Paper skin

He’s got paper skin; peeling away, red ink and all.
The words don’t matter; he is what he feels.
He lashes out at those around him; so fragile.
Full of yesterdays news but he hasn’t read anything.

His paper skin doesn’t inform.
He won’t let you close; he’s so ashamed.
Not of himself because he’s always right.
Just ashamed of his words; it doesn’t add up in his head.

There’s a patch on his arse that once was page 3.
It’s the only bit he likes.
‘Not vulgar, this is moral instruction.’ Is it’s message.
Flesh on flesh and it just stinks.

In fact, all of his paper skin smells rather bad. Unelected and unwanted. A buffoon at 10. He’s a buffoon all day.

Looking in the mirror

(This is a very negative rant. Feel free to skip this. It’s triggering and best avoided unless you are doing some psychological investigation into self hatred or something. For the record I don’t feel like this very often and was written with misdirected anger which produced a false reflection of my state of mind even for that moment. This rant is my worst possible way to see my reflection. My worst thoughts aired.)

Fuuuuuck! Just melt away like I know you will. Droop low enough to touch the floor. Or fatten up to fill the cracks. Time will age you before you hear a tick because you are a stupid fucking idiot prick.

Don’t worry, nothing will wipe away that vapid stare. Your face aloof because no one’s there, the lights aren’t on because no one’s home, you’re slow and dumb, why do you think you’re forever alone?

You’ve never succeeded, you’ve never won, you lose on purpose because your life’s a pun.

You’re starting to love yourself. You fool. No one loves you. Why would they? You fool. Obviously they must be idiots too.

So why do you hate yourself after so much progress? You don’t achieve anything; you just have process. All you do is try to cope, everybody thinks you are a dope.

You’re not so bad, you try your best, yes you’re getting good at lying, next!
You’ve still got brains, you’re pretty smart, then why don’t you use them you boring fart.

Go to sleep. You look tired. You have never been someone I have admired.
Wake up soon. Don’t look at me. Forget everything about yourself in your dreams you’re free.

Cliché? Touché

Life. Never to be the same again.

The last day of the week didn’t get off to a good start.

My alarm went off. I showed you my painting I thought it was red and you told me it was green.

You took me for a walk to your hills where I planted my flag. The wind was lacking but I could still feel a bite on my face. A tear. Your footsteps in the snow will be gone tomorrow.

Back home you sat by the crackling fire and sang the saddest song. I cried; became afraid of my actions and words or lack thereof.

Would it even matter if I disappeared into thin air? A faint trace of your smell left on my hands from the night before. You have gone now.

Emptiness. A new hole. The pain is back. Does it never cease? In my dreams I walked to your hills but they looked like different hills and my flag was gone. There sky was clear but there was no moon. The ground was wet. My face was dry. Something forgotten returned from the mist like a wisp in a woods. An old ghost drifting through the trees; weaving a path through the thickets. It was my worst enemy. A mirror. A chasm. Just darkness. My safe place.

Diary

An enormous furnace of radioactive burning gas just pitched up on the horizon and blasted my bedroom full of luminous energy. Fuming! It’s almost everyday at this point…

Being a bee

Honey in my throat. A buzz in my brain. A hive in my stomach. A queen in my heart.

Every thought a flower. Each memory a breath of wind. The distant hills are not our home. This brick has everything we need.

You didn’t give me my wings but you taught me to fly.

What you give to me

The sweetest taste on my tongue; a feeling my brain adores. A safe warmth in my feet spreading up to my head. A glow brighter than the sun in a land of perpetual sunny intervals. A shine from my heart that lasts longer than a lifetime.

You give colour to the trees; your leaves each more varied than the last. Your swirls and strokes have more life than the seas. Your smile feeds on pain and gives out love. Your words calm those nearby and promote harmony.

Those out there somewhere might sneer at our joy; their deficient empathy can’t slow us down. Their lack of patience can’t force our movement. Their blue and gold dresses can’t tempt us to fruitless avenues. Their misunderstanding can’t teach us otherwise.

Inner feelings. Beautiful senses. Outward protection.

Thank you.

The Memory Shack

There is a cosy wooden shack centrally housed within the dark grey garden by the torchlit woods in the left side of my brain.

She stands in there most days, warm and content, painting her mind. The canvases are ever changing maps of who she is.

Standing close to apply strokes of colour, she is a light that is always on, in an otherwise flickering domain. I smile at her as she lifts a painting and puts it to one side. It is a blue and red streak dancing on a grey background.

I look at the painting and then at her. Carried in her glowing eyes is a flame sparking comfort; affirming my affection.

She sometimes leaves to sow seeds in the garden. This time she takes out the compost bucket too. A ritual of emptying painful memories into the universe’s empty space for renewal.

Distracted and alone I look through the window, the first clouds of the morning replace the starless sky, a dawn breaks bringing a new light to the room.

I wander outside as illusions tell me there are things to be done. It is dark and she is not there. I cannot see into the black depths so I head back towards the shack’s door.

Back inside I see her by the window painting the sky. Adding trees and light to the canvas. These are her abstract memories and feelings. She paints a purple orb afloat on a wobbly grey ocean.

A bird through the window calls me. So once more I step outside. In a boat lashed with wind and rain, I see the bird flying around the opposite side of the shack, I raise the sail and follow it around. My eyes track the wooden panels and shapes around the outside of the shack. The wood, not yet aged, is just one or two years old. I am trying to look inside but there are no windows, just backs of canvases, still wet with paint and reality.

Adrift I grasp at the darkness. It is cold and unyielding with it’s ever changing silence ringing in my ears. The bird appears and for a split second I can feel her warmth once again.

Lightning strikes and I am lost. I awaken somewhere new and unreal. I touch my blanket as a hungry cat jumps up to greet me looking for his morning meal. I check my phone and find a photo of a painting. A purple orb afloat on a wobbly grey ocean with trees in the distance and a cloud filled sunrise in the sky.

I’m a dummy

I’m not sure you will like me once you have met me.
You will see I am a featureless dummy holding up a mirror to the world.
I hope you realise you are not so bad after all when you look at me.
You might forgive me for having little substance of my own.

The Roughest Stone

I am the roughest stone on the beach.

Abrasion scrapes grooves in my voice.

Uneven wire towelling scrapes at your heart.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. I’m sure.

It’ll heal because it feels good.

Keep me and polish me smooth.

2003

There was a man in PICU who didn’t say a word.
He paced around in his underwear flinching at all he heard.
He went out for a smoke with a coffee in his hand,
then marched back inside for medication on demand.

* * *

(This was about a month I spent living with a mute patient amongst others at a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit when I was 16. He had a tattoo of a small cross on his leg and I tried to shoehorn the blaspheme ‘Jesus!’ into something I said within his earshot. He was in his own world until I did. He got up from the chair and marched around for a bit. I felt bad for deliberately offending him but I’d never seen him react to anything other than smokes and coffee. I guess I was just trying to get him to say something… It didn’t work.)

Brain stem clip (loop)

I find myself on the floor again. I kick myself one more time.
Brittle and unkind. No intent towards others just to my own expectations and desires.
I need to want the things I already have.

I’ve got to draw a line between things out of my control and my own thoughts and actions.

I’ve got part of my brain exposed to the world. It’s a strand. A cord. Red raw. Sensitive doesn’t go far enough.
There’s a clip on it. I’m feeling the pressure, hearing external noise amplified.
I need to make distinction between incoming sounds and outgoing frequencies.
Without this filter there is just unsynchronised resonant discord.

Detach the clasp. Ease the pain. It’s not my fault. I can handle this now.

Untitled Poems

You climbed a tree and looked down at me.

You spoke with your face.

I could see. You weren’t happy at all.

I had risen my voice. It didn’t feel like my choice.

I walked away. Like this was a play.

But this was no act.

You didn’t want to know. What you already knew.

My temper had torn our bond apart. Left holes in our hearts.

So I wrote to you. ‘We can see this through.’

There was nothing to see.

You built yourself a new home. A new start.

So in the heat I lay. Wishing for a new day. By the tree where you looked down at me.


I fear few know you. But what it is to be known? To hold faith that this dream is no dream at all. Possibly.

Your golden potential unravels day by day. An untouched block of wood being carved notch by notch. It is my melancholy pleasure to watch this process. It gives me life.

Such a gift is yours to give. But does it loosen our ties or make them stronger? That depends on my stubborn mind. My ongoing boredom and hypnotic drudge.

I want some motivation to continue my activity. You provide this. I am receptive in spurts. Like a bird flying high for a view I leave the shackles of this land momentarily. Wishing you were up here with me, you are, you are the sky.


(I want you to tear this to shreds.)

* * *

I can be your nothing. The thing in your life that doesn’t really matter. A background feeling. An underlying thought pattern. A goose with orange striped eyelashes.

While your everything comes and goes I am there. Washing dishes on a cold day. A cooling breeze on a hot one. Repositioning things on the mantle. A horned lemon with a sweet sweet tangy syrup dressing.

With all the potential I stay still; rarely showing any form. A shadow flickering in candlelight. The feeling of ‘what shall I do now?’ An unexpected hand gesture. A silken scarf with an image of Delia Derbyshire riding a resplendent golden moose represented by colourful sequins.


Time makes the highs low and the lows high.

The esteemed are just the flavour of the month. Change occupies all.

Ambition at an all time low but I feel bliss sat next to a cat.

Adapt to the situation don’t try to change it to fit you.

Water dips and flows into every crevice of the rocky sea shore but is slowly shaping the hard, strong cliff wall.

If you are like that, you are life sustaining, the lowest of low, making all those around you feel high.

Feed your friends and treat them well and they will return the favour. A painted glass teardrop can mean a thousand things. It can be treasure. It can be crap. The value is not in the pieces you hold; it is inside of you.

A tic is an sudden, repetitive, voluntary response to an unwanted urge. It is our way of measuring time.


Sitting by the lake. You are by my side. Looking at the cotton sky mirrored in the fisherman’s playground; a thought enters my head. I turn to you to whisper my idea but you are not there.

I watch the grass grow at the side of my blanket. Bees and flies pass by; secure in the summer’s plentiful bounty. I can’t help but feel powerless. Possibilities number too many and decisions too far away.

A cold breeze blows so I pack up my things. Leaving all as it was. If I could get you here would you even share this pleasure that hits my chest. Short and sharp, painful like a spasm, yet warm and reassuring. I feel better.

I thought I heard your voice but it is just a bird alarmed that I am nearby. Walking on the way back I see a kaleidoscope of colour on the graffiti mural on the side of the shop. I am steps away from you and my heart begins to pound.

Key in the door and the room lights up. Cat greetings with a purr and demand for food. Although just a roof over my head; the place smells of comfort. This is your welcome and I am back inside you once more. I am home.


Take me away from this night sky I’ve inhabited for so long.

Withstanding wind and all kinds of atmospheric tension.

A shout from my past scars seeping works of sap into being.

I will leave a bare branch but it is in my bark my legacy lies.

Textured hope and virtue exceeding a butterfly’s beat.

Leaving the deceptive darkness let me live through the pure spring breeze.

A two fold cycle we’ll ride until we are within each other.

Laying my roots down in your garden. I’m sorry if I’m irresponsible.

I feel like I’m dreaming. Stable and still. In silence I’ll think of you.

Trying not to upset your environment. I’ll breathe oxygen if you need it.

Will I get visiting wildlife? Maybe that will change my course. Certainty is distant.

Cold comes from the North and East in these parts. Memories will come and go.

The sun can heal your trauma. I don’t want to cause you to suffer.

Though trees bleed and leaves fall down life pushes us forward again and again.

Is it enough to share and appreciate the good things that happen?

Endings are inevitable. As the new day rolls in; I do not know what will be.


Untitled #0000097.428571

You climbed a tree and looked down at me.

You spoke with your face.

I could see. You weren’t happy at all.

I had risen my voice. It didn’t feel like my choice.

I walked away. Like this was a play.

But this was no act.

You didn’t want to know. What you already knew.

My temper had torn our bond apart. Left holes in our hearts.

So I wrote to you. ‘We can see this through.’

There was nothing to see.

You built yourself a new home. A new start.

So in the heat I lay. Wishing for a new day. By the tree where you looked down at me.

Untitled #0039481.857142

Time makes the highs low and the lows high.

The esteemed are just the flavour of the month. Change occupies all.

Ambition at an all time low but I feel bliss sat next to a cat.

Adapt to the situation don’t try to change it to fit you.

Water dips and flows into every crevice of the rocky sea shore but is slowly shaping the hard, strong cliff wall.

If you are like that, you are life sustaining, the lowest of low, making all those around you feel high.

Feed your friends and treat them well and they will return the favour. A painted glass teardrop can mean a thousand things. It can be treasure. It can be crap. The value is not in the pieces you hold; it is inside of you.

A tic is an sudden, repetitive, voluntary response to an unwanted urge. It is our way of measuring time.

Untitled #05273194.285714

Sitting by the lake. You are by my side. Looking at the cotton sky mirrored in the fisherman’s playground; a thought enters my head. I turn to you to whisper my idea but you are not there.

I watch the grass grow at the side of my blanket. Bees and flies pass by; secure in the summer’s plentiful bounty. I can’t help but feel powerless. Possibilities number too many and decisions too far away.

A cold breeze blows so I pack up my things. Leaving all as it was. If I could get you here would you even share this pleasure that hits my chest. Short and sharp, painful like a spasm, yet warm and reassuring. I feel better.

I thought I heard your voice but it is just a bird alarmed that I am nearby. Walking on the way back I see a kaleidoscope of colour on the graffiti mural on the side of the shop. I am steps away from you and my heart begins to pound.

Key in the door and the room lights up. Cat greetings with a purr and demand for food. Although just a roof over my head; the place smells of comfort. This is your welcome and I am back inside you once more. I am home.

Untitled #3111808.714285

Take me away from this night sky I’ve inhabited for so long.

Withstanding wind and all kinds of atmospheric tension.

A shout from my past scars seeping works of sap into being.

I will leave a bare branch but it is in my bark my legacy lies.

Textured hope and virtue exceeding a butterfly’s beat.

Leaving the deceptive darkness let me live through the pure spring breeze.

A two fold cycle we’ll ride until we are within each other.

Laying my roots down in your garden. I’m sorry if I’m irresponsible.

I feel like I’m dreaming. Stable and still. In silence I’ll think of you.

Trying not to upset your environment. I’ll breathe oxygen if you need it.

Will I get visiting wildlife? Maybe that will change my course. Certainty is distant.

Cold comes from the North and East in these parts. Memories will come and go.

The sun can heal your trauma. I don’t want to cause you to suffer.

Though trees bleed and leaves fall down life pushes us forward again and again.

Is it enough to share and appreciate the good things that happen?

Endings are inevitable. As the new day rolls in; I do not know what will be.

Untitled #0000137.142857

I fear few know you. But what it is to be known? To hold faith that this dream is no dream at all. Possibly.

Your golden potential unravels day by day. An untouched block of wood being carved notch by notch. It is my melancholy pleasure to watch this process. It gives me life.

Such a gift is yours to give. But does it loosen our ties or make them stronger? That depends on my stubborn mind. My ongoing boredom and hypnotic drudge.

I want some motivation to continue my activity. You provide this. I am receptive in spurts. Like a bird flying high for a view I leave the shackles of this land momentarily. Wishing you were up here with me, you are, you are the sky.

Untitled #0006326.571428

(I want you to tear this to shreds.)

* * *

I can be your nothing. The thing in your life that doesn’t really matter. A background feeling. An underlying thought pattern. A goose with orange striped eyelashes.

While your everything comes and goes I am there. Washing dishes on a cold day. A cooling breeze on a hot one. Repositioning things on the mantle. A horned lemon with a sweet sweet tangy syrup dressing.

With all the potential I stay still; rarely showing any form. A shadow flickering in candlelight. The feeling of ‘what shall I do now?’ An unexpected hand gesture. A silken scarf with an image of Delia Derbyshire riding a resplendent golden moose represented by colourful sequins.

My best friend

What is this chaos?
I didn’t choose to be born.
What is happening?
I see patterns that are destined to go awry.

My brain is not clear and calm.
Driven by a predetermined tick.
Pushing through the things I do and am going to do.
An addiction is holding on: Don’t stop me yet.

These stories start with a moment of intense change.
Curves flatten out and plateau.
You can be the catalyst for me to refresh.
A starting point in every moment lived.

To feel loved is to forgive yourself.
The guilt the blame the shame.
Start again and learn.
A wobbling cycle where the circles slowly get more unstable.

What is this chaos?
A dream. Nothing more.
What is happening?
Something worth experiencing.

A pleasant rant

I want to share my feelings with someone. My cat isn’t the most receptive… He was lovely this morning though. Laying next to him at night is nicer than laying next to no one. He follows me around and looks after me. He’s a good boy. Sorry this has already gone off at a tangent.

I miss holding someone. Just feeling another person’s warmth. If you were here I’d hug you as much as I could.

Life here is not idyllic. It’s grim… but the noise of burglar alarms and police cars, smashing glass and drunken kids is sporadic against the constant chirping chatter of the sparrows and the starlings. The regular sound of the passing buses is synced with my internal clock. The sound of the gears shifting down, the rumble of the engine, the hissing brakes and doors opening is like a regular tick of a clock in my head.

Not far away are rugged hills home to lizards, bees, butterflies, herds of deer and endless moorland. Once hallowed ground built upon by bronze age people, it has evolved through attempts at farming, transport, water management but now rests as wild land.

I’d love to take you on a walk around here. To have you see what I see. Smell what I smell. Feel what I feel. I hope to one day soon when we are both well and happy.

Old sayings and songs

In days of old

In days of old, when men were bold,

And paper wasn’t invented.

They wiped their arses on bits of grasses,

And went away contented.

* * *

Scottish Thistle Saying

When on a thistle he sat doon

He jumped up to the moon

* * *

The Birdcatchers Song

I am a fellow bright and gay

A merry fellow night and day

My name is held in great renown

throughout the land, in every town.

Where lark and linnet tunes their note

my whistle joins the warblers note

{ cant remember the next line }

For I’m the jolly birdcatcher.

* * *

The Trout

I stood beside a brooklet

That sparkled on its way

And saw beneath the wavelets

A tiny trout at play

As swiftly as an arrow it darted to and fro

The gayest of the fishes among the reeds below

An angler there was standing with his rod and line in hand

Intent upon the fishes, that sportive fearless band

‘Tis vain said my good neighbour to fish the brooklet clear

The fish will surely see you upon the bank so near

But skillful was the angler and artful too

The crystal brooklets depths defiling – he hid the fish from view

And then his skill renewing

The fishes unheeding took the bait

And I was left lamenting the tiny troutlets fate

* * *

The ballad of Lizzie Sloan

Across the loan

Went Lizze Sloan

A dueling set had she

A rifle on her shoulder, a pistol on her knee.

Now Lizzie’s eyesight wasn’t too good

Her glasses they were dim

And when she charged the bull

It shit upon her chin.

* * *

The Soldier’s Song

Arsehole, arsehole, a soldier I will be,
To piss, to piss, two pistols at my knee,
Fuck you, fuck you, for curiosity,
I’ll fight for the cunt, I’ll fight for the cunt, I’ll fight for the cunt-er-y.

* * *

I’m a dick a dick addicted to you.

* * *

3, 6, 9, the goose drank wine,

The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line,
The line broke,
The monkey got choked,
And they all went to heaven in a little rowing boat,
Uh huh, uh huh

* * *

My Mammy told me,
If I was goody,
Then she would buy me,
A rubber ducky

* * *

First the worst,
Second the best,
Third the hairy princess,
Fourth the golden eagle,
Fifth stuck in treacle

A chicken cross hare across the road in the land of Americana have a sandwich and other mutterings

Gotta comb my opalescent goat hair budgerigar to get it to lay some eggs of pure wheat flour.

Then take the elevator to the goose sky hideout above the mountain top cave where I live for the summer.

Pick elderberries before the cuckoo spit rain wets my obligatory Whisk Day gingham check shirt and shorts combo.

Finally get sweet slumber in the cave with the cat bear violin player playing lullabies into the deep black.

Religious Clout

Bend the Angel’s will. Corrupt her pure heart. Steal her divinity for your creation. Oh my dear old thing; unholy perfection is at your fingertips.

Protect your processes. Nurture your weakness. Curb your strength. For once life is not absolute truth; subtlety is awakening.

God is infinite. Your lifetime is not. Nor are all words ever written. Unlearn everything you know; virtue shall lead you further than knowledge.

Everything came from nothing. The nameless empty. The unperishing void. Not bleak nor sad; for nothing is in everything.

Create something beautiful. Crude but complex. Naive but fully layered. Give your all; save the world. Go forth.

No one

Unapologetically eccentric.
Regretfully chaotic.
Tries to see good in the negative.
Whilst experiencing difficulty in the positive.

Music, painting, drawing, writing, reading.
Sport, running, walking, playing, taking part.

Often anxious. Rarely judgemental.
Sometimes happy. Sometimes sad.
Tries my best. Likes a rest.

This is me. Down to a T.
Sitting down. Drinking tea.

Tenuous links

Fear is a cruel imposter, a charlatan, a crook of the mind.

A false reaction or part of a disingenuous conversation is a recipe for a circle of tiredness.

Cookery is playing with fire unless you have a prescription for success.

Sour is a taste that is needed to feel sweet.

Mental dexterity is needed. Requirements move the mind.

Numbers can help us understand the physical world around us.

Two people trapped in love is the best and the worst.

Keep extremes conceptual. Nothing is as it seems.

Emptiness is invaluable but so is some other stuff.

What I am worth and to who does it matter?

Another spirit

She wants someone close, to hold, to love, to have.
Though she lives like a ghost, no one knows her name.
Wants a normal life but life won’t bend for her.
Feeling like a mess because her dreams aren’t coming true.

She looked in a book for words to help her out.
The book said:

“Ȝeue þi cunte to cunnig and craue affetir wedding.”

She knew what she must do, just felt lost and incapable.
So she stopped to love herself, to grow, to learn, to gain.

So did she ever change? Well, nobody did know.
She’s still wandering the town, through rain, through hail, through snow.

Breath

Grief is the bite of the wind on your cheek. Life is the brace of air against your face and your hair standing on end.

Intertwined like two strands, they stood at the bus stop hand in hand. A familiar memory stood next to you is still there years after you saw them last. Look after your mind. Reign in fear and hate because you might be alone at the bus stop one day.

The breath goes in and out. Your breath becomes someone else’s whether you are on your own or not. Keep breathing, that’s what living is.

Vague Questioning

The things of the world hold sway over us all.
To be free from this influence is an illusion.
To be aware of it is the path.

Objects, feelings, and creatures are all included.
You are part, a mixture, not all this or that.
Position your intent well, this will point things to the path.

Relative to extremes, no absolutes are real.
Happening and moving in flux.
Change is the route the path takes.

There is a place of nowhere. A realm within everything.
Where your creation exists peacefully in balance.
This is the where the path leads.

NONSENSE, I’M OVERTHINKING. EVERYTHING IS TOO MUCH. NOTHING EVER GOES RIGHT. ABSOLUTE DOOM PERSISTS. Or does it?

Hot and sweaty

A trickle, a pore.

Sat together and bored.

Nervous energy and a hot sun ray.

Exasperated tension that lasts all day.

Droplets form in the same place, no less.

Expending nothing still a sticky mess.

Thunder brews high above my head.

Atmosphere darkens and thickens to lead.

Excitement builds inside and out.

A response so primal it sounds like a shout.

A roar in the sky with light and a boom.

Synchronised with a release pent up in the room.

Pilchard Paul

Pilchard Paul washes his wellies in the rushing river.
The skies sadden as the wintery wind keeps coming.
The sodden soil is certainly saturated this stormy stroll.
The loud lion roars raucously as the gloomy grey clouds close in.
A clap and a crack as frightening fracturous light lands on the loam.
Lion licks his colossal coat, wringing wet from the ridiculous rain.
Suclulent scent sniffed by the Lion’s lust for fantastic food.
Pilchard Paul runs and rushes toward the car on the corner.
Crafty clever cogs Lion lives not far the pride in from the periphery.
Low lionesses spring sporadically seemingly out of nowhere now.
RIP Pilchard Paul. Fishermen. Father of 2 bonny boys. Tim and Todd.

Bus

Sorry yes. That’s ok. I just walked in a tree because I was looking away. Sorry. Errrr. Where was I? Oh yes I’ve got to walk around the tree. Errr yes. Ok. Oh no sorry I got a text, one moment. Oh sorry tree again, I was looking at my phone. Oh the bus is here. Oh sorry driver I don’t have change will a note be ok. Oh wait.. errr. A £20 is my lowest. Sorry. Oh blimey it’s a busy bus isn’t it. I’ll have to stand up. Maybe I should just squeeeeeeeze past some of these people. Sorry. Oh I’m not getting off for a while and these people might be getting off sooner. I’ll squeeeze past another oh sorry. Errr ever so sorry are you getting off now? Sorry I’ll move out of the way so you can get out. Ah. At least there’s a free chair to sit on. Oh sorry my knee just touched your knee I’ll try and close my legs so I take up less room and sit on the outside of the seat. Sorry. Oh sorry you want to get past. I’ll swing my legs back around. Oh sorry you’re getting up, is it your stop? I better let you out. Ah at least I’ve got a window seat. Oh you’re sitting down next to me sorry I’ll tuck my legs in. Sorry, your bag is touching my legs. Ah it is my stop, can you press the bell for me please? Sorry. Ah excuse me you’re still standing, can I squeeeze past? Uh. Sorry. Right. Sorry driver, I mean thank you. Sorry.

Note to someone else (and to self)

Try to remember even the cleverest people are just advanced apes trying to conform to an ideal that is in their head.

The mind is a big place to get lost. The world is bigger. Space is unmeasurably bigger. The unknowns beyond are infinitely bigger.

You can paint tomorrow, today.

Living With My Cat

Things aren’t all bad.
Things are mostly bad with some good.
Nothing is absolute.
Everything can change.

Relativity and uncertainty.
Are how I understand.
Focusing on the process.
Not the result.

I remember things I do.
I forget things I’ve done.
Improving without knowing.
Happening by it’s own accord.

Seeing with my eyes open.
Doesn’t halt my dreams.
Holding you with warm regard.
I am living with my cat.

The Psychosis Bird

The psychosis bird swooped, lifting me up in her wings, she took me up high away from everything I knew.

Drop me off at the submarine port please, love. I’ve got to get to my wedding, I’ve got to look good while everything is falling into position.

I think I’ve forgotten everything. Everything I’ve ever known. Nothing is in it’s place and I can’t feel pain at the moment.

Nothing is everything and everything is nonsense. I’m floating in the air but I think they are taking me to the circus to put me in a cell.

The clowns are here every night terrorising me dreams. It feels so real. I’m taking it out on the guy next door what have I come to?

The filmstar across the way looks like a junkie. My god she’s gorgeous though. I could stare in her eyes and get lifted up all over again.

Am I still in the sky or am underground with the whole of existence settling back down on top of me?

This pond will take a while to clear.

The Valkyrie

It was raining in Fishguard for what seemed like an age.
She lived in an old wooden hut that had been built in days.
From a distant land, she was a raider from afar.
Settled down with a lobsterman she met at the bar.
In an outpost quite ancient – it had it’s own ways.
Their calender would deal celebrations on different days.
Blue rocks lined the valley – significant this stone.
Used to build henges and circles unknown.
She knew of this tradition but was a warrior by trade.
Settled dispute without force, with the wit that she made.
The lobsterman was abusive – he took her by force.
So one day she killed him – self defence of course.
The next day the sun shined and flowers did bloom.
Yet she was put in a prison to face her ultimate doom.

Happy

The shadows of the leaves
keep moving
as my face feels the breeze

The sky is as blue as it gets
My face is flush and warm
Momentum carries me along
Breath feeds my lungs

The rustle of the trees
keep sounding
as the birds do what they please

One foot then the other
I’m feeling light and free
Bounding across a stream
Happiness heals the past

Looking for the lost sock…

Sometimes our emotions are like when we look everyday for that sock we lost 15 years ago.

Stop looking. Something else is in front of our eyes now. Do that instead, even if it’s new or scary…

At least learning will come from trying new things.

We will grow, improve, and get better.

Shy

Everyday, I say:
It’s ok to be shy.
But it’s ok to talk to people too.
It’s ok to be shy.
But it’s ok to contribute your view.

Leaving things alone can let things happen.
I don’t have to be someone else, I’m not.
Comfortable at home with the cat is my fashion.
I can do this whenever I want: A lot.

Everyday, I say:
It’s ok to be shy.
But it’s ok to talk to people too.
It’s ok to be shy.
But it’s ok to contribute your view.

Being still and listening to the world around me.
Brings me more comfort than a hug or a chat.
I know for you it’s different, it doesn’t astound me.
So I can speak up and help you out like that.

Everyday, I say:
It’s ok to be shy.
But it’s ok to talk to people too.
It’s ok to be shy.
But it’s ok to contribute your view.

Questionable CBT

Situation:

“I was feeling bad because Mr B reacted unexpectedly.”

Thought: ‘I must have annoyed him.’

Feeling: ‘I feel like a bad person for annoying people.’

Behaviour: ‘Not going to social occasion at the pub.’

Physical symptoms: ‘Feeling anxious’.

Alternative:

Balanced thought: ‘Mr B might have issue of his own, maybe he’s got a lot on his mind, or something stressful happened recently to him. I may have annoyed him, but it’s more likely that was not the sole cause. That could be why he reacted like he did.’

Balanced feeling: ‘I feel empathy for Mr B and will check he’s ok tomorrow.’

Behaviour: ‘Go to social occasion at the pub and have a good time.’

Physical symptoms: ‘Drunk.’

How I improved my health.

  • Eat more fibre. (Check nutritional information on packets or go for wholegrains/fruit/veg.)
  • Eat less sugar. (Reduce refined sugars – try to limit yourself to less than 20g refined sugars a day. Feel free to eat what fructose and lactose you want.)
  • Eat more protein. (I am vegetarian and wasn’t getting enough. Might not be the case for carnivores.)
  • Don’t starve yourself of fat/non-sugar carbs.
  • Fast for at least 12 hours everyday. (Eg. Between 8pm and 8am.)
  • Make breakfast your biggest meal of the day. (Provides energy when you need it the most.)
  • Eat more resistant starch. (Wholemeal bread instead of white bread, wholemeal pasta instead of white pasta, brown rice instead of white rice, etc.)
  • Drink more water/sugar free drinks.
  • Exercise. (CouchTo5k, walking, swimming, cycling, anything that isn’t sitting down all day.)
  • One (or more) day a week not thinking about any of the advice above.

Disclaimer: this guide isn’t gospel, it is 100% anecdotal, but it has worked for me.

A poem written on the bus home from counselling

Dreamlike imagination stems not from a wilderness, but the void. All ideas come from this same source. Ideas may arise from each other yet can remain separate concepts.

Memories exist like lucid footprints in the snow. The fall of expectations meets the pressure of a successful outcome, covering past happiness in a lack of nowness.*

In the present I’m a star seer looking out through the window at the night sky. Enjoying the moment for what it gives. Sadly, this will change, but I must accept it. Acceptance is the root of all self improvement.

*I apologise for this monstrous sentence of pretentious twaddle in particular.

Winter

Sitting at my table drawing because I don’t want to pay my TV licence.
Everyone’s overdrawn. I’m lacking inspiration. I’m losing patience.

Draw the curtains because the night is closing in.
It’s too cold to go out. I’m sick of living in my own skin.

People are being encouraged to do it for themselves.
Where has the community gone? Where do I belong?

Not knowing what is going on in the age of information.
This is the new normal. Caring is becoming informal.

Pandas

Pandas are solitary creatures,
who sit around and think until it hurts.
They feel stress more than most,
as they ponder over problems and worries.

There is a place where pandas gather.
Together stronger, not facing the world alone.
Sharing hope, helping each other recover.
They keep in touch and give one another hugs.

Attempting to heal can be simple.
Support can be the smallest thing.
In their minds, they begin to thrive.
In their hearts, ever closer they come.

Pandas are solitary creatures,
who sit around and think until it hurts.
Never will they suffer alone,
For all pandas help those in need.

Schizoaffective Disorder

Imagine not really knowing if you are dreaming or if you are wide awake. You are either feeling super elated or depressed or both at the same time. You can’t talk clearly or communicate how your feeling and you don’t know where you are or what’s going on.

Seabear Tree Arms

An old bear paw, sitting in a jar.
Under a tree that never grew any leaves.

A light blinking through the branches.
A clouded mind clawing at the calm.
Wandered towards the timber,
bent and twisted.
Sanity falls.

Laying there in a daze.
Next to chlorophyll
functioning in the grass.
Every blade as important as the next.
Together creating a habitat.

Storing hope for new roots.
Sparking aspiration to be well again.
You can really find yourself, in losing your mind.

Pencils and Pens

I like pencils and pens,
writing materials and paper.
Lions and tigers,
cheetahs and leopards.
I like jumping and puddles,
getting muddled and confused.
Plants and flowers,
flour and bread.
I like eyes and ears,
sensing life and feelings.
Thinking and reversing,
negative photos and drawings.

When I was 6

Between the ages of three and six years old I had a reason not to give up, an ambition for life, a purpose. A future.

I wanted more than anything, to be, when I grew up, an apple tree. I wanted to live in the corner of a beautiful garden getting visits from the birds and the bees. I wanted the wind to blow my branches to provide hugs and to drop my delicious apples to feed those who were hungry. I liked the idea of being stationary. I had moved from a large bed in my own room to the attic. It was the first night after we got the latest in roof windows installed, which were the fashion at the time.

I had had a pleasant day talking to the old plasterer. I only remember he was old so he was about 16 – 90+. He had an old hat. Possibly a flat cap, a popular accessory among the pensioners of the area. He had done a good job with a smooth finish, so much so i would stroke the wall around the window just to appriciate the smoothness.

It was later that day it happened… Night came as I lay in my bed. It used to be bunk beds but my Dad had sawed them in two to become two single beds. Mine was the bottom bunk. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep that night. I had been awake for hours. Lying there, just looking through the roof window, the light pollution of the city bled darkness into the sky. The stars were out…

My earliest favourite reading books were about counting to ten and basic science for children. They were mostly published by Penguin or Puffin. One of the books said stars were giant burning balls of gas just like the sun. I must have been read this book recently because it was then it dawned on me.

Never before had I contemplated what I was. What life was. What I was doing here. I was the sort of child whose main sad thought up until that moment was ‘other people can’t have been around before me… I would’ve remembered them.’ And that was only sad because people would laugh and dismiss this truth. It was soon to come when a moment in time happened, where I would become disappointed. Too scared. Too afraid of what was. I felt reality’s full force. All its fierce flames and its endless meaning.

I no longer could accept my future would be being an apple tree. I felt my branches had fallen off and my apples were rotten on the ground. All my hopes and dreams faded into darkness in that second. Into the space between the supposedly giant balls of burning gas, my mind was lost. I was a dead tree’s stump in a great wasteland where nothing was alive. I was null and void. I was minute. Smaller than the smallest speck of dirt on the new glass of the roof window. Against these giant balls of burning gas the size of dots against the deep, ongoing, pure black of space. I was insignificant…

And so, it had happened… So, I reacted, I ran down the attic stairs, across the landing past the door of room, I did a hair-pin turn like a frantic rally car on a tight muddy track, down the stairs again I ran, I reached the bottom and without losing any momentum I took a quick right into the brightness of the front room. My mum was there, stood hands on her skirt, warming her arse by the fire. I had slowed down by now and was pacing slowly towards her, under the headache inducing light. It was then I bent my neck back, looking up at her face, a formidable five foot and half an inch off the ground. She looked back down at me. Her pale face, no make up, pointing down at me, crushing her chin in two. She looked as she had seen a ghost… “Mum! Its all too big! I can’t cope!” I said. “What is?” She replied, her voice quivering. “Everything. Everything is.”

Beans or tomatoes

I must hide. My imagination becomes real when I get ill. For shame, I sometimes choose a miserable existence. In theory things must get better from this sad old place. In action, the theory fails magnificently when I get more and more comfortable with my delusions. I feel bad.

Saved by an elf

Me saved, you entered my head in a wavy dream,
I’m fine, you gave me art sweeter than Ice Cream!

A story, It was so good it taught to sing songs too,
Before I go, I’ll need some support from friends, just a few.

I jog along, getting fitter everyday, under 13 stones now – always been lucky for me.
I’m never off my psychic phones, texted out messages, picking up calls, I do it free.

Oh what I am saying!
Small mercies, I’ll do anything….
Anything, just to see myself see the light at night,
I’d go through self put fright after fright.

Cancel my appointments,
recognoise my voice, tonight.

Listen, I can’t concentrate in this vacuum.
Show me previews of what life can be like.

Er..flume.

I’ll never be perfect, but anything is to me.
I’m difficult, but the easiest person you’ll meet.

I’m going to change,
I’m going to change,
I’m going to change,
I’m changing now.

Now-ow-ow
Now-ow-ow
Now-ow-ow
Now-ow-ow

Me, I’m saved, I scream your art now, it’s what Ice Cream.

Now.

{echo until fade}

Someone

I saw a photo of someone and I want to smoke a cigarette with her,

just her, just because…

Well because… She looked lonely as me, she was a pea in a bowl trapped under cling film, I was a glimpse – an image, a moment in time, seemingly screaming alone in an unspent void!

I don’t even smoke anymore.

Take a seat, I’ll be your chair for this evening.
Tired, it won’t be long before you’re leaving.
Take some heat, I’m highly strung tonight.
Giving off warmth, you might, just might, just might pluck my branches until tomorrow afternoon. So let’s fight!

****

Tomorrow afternoon, we can play and have a sight of the sea, draw the rocks on the beach, weigh up options, how much balance does it take to say thanks for being a snapshot.

Lass, you move differently to how I guessed, but you leave me shaking, dissecting truth from my words, you are everything I need. Of course you might never know if the mirrors aren’t set up well. If the angles are wrong and the camera isn’t set.

Dreamland

Steam coming from you is like the sun in the West.
Dipping down after days with no rest.
Water really never did anything for you.
Ice or steam is all that you knew.

Dreamy days will pass you by,
trying hard to live your lives true.
Stories sang, the stories you live,
shape your heart, give you more to give.

But I know I can’t sing, so why I am trying?
I just don’t know, my left from writing.
Only wanted to show you that I can join in.
Believing now in a journey but where to begin?

One daytime soon I’ll catch sight of her voice,
Varied in character you’re a whole play at once.

Mud

Everything I do just muddies the pond (what pond?). The pond I worked so hard on and that took so long to create!

The candles don’t burn any more and everyday I wait to be bound (to what?). Bound to some unknown solemn fate.

I don’t know where these sentences are from or what they mean but I suffer. Rise above the noise. Madness. Listen.

Depression

*inaudible scream*

The place is cold and empty.
Lying on the floor with six white bowls, in them remnants of rice or a partial crust of toast. I can’t speak. I have no intention to. All the complements I give are thoughts. Instead I give you a shiver or a tear.

Cat

The first time I saw you. Your face said bring down the monarchy. It said we could live in a world of equality where we need not worry about war. It said disarm all nuclear weapons and spread joy to the disadvantaged. It said meow. You were a cat.

Emotional Pain

Felt like I was getting stabbed by invisible daggers through the heart whilst gently having my throat slashed last night. If anyone says to me ever that emotions are all in the mind I will proceed to call them a fool.

Three Certain Things

Three things are certain in life:

1. uncertainty
2. death
3. change

Could sound depressing that but turn it around….

1. I’ve always loved surprises, big or small.
2. Everyone dies one day and no one knows what happens next. Thinking about death is like pressing fast forward on your favourite music.
3. Sure, life can be shit, but change is the biggest thing in the universe! Change has always been there, and will go on for ever. Did a god or spirit create the universe? Maybe but before that there was change. Change will always be around. May as well embrace it!

I don’t know. If, but, and… do.

What’s going on? I don’t know. Why? I don’t know.

If change is infinite yet we experience stuff. Then perhaps stuff that we’ve experienced can be experienced again. Maybe from a different perspective. Uncertainty is a doorway to infinite possibilities. What’s going on? I don’t know. Why? I don’t know.

But I like to think that infinity is about experience but also something beyond that. I currently experience things with this body and mind, in mostly similar places (all physical things). If you remember the possibility of infinite possibilities, it is maybe possible that once this physical experience is over, (Perhaps our visible universe dies and restarts a few times or something) maybe they’ll be something different to experience, something less painful, or something more painful. It’s all speculation. I honestly have no answers. Who knows?

I’m probably complicating things.

The idea is simple. Change is about cause and effect, a process, present as the laws of physics are now. But even change itself is subject to change. Whose to say when we’re all dead the laws of physics won’t eventually change? They’ve changed since the very early universe according to the large hadron collider (or so I am led to believe).

Whatever you think. Accept you thought it. Accept that eventually, it might be of no consequence. Things change. Things are destroyed and created all the time. Why? Can any living thing really know? Even the smartest brains are only a limited size after all.

Speaking for myself. It’s important to respect other’s right to think and believe what they want and like. I’m very cautious and careful about so many things. Just, in life I seem to have too much ‘faith’ in what could possibly be. I don’t fear death, nor do I understand it. However, I do want to enjoy life in the present at the same time, and a lot of my caution is preprogrammed (genetics/upbringing/instinct). I’m not a risk taker. That could change though.

Blue Wales of my eyes

“What’s wiv all da H’s in your name dude!?”

Ummm…. I don’t know, what my given names mean to you.
It shouldn’t mean a thing, I hope it doesn’t, that is true.
Softly spoken answers to questions, aren’t always real (no).
It’s just a dream I had once, doesn’t mean a great deal (two U).

Anyway, I digress:

H is for Hollow, H is for all the great Hopes,
H is for the Horrid times, by, H is for History.

With many thanks in big ways I point my hands north,
Blue takk helps sticking ceiling space to the pours,
The texture of the paper on what my friends do draw,
Times I look at the maps to remember what my brain is four.

So:

H is for Hollow, H is for all the great Hopes,
H is for the Horrid times, by, H is for History.

I hear U calling out through my record player,
Something I can’t quite make out, someting I did not hear,
Whatever, nevermind, I will not let it dwell,
Sometimes, somethings just don’t go so well.

So shhhhhhhhh:

H is for Hollow, H is for all the great Hopes,
H is for the Horrid times, by, H is for History.

An Earthling’s engWish

“John are you ‘avin’ diss for tea?”
“Neyow!!!!”

I will refer to your look, as a light, happy, glance.
With a hue just off blue, that caused a dot to dance.

Collectively we are a shape. Not knowing what it is.
Parameters of what were; are, changing!

Hiss, for a happy life:
Hiss, body will be healthy.
Hiss, goals will be plenty,
Always a future for you.

Never asked to be born, but I have to thank you for a chance.
The inspirations, the artists and singers, the individuals, all of them, thanks.
All of them, alone or together, on this soil, on this Earth.
From myself, you will never know, you own true worth.

Smile, my friends, smile.
Smile, my friends, smile.
Smile, my friends, smile.
Smile, my friends, smile.
Smile.

I will refer to your look, as a light, happy, glance.
With a hue just off blue, that caused a dot to dance.

Where are you from, and where are you from?
You were cooking for us, now,
This Sheff is cooking up a meal,
I just want you to have this steel.

{echo until fade}

“What”

Ok but tomorrow I’m reading how to melt cocao butter.

They all look the sane she said about your drawings.

It’s act one, still, in a play of actors and animals. At night and backwards, a colour-blind unripe banana looks towards you as you seem to be jumping on a deer, my dear. It’s a protest, acting your rage in front of two loud helicopters. Average salary is three sticks of celery and a hairy smokescreen. The windows are closed and the curtains shut, there’s a what? And it doesn’t look all that. Good Kazoo Solo and his wife look at tired imitation. Depressed on my chest is a chest of jewels and brass thinklets melting into a drip of squirrels. Building a fence is Kazoo and he’s using hockey sticks on a hockey stick ocean. Blurting and blubbering noises come from a helicopter and you are winched up inside a giant orange. The magic bus stop potion is ready as you fly off over the ocean. The rhymes stop, and the lizard flies its flirty eyes at your misdemeanour. It has reached the end and daylight breaks the glass hockey stick ocean and Kazoo is tired.

Waiting On A Return

You’re selling us our health after making us ill.
Ripping up our human rights so we can’t get our fill.
Want to share a bit of culture.
Want to build a bridge, a friendship.
But who cares about us.
But who knows how long you’ll live in denial.

You’re waiting on a return.
Putting all ends together as one.

I prefer an unravelling spiral. Something to aspire to.

Spinning

My mind was spun.
Faster and faster it was pushed, a mad oscillation. It learnt too young, too quickly. Turning anti clockwise, a jarring, silent tick.
Too soon this top did wobble, like an unstable blur. As life became clearer. I became thick.
Slowing, unsynchronised and spiralling from it’s source. You’ve won a window. Why not take your pick?

****

Do you ever notice that people paint their problems on others they desperately want to relate to?

In the town of Briar Bush

In the town of Briar Bush there were two districts, ‘what is’ and ‘what isn’t’. There was no death in Briar Bush nor was there any life. Before Briar Bush was built, there was the great source. The great source was never mentioned in Briar Bush for it had no effect on the ongoing existence of the town. Officially inhabitants of Briar Bush were all women. Of course Briar Bush had it’s secrets, rumours of a man were true in parts of ‘what isn’t’. This spelt disaster for town, this man was to be downfall for Briar Bush….

Light Hearted

Every time I let out a sigh,

I begin to see little birds fly.

Yet, I can catch one if I move quick.

Or is it about choosing one to pick?

Too late! My chance has gone.

Now there is night where the sun shone.

If they were dozing by day and sleeping at nightfall…

I’d just pick one up and then I’d walk tall.

But no, awake, and with wings they fly.

Every time I let out a sigh.

Behind a stare

What goes on behind a stare?

I don’t know but it’s hardly fair,

To blame me for your lousy mood.

I just can’t help looking at you.

What can I do to cheer you up?

Should I smile at you as I look?

It occurs to me that you are free.

So help me see what puzzles thee.

Once I knew a girl whose hair was curled.

Kind and smiled like she owned the world.

But she only made me bitter and twisted.

Like an ale mixed with lemons or something…

Write: Wrong or Left

Write: wrong or left.

Wrong or left. I wrote.

The ramblings of a so called addled brain.

Controlled by medication not to go insane.

You have good looks and knowledge deep.

Counts for nothing when you’re asleep.

Certain that there’s no perfection. Things seem mundane.

In the absence of this, there’s a aroma so sweet. These things from the void light up his face. The light, the everlasting glow. The love, the fountain of original gifts.

So remember Miss, when he approaches the lamppost, he cannot decide which way to walk around. He’s stood, just waiting.

Wanted (unfinished)

A play:

 

Wanted:

 

A nice outlandish wrist watch

—scene one—

Noo Yolk, Upstate Pembrokeshire

Midsummer’s Day

2000 Hours (8pm, not two thousand hours…)

In a field of sound, and grass, Smáhestur is sat with Nobbily Clive, a man with a notably unusual beard. The sun was low in the sky, a few clouds were in the sky but the weather was fine.

Nobbily Clive:

Some time ago a man named Hákon Sigurðsson was spotted with paint across his upper body dancing foolishly on the north eastern plains. Smáhestur, I want you to find him and extract as much wisdom as possible from him and write it down.

Smáhestur stretches out her arms and adjusts her posture.

Smáhestur:

Was this also the man whose lopi sweater was found used as a flag far over beyond the frosty hills of Dilmah’s archipelago across the causeway of many dooms to the hill overlooking the entrance to the depolarisation chasm?

Nobbily Clive:

Perhaps it was. Perhaps indeed… He certainly wasn’t sweating when we found him, it was a cold day and he probably could have done with a suitable over garment. A lopi sweater would suited him down to the ground, with its water resistant and yet warm fleece-like fibres. There is a chance the sweater in question was his.

Smáhestur:

The depolarisation chasm has never knowingly been entered. Do you think Hákon could have somehow entered the chasm and returned to dance on the north eastern plains?

Nobbily Clive:

That certainly is a possibility.

Smáhestur:

Then I will set off towards the north eastern plains immediately.

Nobbily Clive:

You must not. Please, please, make haste to beyond the frosty hills of Dilmah’s archipelago across the causeway of many dooms to the hill overlooking the entrance to the depolarisation chasm to retrieve the lopi sweater. We can then examine it to see if it truly belonged to Hákon… Besides that, it will keep you warm.

Smáhestur:

It’s a 5 day journey by boat to the archipelago. When will I see you again?

Nobbily Clive ponders this for some time.

Nobbily Clive:

You will see me when you next fall asleep.

Smáhestur:

Huh?

Nobbily Clive:

I’m just kidding you, this isn’t a dream… yet.

Smáhestur:

OK…

Nobbily Clive:

Sorry.

Smáhestur:

Nevermind… I will find a fisherman at the port and persuade him to sail me to the archipelago.

Nobbily Clive:

If you hurry you might find Safish in the tavern there. He has a lot of knowledge of the seas around the archipelago. He also knows some of the fishermen around there. Here, take this bottle of ‘Brennivín’ and this bag of coins. Take care Smáhestur.

Smáhestur:

Thank you.

Smáhestur packs up her belongings and provisions for the first part of the journey and makes her way down towards the tavern at the port.

—End of scene one—

—scene two—

The Mushroom Tavern, Quayside

The tavern is a little more than empty, the grey walls with their grey decoration of grey pictures of the grey sea do little to brighten the scene. The Landlord is stood in silence with a local fisherman, Safish. Until…

Landlord:

Ahahahaha!

Safish:

What’s wrong? Is it me, or you?

Landlord:

No, it’s nothing. You wouldn’t find it funny anyway…

Safish:

Why not? Go on, tell me!

Landlord:

Ok, well, the wife was writing a letter to the brewery and signed it; ‘Lardlord and Landlady’!

Safish:

That’s not very nice, did she mean it? I mean, you’re not fat.

Lardlord:

Well she said it was a typing error. I thought to myself; ‘perhaps she wants rid of me’ or ‘she’s having an affair’ but then I thought; ‘why should I be so paranoid?’ she’s the wife for crying out loud.

Safish:

Yeah, just take it one day at a time. Before my Ólöf died; we used to sail around the sea just the two of us, there was no reason to get paranoid about her running off but I did. I think sometimes the best option is to laugh or just smile.

The Lardlord smiles.

Lardlord:

I suppose that’s what it’s all about.

Safish:

Yeah, well, the secret to always having a smile close to hand is…

Safish is distracted by the noise of shouting people approaching the door, he looks toward the window (which happens to be grey) which is clattering in the wind.

hold up you’ve got customers!

Lardlord:

Customers… yes – you’re right, customers truly are the secret to smiling!

Safish:

The winds are getting up – in more ways than one you might not want to know. I must check on my boat. Please excuse my absence.

Safish leaves the Tavern.

Identical twins Sindri and Gylfi burst through the door with loud voices and big smiles.

Sindri:

Mine’s a pint of your best please Landlord.

Gylfi:

Mines… Mine’s a deep shaft partially surrounded by a vessel suitable to drink beverages from which includes your very best alcoholic drink filled to the brim please.

Sindri:

What? Oh, haha! You’re on form tonight, I’ll give you that.

Landlord:

Here you go gentlemen. Cold out there is it?

Gylfi and Sindri reply at the same time:

Yes.

Gylfi:

The wind travels fast and the temper bites.

Landlord:

Well, I heard there was a fire breathing dragon seen from afar o’er the snow capped mountain they call the star reaching peak in the lands between here and the southern coast. The local militia are giving it a free reign and hoping it moves on.

Sindri:

Crikey! I was planning a sail around the archipelago there off the south coast. Maybe it’ll be gone before I set off in two weeks time. Gylfi, your beard is in my drink.

Gylfi:

Is it? Oh aye, it should be gone by then if they leave it alone. A lingering dragon spells danger for your trip my friend. As you know I saw a dragon kill ‘six and one or half a dozen and the other’ people whilst on my travels in the far north east. It had settled a by a small village killing livestock for food. The farmers were so angry they placed snares and an elaborate trap. The dragon didn’t fall foul; it simply killed the farmers and burnt the village. It stayed in the area to remind those onlookers of its power for many years.

Sindri:

If only it’d burned off your beard, Gylfi. It is a right bedraggled mess.

Gylfi:

Haha! My beard is made from iron mined by the short people of the west! It shall be a fixture on my face for as long as I live.

Landlord:

A likely story, it’s just grey that’s all. More drinks?

Gylfi and Sindri reply together:

Yes.

Making hardly a noise Smáhestur carefully yet assertively steps into the Tavern.

Smáhestur:

I am looking for a man named Safish. Is he here?

Landlord:

He has left not long ago to check on his boat.

Smáhestur:

Which boat is it? I require a favour from him.

Landlord:

It is called Alltígóðulagi, take care out there.

Sindri:

Take care.

Smáhestur:

Thank you.

—end of scene two—

—start of scene three—

A very misted over, foggy location. Gravity isn’t what it seems and the place is recognisable yet strangely different.

Sveinbjörn:

Hahahahaha. Aahahahahahahaha. Mwahahahahaha. Pass the laughing gas, you ugly hulk of a creature. I feel unhappy and it’s your fault.

Önnungur:

Uh, I shall honour your wish. Though there is not one season goes by where-in I am not angry that you summoned me here.

Önnungur gives Sveinbjörn a dirty look but eventually passes him the laughing gas.

Sveinbjörn:

I’ll summon a troll from your rotting corpse one of these days if you don’t shut up.

Önnungur:

Uh.

Sveinbjörn:

Did you hear that?

Önnungur:

Uh, I hear so many things I don’t know which sound you are talking about.

Sveinbjörn:

Shush, listen, someone’s walking towards us.

Mysterious Cloaked Figure:

I have travelled far to find you. O great Svein. I am called Nobbily Clive and soon I will be in possession of a knitted relic of wondrous origin and tremendous power.

Sveinbjörn:

How does this involve me? May I ask… Am I of the understanding that you want me to wield such a relic?

Nobbily Clive:

Indeed. Your foresight impresses me. The knitted relic is currently being used as a flag near the entrance to the depolarisation chasm. I have sent someone to find it for us. You will be able to find her wearing it outside the chasm.

Sveinbjörn:

Wearing it, as in wielding it?

Nobbily Clive:

Well, it’ll keep her as warm as you would be if you were wielding such a powerfully warming relic. She won’t be able to resist it’s temptation.

Sveinbjörn:

You are a bit strange, aren’t you Clive?

Nobbily Clive:

Yes.

Önnungur:

Uh, He does have a point though. It does get cold around here, and you could do with a new ‘look’.

Sveinbjörn:

Did I order you to speak, minion?

Önnungur:

Uh, No.

Nobbily Clive:

Your giant friend is right… Your style is awful.

Sveinbjörn:

I need my anaesthetic. First however I shall kill you for insulting me. You insolent waste of space!

—end of scene three—

—start of scene four—

Smáhestur wakes up suddenly with a sharp intake of breath. She seems to be in a cabin of small sea vessel. It is night, yet the room is well lit with candles. On the floor there is a sword, a dish of smelling salts and a plateful of nuts. After picking up the smelling salts and eating the nuts she exits the cabin to find Safish standing there.

Smáhestur:

Hello, do you know how I got here?

Safish:

Yes. You were unconscious on the Quayside, it was windy and cold, so I carried you aboard my boat.

Smáhestur:

I had a bag, where is it?

Safish points to a bag by his feet.

Oh, well, thank you. What is your name?

Safish:

My name is Safish.

Smáhestur:

Aha! I was seeking you. I believe we have a mutual friend; Nobbily Clive.

Safish:

A man I am greatly indebted to.

Smáhestur:

Why is that?

Safish:

He saved my life.

Smáhestur:

Well, I saved his life once. It seems like boasting now, yet at the time, it felt like nothing.

Safish:

Okay, well, what were you seeking me for?

Smáhestur:

I need to go to the hill overlooking the depolarisation chasm. Do you know where that is?

Safish:

I know the vague direction of it.

Smáhestur:

Good, although I don’t know how fast your vessel is, I would estimate that it will take 2 weeks.

Safish:

If the wind is with us, your guess could be spot on!

Smáhestur:

Sweet. Let’s go!

Safish:

Okay! Do you know how to sail?

Smáhestur:

Yes.

Safish:

Good. Can you help me sort out the sails?

Smáhestur has a distant look in eyes, noticing a flock of pigeons is on the horizon but she can’t quite make them out.

Smáhestur:

No, I want to get more rest.

Safish:

That is understandable. Here is your bag.

Safish passes Smáhestur her bag.

Smáhestur:

Thanks.

Smáhestur walks back to the cabin but before she enters she notices a robin hopping along the top of the mast’s boom. She smiles at it, expecting to fly off. Instead it speaks one word. ‘Doom’. Unmoved Smáhestur goes inside the cabin and lies on a hammock.

—end of scene four—

—start of scene five—

In the place that is recognisable yet strangely different. Sveinbjörn is wiping what looks like blood off his staff.

Sveinbjörn:

Well that was quite gruesome.

Önnungur:

Indeed. I am sorry though.

Sveinbjörn:

Sorry? That’s not even the start of it!

Önnungur:

I only got a bit of it on your staff, the rest went on the food.

Sveinbjörn:

Aaarrrgh.

Önnungur:

You made me jump though, that’s why I got tomato sauce on your staff.

Sveinbjörn:

I sneezed because that oaf Clive threw pepper at my nose and then he got away! Why didn’t you stop him?

Önnungur:

You didn’t tell me to.

Sveinbjörn:

I’ll have you doing my laundry for the next three years now.

Önnungur:

Oh no you won’t.

Sveinbjörn:

What!?

Önnungur:

I said, oh no you won’t.

Sveinbjörn:

How dare you disobey me! How can you disobey me? I summoned you here from the dark realm to be my loyal servant. You are bound by the power of magic!

Önnungur:

Maybe so, but you don’t know who I am yet, do you?

Sveinbjörn:

Okay, who are you?

Önnungur:

I am not your servant. I am not Önnungur the allegiant! My name is Hákon Sigurðsson!

Sveinbjörn reaches for his staff and shouts an enchantment, there is a flash of light but it has no effect on Hákon.

Hákon:

You’ll find that your power is no longer with you. Your knowledge is leaving you and your magic is no longer effective.

Hákon turns his back to Sveinbjörn and walks towards a startling white light that has appeared.

—end of scene five—

—start of scene six—

Smáhestur wakes up with the sun in her eyes. She leaves the cabin and find Safish who seem shocked.

Safish:

You’re awake!

Smáhestur:

And what of it? Did I lie in?

Safish:

Just a bit! You’ve been asleep for a week!

Smáhestur:

Blimey. I’ve never done that before.

Safish:

I was worried!

Smáhestur:

I am worried! A week you say?

Safish:

Yes.

Smáhestur:

I feel fine.

Safish:

Good.

Smáhestur:

What’s that?

Safish looks around to see what Smáhestur means. Flying towards them is a huge dragon.

Safish:

It’s a dragon!

Smáhestur:

Stay calm, we must stay inside the cabin and it might ignore us.

Safish:

Good idea.

As Safish and Smáhestur enter the cabin, the dragon soon flies overhead grabbing the mast in its massive claws. With three almighty flaps of its wings the dragon removes the mast clean from the boat splitting the boat in two.

Smáhestur:

Quick! Set up the life-raft!

Safish:

Okay! Jump on!

Safish and Smáhestur get on the life-raft and watch the boat sink. With just a bag and a bottle of  ‘Brennivín’ as supplies. The dragon flies away.They paddle the raft towards the shore.

—end of scene six—

—start of scene seven—

 

The lucky 13

The Lucky 13

Handling a garden fork with uneven tines is like speaking with your mouth closed. Four candles burn bright behind your eyes, giving you a golden glow of uncertain silence. The work gets done on a cold, cold night. Glistening is: A large undercoated silver wall; ready for the shining paint. Painting the wall screaming ‘Please garment and I quit’ is one way for the glowing fork walls to reach their destination. As this jazz piano tune rings in my ear, everything stops. Silliness in stillness in silence.

Synthia had started a band, she wanted to play organised music, you know… with an organ. Soon the notes started to flow; through the letter box. ‘Turn that noise down’ they said. Well, Synthia didn’t like this at all. She arranged the musicians into two groups, shouting to one: Start! Stop! Start! Slow down! Stop! Once they started playing she shouted to the other: Start! Stop! Start! Stop! Somehow eventually the music fell into place, in perfect synchrony with each other.

I’ll take the next train, I don’t wanna be your friend anymore, I’ll see you eat foie gras and nothing else – those damn ducks and clucks, they know what’s been going down… I’ll show you the road, mad hat, crab rat. I’ve never seen you looking as luscious as you do with that little… Oh well it was worth it. Banned hands get sharper by hour, no colours and his primary friend, a grey overhung juice, with its small, small crashed up nerve. I’ll see you never again, never again without a hearse, the strange tailed faucet crowed.

I have had a cat’s eye face graft operation. The projectile plasmoids which were my eyes look like glass teardrops in the grey metal dish. My new opticals sit in their sockets like the soft silky voice of every tomorrow’s wishful acquisitions. Two who are constant in their stillness capture my lust. In dusts speckled light shines a deep influx of noise. Broken up by, the two; short and tall, extrovert and introvert. The songs of time spoken through a coloured filter.

Knowing only what has been before, the future still surprises them.
She sees herself as a fly in an icecube brushed aside by the peripheral society where it sat. A long tube blown away by her mainstream sense of nowhere sang a song that lightened the nights gaze. Her eyes in the merged pillars of what turned out to be a weathered hazel tree. Offering nuts to the bolts that wrapped the front of a sound which turned to rust. Like her hair glistening in the snows pale reflection of lust. A handful of bee’s acid like stings the night to perfection. In smoke water the burden of a few minutes of earth’s grasping vines drips into dust as she utters a moment of silence.

They feed off each other’s misery like monkeys grooming. Their emotions burnt out, their tunnel vision memories never fading away. A grasp of what death could mean. Is mean, as the time ticks away the night’s dawn closes in. Through one way glass they see a reflection of themselves in each other. A couple embrace between double glazed windows. This bright image repeats itself on a screen shown to millions. The gaze of those sat watching wander into the eyes of their caring friends. All this as a man lops off both his arms. Taken for granted without knowledge of how this will affect them now and later.

Being average is difficult because of the ability to aspire to things always out of reach. The easy options that evade the average are mean. If only the average could change their mode of thinking then the aforementioned would be less mean. The average is a mainstream view of: Capitalism isn’t working. More isms are poured into the void left, right, and centre. The void is accessible via senses, every tomorrow. Imagining uncertainties is good because pondering the only certainty in life will get you nowhere but there: The void.

I am a 1 + 1 = 9 type of guy; I see things where they are none. Single figures so very finite, invented expanse with multiple guides. Teaching ways of delusion, the ants sit in their farm. Like somehow barracks for unused numbers want to line upside down and back again. Nature’s a spinning wheel so use the movement to your advantage, the sly digits clicked. Painted letters into words, and rearrange on the canvas; telling the world what they don’t know, that they have known for eternity: the past and previous Zen dance.

Tiny fruit flies aim for my eyes. While a long ponderous moment is taking place, I feel deaths own warm hand on my shoulder. At least I think it is death, maybe it’s you, it is you, and you’ve come to kill me. So I smile at you and you walk away. You walk back to your lonely trail in life, music and love. While I wonder on, fixated with death, in a crowd of one person where the clocks don’t tick. I cannot stand the sound of a ticking clock. The clock ticks on and I realise I am also alone in life, music and love. Happiness in loneliness, this is the time where our paths have crossed, never to meet again. The same direction we walk together, apart we stride towards our goals.

The ignorant are insulting perhaps one of my dearest friends behind her back. While I collapse into myself, I shed a tear for the whole of the world, in sadness, stillness and for the water effect lollipop sticks in the slalom race. The water runs back and forth, up and down for a long time. Maybe an hour or so later, a red telephone box appears by the side of a winding road with a red Royal Mail van driving along it. I then go an epic adventure and rest at a friend’s house and eat ring shaped potato snacks. So salty!

She said I should put my hair in a cake. I think something was lost in translation as a small bird blew a hole in the window too. ‘I think she had the flu.’ Said the Veterinary. Who flew out of the room to take an emergency call. Some people were walking in circles with a purpose in the next room. The slow dancers danced and terrific cries were heard from the surrounding area.

‘Give me eyes and ears, feelings to feel.’ Said the sphere, inside a sphere that could speak. A donut shaped life will not see it, when it happens. For its eyes are on the outside. Only the dudes looking inside will see the mirror that shows them the real outside. Like wood with potential to be carved the people read into obsession and ill health.

An ostrich seed dropped from the plant bearing life for the creatures that lived below. We stood there basically asleep to all the sensory delights of the world. He gave a clip ‘round the ear, to the fishes that swim ignorantly. It tried to be the religion that gave itself up when the truth came along and contradicted its own teachings. A pointless pencil drew the universe while three sheep jumped the gate. A crowd of people and animals gathered around and peered down upon the scriptures.

Blown noses and slide mucus. I crashed the plane when I sneezed, said the man in green shoes. So much sadness, a whole history erased with a lingering blink of an eye. A spectrum of colour turned to greyscale with a gherkin placed carefully onto a large generic electronic item. It is the worst possible start to the second half of the second where my life changed. ‘Four cats are with me’ or ‘mae pedair cath gyda fi’: you decide. A panda bear, never swears he never cares when he doesn’t share.

Please Stop Ticking Clock

Please Stop Ticking Clock

I began, at last, to see what I could do. With a silent, meaningless, incomprehensible, unreachable god; with no text to pass on or preach, the impossible is at my fingertips. Imagination bubbled up inside of me, like a spring out of the ground. Or, an ever uncoiling helix uncompressing new ideas constantly. Yet, my fingers felt numb; dead, almost.

Realisation of a resting god?

Tick!

I will sleep you off your feet. My words are streaming down your face, dripping onto your toes. You look down and they are clear. I.e. they have no colour. They are totally transparent. You don’t mind though, because it’s not really you.

Day-dreaming of a sexy ghost, who is a long way away?

Tick!

‘A man crying is not to be sniffed at.’ Said the ambiguously gendered voice. ‘Unless you are crying too; or have a common cold; then you can sniff. The rules never can be concise’ continued the argument. ‘Only my infinite length rulebook opens the door to a world of true justice.’

Be confused by some bullshit on an advertisement?

Tick!

Lonely weather, your friends are out of reach across space. There is only one of you. Yet you are so varied and changeable like a wheel travelling over a landscape. Sometimes anger compels me to think I am alone, but compared with you I am not. I am not as angry either. Although, I can feel your rage on hot days.

One sided conversation with a force of nature?

Tick!

We choose children to play games with the lives of the population. Then they try to be so precise with the truth; giving one solution to questions where the answer lies with a wide spectrum. No longer are their leaflets full of joyful ideas, they just poke holes in their enemies. Finding fault where they can.

Doom mongering the political present and future.

Tick!

A single look at the golden girl. A drawing seen of walls; all twirled. I touch your face and I cry; then starve. There’s no doubt that you want to be free. Look at me; I don’t look free to you? I sure hope not. I’m locked inside a box of books. Not reading a single one. See your face and I cry: ‘Stop to look.’

Type to the beat of the music to see what comes out?

Tick!

He knew that he could survive through understanding of a non-religious personal god. The states of universal consciousness which rock quantum suicide. My finger exists here and now on my keyboard but doesn’t exist here and now on my keyboard in other ways such as the future of your final destination. So when my life interpretation machine called my brain dies will I live on in other states of reality?

Wishing I was clever enough to work out or understand some interesting things?

Tick!

The gaps between the very smallest things are perhaps filled by copies of themselves from different histories. Unable to be detected with our three dimensional instruments because they are incompatible. Seemingly invisible these gaps are too dark. Sometimes in my field of view a tiny spot appears so bright yet so small. It’s probably a problem with my retina or brain; still, it provides me with the inspiration to wonder.

Thinking about holes and gaps – not mentioning the worms!?

Tick!

Why do I do things I do? For you? Is it only you? All of you? Or just you. Mr U knows that his name can be confusing. ‘Me?’ People say. ‘No, U’ he says. ‘How do you spell your name?’ They reply. ‘U’ he says. ‘No, you don’t understand, look, just write it down.’ It could of been Yew, Yu, Yiw, or Ewe but no, it was U. Must be crazy having a name like Horseshoe thought Mr U. Get it?

Noticing shapes in letters?

Tick!

O to be tubby is to be fat. I’m 15 and half stone and losing weight fast. I aspire to continue the trend. For once, there is a light, a far away light. Is this the white light of death? Or is it the green light of hope? I’m colour blind, but surely I’ll find out soon enough. Another year before I go back to a place I have been but not like this, not like how I felt before. Back then it felt as though I wasn’t there not even really knowing what to wear. In the future my mindset will have changed, I’ll think do I care? Well, I do, somewhere.

Token ‘personals’ ad?

Tick!

As the blood drips from my nose, she can see me bleeding and unusually she can feel it. I move her hand from under my nose, placing it to my palm. I notice her look over my shoulder, I don’t turn to look because she doesn’t look concerned. It is man who slowly enters into the room in a sharp suit. Not that I know this yet but I did earlier when I cut my nose on his suit.

Is it enough to dream what others can see?

Tick!

I’ll write sixteen love songs for you. It’s just that I’d never let you know. Some days I look around, head held high, wondering why? Oh, why? I never told you. Then I realised, ‘I have pride in my depression damn it! It’s my big squeezy hug teddy bear. Except it doesn’t have the warm fuzzy feeling.’ Blame me if I draw you in then disappoint to change the way you want. I’m as stubborn as a mule and end up just using you.

Things that disappoint me about myself?

Tick!

Thinking fast into the future. I don’t know what counts as the present anymore, it seems like nothing much happens there, so I just sit and think about the future, and sometimes the past. When I think about the future it is now through rose-tinted glasses. While the past is a regret. This is the present. This, is the present.

Cân Gymreig

Cofio (beth yw) coginio.
Arnofio (dim mwy).

Cyn y nghysgod cawl pysgod.
Gwelwch! Oh! Gwelwch yn dda! Gweld dwbl, gyda fi. Pysgod chwythu gysan!

Coginio dim mwy.
Llysieuol. Llysieuol. Llysieuol. Llysieuol. Warchod dim mwy.

Georgia

Page 1

Georgia

Georgia was on the train. She had been sitting thinking about a conversation she’d had years ago, with a young man named Sajid. Rather than reliving the conversation she actually had, she was thinking about what she should’ve said.

The train stopped at a small village. A street with a few shops and the lush gardens of what was a vicarage were in view. There were some young children, each with a handful of salt, placing it in a small pile on the ground.

A house in the village with candles in the window and ivy growing over it then exploded. This made Georgia remember she had been dancing a long forgotten dance, in a green dress she had bought from the charity shop.

In the train there was a cold chill, blowing slightly through the window. Georgia was thinking about a couple that were getting married, in a large spherical building. They each said their vows quietly and picked up frogs off the floor.

Her thoughts suddenly came alive, Sajid was there in front of her holding a long golden ribbon. ‘I’ve got this for your hair,’ he said. She quickly wondered if they would get married, then soon dismissed that thought.

She asked a man sitting opposite if he had the time. He looked at his watch, and said ‘no.’ so she looked out the window. Several rabbits were eating lettuce in a field. Then as the train moved along, a few women with axes were felling a tree.

‘Trees have been falling all along this line recently,’ murmured the man sitting opposite. ‘The trees perceive gold dust caverns, *cough* *cough* where no one can breathe. Only through windows of silver frames do the rabbits eat lettuce!’

Moving to another seat Georgia knocked over a cup of coffee, it melted the table it was on. She got to another seat and pondered ponds. Ponds as deep as the oceans, teeming with life. A fish jumped from the pond and landed on her table.

‘Hello,’ said the child opposite. ‘I noticed you have a fish on your table, is it yours?’ he asked. His voice was raspy, also sounding like he had just seen a ghost. He was shaking vigorously like he was frightened.

‘No, it somehow jumped out of my thoughts.’ replied Georgia thinking that she rather should have said “yes”. Georgia now had a headache and did not want to hear the quivering child speak again.

‘What’s that mean… how?’ queried the child. The child was old, he had seen many winters and lived a long time. How he managed to be a child, only a man who lived in a far away, in a hut, beneath the mountains knew.

In a pleasant voice the fish spoke. ‘The seas are rising. So I rose with them, converting my gills into lungs along the way. I am Georgia’s, yes, however far I can flop about.’ The fish then played a tune on the trumpet sitting next to the child.

Page 2

Rice Red Obstacle

Rice Red Obstacle is an object of mighty intrigue. It has legendary status among all peoples and animals. It belonged to a wealthy landowner called Hafunda. It was growing, never ceasing, always surprising. ‘Whatever next?’ he mumbled.

A flip-flop tree house flew across a far yonder lake creating habitats for lost animals when it landed in the middle. ‘Oh. That’s what was next!’ screamed Hafunda while he had his leg amputated.

Hafunda sat in his cottage with his Rice Red Obstacle, as there was a knock at the door. He answered it. ‘Erm… hello,’ sounded Georgia all hush-hush. ‘I’ve just been on the train, can I see it… can I see Rice Red Obstacle?’

‘Of course,’ hummed Hafunda. ‘Please enter my humble abode.’ Georgia walked in *clomp* *clomp*. She looked around her, and to her surprise she was in a field of mint. The letters, O, f, c, o, u, r, s, and e, floated out of Hafunda’s mouth.

The letter’s fell to the ground and made a path towards the rice red obstacle. Hafunda knelt down and started eating the cake-like path, garnishing it with mint he offered some to Georgia. She frowned… then she smiled… then she refused.

Sajid appeared in front of them. He was covered in soil from the planet below him. He stared at her for 12 minutes 34 seconds, she stared back, and tilted her head to show the ribbon he had got her.

‘I’ve got a sickening carpet at home, would you like to see it?’ finally uttered Sajid. ‘The wallpaper isn’t very nice either.’ His face suddenly morphed into a lion’s head. It roared out loud and afterwards softly spoke. ‘Why am I in a field of mint?’

Whooshing by, a small white ball was flying through the air, Hafunda caught it, and it was in two halves so he separated it. Inside were three tiny people, two of which were picking up even tinier frogs. ‘That’s my thought,’ thought Georgia.

It was in this field they encountered The Saurus, the word-helping dinosaur. ‘Hello Sajid-lion, how are you keeping, conserving, preserving, redeeming, sustaining?’ The Sarus looked at Sajid-lion and raised one eyebrow.

‘Quite happy eating this leg,’ said Sajid-lion eating Hafunda’s amputated leg. ‘Though, there is cake for all. Maybe that’s what I should be eating.’ Sajid, suddenly scared by what he was doing, flew off on a smelly vehicle made of mint.

Georgia ran through the field, faster and faster towards the rice red obstacle. However far she ran she could not catch up with it. Not that it was moving at all. It was merely unreachable. Georgia slowed down and stopped.

She turned back to Hafunda and The Saurus and asked to leave the field. She turned around and walked back out through the door, and into the road outside. There was Sajid who accompanied her down the spiral road that leads to nowhere.

Page 3

Science cove

A long time ago, Ejersy and Szerig journeyed along the Elkside. The Elkside was an organ of an ancient creature that most people who knew of it, feared. This creature was there in the beginning, no, long before that.

Then there was a nuclear explosion. It blew away houses, trees, mountains and the elderly. All the people that existed were no more. A few worms survived but they were soon to die of worm cancer. Before that however, they would create wormholes!

It was three years since the disaster, the Elkside looked different now. ‘Bingo!’ Said Georgia. She looked around. It was a barren landscape with nothing in sight apart from Sajid. The air smelt like cats.

‘Where are we?’ Questioned Sajid. Unluckily for him and Georgia, the isotope the bomb used had a half-life of 4.2 billion years. If they didn’t get out of here quick they would start mutating and die.

Fortunately Georgia had undergone an accident at a particle accelerator and had several heavy ions sent into her body at near the speed of light and thus had learnt to control quarks and gluons with her mind to create a stable Unupentium force field.

Together they walked on soon to encounter an evil being that had mutated from a common earthworm. Georgia threw a piece of rubble at the worm. It hit the worm causing it to fall backwards through a wormhole it created.

The skies darkened and an eerie chill surrounded them. ‘I am so scared. I feel as frail as a leaf quivering away on a tree. I never thought a snowflake like me would have been able to go on such an adventure.’ Mumbled Georgia.

Hand in hand they wandered about, not a noise in sight however then there was a loud crack, which transported them to Abergwaun, Cymru. ‘Rwyn gallu clywed cryndod yn dy lais. Gosh! I didn’t know I spoke Cymraeg.’ Said Sajid.

An elongated circular shadow passed over. Suddenly there was a break in the clouds. The shadow turned into the shape of a large bear, possibly a panda. This was left unnoticed as Georgia and Sajid went to Y Pantri for some gingerbread men.

They stayed the night at Hamilton backpackers. This was an enchanting cottage in a dark street in the town. Hafunda, crutches and all, was waiting for them here. ‘Come, fly away on my giant ladybirds.’ Muttered he.

The ladybirds took Georgia, Sajid and Hafunda to Cantref-y-Gwaelod, a land of sixteen cities. All the cities were deserted now the land had been reclaimed and raised up from the sea. The clouds turned pink and orange, and a jar of Lyle’s Golden Syrup flew past.

‘Why have you taken us here?’ Asked Sajid. As two great waves crashed onto the beach, washing up food and drinking water. A dragon with tentacles in it’s head flew down from the upper reaches of the sky and danced an ancient dance.

Page 4

Twilight

After the entertainment from the dragon, and the food and drink from the waves, they walked up to the city above. Buildings of many shapes were there. It was like entering a silvery twilight that knew no greatness or downfall.

A great towering inferno increased in space and time started getting faster, slowing down and getting faster again. The dragon, which was a dragon of the sea, put out the fire. Slowly bubbles started to fall from the sky in different colours.

Increasingly other factors joined the equation, obviously erroneous events such as a harvest mouse jokingly referred to in this case by Hafunda as “pen carth bochdew” built a house of bricks. Bricks from where? Who can say.

‘Hello.’ Said Who. Who was a ghostly face that kept his domain in the sky. ‘Twas I, Who, that made the bricks for the harvest mouse.’ Who then disappeared from the sky. As the harvest mouse’s bricks turned into a viscous glue oozing across the floor.

The next day, gravity decided to have a day off. They floated around like peas in an empty pan with no gravity. Hafunda shouted to Sajid. ‘Why not!’ Sajid thought he and the place he loved might fall into a black hole and be lost forever.

Georgia gave Sajid a reassuring hug, then set about breakdancing on the floor. The ground gave way from under her. It had turned to quicksand. Georgia escaped easily enough. Sajid broke into song. ‘We’re living in a world of quicksand…’

They woke early, the rising sun waved a friendly hello. The clouds were dressed in gingham clothes and chose interesting shapes. There, in the sky was a cleaner falling at a rapid pace. Breathless, the three people fled from the vacuum.

‘By Jove it’s a wall!’ Cried Hafunda in a childish voice. Indeed there was a wall there. It was an old crumbly wall. Then and there it fell down. It revealed a tiny forest of bonsai trees. Cold, and shivering somewhat by the fallen wall, Georgia looked backwards in time.

Sajid, Georgia and Hafunda journeyed through the forest, which was inhabited by friendly creatures, which guarded the fish of the surrounding oceans. The day was hot, rainbow sweat poured down the traveller’s faces.

By now it was night, the fireflies glowed in the distance. There was a mosaic of a fish on the floor, lit only by moonlight, which was quite bright in these parts. Cosmic rays blew a gap in the mosaic and created a burning ring of fire.

Out of the fire rose some techno music, expressed as something you could see. The bass was pulsating away distorting the trees around it, the moog was a cool blue haze that seemed to be dancing with the fire.

Then out of blue came a mighty monster. It was the kind that smoked a pipe and played a hurdy gurdy. The three danced to the techno folk hybrid until Sajid broke his ankle. The pain was so great that he felt perfectly at one with the universe.

Page 5

Hello there, Universe

Sajid looked down at his ankle, he noticed it was not broken but ants had bit him several times. The bites spelled out a message. It read “Hello there, Universe.” He ignored this because he had a more important matter at hand. Ghost Fish Transistor.

In his hand was Ghost Fish Transistor, a device that could open a tunnel from Cantref-y-Gwaelod back to Wales. Before he could use the device a yellow fellow appeared. Sajid then got a warm tingle up his spine like he had never felt before.

Georgia looked deeply into the yellow fellow’s eyes, while the yellow fellow himself proceeded to get eaten by the hurdy gurdy playing monster. A loud scream went up as Hafunda realised his shoelaces were undone.

A turkey with a jug of rhubarb juice appeared; it made some noises before producing an eel from its beak. This was an electric eel that triggered ghost fish transistor and opened the tunnel back to Wales.

Small lights glowed at the end of the tunnel; this was a blue light that spiralled out of the entrance. Hafunda vanished. ‘Step aboard the light train.’ a voice announced. The light train was a train made of light.

The two companions ventured forth onto the light train and started playing cards. The planet then started to reverse its rotation so the sun started to set in the east from where it rose. Everything smelled of oats.

Two bees flew in through a window of the light train. Hafunda reappeared and said. ‘Hey, Lucky, I’ve got this fully functioning miniature beehive.’ Lucky was one of the bee’s names. Indeed, Lucky was a bee of high regard.

‘Buzz.’ Fuzzed Lucky as he and his pal flew into Hafunda’s beehive. The beehive lit up flashing different colours, sparks like fireworks came from the top of the little bee box. As though the bees were having a celebration inside.

Three cats came along, and ate all the bees, ‘That’s some good bees.’ They thought in unison. Suddenly haunting violins started playing in the background. Our heroes had reached their destination, Fishguard.

After stepping off the light train down by the harbour, they noticed it was raining. This endless rain, pittered and pattered down on their foreheads as they looked up at a giant rainbow in the sky as an glowing spacecraft sped past playing a sad song.

His voice hushed, Hafunda spoke; ‘Glowing orange the apples fall down, all around people flock compass and map around, the world points the way to our prey, the chops and cuts of our film, heat, red flame, white flame, blue skies bright.’

Then the rain stopped, trees shook in the wind, Georgia’s teeth chattered in the crisp, cold daylight. ‘Back on land, over time, over lords, ladies and baroness’ a voice in my head goes round a round, messes, forever, messes.

Page 6

Little Rubber Duck

The adventurers looked out to see, the sea was rough, and on it bobbing up and down on the waves was a little rubber duck. Sajid’s voice went low. ‘Today was my unlucky day, some bees got in the way when I was about to, talk.’

Under fluffy white clouds they lay, Georgia’s spirit floated far away and Hafunda spilt his tea. Following that slight delay, Hafunda then began to seize up, before loosening, dancing and going to say. ‘Georgia your spirit’s getting away.’

So it was Time to chase. Space was in the lead but Time was gaining fast. There was an explosion in the galaxy. Georgia’s spirit drifted towards a giant red star that then exploded, throwing her spirit past Space and Time back towards Georgia.

Sajid looked at Georgia, he raised his eyebrows so high they fell off the top of his head. Hafunda spoke. ‘Shu-u-u-u-ucks, I-It’s the ice cream may’n.’ A crow flew down from the sky and scavenged Sajid’s eyebrows off the floor. It then flew off.

Just while the ice cream van pulled the sea’s plug out of the sea bed with a big rope, Sajid ran after the crow. He tripped and found a penny swirling in a pool of multicoloured liquid. It sang a rainbow.

Looking at the penny, he noticed the face on it pulsating, throbbing in time to some nearby techno sounds. It started nodding in time to the beat. Then its profiled head turned towards Sajid, and spoke. ‘I think you’re cool <insert YOUR NAME here>.’

The Sarus, who had been quiet this entire time, bent his neck down the ground. He spat a staircase of words through the floor. Opening an entrance to a cave that echoed with the sound of drips and books.

A sheep was grazing not far into the cave, ‘You’re a very long sheep, Brambles.’ said the eyebrowless Sajid-lion to the sheep he had just named. Georgia turned to him and sighed, sigh. A pencil seemed to be trying to tunnel its way to the surface. Time stopped.

Hafunda vanished and after a few hours exploring the cave the team encountered a man with a funny hat making pottery. The penny dropped and hit the potter on the head. The man crafted an Afghan Sun which lit up the room.

‘Golly! It’s hot!’ Exclaimed the man. ‘My name is Paul David Alfredo. I will show you how to control time.’ He continued. Across the cave Georgia grew a beard and ate an apple, gaining the ability to sing in tune.

Paul David Alfredo had a heart attack and Sajid banged his head on the cave ceiling. ‘Ouch!’ He cried. ‘What time is it? I’m starving’. His stomach rumbled as several shellfish crawled out of his belly button.

Georgia looked deeply into The Saurus, the word helping dinosaur’s eyes, she felt a profound and meaningful sadness that would soon make whatever happiness she felt much more powerful. The Saurus grew some wings and flew them the crap out of there to a nearby castle.

Page 7

Colin’s Article

Dust was floating thick, as arrows of light lit geometric shapes across the room. The air was filled with a static like energy, with the gentle crackle of wood fire and one end of the room bellowing grot and grime towards the blackened ceiling.

Georgia grasped Sajid’s arm, and tugged at his knitwear, she looked towards the fire. The fire parted into two for a moment revealing the image of a distressed imp like creature beckoning their attention.

Pulling at the drawstring on her coat, the curtains of a large window opened on the darkest wall of the room, with a magpie flying in through the broken glass. The moon peered in to say hello. ‘Hello.’ Said the moon.

They sat around for a few days drinking soup and increasingly stale bread. ‘Sajid, a few days ago I saw something waving at me in the fire.’ Georgia sang some funky jazz acapella and made Sajid smile.

The Saurus spoke thus. ‘Virtues bestow you from experience and lessons learned, yet morals are sins set upon you by majority movements of humanity, choose a path, for I shall leave you now.’ The Saurus booped a nearby key fob and drove off in a rally car.

The remaining party of two were swept up together in the same dream, reading newspapers for hours in an austere and blandly decorated apartment high up a 1960s brutalist tower block. A clock chimed, stillness filled the room for a moment as a radio buzzed into life.

‘Seasonal greetings, inhabitant, I am Hob Olfactory. A endwarfed goblin, cursed to live only in the flames of the Earth, I am here to make some noise and have some fun’. There was a loud fart that resonated through Sajid so much so his ear glowed purple.

That evening they woke and everything slowed down. A ticking clock stuttered with a syncopated stammer. Georgia gestured to get Sajid’s attention. It felt like it took about 47 and a half minutes.

‘Colin’s probably still writing his article for the County Echo.’ Sajid mentioned and the pair left the building, finding themselves on a cliff edge, with a large water slide meandering down to the beach’s edge.

‘I want to go first!’ Said Georgia. ‘Wait, what did you say about Colin?’ For Georgia, Colin was a distant memory that had long faded, all but his name. She jumped arse first into the slide as the water turned to lukewarm gravy.

Sajid followed and as they reached the soft lap of the sea they felt as though they were medieval monkeys being punished by god for having a bad thought once. The sea turned to stone so they were able to walk across toward the land in the far distance.

Georgia remembered something about Colin. He wrote fortune telling articles for her local newspaper. She blushed, but her face didn’t go red, a metre long caterpillar tip toeing across the rocks did, then it disintegrated into something resembling toothpaste.

‘Hark!’ Sajid noticed a wind with a swirling purple tint gust around them. ‘What’s this? Is this the prophesied breath of Govsachrig?’ And so, Govsachrig summoned a blizzard of purple and greenish bird seed.

Page 8

Hafunda’s Jaunty Hat

Hafunda reappeared with a parrot who ate the seed, fighting several big balloons tied to his arms. ‘If you don’t pop these I’ll be Govsachrig’s supper!’ Georgia sang an extra special note and the balloons popped to the rhythm of the intro to “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

‘Ah my leg has grown back, najs!’ Hafunda was relieved because he just finished on the toilet after a rather stubborn blockage. ‘Govsachrig will pick up our scent. We must try not to smell!’ Instructed Hafunda to Georgia and Sajid, who were eating yellow apples.

Hafunda’s jaunty hat opened its eyes and surveyed the land they were walking towards. ‘It’s Wales, we will get you home, and soon it’s sŵn festival in Cardiff so maybe we can get the train there tomorrow.’

Sajid’s ears turned into fish heads. The others didn’t notice. And that made Sajid sad. Sajid sat down and ate some salad leaves he had stolen from the long sheep in the cave. The Earth spun somewhat and it started raining.

‘We’re definitely getting close to Wales.’ Said Georgia. As a large tree grew to full height nearby out of the cold, hard, stone sea. ‘Things are a-changing in these parts. That’s for sure! That’s for sure! For sure! For sure!’ She sang to the tune of змей.

A lot of time had passed and they were back in Wales. Georgia had had time to think. She thought about the time millions of mice made a clockwork cat automaton work by running to either side of a see-saw to process its mechanics and logic.

Underground currents were being stored to feed the mice so they had to bury underground to eat the currents. This was before the floor turned to lava and everything burned, of course it was.

Oblongs and rectangles rained down from the sky, now they were back in Wales, the oblongs fell 200 metres and the rectangles from 230 metres, when they hit the ground they bounced twice as high and disappeared.

Many fissures and cracks in space time occasionally destroyed all the information in existence and had everyone wondering what they were doing in this merry dance towards the inevitable omega that was the singularity.

Georgia remembered the time Sajid said she was beautiful. It was a very green day. The sky was green, and there were around 773 green cats in close proximity arguing and playing amongst themselves.

A van drove past and an old lady brought out a blackbird pie held between her patchwork oven gloves. ‘Oh my! I’ll eat that!’ Said the fishes that used to be Sajid’s ears as they started sucking on the hot steaming pastry.

Hafunda smiled at Georgia and turned into a lute. Georgia was upset because she didn’t know how to play the lute. But hey, at least, she could learn. Am I right? Yeah? Hey, what? Yeah? I’m right, yeah? She could definitely learn the lute.

Page 9

Plotting Reality

Lasers shined sporadically from the underneath of the clouds, causing mayhem amongst cats, and other apex predators. A small cauliflower grew a face and legs and ran towards the nearby shops. It was on a mission for some munch.

A large roll of graph paper unfurled in front of Georgia. So she decided to plot. She needed data, and a plan, and some kind of pen, which Sajid soon provided from his infinity pockets. Georgia plotted out the rest of her life.

This plot wasn’t an idealist version of what Georgia wanted. In fact what had happened is her hands had been possessed by a woman who ruled the galaxy. She didn’t have a name as that would be some tarnish to her unlimited power. 

Going into more and more depth Georgia unknowingly plotted what was about to happen. The shadow drenched toil of years of hardship and an almost absolute absence of hope was recorded, destined for the near future. 

Suddenly one of the fishes in Sajid’s head burst out and transformed into a crustacean with large razor sharp claws. It chopped Georgia’s hands off, leaving her bleeding on the ground, with only minutes to live.

An old frightened child ran towards as his breath turned into tears of a sky blue liquid. With torrents of liquid pouring from his nose and mouth he managed to utter these words with urgency. ‘Stop! You must get on this train!’

Sajid lifted Georgia off the floor as new plots appeared on the graph paper as if there were invisible people around. Everything was changing. Colours danced to every sound. Objects morphed in and out of existence. 

Sajid carrying Georgia felt a surge of energy as his ear grew back and they ran towards the train station. Within what seemed like a moment they were outside train. The child turned entirely into liquid that smelled of peanuts.

On the train there was an elderly couple sat at a table opposite the only spare seats. They looked on in shock as Sajid placed a now unconscious Georgia down with her arm stubs still bleeding profusely all over the train.

Sajid was panicking and everyone around who had caught sight of Georgia was screaming. All the screams combined together to form a note so pure and wholesome that the train started floating up into the air.

Two collard doves flew on board the train as the screamed music continued to resonate across the sky. The dove landed on Georgia’s arms and mouthful by mouthful started regurgitating her hands back together. 

Georgia’s glasses slid off her face onto the table and at that exact moment the train crashed back down onto the tracks as though nothing had happened. On the tanoy some vaguely pigeony sounds woke Georgia up.

Page 10

Journey to Kajelcha

The train started rolling gently along as the mild mannered elderly couple were already falling asleep. The sky turned from dark grey to a vibrant turquoise. As the train passed an ancient tree spirit.

The subtle sway and rocking motion of the BR Class 156 had a hypnotic effect on everyone on board. Memories freshly wiped with painless brain injections of lemon juice by an army of ghosts, people were settling down.

‘Settle down, please.’ A stern voice said over the tannoy. As the colour returned to Georgia’s cheeks, Sajid, his head now resembling that of a disgruntled camel, seemed tired. Georgia reached into Sajid’s pocket and took a sweet.

The sweet tasted of the excitement of a first kiss mixed with intense quivering sexual energy. Kind of like liquorice. Outside the train window The Sarus was driving his rally car parallel up the road by the track.

Words flew from The Saurus’ mouth “Go to the toilet.” Suddenly Georgia had to go. Squeezing with everything to try and hold on she waddled up the aisle, in time to the smooth jazz that constantly inhabited her mind.

In the toilet she sat down and noticed draped over the sink in front was her green charity shop dress. Desperate to change out of her blood stained clothes she slipped it on after she was done and walked back down next to Sajid.

Georgia was in pain. Like a corkscrew taking wax out of her ears, she felt her consciousness extracted from her by what seemed to be an elephant from another dimension who had been on the crack. And not the Irish craic.

‘Gosh!’ Georgia had come to a realisation. She could travel back through time to stop the pain. By using techniques taught to her by Paul David Alfredo and his suspiciously jaunty hat she could change the course of her life.

Georgia focused on the thrash of the Class 156’s diesel engine and sent her brain to another planet. A place where giraffes sailed on tall ships across the exclusively watery surface and birds sent messages between the boats.

On this planet, known as Kajelcha, there were huge underwater civilisations, great republics of artists and musicians, writers and dancers, living harmoniously with the waves. She needed a way down there.

Combining her brain power with the winds pushing the clouds along she dove under the surface. Manifesting as bubbles and other fruity gasses, she made her way to one of these creative utopias.

Met at the gates by an almost dolphin like water dragon with familiar tentacles in it’s head she flew into the dragon’s brain. What she encountered was a mind like no other. A creative engine so rich and intense it would inspire her for years.

Page 11
The Travelling Spirit

Inside the dragon’s mind Georgia spent 362 years, living free as a dancer in a freethinking world where abilities of building a society that worked for all, especially the most vulnerable, outshone abilities of general intelligence.

This was a place like no other but she felt like a change so in a sudden rush of bubbles from the dragon’s mouth she flew out and up out of the water up in a cloud, deep into the atmosphere, and even into the edge of space.

Georgia was kinda bored so she went to a nebula where stars were being born out of great clouds of gas collapsing in on to itself, over and over again, she lived on the fringes of the central part of the galaxy for several billion years.

She wondered why gravity holds people down but why it’s not enough to keep the universe together. This was a difficult question. So instead she did a burp. Emitting from her like energy from a neutron star this echoed across the universe. 

Her presence was not to go unnoticed. With the signature look of exhausted ungulate, a being of pure light appeared in front of her, it had dragged a ribbon of various pieces of heavy metals along with it and left it in Georgia’s nebula. 

‘Ha! Who could this be?’ Georgia’s senses went into overload as the two entities mingled around the entire galaxy for several billion years. They played pranks on each other with surprise supanovas and random destruction.

A bond was created that meant both Georgia and this familiar force began to lose all meaning and identity. All previous significance was lost as a great emptiness was embraced between them. Only light could pierce this intense darkness. 

As the two super beings hung out together until the end of time, Something couldn’t help feel a little homesick. She wanted to taste golden syrup again. She wanted to see what films were on at Theatr Gwaun. She wanted to smell real food.

Whatever nameless superpower she had become she wanted to return home. To walk the coast path. To sit by harbour watching the boats at Lower Town. To feel the sea breeze and unexpected explosion of a nearby custard factory. 

The taste of the Singapore Mixed Vegetables Chow Mein from China Chef had been on her mind. She put all her energy focused on the inevitable death of the universe and any cyclic new beginnings that followed.

Suddenly Georgia found herself back on the train, sat next to Sajid, who reassuringly, looked like a llama ready to spit in her face. A feeling of profound unexplainable happiness flowed through her, as meaning returned to her veins. 

‘I really appreciated it when you gave me that ribbon for my hair, you know, Sajid. It was kind, and I don’t think many people have shown me kindness like that before. Remember you are a special person whatever you feel.’

Erglethon

My name is Erglethon the third, I live in a small spacecraft off the coast of Habletonia. This is not a flying spacecraft. It is stationed in the sea. I live with octopus’ and small creatures such as fish. They swim between my toes and are never sick on me. Unless you count Trellip who got fin rot. There are several positive things happening around you at all times. The fish they swim to the beat of slow electronic music that is helping them relax. Fish need relaxation, from feeding and swimming about. Those things can really tire them out. The spaceship is a mass of metal and plastics. It’s pollution powers the imagination of the fish. The fish swim in all sorts of patterns for my amusement. They are different colours.

One day I was looking at one fish in particular. His name was Trellip. He has fin rot, but he copes. He swims around a bit and sometimes looks at the giant orange sea cloud called Jeff. Jeff was often mistaken for a hat but didn’t mind. In fact, he took it to be a complement! He liked hats, he did. There was a sea volcano nearby called the mighty Petekoa mountain. It kept Trellip company when things weren’t going his way. Which in all truth be known wasn’t very often. Trellip was an awfully happy fish.