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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.

 

this falls under an umbrella of influence assembled by Jean Rhys.

Something is definitely wrong here. I know this because every time I exhale, a pale mist crystallizes in front of me, rolling gently forward from my blue parted lips. It curls up my pale cheeks and tousles itself around my nostrils, before gently spreading to nothingness in front of my eyes. I’m so cold that I have to wear a heavy black coat and fingerless gloves; the gloves in particular are doing nothing for me – what use is a warm palm if my fingers are frozen stiff? The root of this problem can be traced back to me not paying my gas bills. It was food or heating, it was a tough choice. Ironically, the only reason I’m even sat here in my room is because I was fired and sent home from work yesterday. I think it was yesterday.

 

It’s only the opening paragraph. I’m going to see where i can take it.

this verse was inspired by Kafka:

 

I’m so-and-so and I live right here. Am I

The person you want to find? If she only wanted to stage a comedy,

I’ll go away immediately. If all she wanted to ask was ‘Why all this pathos?’

I’ll answer as sublimely as they come:

I’ve never journeyed to the seven seas and voyaged

On them wherever they be, I don’t know where.

If little crystal puddles allowed me to stare at myself in

A Narcissistically apt manner, I’d edge my face closer to the trough…

A little piece of me grows old and drops off, leaving just a

Cockroach in a room. I want to yell ‘Andy, You Goonie!’

But everyone is oblivious to the remedy and simply moves on with their lives.

We could live in a town called hypocrisy, you and I,

Extolling the virtues of ‘seize the day’, only to fall asleep and die.

If we were all little cockroaches we could build an empire of wood,

And tell people that was where Caesar stood, on that fateful day,

You know the one – the one when it rained.

 

 

So I’ve been doing reading for my dissertation and i’ve been turned onto some interesting avenues by the articles i’ve been reading, namely starting with Spenser’s ‘bower of bliss’ (ironic name as i’ve learnt) and Rappaccini’s Daughter, which is a story about some girl who is bought up around poisonous plants and becomes toxic herself and kills her true love by accident (has a lot of links to Keats’ ‘Lamia’).

This is a verse of poetry, from my epic poem, which i wrote earlier on whilst thinking about the above ideas:

I’m in the middle of the desert but at the end of the earth

In a graveyard where flowers grow from dead men’s hearts

Frozen bowers for sublime light arise in a crystalline rebirth

Refracting the truth; is the whole really final? Or is the whole just a part?

Lonely Hester Prynne read Keats’ second Hyperion and fell

Under Moneta’s spell of isolation, unable to escape for

All the crystal blooms she could muster, forced to become the bell

Of the ball; at once the king, the queen, the whole, the part of the court.

As Hester realised she was my nightingale, I was struck

By melancholic awe in which I could only hear her song,

But she was beyond me, fading far away into the epoch,

Dissolving into forgetfulness, realising that she didn’t belong

To my world. Could she really be the truth in beauty? The beauty in truth?

Alas, my catechistic dysphoria is underpinned by soft, dwindling ruth.

 

(I use the word ruth not as a name but in the sense of the definition on http://dictionary.com – if you’re interested go and check it out here – fyi dictionary.com is one my favourite website)

 

Happy Halloween! To terrify you all this all hallow’s eve, here’s the beginning to a short story I wrote…well, it’s more of a character sketch to be honest, people seem to get the hyperbolic satire though – so that’s good!

I need to kill people to get a high score. That’ s how video games work, not real life. If I get the high score then I get another life. That’s how video games work, not how real life works. This is a bit unfortunate because I’m a murderer. The only life I’ll get will come from the sentence I’ll inevitably suffer in a court of justice, answering for the high scoring antics I’ve been up to. However, for now I’ll keep a low profile and write this story as if it were Tetris – making sure all the bits fit, and if they don’t? I’ll just rotate them and make them fit. Did I not mention I’m shit hot at Tetris?

*

When I worked in an office I used to regularly fuck the receptionist in one of the several supply closets in the building. I liked using the smallest one and this was located on the second floor of the tall grey building we worked in. It was also the smallest supply closet in the building. I used to think I chose the smallest one because it gave a greater sense of intimacy: two bodies entwined under sweaty shirts, slotting compactly alongside the staplers and the bundles of plain and lined paper. Unfortunately I now think that I chose the biggest one because it gave me more control over Sarah – the receptionist’s name was Sarah, I think…maybe it wasn’t, but it fits, so it’ll stay. The tight confines meant that I could fuck Sarah in only one-way: face-to-face. None of this doggy style shit. I wanted to see her face; every contortion; how tightly her eyes were closed; how far apart her lips were due to heavy breathing; how messy her hair was.

 

 

That’s your lot, I don’t want to post too much more at this junction x

I’m going to get semi good at DJ-ing: NEXTRA, NEXTRA, DON’T WATCH THIS SPACE BLERGH

have this, it’s new, secret and unread:

I scream Jerusalem, Roman choirs are singing

I roll with the best of them, and my ears are ringing.

Rejection on both sides of the aisle, slotting solitary for a while,

Strobe lights are flashing, I’m living life in slow motion

Accomodation in Lethe, the weekend’s for sleazing.

That’s the power of love – or lack there of:

When generosity is a by-product of ingenuity,

When sex is a fatal attraction born of boredom,

When all that echoes off bones is ‘I’m not a fan of this moment’

And when my eyes dilate from consternation,

Reflecting light bulbs like constellations, Ursula Minor –

Personal Lolita: “I don’t love you, I’m just passing the time.”

“You could love me if I knew how to lie.”

If your honesty were commendable, then my truth is condemnable,

All that remains is first place, last place, third times a charm:

My soft, supple lips committed grievous bodily harm.

 

\’Miner Offences\’ = Newest Podcast – go download now

above is link to listen online, or if you’re fancy and part of the now defunct counter-culture revolution that is Apple. go download it on Itunes x

This is how far I got into a story I started the other day. I’m not sure where it’ll go from here, Caspar will probably wake up for starters.

The trees were still dry. It hadn’t rained recently and the once green undergrowth was now an Elephant’s Graveyard, a spindly reminder of more luscious times. Caspar strode through the bracken, each step cushioned by the carpet of leaves underfoot. The gentle rustling that accompanied each step eventually faded into white noise. He kept walking though, ducking braches and stepping over logs, walking so deep into the woods that even the bird song began to fade. Eventually Caspar stopped and took scope of his situation, turning in a circle he surveyed his surroundings: trees whose leaves had all left home and moved to the floor, speckled in flecks of brilliant light. The light that was dusted over the ground was the only reminder of an outside world. Caspar didn’t care; he was looking for something and now seemed like a good time to take a break. Sitting on a nearby log, he unpacked a thermos from his satchel and poured himself a cup of tea. He sipped shortly and frequently from the hot drink, all the while stroking his tousled hair, removing little branches and bits of moss as he did.

The strange thing about Caspar was that he believed what he read. His theories and beliefs were founded on a strange foundation of women who lived in giant shoes, beanstalks that grew to impossible heights, and little boys who lived alone and never grew old. It was this last one that intrigued him the most. After finishing his tea and packing away his thermos, Caspar continued to walk into the deepening woods. The shattered light that had glistened so keenly on the forest floor slowly faded away to a few pieces here and there. The trees continued to knit themselves tighter and tighter, forcing Caspar to climb and squeeze his way through the ever-thickening thicket of the forest. Eventually Caspar had to leave his satchel behind because it kept getting caught on the out-stretched arms of the trees; he removed the thermos, left the satchel on the floor and continued to walk deeper and deeper, carrying the thermos in his right hand, in case he wanted a drink.

Finally, Caspar found what he wanted. It was a tiny glade in the middle of the forest, illuminated by the sumptuous light that smashed through the canopy of the forest, dazzling all who saw it. When emerging from the darkness of the wood visitors often got the impression that the bower was bathed in a naturally occurring green glow. This crossed Caspar’s mind briefly, but it was acknowledged all the less. He pushed himself between the two last trees and was in the glade. Without hesitation he walked to the centre of the opening, put down the thermos that was in his right hand and proceeded to scrape away the top layer of leaves, followed by the top layer of soil, then the top layer of clay-ey soil. He had found what he had wanted. Out of the hole he had scraped Caspar produced a beautifully delicate looking ram’s skull. It wasn’t pristine but the small shards that had broken off gave it an antiquated and ancient look. Caspar breathed quietly, placed the skull on his head and lay down on the ground. Within the confines of the ram’s skull his head was engulfed and he soon dropped off to sleep.

This is a poem about something I can’t do very well at the moment

 

Sleep

Am I simply a brain in vat, devoid of a reality –

A season premiere and DVD? Or am I more than that?

– When I walk home alone accompanied by nought but the big dipper?

My astral baby sitter, hanging high above like a child’s mobile:

Could I be alone for one second please, away from the sea of glitter Smarties

Someone spilled upon high, puncturing the cavity stricken mouth;

Now rotted away to a pale black nothing by the sugar of the Milky Way,

The lighter ride, on the brighter side, of the creamy star surf.

Everybody knows ‘the more beautiful it is, the more likely it is to kill you’

And this is why, when you look at the twilight, you curl up and die

For a few hours due to a Zodiac arrest, or better still a good night’s rest.

So now sometimes I while away an hour or two in the lacuna, shrinking an iris

As small as a pea so the lagoon of ink can permeate my murky depths,

Embracing me within the clandestine motion of the cloak and dagger,

Stumble and stagger little light beams as you race through space to penetrate this tiny

I.

Make me fall asleep when you disappear and reflect green shaped sounds within my fleshy lids

For the world not to see, synesthesia only for me, tasting the subtle hues of the day’s final lustre.

Out of respect my eyes swallow the medicine so I can muster a rock solid sleep to ignore the fact that outside this cocoon the world is black; mute;

Nothing but Ceefax.

 

And out there, somewhere, Jodie Foster is ten years old and talking to outer space via a trans-am radio,

Searching desperately for mom and dad, whilst I lie here slumped

For no better reason than a Tsarcophagus decreed ukase.