous hail thinking to educate. Do they really think the gin wolves care? If you have a message, don't kill the mood. Burn it or keep it to yourself because the majority of 'We The People' are thorns and everyone knows thorns are barren. However we do enjoy getting under your skin. *Winks*
As a modest man with varied interests I find it doesn't do to push opinions down others' throats. Fine to hold an opinion of course, but taking it by the scruff of the neck and parading it for the masses reeks of terrible manners.
Look at the rabid religious and divine alcohol abstainers if examples are needed. These holy cows think their perches to be a Godly marble and shower us with sober, self righteous hail thinking to educate. Do they really think the gin wolves care? If you have a message, don't kill the mood. Burn it or keep it to yourself because the majority of 'We The People' are thorns and everyone knows thorns are barren. However we do enjoy getting under your skin. *Winks*
Tuesday 13 October 2009
On Screen Deity (Sober Avatar)
The internet can be proud of many things. Support sites for people plagued by troubles, adverts for places of work, dietry and health tips, research, in a few more years it may even fix you a drink after a hard day. But such a vast horizon inevitably has its pests and it isn't only the dangerous ones who do harm.
In fact one of the most irritating is the fantasist. The millionaire playboy, special forces trained, with the wit of Shaw and dashing good looks who sits in Simpson's Y fronts in front of the computer to prove a sense of humour lurks within his caffiene addled brain. Proof for himself that is for to these pathetic specimens there is only self.
Every chat room has them: the one who saved the world, the one who penned a classic, the one who drinks the most, the legend in a string vest. They crawl over the forums like leeches, desperate to be the best and wallow in some tinted glory. Eager to show other users how to be a superhero while dribbling saliva and sticking the letters on the keyboard with God only knows what.
In the real world they are timid, subversive, skinny characters with certificates in woodwork and sick notes from the doctor but in front of a 12" glowing screen they become Something Else. A supreme being, ruler of all (including Tigger the house cat and the garden with rusting barbecue).
Success comes easy to a nice looking avatar and there is no need for study or training in their chosen profession. A creative imagination is all that is required, however a nasty, insolent tongue is a bonus.
There used to be men in pubs telling anyone gullible enough who'd listen they were 'in the SAS but can't say too much.' These heroes of teatime have descended on the internet en masse. Posting ridiculous ideas or claiming to have been part of some legendary event.
The human mind has created truly stunning works of art, and made some awesome discoveries but no matter how great we can be, these poseurs and shameful liars hiding behind a glossy avatar will always remind us that we will always bleed. They are proof of a glaring weakness in our make up.
In fact one of the most irritating is the fantasist. The millionaire playboy, special forces trained, with the wit of Shaw and dashing good looks who sits in Simpson's Y fronts in front of the computer to prove a sense of humour lurks within his caffiene addled brain. Proof for himself that is for to these pathetic specimens there is only self.
Every chat room has them: the one who saved the world, the one who penned a classic, the one who drinks the most, the legend in a string vest. They crawl over the forums like leeches, desperate to be the best and wallow in some tinted glory. Eager to show other users how to be a superhero while dribbling saliva and sticking the letters on the keyboard with God only knows what.
In the real world they are timid, subversive, skinny characters with certificates in woodwork and sick notes from the doctor but in front of a 12" glowing screen they become Something Else. A supreme being, ruler of all (including Tigger the house cat and the garden with rusting barbecue).
Success comes easy to a nice looking avatar and there is no need for study or training in their chosen profession. A creative imagination is all that is required, however a nasty, insolent tongue is a bonus.
There used to be men in pubs telling anyone gullible enough who'd listen they were 'in the SAS but can't say too much.' These heroes of teatime have descended on the internet en masse. Posting ridiculous ideas or claiming to have been part of some legendary event.
The human mind has created truly stunning works of art, and made some awesome discoveries but no matter how great we can be, these poseurs and shameful liars hiding behind a glossy avatar will always remind us that we will always bleed. They are proof of a glaring weakness in our make up.
Wednesday 7 October 2009
A Chit From Rehab
A funny place filled with smiling, paranoid faces. Every so often a nurse or waitress calls by with food but beneath the sugary greetings there is nothing. The round window in the door reminds you of a hatch in a prison cell, its glass freezing with every touch.
'I know that tea
will be the death of me
in this slab that keeps my mouth from alcohol.'
It is a confused place, this stately house which would never invite my crazy lover - the ginger lady. Sorrow walks on its clean, plush carpets, dragging its tail of misery to every level of despair. The desperate crew of '96 are here within the clutches of sobriety and on the doorstop of intoxication.
Everyone behind the diamond veil of the building has a tragic story etched into their swollen hearts.
'What sweet tears weep from inside!
Cravings rattle the bed
like a snake jigsaw,
doomed to shy away from glass lips.'
Each word spoken is filled with thorns to rip our strangled emotions from sore souls. It takes a mighty tattooed Jesus to carry this cross and my shoulders are much too tired for words.
The occasional sunbeam filters in, usually in the shape of pretty, tinsel coloured tablets which bind the mind and burned nerves to bliss. But these are mere splinters to an otherwise lead weighted shadow, and ultimately little comfort for comfort is a lost word in rehab.
'Quiet whispers to the sober moon
send buzzing stars into a jealous frenzy!
The beautiful cake eaten
candles blown like dry ribs.'
When I leave this holy hangover-free castle of wreckages, I want to remember this sparse time to feed the memories to the beast of beasts which will surely come hunting, looking for the door to my soul.
It is a tombstone life in here, the glowing life vein outside severed and we are constantly subjected to alcohol's spite.
'Over rivers of bourbon
where once we put our livers to sea,
we sail to a land of drought.
All madness here is drowned,
starved on sober air.
Are we finally free from insanity?'
This gothic house which has been a jail of mixed sensations for a month, now shrinks in the distance as I disappear into an unknown forest of oblivion. All the chants and mantras in the world cannot damp the toxic fires for the flames are fed with human spirit, the immortal foe.
Steven Francis, April 1996
'I know that tea
will be the death of me
in this slab that keeps my mouth from alcohol.'
It is a confused place, this stately house which would never invite my crazy lover - the ginger lady. Sorrow walks on its clean, plush carpets, dragging its tail of misery to every level of despair. The desperate crew of '96 are here within the clutches of sobriety and on the doorstop of intoxication.
Everyone behind the diamond veil of the building has a tragic story etched into their swollen hearts.
'What sweet tears weep from inside!
Cravings rattle the bed
like a snake jigsaw,
doomed to shy away from glass lips.'
Each word spoken is filled with thorns to rip our strangled emotions from sore souls. It takes a mighty tattooed Jesus to carry this cross and my shoulders are much too tired for words.
The occasional sunbeam filters in, usually in the shape of pretty, tinsel coloured tablets which bind the mind and burned nerves to bliss. But these are mere splinters to an otherwise lead weighted shadow, and ultimately little comfort for comfort is a lost word in rehab.
'Quiet whispers to the sober moon
send buzzing stars into a jealous frenzy!
The beautiful cake eaten
candles blown like dry ribs.'
When I leave this holy hangover-free castle of wreckages, I want to remember this sparse time to feed the memories to the beast of beasts which will surely come hunting, looking for the door to my soul.
It is a tombstone life in here, the glowing life vein outside severed and we are constantly subjected to alcohol's spite.
'Over rivers of bourbon
where once we put our livers to sea,
we sail to a land of drought.
All madness here is drowned,
starved on sober air.
Are we finally free from insanity?'
This gothic house which has been a jail of mixed sensations for a month, now shrinks in the distance as I disappear into an unknown forest of oblivion. All the chants and mantras in the world cannot damp the toxic fires for the flames are fed with human spirit, the immortal foe.
Steven Francis, April 1996
From Blood To Dream (Dal Sangue Di Sognore)
Part One - The Blood Cats
Deep in a vision of uncontrolled nightmares came a wave of madness so fierce that I almost drowned in the sweat on my pillow.
Lying naked on my bed, my magic carpet, I sealed my eyes with gallons of cider. But not before opening the window to let the demons in.
Soon the singing from the radio was dulled, I was in a field full of market stalls and drunk people collecting stray, hungry cats.
It reminded me of a funfair; mud, cheap smells and greasy rides. I knew no soul and after I had gathered four cats soaked with oil an overgrown cottage caught my eye in the far corner of the field, and I went to it.
There was no door, I had to tip the cats and myself through a window which ripped my sides, bouncing the ribs.
The cats scattered in all directions, under beds, chairs, one even crawled under a corner shelf. As I peeled myself off the sticky floor I felt at home, I belonged in this rats nest. This eerie yet cosy cottage was my castle and me not being quite myself was its ghost.
Obeying the theme out I went again in a mad hunt for cats. Drug pushers tried selling me different states of mind but it was no use, I always declined. The one I have now is too unique to allow a foriegn buzz.
I found cats and kittens everywhere; some were stuck up to their stomachs in mud, a few were on hot bricks in fish & chip stalls, and the scruffy ones were smoking knackered joints behind the PET MICE FOR SALE wagon.
After rounding up eighteen cats and caging them in clouds I sat down to dinner of chips, peas and a book of Coleridge's letters. The racket of the funfair outside rolled on, a mixture of mud slaps and battered pop music.
It was a grand meal, chips a little thin and some of the poets words hard to swallow but it sat fine in my gut. When it was over I crawled under a bed to feed my feline herd, then went over to sit in a plush red armchair to try and escape. I felt peace here but if I stayed too long it might trigger insanity. And dreams move like fire over a dry page.
Suddenly a machine gun-like RAT TAT TAT from the window pulled me from the lullabies core, dashing escape. I walked to the window, faintly I could hear the sound of giggling girls in the darkness. Instead of opening the rusted latch the glass pane simply shattered as I got nearer.
Outside bathed in fairground lights stood three smiling young girls begging to be let in. They were clutching pebbles, ready to assault my window once more.
My first thought was to try and rouse myself quickly but before I could sober my head the girls were already clambering and clawing their way through the exploded glass.
They lead me to the kitchen and introduced themselves in turn. The first was called Thea Pierrepont, in her spare time she loved to sit on top of Christmas trees spreading goodwill and cancer. The second girl was Clynde who had teeth like a typewriter and razor blonde hair. Sable Mable was number three, she had four eyes and smashed bloody fingernails.
In a matter of minutes they had prepared another feast, a banquet of venison, goose, rabbit,fine wines and the best gin. I was told to eat and share my thoughts and fears with them. All eyes on me, I sat at the table, ready to pour vinegar into my wounds.
I sensed Thea Pierrepoint wanted to slice open my eyes and soak in the stories they contained, instead she sat crossed legged on the floor, probing.
The flame of a black candle in the center of the table warmed my cracking face. Me the prince lost for words! Clynde passed me a pint glass filled with wine to loosen my desert lips and I emptied it in one.
I was on the third bottle and fifth chicken leg before regaining any sense of sanity, and always the eyes drilled into me.
Sable Mable put her cobweb like hand on my arm as if for comfort. Madness coiled slumber. Were the demons in girls clothing going to cure me of my fears? Or were they going to alter my thoughts, twisting them into mutant, cruel ideas? Was I going to awake utterly mad, forever writhing inside a strait-jacket, brain fried asleep in my skull?
The food before me had began to rot. The girls getting restless.
A cat filled with cannabis smoke made faces in the window.
I told them about drowning, oxygen starved, kissing Death. An agony, a horrid way to exit. The girls nodded together as if agreeing and a baby unicorn drowned in my wine glass.
Another terror was clowns. Nothing sinister but I couldn't face being laughed at whatever the reason. And painted smiles are dishonest. Cowardly even. Parade emotion, however sad.
The same as the unicorn, a clown appeared in the cottage and was hung by the tubes in his heart.
Clynde told me I was safe from anxiety then offered me sex in return for the chain of skulls tattoo on my arm. I looked at the damp patch between her legs and declined. Sable Mable offered me the chance to have alcohol run in my veins forever without being poisoned. Temptation almost swayed me but no! I had to wake from this bizarre outing in my mind.
Thea Pierrepoint was different. She wanted me for destruction, killing for the pleasure of killing. She wanted entire species slaughtered; animals, plants even mankind. A sadistic orgy of razors and torn flesh.
I got up and managed to walk over to the broken window to see if the carnival of intoxicated cats had gone.
Thea and Clynde swapped evil stares with each other. Sable Mable covered her eyes with lipstick.
There was no funfair anymore. No stinking, twinking mud nor drugged cats but there was an atmosphere that could have filled a hundred asylums. I asked myself 'have I died in my sleep? Is this hell?'
Suddenly as if to answer my question, the girls crumbled like dried leaves, leaving a velvet pile of dust where they had sat.
The stones of the cottage fell around me in dreamstate, yet I was unharmed. Where the mud had been was now a mist which smelt of burnt flesh and every light that had crazed the funfair flew and smashed in the air.
Finally I got the feeling that I might be awake but alas chains and shackles arrived next. A terrible world of madmen and mouth restraints.
Deep in a vision of uncontrolled nightmares came a wave of madness so fierce that I almost drowned in the sweat on my pillow.
Lying naked on my bed, my magic carpet, I sealed my eyes with gallons of cider. But not before opening the window to let the demons in.
Soon the singing from the radio was dulled, I was in a field full of market stalls and drunk people collecting stray, hungry cats.
It reminded me of a funfair; mud, cheap smells and greasy rides. I knew no soul and after I had gathered four cats soaked with oil an overgrown cottage caught my eye in the far corner of the field, and I went to it.
There was no door, I had to tip the cats and myself through a window which ripped my sides, bouncing the ribs.
The cats scattered in all directions, under beds, chairs, one even crawled under a corner shelf. As I peeled myself off the sticky floor I felt at home, I belonged in this rats nest. This eerie yet cosy cottage was my castle and me not being quite myself was its ghost.
Obeying the theme out I went again in a mad hunt for cats. Drug pushers tried selling me different states of mind but it was no use, I always declined. The one I have now is too unique to allow a foriegn buzz.
I found cats and kittens everywhere; some were stuck up to their stomachs in mud, a few were on hot bricks in fish & chip stalls, and the scruffy ones were smoking knackered joints behind the PET MICE FOR SALE wagon.
After rounding up eighteen cats and caging them in clouds I sat down to dinner of chips, peas and a book of Coleridge's letters. The racket of the funfair outside rolled on, a mixture of mud slaps and battered pop music.
It was a grand meal, chips a little thin and some of the poets words hard to swallow but it sat fine in my gut. When it was over I crawled under a bed to feed my feline herd, then went over to sit in a plush red armchair to try and escape. I felt peace here but if I stayed too long it might trigger insanity. And dreams move like fire over a dry page.
Suddenly a machine gun-like RAT TAT TAT from the window pulled me from the lullabies core, dashing escape. I walked to the window, faintly I could hear the sound of giggling girls in the darkness. Instead of opening the rusted latch the glass pane simply shattered as I got nearer.
Outside bathed in fairground lights stood three smiling young girls begging to be let in. They were clutching pebbles, ready to assault my window once more.
My first thought was to try and rouse myself quickly but before I could sober my head the girls were already clambering and clawing their way through the exploded glass.
They lead me to the kitchen and introduced themselves in turn. The first was called Thea Pierrepont, in her spare time she loved to sit on top of Christmas trees spreading goodwill and cancer. The second girl was Clynde who had teeth like a typewriter and razor blonde hair. Sable Mable was number three, she had four eyes and smashed bloody fingernails.
In a matter of minutes they had prepared another feast, a banquet of venison, goose, rabbit,fine wines and the best gin. I was told to eat and share my thoughts and fears with them. All eyes on me, I sat at the table, ready to pour vinegar into my wounds.
I sensed Thea Pierrepoint wanted to slice open my eyes and soak in the stories they contained, instead she sat crossed legged on the floor, probing.
The flame of a black candle in the center of the table warmed my cracking face. Me the prince lost for words! Clynde passed me a pint glass filled with wine to loosen my desert lips and I emptied it in one.
I was on the third bottle and fifth chicken leg before regaining any sense of sanity, and always the eyes drilled into me.
Sable Mable put her cobweb like hand on my arm as if for comfort. Madness coiled slumber. Were the demons in girls clothing going to cure me of my fears? Or were they going to alter my thoughts, twisting them into mutant, cruel ideas? Was I going to awake utterly mad, forever writhing inside a strait-jacket, brain fried asleep in my skull?
The food before me had began to rot. The girls getting restless.
A cat filled with cannabis smoke made faces in the window.
I told them about drowning, oxygen starved, kissing Death. An agony, a horrid way to exit. The girls nodded together as if agreeing and a baby unicorn drowned in my wine glass.
Another terror was clowns. Nothing sinister but I couldn't face being laughed at whatever the reason. And painted smiles are dishonest. Cowardly even. Parade emotion, however sad.
The same as the unicorn, a clown appeared in the cottage and was hung by the tubes in his heart.
Clynde told me I was safe from anxiety then offered me sex in return for the chain of skulls tattoo on my arm. I looked at the damp patch between her legs and declined. Sable Mable offered me the chance to have alcohol run in my veins forever without being poisoned. Temptation almost swayed me but no! I had to wake from this bizarre outing in my mind.
Thea Pierrepoint was different. She wanted me for destruction, killing for the pleasure of killing. She wanted entire species slaughtered; animals, plants even mankind. A sadistic orgy of razors and torn flesh.
I got up and managed to walk over to the broken window to see if the carnival of intoxicated cats had gone.
Thea and Clynde swapped evil stares with each other. Sable Mable covered her eyes with lipstick.
There was no funfair anymore. No stinking, twinking mud nor drugged cats but there was an atmosphere that could have filled a hundred asylums. I asked myself 'have I died in my sleep? Is this hell?'
Suddenly as if to answer my question, the girls crumbled like dried leaves, leaving a velvet pile of dust where they had sat.
The stones of the cottage fell around me in dreamstate, yet I was unharmed. Where the mud had been was now a mist which smelt of burnt flesh and every light that had crazed the funfair flew and smashed in the air.
Finally I got the feeling that I might be awake but alas chains and shackles arrived next. A terrible world of madmen and mouth restraints.
From Blood To Dream
I was taken shuffling with steel on my wrists and ankles to a large, vile concrete world filled with lunatics, who for breakfast fed on excreta and sucked on the dribbling erections of fellow inmates.
My cell was to be shared with a misfit named Leaf Gritt, who licked the walls with ideas of escape and spoke sexually about his long dead aunt. His crotch was rubbed a lot. Hell had no other world.
We were locked up twenty three hours a day, but the exercise period offered little relief.
Once I actually witnessed a hulk of a man put rotten meat on his tongue and let a fat python crawl into his mouth and disappear into his intestines. In this doorway to death it was considered normal sport.
Back in the cell Leaf tried biting into his bony wrists, a feeble attempt at suicide because the governor had aleady removed his teeth after a previous manic spell.
I sobbed, my tears turning into laughing wolves on the tiled floor. Even my sorrow turning on me.
In the sixth flick of sleep the governor summoned me. My cell mate cried for me and got his eyeballs sucked out. With arms bound in barbed wire, and vine and thorns twisted from ankles to neck, I stood of a oak table, stinking with lust.
Not wanting to see the beast behind the desk, I slowly lifted my eyes, trying to steel them against suction. It must have been a trick of the dream for the being which sat before me looked normal. I relaxed a little, enough for the thorny chain which bound me to slit a smiling wound into the skin.
The governor stood and paced the chamber for a time as if considering cruel intentions. I felt like Christ, he was my Pilate.
Then when he finally spoke something did unnerve me. I noticed that each time he said the word PAIN, or mentioned anything PAINFUL, his eyes would change from a beautiful blue to a glowing, sickening yellow. My flesh froze.
He ordered two guards, hideously deformed like a spider and fly in one, to take me to a chapel of rest. I could smell the dead as I was dragged along a corridor.
The chapel itself was tiny, grim and filled with bones. Tufts of muscle and sinew still clung to some, fear heaved in my chest.
The Spiderfly dressed me in a purple shroud, the open casket I was placed in had torn satin walls. And as I lay the governor entered the room.
He had changed his appearance now. A twisted, disabled dove of peace. Never to know why but I smiled a little.
The chains fell in the casket but movement was still impossible. A statue prepared for Death in a gift box.
Still I felt cleansed, as if a cherub had washed me in port the frightened child I had been in the cell had vanished. When one dies then to reach Heaven one must first taste hell. The governor gave me a look of comfort.
A crucifix of outstanding gold that gave no doubt of there being a God was heated until it turned white and placed on my chest. I was in a state of bliss, in a natural high. I turned on a cotton cloud, no longer in the hellish dungeon but in a cradle. I demanded another dreamscape.
My cell was to be shared with a misfit named Leaf Gritt, who licked the walls with ideas of escape and spoke sexually about his long dead aunt. His crotch was rubbed a lot. Hell had no other world.
We were locked up twenty three hours a day, but the exercise period offered little relief.
Once I actually witnessed a hulk of a man put rotten meat on his tongue and let a fat python crawl into his mouth and disappear into his intestines. In this doorway to death it was considered normal sport.
Back in the cell Leaf tried biting into his bony wrists, a feeble attempt at suicide because the governor had aleady removed his teeth after a previous manic spell.
I sobbed, my tears turning into laughing wolves on the tiled floor. Even my sorrow turning on me.
In the sixth flick of sleep the governor summoned me. My cell mate cried for me and got his eyeballs sucked out. With arms bound in barbed wire, and vine and thorns twisted from ankles to neck, I stood of a oak table, stinking with lust.
Not wanting to see the beast behind the desk, I slowly lifted my eyes, trying to steel them against suction. It must have been a trick of the dream for the being which sat before me looked normal. I relaxed a little, enough for the thorny chain which bound me to slit a smiling wound into the skin.
The governor stood and paced the chamber for a time as if considering cruel intentions. I felt like Christ, he was my Pilate.
Then when he finally spoke something did unnerve me. I noticed that each time he said the word PAIN, or mentioned anything PAINFUL, his eyes would change from a beautiful blue to a glowing, sickening yellow. My flesh froze.
He ordered two guards, hideously deformed like a spider and fly in one, to take me to a chapel of rest. I could smell the dead as I was dragged along a corridor.
The chapel itself was tiny, grim and filled with bones. Tufts of muscle and sinew still clung to some, fear heaved in my chest.
The Spiderfly dressed me in a purple shroud, the open casket I was placed in had torn satin walls. And as I lay the governor entered the room.
He had changed his appearance now. A twisted, disabled dove of peace. Never to know why but I smiled a little.
The chains fell in the casket but movement was still impossible. A statue prepared for Death in a gift box.
Still I felt cleansed, as if a cherub had washed me in port the frightened child I had been in the cell had vanished. When one dies then to reach Heaven one must first taste hell. The governor gave me a look of comfort.
A crucifix of outstanding gold that gave no doubt of there being a God was heated until it turned white and placed on my chest. I was in a state of bliss, in a natural high. I turned on a cotton cloud, no longer in the hellish dungeon but in a cradle. I demanded another dreamscape.
Grilled Cheese & Cider (More Blood, Deeper Dream)
Part II - Vulgar Dawn
Cheese stirs dreams. It is the LCD of the sleeping brain, good and bad. Cheese on toast was the particulatr culprit for my visions. Lots of it washed down with crisp cider.
The nightmare I experienced in my previous rest had gone, there was no trace of it like it had never been. Who was Thea Pierrepoint? Or Leaf Gritt? I had no clue.
The surreal movie that I watched behind heavy eyelids on this second occasion was different, somehow reminding me of black and white films. I spread my legs in bed and suddenly I was in a room filled with bearded men with bulging eyes, the pupils floating like dewy tadpoles.
They were friendly enough characters who offered me one of the largest measures of brandy I had ever clamped my talons on. I drank it eagerly then looked around the room again, hoping not to see any demons, gobblins or anything not familiar in the real world.
Not a thing, although the posters and pictures on the walls were disturbing. Every one depicted a heart in different designs; broken hearts, crushed hearts, hearts gripped in steel fists, shredded hearts and most bizarre of all a heart being pulled from a Jack-in-the-box by a rabid looking dog.
The smoke in the room was sickly, they might have been smoking limbs. I wanted none of it. It was not drug smell, it had the aroma of dried fungus but the music was familiar. I'd heard it before during a drunken stupour in the Little Club tavern.
A man whose beard was on fire handed me another brandy. I refused this time, I needed fresh air so slid over to a window. Taking a lungfull of air, I noticed the view was a lush, green forest. A dragon sailed past, its wing almost decapitating me. Strange, the view from another window was under ocean waves with dolphins and submarines in bad moods.
I decided to go upstairs and look through the top window. A man whose sober face had escaped him lay half dead on the stair. Dead to the world or the world was dead to him.
Hearing lusty sounds of love making in the first bedroom I skipped to the next one. Bearded ghouls in the throes of passion are a miserable sight.
The door opened revealing a carpet covered deep with cigarette ends and broken glass. A rat spewed in a corner, as I crossed the floor of empty debauchery to reach the window.
The scene outside was of two drunkards arguing through spittle and whiskers. Nothing else, not even a street or floor as if they were rowing in mid air. The love making in the other room stopped, I thought of going to it but when the voices inside started to aruge like the two drunks I decided to keep it shut. The room was not meant to be opened so I went to the bathroom window.
The door handle was soft as butter and as I turned it the brass melted, and there was shouting downstairs.
On pushing open the door I felt as though Id rolled over in bed, not a simple turning over it was a complete roll like I had somersaulted and kicked my wife out of bed. Hearing no yelp the dream steamed on. Cheese and cider playing with my mind.
The mad bathroom yelled at me, there was no stained glass so with rot in my stomach I peered outside. Instead of hells chapter of beasts and ripped souls in front of me were the long dead; Sid Vicious playing croquet with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on a freshly cut lawn, Jimi Hendrix had married Jane Austin and was being brought slippers and Albert Einstein had taken up skateboarding, street jamming with DaVinci.
I must have laughed in my slumber for I recieved a sharp nudge from my beloved after which I awoke breifly, a glass half full of cider on the bedside table winked. With a fermenting heart I drank hoping to travel back to the house of beards and landscapes.
Passing through a dream of sobbing one armed bandits, crying smiling coins I reached my crooked destination and went running to the bathroom again to see the dead artists and passing the forbidden lovers room who had evidently made up as grunts came from behind their peeling door.
There was no butter door handle, this time it felt like cold iron. As I tried turning it another rat was sick in the narrow corridor and laughed at his emptied innards.
The vathroom looked different, I knew as I walked to the window that my dead heroes were gone forever, a heart sank in a steel locket. Gripping the razor bladed frame I closed my eyes, took a breath of musty air then opened them again.
Christmas and birthday cards lay strewn across the croquet lawn, a tear mingled with sweat and I felt pain and happiness in one swift pang.
Hearing a noise behind me I turned to see one of the beardies holding hands with one of the spewing rats, behind my eyes I felt a terrible electric shock.
I was alone, afraid in a dream I had readily flung myself into. Was it possible to commit mental suicide?
Beardy offered me a drink, I refused telling him I needed to get through the window of dead idols. What happened next, even as I write my hands tremble and my mind cries.
The rat which had seemed friends with the man grabbed his tail and scrabbled to a hole in the wall and as soon as it disappeared into its stony portals the hole closed like a stubborn mouth swalling vomit.
Alone now with the whiskery giant, skin crawling, mouth dry. Then, slowly at first, the long beard that had grown past his waistline began to shrink until he was nearly clean shaven.
It had probably taken him a decade to grow his badgers nest and now it shook me, it was my fault it was gone! Screams came from downstairs, sounding like hell again but my eyes were transfixed on the newly shorn man.
'Ten years to grow', rattled my brain, and with this thought he whimpered. This giant fist of muscle actually whimpered!
'Ten years of messy growth,' again whispered my head, taunting him now but no whimper followed. Instead the quivering lips curled to bare sewer green fangs. Laser eyes bore into me, shaking me to my roots.
I must have tossed in bed because in that instant I heard more howling from below and threw myself through the window of hero spirits.
The pile of Christmas and birthday cards cushioned my short fall but I soon doubted the wisdom of my stunt. Had I killed myself in dreamstate? Was my beloved wife sleeping nex to my cold body wearing a worried expression on my face?
Bad trip, it must have been mouldy cheese. Or could it be that maggots had poisoned the apples the cider had come from?
I picked up one of the cards piled around me and opened it. 'To Grim Chops, Happy Birthday!' Scrawled in chalk. I picked up a Christmas card depicting a black bearded Santa Claus being pulled by his intestines by rabid, frothing bulls who had ripped his bloated belly open.
I had no will to open it but there was no need, I already knew what it said by stroking the braille like cover. 'Merry Mourning Ghoul Boy, Love Grandfather!' In the real world he was long dead but the dead walk freely in dreams.
(I was awaking.)
Only when the heart stops Loving do pyjamas make way for shrouds. Had I been walking with Death? Had the bed's headboard briefly been a tombstone happily declaring R.I.P?
I looked for my legs amongst the generations of greeting cards around me and got up. The window through which I had jumped was gone, and my sight was fading.
(The cold dawn skipped on my chest.)
It felt like I had been lost in the middle of a Christmas tree with darkness on the inside whilst outside was lit by twinkling lights and merriment.
(I was awake.)
Cheese stirs dreams. It is the LCD of the sleeping brain, good and bad. Cheese on toast was the particulatr culprit for my visions. Lots of it washed down with crisp cider.
The nightmare I experienced in my previous rest had gone, there was no trace of it like it had never been. Who was Thea Pierrepoint? Or Leaf Gritt? I had no clue.
The surreal movie that I watched behind heavy eyelids on this second occasion was different, somehow reminding me of black and white films. I spread my legs in bed and suddenly I was in a room filled with bearded men with bulging eyes, the pupils floating like dewy tadpoles.
They were friendly enough characters who offered me one of the largest measures of brandy I had ever clamped my talons on. I drank it eagerly then looked around the room again, hoping not to see any demons, gobblins or anything not familiar in the real world.
Not a thing, although the posters and pictures on the walls were disturbing. Every one depicted a heart in different designs; broken hearts, crushed hearts, hearts gripped in steel fists, shredded hearts and most bizarre of all a heart being pulled from a Jack-in-the-box by a rabid looking dog.
The smoke in the room was sickly, they might have been smoking limbs. I wanted none of it. It was not drug smell, it had the aroma of dried fungus but the music was familiar. I'd heard it before during a drunken stupour in the Little Club tavern.
A man whose beard was on fire handed me another brandy. I refused this time, I needed fresh air so slid over to a window. Taking a lungfull of air, I noticed the view was a lush, green forest. A dragon sailed past, its wing almost decapitating me. Strange, the view from another window was under ocean waves with dolphins and submarines in bad moods.
I decided to go upstairs and look through the top window. A man whose sober face had escaped him lay half dead on the stair. Dead to the world or the world was dead to him.
Hearing lusty sounds of love making in the first bedroom I skipped to the next one. Bearded ghouls in the throes of passion are a miserable sight.
The door opened revealing a carpet covered deep with cigarette ends and broken glass. A rat spewed in a corner, as I crossed the floor of empty debauchery to reach the window.
The scene outside was of two drunkards arguing through spittle and whiskers. Nothing else, not even a street or floor as if they were rowing in mid air. The love making in the other room stopped, I thought of going to it but when the voices inside started to aruge like the two drunks I decided to keep it shut. The room was not meant to be opened so I went to the bathroom window.
The door handle was soft as butter and as I turned it the brass melted, and there was shouting downstairs.
On pushing open the door I felt as though Id rolled over in bed, not a simple turning over it was a complete roll like I had somersaulted and kicked my wife out of bed. Hearing no yelp the dream steamed on. Cheese and cider playing with my mind.
The mad bathroom yelled at me, there was no stained glass so with rot in my stomach I peered outside. Instead of hells chapter of beasts and ripped souls in front of me were the long dead; Sid Vicious playing croquet with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on a freshly cut lawn, Jimi Hendrix had married Jane Austin and was being brought slippers and Albert Einstein had taken up skateboarding, street jamming with DaVinci.
I must have laughed in my slumber for I recieved a sharp nudge from my beloved after which I awoke breifly, a glass half full of cider on the bedside table winked. With a fermenting heart I drank hoping to travel back to the house of beards and landscapes.
Passing through a dream of sobbing one armed bandits, crying smiling coins I reached my crooked destination and went running to the bathroom again to see the dead artists and passing the forbidden lovers room who had evidently made up as grunts came from behind their peeling door.
There was no butter door handle, this time it felt like cold iron. As I tried turning it another rat was sick in the narrow corridor and laughed at his emptied innards.
The vathroom looked different, I knew as I walked to the window that my dead heroes were gone forever, a heart sank in a steel locket. Gripping the razor bladed frame I closed my eyes, took a breath of musty air then opened them again.
Christmas and birthday cards lay strewn across the croquet lawn, a tear mingled with sweat and I felt pain and happiness in one swift pang.
Hearing a noise behind me I turned to see one of the beardies holding hands with one of the spewing rats, behind my eyes I felt a terrible electric shock.
I was alone, afraid in a dream I had readily flung myself into. Was it possible to commit mental suicide?
Beardy offered me a drink, I refused telling him I needed to get through the window of dead idols. What happened next, even as I write my hands tremble and my mind cries.
The rat which had seemed friends with the man grabbed his tail and scrabbled to a hole in the wall and as soon as it disappeared into its stony portals the hole closed like a stubborn mouth swalling vomit.
Alone now with the whiskery giant, skin crawling, mouth dry. Then, slowly at first, the long beard that had grown past his waistline began to shrink until he was nearly clean shaven.
It had probably taken him a decade to grow his badgers nest and now it shook me, it was my fault it was gone! Screams came from downstairs, sounding like hell again but my eyes were transfixed on the newly shorn man.
'Ten years to grow', rattled my brain, and with this thought he whimpered. This giant fist of muscle actually whimpered!
'Ten years of messy growth,' again whispered my head, taunting him now but no whimper followed. Instead the quivering lips curled to bare sewer green fangs. Laser eyes bore into me, shaking me to my roots.
I must have tossed in bed because in that instant I heard more howling from below and threw myself through the window of hero spirits.
The pile of Christmas and birthday cards cushioned my short fall but I soon doubted the wisdom of my stunt. Had I killed myself in dreamstate? Was my beloved wife sleeping nex to my cold body wearing a worried expression on my face?
Bad trip, it must have been mouldy cheese. Or could it be that maggots had poisoned the apples the cider had come from?
I picked up one of the cards piled around me and opened it. 'To Grim Chops, Happy Birthday!' Scrawled in chalk. I picked up a Christmas card depicting a black bearded Santa Claus being pulled by his intestines by rabid, frothing bulls who had ripped his bloated belly open.
I had no will to open it but there was no need, I already knew what it said by stroking the braille like cover. 'Merry Mourning Ghoul Boy, Love Grandfather!' In the real world he was long dead but the dead walk freely in dreams.
(I was awaking.)
Only when the heart stops Loving do pyjamas make way for shrouds. Had I been walking with Death? Had the bed's headboard briefly been a tombstone happily declaring R.I.P?
I looked for my legs amongst the generations of greeting cards around me and got up. The window through which I had jumped was gone, and my sight was fading.
(The cold dawn skipped on my chest.)
It felt like I had been lost in the middle of a Christmas tree with darkness on the inside whilst outside was lit by twinkling lights and merriment.
(I was awake.)
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