Author: thetomwatts

this is the first original poem I’ve written in about 8 months. I think it’s best to post it raw, fresh and unedited. When I finished that last line I actually felt a great weight lift off of me – cliche as fuck, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, how the world turns, how the how hows the how – ok? (OK, I tweaked it once)

You can’t see me if I keep my face from the lens,

I’m invisible; somewhere near nowhere in particular,

Someplace called nowhere at all.

Stroke my hair, grasp the strands tightly in your

Hands. Feel my heart beat as each hair slips like silk

Between the webbed base of each finger.

Like me, love me, kiss me, hold me, call me and wait for my response –

Your echo is revenant and gracious in reply,

Filling in for me and my faceless façade.

Let the sun glare smack and glitter over me, blinding you

With electric fever.

Watch the bushes dry and crumble, but as they burn

Make sure you catch the moment on the faltering celluloid

I read a load of Haruki Murakami short stories, specifically the collection entitled ‘The Elephant Vanishes’. It was beautiful, surreal, and measured. It inspired me to start writing stories again. Here’s a sample:

I eventually lean in close to her, first with my body, then my face, rubbing against her cheek to cheek, I whisper in her ear,

‘You could be my moon and my stars.’

She giggles and playfully bats me away. They always giggle like that because no-one expresses sentiments like that anymore. I’m channelling Shakespeare, Byron, and Keats, from my mouth into her ear; the masters of the muse – and the double gin and tonics – imbue my speech. Weaving words softly into her giggling façade. I don’t even know what I’m saying; all I know is that if I’m not careful, the alcohol alone will break my writer’s block. I head to the restroom, promising her I’ll be back shortly.

The restroom is empty, even the guy who sells the aftershave has gone on break, I’ve never known them to go on break before. Whilst I unzip and relax in front of the urinal a gentleman walks in and approaches the urinal next to me. He’s dressed very strangely as if in an Elizabethan play; he must be from the theatre down the street: A lone actor prowling the bars after having given a virtuoso performance in some shitty, run down theatre in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t say anything, but we exchange courtesy glances. He looks familiar somehow although I can’t place him.

His hair is wispy and swept over on top, whilst a sharp, pointed beard is rooted on his chin. No way, I think, it can’t be, but it is,

‘Are you…William Shakespeare?’ I ask awkwardly.

Oh my days, it’s been so long since I was on here last. I feel like I’ve really underused this non-read blog. Damn. So in the meantime I’ve graduated and am now looking for a job. I have university stockholm syndrome, but we won’t delve into that just now as I’m going to serialise that for the university magazine (see, already depressing – ‘for the students, by the students’…I WAS a student..), so I’ll shove that on here as well. Two birds with one blog.

Here’s a poem. Personally, it’s some of my favourite poetry that I’ve written:

Posies so dozy hang heads, elbows piqued on little green leaves

Heads lollolling basking lazing in the warm eff ul gee ence, soaking lapping bathing

Until they are chlorlorophullyumyumyumyumyum sunlight inmytumrhshorussh

shrussrusthshrussszzsswwss the reeds whisper loudly discussing my asses ears

Ptee idees swelling from bud to leaf swinging legs from the branches of a dream

Ssrrruoothshrussszzsswwssthe reeds quietly listen to gawdy die ass rshss

ShhhhhShh Shh Shush glimmer glamour silence spreads to the reeeee’s…

Quiet lea now gold, now weaved now stitched now knitted by all you vile waters

Lapping and ebbing and flowing and eddying and charlying and simoning and diving and ducking

In and around lethe currents so somnolent, solemn solololomon molasses nibbling grasses

Tides of green always greener on the other side eyed monster with envy subdued behind dark flaps

Flanked with lashes bear hat guards standing tall and sharp don’t move for no man standing guard of

Iron roots copper branches and silver leaves glued together as egg drizzle bayownet topiary

aoooorghh aoorgh bees can’t fly he tells me too fat too round doesn’t stand up pound for pound tiny wings

According to the ancient scripts of the mahabharatatatablahblahblahblaharababata and the holey babble

Silly things buzzy sings prickly stings all bumbling and fumbling stroke twice firm but nice

But alas feted prince of most good fellows you disclose the discourse of distaste its sunny xunny zunny

Sunday xunday bzzunday road to mandalay no next left cracked dirt track to mandy lane you will not

Teach elephants that they cannot fly by flapping their pegasus ears, equine aural receptacles listen still not

Aeronaughty-aerodynatically-aerodybbukkally-cally whines flustered sweaty faints carried too much

Golden netaim too heavy too sunken into the ground hair like a shrub must water before aphilopecia

Curl up close eyes within eyes labyrinthine running from locus lands of desolate dreamers flee forward

To annwn and when asgard as hard cockaigme all over king ahh fuh- camelot maybe if we look you too peer

Utopia and mount but not limp us if you want to shangri-la-shag-girl-share-a-laugh she purred so alligatory

Maybe that’s what happens when evergreens decide to be deciduous cedric the cedricuous cedar sit her

In the cellar but alas said her egg drizzle binds us all warts and copper and iron and cocks and all

Stroke twice firm but nice smiles in the darkness warm as a minotaur’s snort warts and all she said

Reveal all she might have said lose it all she probably said take me she would have said prickarus

Plunges sunwards until light is dark and cosily coital string threaded in a shell master of the fast escape

Two tugs and your loose projectile river of lithe not lethe saturate and landscape the grey sunken

Cunt of the world planting trees swollen with buds bursting into leaves perfect hatchery for bzzing bees

Shrunken recoiling recoitaling hibernation quietly kipping simorg having sigorged shh yawny yawnerson

Luh eye suh uoh fuh tuh luh ee buh eh duh huh ehh duh yawny yawny break of yawn yawn flakes

A spat of spatchka mid afteryawn napka to rest a gulliver so fajjed from everynowhere and

Noeverywhere razzling and dazzling rascalling around rasoodock blame the nap das nerp zas noot

Zasnut zasnoot sew choodessny chepooka.

 

I finally have some kind of time to update this place, now that i’ve finished uni. I’ll also be back on the radio from Tuesday, 10-midnight, so tune in.

To keep you all up to speed, I’m going to serialise a poem I’ve been working on over the last few months. It explores different styles, sounds and rhetoric. It was very draining. If you’re interested in a deeper understanding, then I have a schema, notes and essays to enlighten you.

THE WORLD’S WAIF

stepping back briefly I’ll regale this from

My room: During the watching hour, where the

Only sounds may stem from nothing at all –

Neither the white wash walls, nor the faux pine

Floor – She whispers softly, ‘Samson come back

To bed, there’s no more hair left on your head.’

I lie on my side, thinking in my head

What if a Danish King’s halo hung from

My left ear as a ‘parting gift’? Hark back

Now to Dali’s workshop where, under the

Pallid strip lights, his drab heart might just pine

To beat once, or maybe twice, or at all.

In a small church in sector seven, all

Things stand still. I watch a small, smiling head

Flicker once, and I sigh. The things I pine

For are silly sometimes – does it stem from

All the bad things done to you? If not, the

Thought alone, at least, keeps bringing me back.

The faint shade of Hamlet’s papa comes back,

And forgetting myself, I give my all

To back his wild claims: that love will birth the

Poet amongst blossoms – What a bonehead…

Skeleton, your eyes have lost their warmth from

Your mindless pledges and all things propine.

Gently I finger a book’s soft, worn spine,

Turning it, I read the blurb on the back:

‘This is where Caesar stood and built Rome from…’

Hmm? A text message… Come now, one and all,

Don’t tell me that I’m in over my head,

And to prove it, I’ll end my speech with the…-

Pausing, I realize that Samson, the

Ancient mariner, the ghost – so vulpine,

And the church, are all locked, not in my head,

But in my heart! ‘Arachne, please come back

To me! I’ll make amends! Join those, who all

Sit down beside me, and see where I’m from’.

The gloomy thoughts we found inside my head

May stem from nothing other than lupine

Desires of a back up, who gave his all.

so I have to write a play for workshopping this week. I wanted to write a serious Joycian existential piece, but i’m too hungover to do that properly at the mo. So instead meet my clockwork-orange-cum-romany discussion about that episode of Saved By The Bell where they strike oil at bayside. The lingo takes a while to get used to. Jokes x

VINCENT: (to ELIJAH) Ay, thankoo brother (to DEEP sarcastically) and millson thanks to you tinchy brother for yer frills. (to BOTH) Anyhow, they Zee aroved mit his band, the namesies used by youth other there, Axe, Screetown, Lizles and Jessop. All flying doves alongside every-all. They found black watter, stickly thick, potently schlepping and implaus to excape. But millson riche, peoples lend riche for the sickly water tar. So many millsons. Alas and alacky doodle, it made blech a quacker our Zachariah flew with.

ELIJAH: Sickly waater?

VINCENT: For an ol’ duffs you ken so small stones….?

ELIJAH: Coco Puffs and low culzure, diets of tinchy subrub liffle. I never need to arove brother, I’m nay into faery liffle, unlike yoons. Now map yer synaps again.

VINCENT: calm jets brother, I’ll calm jests smother.

(VINCENT looks at both members of his audience.)

VINCENT: They rang bellish vox ,rang them loot and proud. There’az so many millson riches for sick watter than everyone was creamy pegged gurns.

DEEP: Rang it brother, ring for us, here and new..

VINCENT: Youse want a shilly shally dilly dally, loudly rung here and newt?

DEEP: (jovially) ay brother haha

ELIJAH: (laughs gruffly) hahaha, slot the ring Vincentio, Vinny-Venny, ring the halls with deck and sholly!

(VINCENT grins, surveys the entire audience, hops off his rock. He jangles loudly)

VINCENT: then ring I shall brothers!  Kenneth me their rovin ring,

(VINCENT sings and dances merrily)

When I woozies in the roosty

A’jangles tolls a tootsie ,

I fret I’ll chalk it off the curren chime

By the currens I swag glyphs and I share a prezzy shiffs

One angles for the currens and the sub jets high.

It’s areet, cause I’m saved by the bell.

 

So recently myself and a friend have cracked back into that timeless RPG Final Fantasy VII. We’ve clocked around 20 hours worth of gameplay and we’re barely half way through disc 2. This isn’t because we’re shit, quite the opposite, we know it like the back of our hands. We’re simply 100%ing this bad boy step-by-step and grinding relentlessly (we did exactly the same with FF8 last May/June, which culminated in me destroying Omega Weapon in 15 attacks – I counted).

Recently while we’ve been playing – under the influence or not – we’ve been debating who would play who in a movie version of FF7 (I love AC, but I wanna put actors into roles), here’s what we’ve got roughly. Leave you’re suggestions if you want:

Cloud – poss…Andrew Garfield?! (he’s pretty much everywhere atm, and looks intense enough in the Spider-man promo pic)

Barret – Samuel L. Jackson (bad ass boi)

Tifa – Megan Fox (hot and in action flicks…albeit shit actor)

Aerith – Natalie Portman (so much cuteness, eg. think of Closer)

Nanaki/Red XIII – Morgan Freeman (sagacious voice)

Yuffie – currently stumped…

Cait Sith / Reeve – Seth Rogen? (for the lols) / Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor, who else?!)

Vincent – Taylor Kitsch (Vampiric Tim Riggins)…….although thinking about it Keanu Reeves anyone?

Cid – Nicholas Cage (bring on the Cage rage)

Sephiroth – Christian Bale (only person I can think of who has enough intensity)…second thoughts…Edward Norton?

Rufus – Leo Di Caprio (I panicked)

Reno – James Franco (cocky but lovable)

Rude – currently stumped…

Special Mentions for the lols:

Hojo – Pete Postlewaithe (seriously, would have been the SHIT! rip bro)

Heidegger – Brian Blessed (come on…)

Scarlet – one of the cougars from Desperate Housewives

—

bit of a stellar cast, but give us a break. No-one would know who we were chatting about if we slammed a load of indie stars in there! Any thoughts/suggestions, slam ’em below x

It’s been 20 days since I last posted here….and I can confirm that I have yet to finish the Kafka novel I started. Damn. To make up for this have another two paragraphs from that relentlessly unnecessary egotistical memoir I’m writing:

The first house we lived in now nestles amongst those greyish recesses of the ol’ mind and thus only stands out to recollection for one reason: stinging nettles. Yes, those bloody prickly green bastards who are the bane of all young children, and whose poisonous vice can only be escaped through the oddly magical, and aptly medical properties of the Doc Leaf. It’s strange how, as children, we let a plant heal our mischief’s instead of going to a real doctor, placing all faith in this leafy paediatrician. It’s like giving one of them Ents in Lord of the Rings a Phd and a stethoscope and demanding it heal cancer. Anyhow, we had a big galumphing patch of these stinging nettles in our garden at Lee View Road, and unfortunately we lived here during the period of blissful ignorance that attaches itself mischievously to all little kids. What drove such a resenting wedge between the nettles and myself wasn’t a mistaken brush as I walked by; casually, but accidently touching the nettles in a naïve manner, but rather a full on idiotic charge into the heart of the prickly thicket. What a silly little tit I was; it’s unforgivable! It happened one day when I was playing with a ball in our garden, neither big nor small, and somehow the ball ended up in the nettle bush. Unfortunately the ball had managed to get itself well and truly lost right in the heart of the bush.

At the time, as I mentioned, I was naïve as to the true power of these truly fucking awful plants and so brazenly charged in as if searching for Colonel Kurtz. However, there were no Kurtz. There was solely a small inflatable ball that could have been sacrificed. What happened next was hell on Earth. I was surrounded, being stung everywhere in, what can only call, a truly horrific, and covert, attack by nature on my fragile young frame. It’s the earliest lesson I remember nature teaching me, however, if nature thinks that’s the way to raise a streetwise and smart kid, then fucking hell! Get fucking social services round to investigate nature straight away…jesus! At any rate, there I was, lost and alone in the bush, in utter agony. I was no longer looking for Kurtz, I was Kurtz…and a child, let’s not forget that…Colonel Kidz maybe? Needless to say, I only had one option, and it was a logical and tangible one: I started crying louder than I’d ever done before. Thankfully, no sooner had the first howls started to emerge than my Dad miraculously appeared through the leaves, like a big, patriarchal rescuer – which is exactly what he was. Looking back now, this memory actually fills me with warmth, not because I’m a child-like sadist, but because my Dad came to my rescue, stinging the shit out of himself in the process. I don’t remember how the ordeal ends, my memory fades to black like a damsel in distress, but I do know that we ended up side by side, comrades, brothers in arms, in nowt but our underwear, whilst my Mum rubbed antiseptic creams and pain soothing balms into our prickled skin. The relief those creams brought felt wonderful.

 

I’m too busy reading The Trial atm to post much. Well, I started it last night and plan to finish it today. Bit of a pointless post really.

ok, so here’s a sestina I wrote. It’s based off a section of the mock-epic-esque poem i’m working on this year. it was a bit of a challenge and took a good few hours to crack out, but i’m pretty chuffed with the final product,

 

Stepping back briefly I’ll regale this from

My room during the witching hour, where the

Only sounds may stem from nothing at all:

Neither the white wash walls, nor the faux pine

Floor, could drag me out of this empire state

Of mind – the one that falls to the rebels.

 

Those who walk across the sky aren’t rebels,

But simply living for the moment. From

Seconds left to sleep, to a wintry state,

Where I’m dressed for summer and under the

Pallid lights these blood red eyes only pine

For sagging skin to hide seeing at all.

 

Sagging skin seems to hide seeing at all

And trembling secrets are tell-tale rebels

Seeking to ache skeletons cut from pine,

Eaten by termites, skull, spine, soul and all.

‘Those bad things you do, seem so far from the

Truth’, your dulcet tones will force me to state.

 

She works herself up into such a state,

And forgetting myself, I give my all

To sanguine sensations that will birth the

Poet amongst blossoms. Facebook rebels

Will stalk those they love, quietly walking from

One to the other, acting so vulpine.

 

Brisk winter walks led loneliness to pine

For Persephone in her hellish state,

Migrating south with that other bird from

The tuffet, who spilt her curds and whey all

Over the place, screaming ‘I’m no rebel,

And to prove it, I’ll end my speech with the…’

 

‘And to prove it, I’ll end my speech with the…’

She said again in tones so alpine,

‘Well, anyhow, I’m still not a rebel’.

I turned away, scared by the state

Of her eyes; they screamed ‘come one and all

Sit down beside me and see where I’m from’.

 

Only white wash walls know where I am from,

Only sounds may stem from nothing at all,

Only her call can leave me in this state.