Pull her down by the wings

She moves about you, just out of your reach
It is all about the tease, it is part of the ritual
I guess you could call this the build up
She knows, at least you feel she does.
‘Don’t deny me’ you say to her through gritted teeth
but there is something you enjoy about this game too.
You sit, pen in mouth, nonchalant air, for all the world to see
The paragon of composure.
You imagine this to be desirous and attractive to the opposite sex.
And to wreak envy upon any competition, alpha or beta.
You fancy your look and poise say;
‘I am a man who knows what he is doing and needs nothing’,
inside it is a different story.
One of angst, longing.
Stuck in the eternal cycle of chasing, hunting, finding, laying and moving on.
You never find peace, never find completion.
You catch her move again from the corner of your eye.
‘Come to me’, you will her,
but nothing.
She pushes you to your limits.
Remaining just out of reach.
You want her more than ever.
Forever aloof, forever present, her scent in the air.
And just sometimes.
Once or twice in a lifetime maybe.
You catch her.
She struggles a bit,
You pull her down by the wings, and rape her onto the page.
For a while you feel a sense of relief
And then, for a brief moment, you are that man.

Into the dirt

I took a tyre iron to his head
I recall thinking there must be a precise degree of pressure to knock a man unconscious but not kill him.
As I made my move, I pushed it a little
Just to be certain.
Some of these fucking retards have thick, impenetrable skulls.
Hard to crack.
I took a second swing.
I wouldn’t say it felt good; it was out and out murder, to be sure.
But there was a certain sense of justice, righteousness in the act.
I felt divine and powerful.
I felt the back of the net.
I locked onto death and with needlepoint, rocket powered precision,
I swing fast.
Three times.
And down he went, into the dirt
Dead.


This man was a terrorist; he had killed dozens of innocent people.
No, wait...
This man was a German; I was making my escape from a Panzer division 1940.
This man was a creep, a paedophile. I took my chance in the prison.
This man was no one I knew. I took his wallet.
This man was a traffic warden, that’ll teach the cunt.
This man was your friend, yea, maybe that makes it different.

What I love about life, and what scares me senseless about it too,
is that life hangs in the balance of your current perception,
and whoever can tell the most convincing story wins.
My point was, I guess; never believe anyone,
but most of all, don’t trust your emotions.

The Resistance

Intensity, passion, depth.
It scares me to reveal this side of me
I am not totally sure why.
Maybe it is the sense of intrusion I feel, as whatever it is I am, pierces your armour like an x-ray.
I may miss subtle observations and glaringly obvious reactions,
but at the core, I see it all.
Everything revealed
It is beautiful. Utterly overwhelmingly beautiful.
But,
To reveal that, to bring that up to the surface in this world?
It’s like landing fish beneath a flock of hungry gulls.
So I pretend, but I pretend badly
And in the end I risk becoming a caricature of myself.
Or worse; drunk on the ability to know what you wish to keep secret.
I understand desire, I understand death, and I understand you.
But it may not be easy to talk on such things
Not here, not now.
Keep beauty hidden in the deep until it is safe to reveal.

There is a subtle but deadly war raging, and you should be aware
that we are the hunted.
If you understand this, then maybe your duty lies
with The Resistance

Magic, mystery and fate

I haven’t written about love for a long time,
because I haven’t felt it.
Sometimes it is best to lock our jewels and precious stones away safely.
Sometimes, we find ourselves amongst wolves and jackals, running alone through the night.
A thin blade glitters, concealed within a discreet hand.
When this dark night ends, maybe I will have time and freedom enough
to take from its box that beautiful, blue, precious gemstone.
I'll gaze into it again.
See the dancing lights of magic, mystery and fate.
Hear the mesmeric sound of distant girls laughter, of soft panpipes and flowing water.
Smell the sweet scent of rose and jasmine.
Feel the intoxicating sensuality of another’s touch;
Ecstasy, bliss, peace and completion.
And then maybe I shall begin again
my search
for what I once found
in you.


For Corrina

Snapshot of a certain moment

I have a snapshot of a certain moment
It comes around every now and then
The movie is different, the delivery, the package it comes wrapped up in,
but the effect upon me is always the same;
Fear, terror, incredulity, frozen, FROZEN! Run, RUN!
Survival at all costs, kill if I have to.
Survival at all costs.

Chill on the morning breeze

A chill morning wind blows, another day arrives at your feet,
and there is some kind of victory in that.
Hell, you actually feel pretty good!
Dark obelisks tower in the sky as dawn light begins to break.
You don’t need much sleep these days.
The FEEYAH doesn’t cut in quite so deep anymore either.
There is a resigned ness, still soft on the inside, just used to it hurting.
The hurt, they say, tells you that you are alive.
Fucking L.I.F.E.
What the hell is it?
You’ve got your theories, and they are all pretty dark.

There is something beautiful, calm and optimistic about this time of day, though.
Not much traffic and the awareness that today, maybe today will be the one you have been waiting your whole life for;
Your lucky day.
When you get out of all this.
When you find the road to some kind of success.
When you win out.
When you make it, finally.

I never gave up hope.
But I cant deny what that chill in the morning breeze has always been telling me.

RED!

Letters to God – written in a street at 5am (sober, for the record)

I don’t blame you, but I know it is a waste of time asking for an explanation.
We make our own beds down here, right?
Well maybe something is crooked in me, and I am not sure it is of my doing alone, because I am wholly unable to rise into my dream of how life should be, yet I am 100% genius at ending up sat on my cold ass at 5am, on concrete, in a city I don’t belong and barely know.
Waiting, skint, tired, afraid, hurting, alone.
Are all adjectives I am emotionally involved with right now.
Is it too much to ask for a touch of the miraculous?
I know exactly where I want to be.
That is why I am writing you this letter.

It is cold. It is 5am. I am in a city I barely know, but it could be anyplace and I suspect it would be the same.
I am no closer to realising my life than the day I began.
I am skint.
Hungry.
Waiting, always waiting.
But I have got my health, right? So what’s to complain about, I hear you say.
Funny guy.

Maybe it is selfish of me, I know you are busy, but alone I don’t seem to be doing so well at this thing called life.
So I guess what I am saying here is, I could do with a little help. And by the way, I am not the only one.

Yours truly
Bezlebub

a note on suicide

If I were going to do it, it would have to be a shotgun under the chin. Or better yet, a good size heroin and cocaine snowball. I don’t have a problem with the ethics at all.

I think the world of people generally sucks.
The laws of the universe are parasitical and predatory,
the creator had intention but lacked compassion.

People like myself are better off moving on.
I sometimes think I was designed for the next world, not this one.
Something about it makes more sense to me.
This place is retarded.

I have looked and I have tried for 41 years to get what I do here right. I have done my best to rinse some semblance of joy from existence, and I succeeded surprisingly well.

As I get older the options get less, I get wiser and I find I dislike the conditions here all the more. I have decay, senility, obstruction, and the company of myself to look forward to.
I don’t have a problem with suicide.

But while another person who loves me still lives and breathes the air of this world, I would not do it to them.

It wouldnt be hard, wouldnt even be painful.
Just take yourself to that edge and begin to fly.
Higher and higher until this place really doesn’t matter all that much anymore.
Your spirit letting go, and you are gone.

It’s no big deal, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.
Life, death. It is all just happening.

As I finished writing this I knocked over a glass and it smashed.
Funny how things go.

Revolting

Every time I see a music video these days
I am reminded of the old punk adage - we are all prostitutes
I have been saying 'oh you SLUT!' to the tube a lot of late.
and sorry, but R&B videos are the worst offender
take note Justine Timberfake
pathetic poseurs and stupid slags trying to sell some hot choreographed booty shakin' shite at me.
puullleeeaaase!
Just take it away!
Is this a turn on to anyone?!
really?
fuck.

But I don't actually mind
because I have seen this kind of global tension in the market place before,
the sameness.
Everywhere.
bland. empty. packaged. bullshit. BULLSHIT!
and it tells me
soon.

very soon.

Revolution is on it's way.

I always like a bit of anarchy.
it's in the blood.

Ambition

winners and losers
rich and poor
failure and success
ugly and beautiful
Is there any place in the world where these basic human conditions are not relevant?
I want to be there.
Imagine how different life would be
if they really meant nothing to us.

smokin' guns

There was no guide book that came with the kind of life I chose to live.
There have been hedonists and the decadent.
And there have been the decadent hedonists.
I did roll up at the crossroads but the weird thing was
I changed my mind at the last minute,
just said -
No.
Sorry.
I changed my mind.
Fuck your deal, oh devilish one.

I walked off.

And here I am 25 years later at the end of the party
Feeling like the one guy left standing after the gunfight in the cemetary.
as the smoke clears he blinks and discovers,
he is alive.
It doesnt seem fair.
but who's complaining.

It's disgraceful.

How in gods' name
does one grow old gracefully?

After all I have been through now

After all I have been through now,
I am surprised to find my arm stuttering across the page.
Words. Experience. Don’t seem to come.
Nothing appears to want to write itself.
I am not sure there is anything left to explore.
I have seen sunsets and sights, canyons, rivers, creatures of all kinds, flowers of all colours, oceans of all size, mountains, deserts, rains and ravines.
I am not bored. This is not what I am saying.
I have had queens and princesses, whores and sirens, wailers and screamers, fighters and biters, virgins, vampires, vermin, vixens and tramps.
I mean, what is left?
It is not that I tire of these things.
Just uncertain that there is much else to conquer. Nought that I wish to at least.
Darkness begins to draw close, on my last day of freedom.
You can not run forever, so they tell me.

A piano plays gently in a coffee bar at the station.
I could have stayed out there, in the wilds.
It is just that I heard another calling, calling me back.
The piano tells me credits are about to roll on some b&w movie.
I guess that’s how the story plays out for me this time.
Loneliness used to break me, but solitude was ok once private thoughts became my closest friends.
I’ll probably spend the rest of my days in moments like this;
Train station cafes.
Looking back with melancholy and forward with a non-committal air.
Knowing nothing will ever amount to much.
And once a year, in places like this the world over, they play Christmas carols
Just to remind lonely souls how long it has been.
Beautiful women walk by.
And I realise.
That in a world full of steel, rock, concrete and death.
They are my only source of hope.

There is no feeling quite like it.

There is no feeling quite like it.
You have no place to stay, your nearest friend is a thousand miles away.
You are in a city you don’t know. It is late and all the cheap hotels are booked.
You are left facing a night on the streets.
You know you wont sleep much.
You’ll spend the night fearful of people, or the law, and thinking about how your life came to this.
It was supposed to be fun, wasn’t it?
Your bank account has nearly run dry.
And it is raining.
It cuts a groove in your personality, a welt of an experience that will heal over tomorrow when you board the 6am train and escape this madness.
But.
It will never fully heal.
You’ll feel it there sometimes.
A dull throb, not altogether numb.
A little painful.
And you’ll be reminded of those times that lightly litter the story of your existence.
Nights spent on the streets.
In various anonymous towns.
Invariably feeling sorry for yourself.
Always alone.
Wondering how you got there and quietly praying,
that when dawn light comes,
it will be the last time you ever have to face a night like that again.

On nights like these...

She found me browsing a bookstand in Federation Square.
There was nothing significant about that,
but I knew at once there was something different about her.
My trouble was I had been away from home, alone for so long, just out of contact, I had forgotten what normal was. I was in a time and place where everything seemed strange.
I watched her as she walked. I was trying to work it out, what it was.
I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
She was beautiful.
She was in black and white, I mean, as I recollect her now it could be a movie. Yea, she’s gonna be a star. I could see that.
(Of course I wouldn’t guarantee it, Death has a funny way of touching the most beautiful long before their time.)
I could see something in her. She was like glass; you could see through but in doing so, you missed everything that was there.
She was good, and yet she didn’t know it. People are at their most perfect then.
I could have fallen in love with her easy.
I was enchanted and aware of every movement in her.
Her heart and mind. I could hear them beat.
I listened in.
Stared into her eye.
She didn’t break my gaze, she had guts, I liked that.
It wasn’t lust that drove me. It never really is anymore.
Why take the body when you can revel in things of the soul; I was bathing in her light.
But she wasn’t ready. Not for the likes of me. Not yet. Hell, maybe never.
It didn’t matter.
In this life we are only ever passing through.
She said; ‘Hello, I think we recognise each other, don’t we?’
I smiled and looked away.
Sipping my vodka tonic through a straw, a view out over the lights of yet another city.
Two stars alone in a rooftop night.
As trams rolled by in the streets below.
On nights like these you could almost believe that a good soul could make it.

People walk by the street outside

People walk by the street outside.
Rain drips so endlessly it could be England, but it isn’t.
I have been alive these past months in a way I had forgotten;
Passion rekindled, lust for life, fires re-lit.
That energy with which I used to burn through the world has been back upon me.
Flames lick around my shoulders
where my wings could be.
It is slowing now,
gently coming to a stop.
Soon I’ll step back into the world of men.
Where I belong? No. Where only a part of me belongs.

I tasted freedom for a while. Solitary. Distant. I was gone.
40 days and nights.
It wasn’t a time of peace, it was War.
Battles. Struggle. Survive.
There is blood on my hand.
A gold ring glitters on the little finger of my left, anchor and snake etched into it.
I wonder about my family. Wonder about each one all the way back.
Some little piece of all of them etched into my being.
Things I don’t know about, cant fathom, yet are.
My soul tempered in an altogether different fire.

People walk by the street outside.
Rain drips so endlessly it could be England, but it isn’t.
I am here again, arrived back into the world of men.
There is blood on my hand, and purpose in my heart.
I pull my collar up about my neck and step out to walk among them.

On fear of people

I head to the toilet, my fear of people is getting intense. It's like a drill, like a physical shaft of shrill sound that is rammed into my brain through the senses. Fear of people. What am I afraid of? Something in their words maybe, no it is the eyes, definitely the eyes. No wait! It’s the brain, I fear their brain; that thinking, pulpy thing; alive, aware, observing. I can feel it, like a pressure as it changes, assessing me. Christ, it is like some kind of alien form lurking in them. I've got to get away before it is onto me, before it realises that I know. I get up from my chair move quickly, down the hallway past them all. They just don't seem to know or care that they are harbouring something sinister, something freakish, a parasite.

I burst out the doors from the floor of my work and make the corridor, tear down it, like a swimmer out of breathe fighting to surface to the sun, to the air, to freedom and life. Kick the toilet door open, nearly there. I crash into another one of them. Fuck this place is infested with the things. Then I am there, into the cubicle, slam the door, push it shut, lock it. I sit down on the toilet seat, shut my eyes and breathe, breathe deep. It's ok. I am ok.

I stay like this for about 5 minutes, it seems I am calming. I open my eyes. This is my prison, but it is the safest place I can find in the world to hide.

I try to meditate, it's the best I can do to keep the inner turmoil at bay, to find some sanity again, to recover. 3 years it's been, the same reaction, the same panic, the same escape to a self imposed incarceration in this cubicle. A search for peace, for meaning, for something other than what I find in the midst of the social world I am supposed to be a part of. It makes little sense and I have little choice.

Just as I am relaxing I hear the outside door creak then slam against the wall as it is thrown open. I hear voices, two people entering the urinals.

'Haha! Yes I saw Jones at the conference, not a bad presentation, his take on Marketing Policies for Public Affairs in the coming year was quite interesting.'

A pause, then I hear just the spray of two men pissing.

'Watching the game tonight?'
'Think so, might watch it in the Trinity bar, I hear they are putting a screen up for it specially and the beer is on happy hour prices all night.'
‘Really?’

They finish, wash hands. The dryer goes for a short time.

'Ok well might see you up there then.'
'Sure.'

The door opens once more, less ferociously this time, then silence descends. I sit cross legged on the toilet lid and wonder how many days left until it will all be over.

Notes from a Christmas past

(retrieved from old blogs now closed down)

Oh, the boy’s still got it going on!

It is becoming something of a tradition for me to make like a mentalist on one of the last weekends before Xmas. I try to make it happen as near to the Winter Solstice as possible.

Though those of you who know me only from Blog world will no doubt think me as morose, somewhat psychotic, solitary, and possibly dangerous, I can assure you this is only half the story. There is within, something of a people person, who loves to have a good time and bring joy to the world for all to share.

And so it was, Friday was my chosen day for Operation Xmas Marathon Mayhem to begin. Scheduled to last 3 days and nights.

It started rather splendidly with a free guest entry + 1 into The Damned at Islington Academy. The support act, which I might normally try to drink my way through, consisted of 4 ladies playing some good rock, calling themselves The Priscilla’s. The singer’s cat suit and pert buttocks had me spellbound throughout. Fantastico! Then the boys came on, and sink me if I didn’t spend most the entire gig bouncing with the best of them in the mosh pit.

Ah...the memories.

Apart from a near broken nose and leg injury, the near 40 year old body seemed to perform much like it did back in the days when it performed. I guess it was partly fuelled by the knowledge that this really may well be one of the last times I ever get to see my favourite band of all time, as they are knocking on a bit too.

I departed on the last song as I had stage 2 of the marathon to attend to. Down to The Cross Bar in Kings Cross, a notoriously uptight-in-the-security-dept club. Whereupon yet another guest entry was supposed to be waiting for me.

Quel surprise! It wasn’t.

But being the ligger of the century back in the day I discovered the silver tongue hadn’t completely rusted up, and after a short period of freezing my fucking bollocks off I managed to get in to see the DJ, Boy Dave, who had my ticket....in his pocket...great. Not a lot of good it was doing me there! But I got in. The night rocked with dance music and was full to the brim with lovely ladies. Which should really have been taken advantage of except...Lee had turned up.

Lee is the man who wears psychedelic rooster hats at festivals and scares children because he is madder than them, and has more energy. Lee also has a habit. Lee’s habit pretty quickly became my habit. Which was only supposed to be a small one, but he had devised a cunning way to proffer it into the hand, and up the nose while still dancing, kind of in the way one might feed a horse. Something he did to me a few times too often. The end result was good for a while, then as usual, it went down hill and the cocaine badger started snuffling for truffles, and lost interest in much anything else. The moment that really actually quite hurts to recall now, was when he had passed me an envelope because it was getting too soggy to toot on the dance floor, and I was fighting my way through the packed crowd to the toilet. It went like this...

Single queue files moving in both directions. I am in the left lane. Toilet in sight in the distance. Some smelly shirted body in front of me keeps stopping mid shuffle, and I bash into him in my eagerness to shuffle to the toilet fast.
I Look over his shoulder.
Ray of sunlight appears god-like shining down on this blonde haired absolute top of the range beauty heading my way in the other lane.
Eyes meet.
Heart starts going mental.
Eyes are not un-meeting.
We are going to pass, and we are both smiling, and it is going on.
Reach said girl, both queues pushing in opposite directions
We both know this is going to be brief and we have to get it right.
‘Hi how you doing’ I say as she reaches my position.
‘Hello you? ‘ she says. Just those words melted me. Oh my god I am in L.O.V.E!
‘You know anyone with anything I can get here?’ she says.
And this is where the badger started up for a second.

Badger: If you say yes then you are going to have to share
Me: you fucker, look at her, LOOK AT HER! She is heaven in female form
Badger: Ok, go talk to her, see what happens when I wear off. You wont be talking much then will you?
Me: you furry rodent cunt I hate you.
Badger: toilet, now, I want to hurt you.

And so it was as The Goddess moved along out of reach my final words were;
‘Sorry I don’t know anyone’
She even gave me a beseeching look of regret that said – I didn’t really want drugs I just wanted to talk to you, then get naked, then have your babies when you felt the time was right and look after you in old age while giving you blow jobs on demand until we leave to live in Heaven for all eternity.

I went to the toilet and went down to the pits of hell, alone. Well, escorted by a badger obviously.

Of course it all went wrong at this point. To make a long story short I was planning to leave the club at 2am latest and get home to sleep a bit before Stage 3 of the Marathon began. Instead I was still hanging about outside trying to find Lee to share a cab with at 5am. He eventually showed up and we made it home. 45 quid for a cab mind you. My wallet was now empty.

But there is one rule about Marathon Mayhem and it is this;

Spend every last penny without a care, do it for glory and the celebration of life while you can.

I slept maybe 1 hour and then was woken by a phone call from Nev at 11am to go to stage 3. My face was caked in dribbly coke come that was oozing out of my nose in my sleep. The badger was doing a dance in my brain with sharpened claws and I felt beyond shit in so many ways.
But I got up.
Made it half way to the train station.
Stopped in a pub, sank a bloody mary, and made it the rest of the way to meet Nev on the platform at midday.

Stage 3.

Xmas dinner with friends. There is nothing like it. 12 of us in a pub every xmas getting pissed and setting fire to things. Except this year some have had kids and the conversation down that end of the table was about babies and mortgages. It wasn’t exactly the hot bed of mayhem stage 3 was supposed to be. To make it worse I had chosen a seat near a newcomer who I didn’t know.
Me and Nevster started in on the drinking.
At least I had one compadre who would be a mess along with me by the end of it.
I decided to introduce myself to the newcomer, since we would be sharing dinner talk for the next hour or two,

‘Hi I am Mark, how you doing?’
‘Hi I am Ben, what do you do for a living?’
‘I work in IT , I get drunk and take copious amounts of drugs in my spare time, and you?’
‘I am a police officer’

There was, as you can imagine, something of a pregnant silence at this point.

In fairness he didn’t bat an eyelid and didn’t try to arrest me for the duration of dinner. In fact weirdly, he kept following me and Nev out to the garden to smoke and seemed intent on being our best mate. We didn’t want to put him off the idea as it seemed not a bad thing to have a friend in the law dept, especially since he was working cell duty over Xmas in a London station that could well see me and the Nevster booked in for a short stay sometime over the coming week. Even so when he left, it was with something of a relief and I noticed a snicker or two coming from the other end of the table,

‘You fucking knew he was a cop didn’t you!’ I said.

Sure enough they had not missed the opportunity to put Satan’s puppy in with a Guardian of the Establishment to watch the ensuing communication difficulties. Lucky for me I had cottoned on so early else I might have dug a far deeper hole.

Stage 4

Dinner consumed, cops evaded, port and cigars quaffed, it was time to rouse the flagging drunken bodies, all wearing Xmas hats, to action. Yes folks it called for Bowling and Karaoke! Of course it did. Stands to reason surely.

So off we went to the basement of Tavistock Hotel in the centre of London where strangely there exists 6 bowling lanes, a bar stocked with fine ales, and karaoke booths. It is a wonderfully crazy world really.

I have only vague recollections of events but there were such things as people making like bowling balls and 12 insane over aged revellers singing Tiffany songs and falling off tables. I stole away from the proceedings for the last train and made it home, but not before I gave them a rousing rendition of INXS - Never Tear us Apart.
I think.

Stage 5 will be finalised tonight when I try to seduce/rape/pewk on as many stuck up office girls as I can at the works xmas party.

I feel ready to do business.

Then Operation Mayhem Marathon will be at a close, and I suspect may go down in history as something of a success.

***

He makes it in , still holding the baton, with a limp, a bedraggled refrain and ...a flashing santa hat...but my god if he isnt smiling. How does he do it we ask ourselves? The crowd is on it’s feet now. Applause can be heard the length of the stadium as he falls face down over the finish line.

I rolled into the Planit Marquee in Embankment at about 4pm. Suited and booted and feeling pretty fucking dapper it has to be said. It seemed I was the only person out of 900 to remember it was actually xmas and had bought a Santa hat to celebrate the fact. A flashing fluffy one too. Splendidly out of place somehow amidst the throng of office retards, but frankly my dear...I didnt give a damn. It also seemed to work something like a peacocks tail in attracting female attention, which was fine by me.

The company had decided to hold a staff meeting for the first hour and half which came as an unpleasant surprise most especially when self and Boy Dave discovered we were without table, and thus were made to sit at the front.
Scary I tell thee.
900 people behind you, bright lights and giant powerpoint presentations but a foot in front, and Neo-Hitler type personalities ranting and spitting corporate vitriol from the make shift stage, doth not a good company party make.

I managed to figure out a way to sleep though; if I leant into my chair at a side angle, with my hand leaning on the back and covering half of my face. Then the people to either side, and the orator, could only see one eye at a time. This way I assumed they would think I had but one eye closed. Cunning, I thought, until afterwards when someone pointed out my head kept lolling off the chair. Hmmm.

I wont bore you with the details of the hour and a half speeches because I slept through most of it, but the things I caught were usual corporate spin. Giant graphs showing a decrease from Jan to December. Conveniently meaning we couldnt get much of a Xmas bonus again this year. The particularly odd one was when the God CEO type person called Brian decided to show us a slide of things he hated.
Why?
Who the fuck did he think was interested?
900 other people in that room hated just one thing, and that was him.
Bizarre.

Anyway presentation over, out of chair, first to the bar, Santa hat on.
Lights on Santa hat set to stun.
Go!

It was all pretty run of the mill to be honest. I wish I could write something about molesting 3 girls from accounts while snorting coke and running through parks naked, then waking up on a bench with a cop saying ‘hello hello hello’, but it really was all quite sedate. Yea I drank like a fish, and copped a feel, and a few promises of dirty office sex, but other than that, boring to be honest.

Home to bed.
Passed out.
Job done.

Operation Xmas Marathon Mayhem is officially at close.

On being an aging bum

Where has it all gone, my je n’ai sais quoi?

The mind rages down some lyrical alley like a drunken bum spoiling for a fight, he's got nothing left except the anger that brought him to where he is. Nowhere. A dead end street in a town full of nobodies, and what he found when he got there was nothing. No wonder he is pissed.

Lost too. He forgot a long time ago where he was headed or why.
His good looks slapped off his face by the gnarled hands of time, and the wet acid-like piss of struggle has stripped the colour out of his hair.

He is just a husk. He may as well be dead. Most wish he was. Overweight, snarling, incomprehensible, ugly. He scares them, they fear him, fear the ugliness in their own soul that reflects back at them off his tattered, stinking cloth. His personality not much better.

'Look at that loser!' they say. Perfect people, with perfect lives, living perfectly well. Probably in a town called Perfect. It would be typical wouldn’t it.

'Fuck off you caaants!' He drawls back and stumbles into a pile of rubbish, going down, his face into discarded cabbage, rice and rats urine, though from its taste he suspects it is cat.

He pushes himself up from the wall. Dark red dust crumbling from the gaps between the bricks as his dirty nails try to get a grip and raise his rotund, grotesque carcass back upright. It's a struggle but he makes it. He grins to himself, like finally he achieved something in this shit hole of a town.

He pushes on into the night, the street silent now except for the echo of his slow shuffle, a slight limp in his right leg; an old wound that never healed.

Who the hell was that woman?

‘Good morning’ she mumbles as she walks out of her bedroom door.
I don’t say anything, I am preparing to frog-march a strong coffee back from the kitchen, at 8am such things take all my concentration.
‘Good MORNING!’ she says again, this time a lot louder, with an annoyed squeeze of the voice box on the last word. I realise my rudeness and apologise,
‘Sorry, yes, good morning’ I say.

It is only then I look up from my work for a moment and realise I am not 100 percent sure who this person is. I just stare into the semi-darkness as she disappears up the stairs. I think I just saw a black woman in a white towel with a turban, but I am not sure. I feel bad. I obviously upset her with my allegiance to coffee and lack of response to her. But I am given to silences and long, rude stares; if I knew her she would know this. I see the cat doing much the same to me through the window.
‘Good MORNING!’ I say to the cat. It says nothing. At least we understand each other. I return to my coffee.

Days can start smoothly or they can start much like they would for a tuna fish being thrown to a tank of hungry sharks. I wonder what the weekend holds in store. I sit bythe window of my bedroom, as I do most mornings that I manage to wake early, and begin to tippy-tap into the computer. I love it, but sometimes I feel the edge just isn’t with me. Trying to reign in, as I am, the runaway horses of the mind. I wonder if I should write about this, or write about that. Sometimes I think freedom of thought is not the blessing we think it is, sometimes freedom is bloody hard work. For the moment I feel there is nothing to write about; it is as if I haven’t lived at all. This scares me somewhat.

‘You’re losing it son’ I say to myself
‘No I am not, it’s you, you just can’t stay focused’ I reply
‘Hell, you may have something there, but come on, lets not fight, together we can do this, what shall we muse on today?’

(There is a pregnant pause)

Pauses call for cigarettes.

I light one and take a step closer to death on the chessboard.
This isn’t something to fear, I tell myself, this is something to embrace.
Even death must have its silver lining.
But let’s not talk of the Black Angel this morning because we have life all about us, flowing, in motion, like a river roaring through our senses.

I am looking for my moment, waiting for the gap in the waves, the precise instant that feels right. And then I will make my glorious dive. Like the tuna right into that shark tank; unafraid, joyous, determined, and of course slightly stupid.
‘You did it again’, says me
‘Did what?’ I ask, feigning innocence but knowing what is coming.
Like a well-rehearsed play, a crow at that moment caws three times outside the window someplace.
‘You started in on the morbid shit’ me responds.

(Pregnant pause)

Pauses call for....

‘...We aren’t quite rolling with it this morning, are we.’ me interjects, as I spin and turn about myself like a neurotic dog chasing it’s tail, wondering where I put the fags.
He’s right, the bastard.

I pause.

The runaway horses neigh and whinny like the insane beasts they are.
‘Whoooa!’ I say ‘Whooa there!’
Crows are going crazy now outside.

Jesus, something is going down I am sure of it. What kind of hell day is looming out there? I feel like that freaked-out rabbit in Watership Down. This will not do, I try to steady the ship. Lash down the rigging, pull in the main sails, weigh the anchor.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, STOP!

But it is too late, my carriage has arrived.
The start of another day is upon me.
Who the hell was that woman?

I walked through Soho

I walked through Soho. The Christmas lights gave me a warm feeling in my heart, reminded me of home once upon a time. I didn’t like the crowds, consumers gone crazy feeding some hunger they didn’t even know they had.

This is insanity, I thought, these are the symptoms of empty souls.

But I had a hunger of my own. Women looked good here; on the trains, on the buses, walking around. Pretty, sexy, beautiful people. Happy people, people with homes, and families, and meaning in their lives. I felt like a phantom, a ghost trapped in a world of the real. Like any minute I might blink and it would all be gone. I was lacking completeness too, but I was on the hunt for something else, something to feed my injured spirit. I needed the kind of healing only a woman could give me.

I stole through the alleys into the sex zone. It was dark now. I felt like a tomcat. A girl in cowboy boots and Italian accent called to me from the entrance to a strip bar across the street. I went over.

‘You want to come in see girls naked?’ she asked me. I saw a cruel sheen in her eyes. I saw a lie.
‘How much?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
‘5 pounds’ she said.
‘Yea right! then another 100 to get out again.’ I said. I wanted her to know I had caught her ruse, I wanted her to feel shame.
She scoffed and turned away from me. Maybe she thought I was a Jesus freak or something. I knew these places, knew how they worked. I had nearly worked here myself once; T. She used to play tricks round Soho and Brixton, offered me work fucking her on a table in front of business men for four hours a day. I would get £100, but I would have to keep it going for an hour. I turned her down, though I was desperate and unemployed at the time. I didn’t think I had the stamina, and besides, I am no hedonist, a little decadent maybe, but I liked my sex private. I find it too personal to share. Cowgirl started hissing like a snake, so I moved on.

Up past The Raymond Review Bar and out into Berwick Street. Cons, cons, cons, everywhere. They all want your money, and just tease you in return. What better way to create a nation of rapists? I saw the red lights up in the rooms and walked to one at the far end then went in. I didn’t care who saw me. The street market stalls were just packing up, I heard a trader shout;
‘Go on my son!’
I assumed it was directed at me, but I ignored it and jumped up the stairs two at a time. The first door I came to I knocked on. It said ‘Busty Model’. A haggard Persian with no breasts and jet-black hair answered.
‘Sorry, I was looking for a blonde,’ I lied.
She slammed the door with a bang.

I went to the top floor, this time a brunette answered. I used the same line, she looked worn out and moody. I got the same treatment.
I left out into the street, and went to the next.
Again they seemed worn out, lifeless, hardened. I couldn’t blame them, and wondered what it was doing to me. I tried the one at the top and a Malaysian girl answered. She was good looking but she wasn’t my type. I said I was looking for a blonde, but really I guess I was just looking for Heaven in Hell. The ‘cleaner’ came out from behind her;
‘It says fucking Malaysian down the stairs cant you bloody read!’ she shouted at me. There was something wrong with her. I guess she didn’t like her job. I pointed to the sign on the door. It read: Beautiful Model Nadine.
‘Doesn’t say anything about Malaysians.’ I said, but wondered why I was arguing.
‘The sign down stairs you fucking idiot!’ She was moving towards me. I turned and bolted.

It took two more doors then I found it. It was in Lucy. Some sparkle in the eyes, some look of quiet strength and acceptance. It never fails to fascinate me how much we read about people in an instant. Most of it we try to dismiss, surely people aren’t telepathic, and yet...and yet. You know things about them. You can almost taste it, as everything they are presents itself to you all at once.

I felt my heart leap, this was the doorway in. I stepped into sin, into crime, into low life ways and self-disgust, secrets and unholy ground, but a church of some kind. I was one of the lost sheep; I couldn’t find salvation in God, nor shopping, nor home, nor love. I was at the bottom, just a gutter-rat looking for a break from the pain of a trashcan existence. I’d go anywhere, do anything to find it. Death was stalking me, and knowing that made the rules altogether different. This wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t something you could tell your mother, or wife, about either. Yet here it existed, supply meeting demand. Why? Just because. To me, this was holy ground to be revered and respected. This was the sickness of a dark side of man brought to life, and yet to me it was also the shrine of the Goddess. I came here to pray, to release my hurts before a female altar. I had nowhere else I could go to do it.

I stepped into her room, she had long brown hair with flicks of gold that shone in the light. She had lazy eyes and a calm gait. She could have been a model with those legs and ass, but maybe became another victim of the Russian sex slave trade instead, I didn’t know, and didn’t ask. In my selfish hunt for healing, the truth was, I didn’t much care. I gave Lucy £20, then undressed, and let some sinful magic work upon my soul in an alchemy that was free of love, or emotion, or any ingredient other than deep, dark, potent and pure pleasure mixed with the pain of being alive, and a deep, deep wish for some kind of freedom from all of this.

The Cat

I rush out in the morning, grab some fast food, hover round in a shop looking for razors when I see a gorgeous woman, I want to talk to her, meet her, but I am unshaven, my breath smells, I look a mess. She would think I was a rapist. Maybe I am and I don’t know it. I return home. An eternal ache is in me, for music, for the stage, for fame and glory. When will I understand how to satisfy this? It hurts, it makes me rush about wishing my life away in dreams. I turn on the computer and try to find the words to get this out of me. They don’t come. I roll a cigarette, I smoke it, I make a coffee, I stare blankly out the window into the mist. It is just 10.30am. I have been awake an hour. I have another hour left to get ready, wash, shave, pack and leave for the train. I feel flustered, but this is normal, I live like this. I go to the toilet and sit down to take a crap.

I look up and see the cat laid out on the chair in the bathroom. It has been in the same position for at least 12 hours as I recall seeing it just before I went to bed last night.
It lazily lifts it’s head up to look at me then rests it back down again still staring. It blinks, a slow hypnotic and calming blink. The look in its eyes, all-knowing. I watch the cat, the cat watches me. We both know we are looking at a completely different species and we are both wondering our own relevant thoughts about it. The cat and I do this a lot when we meet.

‘How do you sit there for 12 hours looking so fucking satisfied?’ I ask it.
The cat says nothing.
It just blinks, then stretches, and sits up staring at me, into me.
‘What?’ I say.
The cat says nothing.
But I have the feeling it knows all about me.

Considering we are supposed to be the more intelligent species I find myself strangely in awe of this creature. It does absolutely fuck all most of the day and yet is entirely satisfied with itself. Occasionally it goes outside and beats up the neighbours cat and then comes in, takes up position on the sofa in the kitchen knowing each person will give it a small portion of leftover dinner. Then it mooches about the house generally hanging out on the stairs or sometimes in the bathroom where it is warmer. Most of the time it sleeps contentedly, then, first thing in the morning, it is by the door ready to be let out and the cycle begins again. Simple. Life is sweet for our cat. It never speaks, it never demands we pay it attention, and it never cries out of loneliness or a sense of failure. Our cat is entirely fucking satisfied.

I stand up and pull my trousers back up. It remains in position staring at me. I stop and stare at it. Neither of us blink. We just stare, and stare, and stare. Eye to eye. Species to species. I could last maybe ten minutes; the cat could do this for the rest of its life.

‘You win’ I say and leave the bathroom.

The cat says nothing.

Bukowski Tour

I was in Los Angeles for two and a half months travelling about by bicycle. I was doing the tourist thing for some of that, then picked up a Bukowski book to pass the last week of my stay, and was inspired to figure a tour. www.Esotouric.com offer one, but it wasnt due to run until after I had left. Then I found http://bukowski.net with a whole wealth of information pertaining to Charles Bukowski, and an excellent timeline page with addresses. So I tapped them into my GPS, and took off for two days with a camera to follow the ghost of the old man.

I went in order of wherever was nearest, though I have put them into the google map as close to the correct order of time as possible.

What struck me was the quality of the areas he stayed in. Maybe things have changed a lot since the time he was there. Some buildings no doubt being replaced. But the only time I really felt I was anywhere near skid row was in Union Drive and a little around Westlake and Kingsley. Ocean View was clearly run down as a building with windows hanging off and stuff dumped outside as you can see in the photos, but Union Drive had it; bums drunk in the street, people hanging around looking shifty, and the entire area was run down. The photos dont really show it, but the place wasnt somewhere to hang about on a bicycle with an ipod strapped to my arm, and a gps on display.

Branden St was positively affluent. Though the exact place he lived is hard to figure out I think I got it right. Edgewater too was upmarket.

I was really glad to get a shot of De Longpre in, as it is condemned to be replaced and that place more than any other I imagined he did some of his best work. It had a vibe to it. I managed to forget to take a shot of the other place he stayed on De Longpre.

Longwood was pretty ok too, where he was brought up. In his own words in the book 'Hollywood', he was always heading North or West whenever he moved. That book confused me a bit as he states he moved from Carlton Way, which he describes as mexican and pretty run down, to another place, but according to the timeline on the bukowski.net site he moved to San Pedro from there. Maybe someone can clear that up.

The only other place I had a little confusion with was Westmoreland Ave, it seemed the number he lived at was now offices and car park. The condos on the opposite side of the street were all pretty nice, large and in place still. Number 305 you can see in the shot but the rest of the way up that side of the Avenue there are no homes. So what was there? It would be in keeping that it was all condos, like the opposite side of the avenue, but I guess there must have been a boarding house of some kind.

Then the last shot on the google maps is of two drunks asleep in Union Drive. When I arrived there they were cuddled up together. It was beautiful if a little fucked up. By the time I could stop and get the camera out without having to watch for people who might want to lift my kit, they had split up. I only found the world I expected to find in this place. It was Buke all over. Everywhere else, seemed too clean maybe. I dont know. I had kind of been prepared to fight my way through a war zone when I left that first morning. I cant say I am sorry it wasnt that way.

Anyway, hope the shots are enjoyed by those interested. I guess it was some kind of pilgrimage for me, I felt his ghost there a few times those two days. I read someplace that the old boy was buried by Buddhist Monks. Maybe he's doing good in the next life. Hope so.

Enjoy the tour those who come by this way...


Click here for the Bukowski googlemap tour

The Limey

In motion

I sit again in front of a screen, a computer whirs to my left. The sun is shining outside. I am indoors, it is morning, June 25th. Like morning prayers I step to the desk and sit to write. This is my altar, my shrine. This is where I call upon my gods and guides, this is where I focus on the veil that separates my mind from the truth out there. This is my meditation.

This will be the last time I sit at this desk, in this house, in this place in the world I have come to know, become familiar with these last few weeks. I am in motion again. I am preparing. This is the first little death that I must let go to, accept. There is a sadness, but it doesnt overwhelm. There is a love, but it is deep, uncertain, changing. There are a million memories of this time I already feel exerting their pull upon me from the inside. I have to let them go. I have to remain free. Still, it aches to do this. Yes, it hurts, life always hurts, and I have always been in motion.

I want to kiss all the wounds in me, I let the feeling of her conjure in my mind. She is gone to work, I am alone, but her smell is here, her perfume, her scent, like a ghost. She heals me, as only a woman can. She completes me, as only a woman can. I feel at peace here. Out there is the war, the battle for my survival.

We sat last night, a certain quiet sombreness hung in the air, the knowledge of our imminent separation for some long time, we both knew it could be forever. It made us quiet, lost in a longing for our lives. We watched a black and white film, maybe circa 1930's; 'Morocco', with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper. He was a foreign legionnaire bound to live in battle, he couldnt leave his destiny for her. Nor me, mine.
She had riches; a love, a husband who would have given her anything. She chose instead to join the women who followed the legion as they marched. To follow her love even through the emptiness of the desert.
The film ended there.
We went to bed.
The cats slept on our heads, sometimes batting claws across my ears or face in the night, waking me. I wasnt angry, this moment was too precious to feel that way.

I wanted to say goodbye, but no words would make sense of it. The short goodbyes are the best, I had learnt that much in life. I dont wish to drown in sorrow, there is not enough time. This was a transient dream, I had known it all along. Maybe that is what made it so alive, so special, so easy to acquiesce. If this was my home, I suspect it would be an altogether different mood on me today.

I wonder what I should do, as I sit here typing into the 'puter. Writing this note to the gods. Between the lines I ask for help, for guidance, I dont know what else to do. I never knew. I have learnt so much here the last few weeks, like I was picking up pieces, clues to the art of living as I went. Yesterday I read a book on 21 meditations leading to the Buddha, enlightenment, freedom from suffering. I felt I knew my path, felt it changing beneath my feet, I was choosing it. Finally, maybe for the first time in my life, I felt I was doing something right. Still, it all hurts somehow.

I wonder if I will be back here again:
To kiss her smooth back, and feel such warmth as I observe the freckles on her skin that tell me of Irish decent.
To feed the raccoon at night as he stalks and sways round the front door, used to his cheese crackers and washbowl. Something I found fascinating to watch as we smoked on the porch and wondered at our futures, our worlds, our existence.
The kitten that claws my feet, and hands, and face, and nose, that never lets up so full of bravery and delusions of cat grandeur. It will be so different if I see it again.
The morning smell of coffee as she wakes in her whitewash bedroom, the gentle hum of the freeway in the distance as I look up at the white wood panelling and feel a sense of peace so rare to find in my embattled life. Always so brief and fleeting, yet somehow I know it must be this way.
Strangely, I seem to like the sense of freedom such things bring.
The bike hanging upside down in the living room from hooks in the ceiling,
the mantelpiece with old sepia photos of her family, some alive, some dead.
The model figurine she uses for drawing.
The dresses hanging in plastic to protect them from the dust,
the porch with its chairs and view out onto the road through two avocado trees that seem to me like gates to the world out there.
The two birds that would play injured to distract the cats, while one of them bounced around the dust bowl front garden looking for food, so scarce, such a struggle to survive.
Black Shadow, the stray cat that hangs about her yard. Distant but always watching, I fancied it to be a messenger for the spirits the way it hung there, it's green eyes wise, silent, observing.
The writing at this desk as I sipped Perrier water, and smiled to see reports of rain falling at Glastonbury festival in England, feeling satisfied to be here in the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, for a brief while.
My life, this life, this moment, captured somewhere within me. This love, this preciousness, this sadness that knows one day I will be gone, the wisdom that tells me things must be, that cycles will turn and unfold whatever we do, all things will rise to fall and disappear; all loves, all lives, all precious memories.
All things eventually decay.
This is the beauty of life, and why we have no choice but to seek the spiritual through every moment, and why after years of hell, I begin to understand that this is what I must do. I have no choice, we none of us do.

For me, I appease it by sitting again in front of a screen, somewhere, anywhere in the world it does not matter. This is my altar, my shrine, my story. This is where a man caught up in the labyrinth of the modern day machine finds re-connection to his forgotten gods, to his guides, to his real destiny. To begin to play his part in eternity, and the truth.

And I write, and I wonder, and I lay a trail as I go, wishing only the best and most compassionate love for all living, because I understand the meaning of suffering, I always have, and I never wish to forget. And because of that, I imagine one day we will all be free of this prison, but I know, amidst it's suffering walls there are such beautiful moments, beautiful loves, beautiful truths to be witnessed, that sometimes it is almost too much to let go of them all, but when we do, what we are left with is a smile in the deep, and it rises up through our hearts, and bursts across our faces. And then we know we were free all along, and there really is nothing to fear because there is nothing to lose, not really, just so long as we dont cling on.

And it is a glowing love I feel as I walk my bicycle to the door and turn to stroke the cats, then look about the room I may be seeing for the last time, smell the perfume that hangs in the air, of the girl from Pasadena who I may never get to meet again. Yes, this is the moment of an exquisite pain, the moment of fear, of loneliness deeper than words can reach. This is the suffering and the pain of all my losses in life; the fear, the imminent death that makes us cling on desperate and afraid.
I am afraid.
I am terrified, and lonely to the ultimate degree right here and now, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed, and nothing will change.
Except, the love in me that knows I am part of eternity, has begun to grow and understand what lies before and beyond this place, this moment, this life. There is a freedom in that, and I smile and a single thought comes to me; Maybe I will make it back here, yea, just maybe I will.

And it occurs to me that I am no longer afraid, and I am not sure quite why, but then I figure maybe the place I belong has always existed, it is just waiting for me to find it.

I begin to cycle down the dusty drive and the midday sun out towards the road, and a strange thought occurs to me; If just one person could make it, maybe we could all be saved.
I am not even sure what that means, then the road comes to meet me and I am thrown again into the chaos and wonder of being alive.


cue credits and cheap overused cliche -

"If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see demons tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the demons are really angels, freeing you from the earth." - Meister Eckhart

Ambition

I sat at the desk, stared into the screen at a white form window into which I wanted to type.
Nothing came.
I sat there a good ten minutes, waiting for words to come.
but nothing.
I wanted to write the best story ever written.
After half an hour just anything would have been enough.
I felt dry, barren, wordless and yet,
there was such an intensity burning within that I thought I might explode if I didn't get something out.
So I wrote whatever came to mind.
Then re-read it, selected it all, and hit the delete key.
I guess it was just one of those days.

I crossed my legs up on the chair, swung it round a little, away from the ugly glare of the computer screen, and tried to become silent.
I felt restless.
I always felt restless.
I wondered about it some, and it seemed to me the world had done this to me.
Everything I had ever been taught was geared to leave me in this state until it became my daily state.
I had been born moist, soft, impressionable, fluid. I had been moulded into something inflexible and constantly agitated.
The world had turned me into a creature that sought ambition, that was coiled up tight in a spring that only unleashed itself in achieving something.
I was driven nuts trying to achieve stuff.
It was an addiction that never ceased.
From morning to night I had to be doing something, going somewhere, aiming for some conclusion, and if I wasn't?
I got a little neurotic, depressed, gloomy, tense.
I had to achieve.
The fuckers, I thought, they got me!

The door opened unexpectedly, and in a reflex action I minimised the window and tried to make out I had been reading the news reports instead.
'What you writing?' she said
'I wasn't.' I lied. I didn't know why, it was a reflex, a conditioned response, one of panic.
'Yes you were,' she said playfully, but knew I was on the defensive and didn't push it.
I had a momentary insight and came clean,
'I can't seem to write anything, I mean, I feel lost again, didn't know what I should be writing. It isn't coming out right. I am writing shit. I need some inspiration.'
'Why dont you try and get some of your stuff you have written published?' she said
'It doesn't seem right to go down that road' I replied, but secretly I would have loved nothing more. I thought I was a genius, I guess I was afraid of discovering that I wasn't. It seemed safer to live in the dream.
'Well why bother doing it then?' she said, 'If no one is going to ever get to read it, it seems like a waste of time.'
This was the way we all had learnt to think. The way she said it, I figured maybe she was right, after all, the rest of the world would have agreed with her. I felt more lost. I felt pathetic. The evening was not going well. The day had been a long drought, a silent wait, sitting about thinking any moment the words of a genius novel would hit me. But they hadn't come, they never came. Just brief bursts of lyrical delusion, nothing more stunning than a wank. A personal moment of glory witnessed, one hoped, alone and then spent and for what?
Maybe writing was a waste of time. What did it achieve?
Well there it was again.
Achievement, ambition, results, gains, profits, what was wrong with the world? What was wrong with me? fuck them, fuck them all. I felt like putting Pink Floyd's - The Wall on and dropping some acid.
She walked into the kitchen with some groceries.
I remembered then that I had promised to do the washing up.
'Jesus Mark!" I heard and huffed.
'I was about to do it, I wasn't expecting you back yet' I said.
I heard her clatter for a bit. I looked at the cats. The kitten was lying on its side it wanted to play but the older one, she looked more like she wanted to eat it. They weren't getting on yet. The kitten was new, the older cat was pissed. Kitty kept getting attention.
'Your cats are at it again, been fighting all day' I said
She walked back in, distracted by the importance of her babies.
That worked, I thought.
I wondered if she would drop me one day, like she had that old cat when a new one came along. I thought it quite cold of her. She could at least have waited until it popped its clogs, but she wanted something cute to love. Old cat, well, she had gotten too old to be cute any longer. She just ate the food brought for her and sat around looking plump, slow and useless.
I knew the feeling.
I turned back to the computer, I knew then what I would write about, and I began to type.


'Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.
When you sit, let it be.
When you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.
Resist nothing.' - Ajhan Chah

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On doing stupid and bad things

Men lust for the power the devil possesses.
but did you ever ask yourself what the devil wants?
The devil wants to be let back into the kingdom of heaven.
So it seems to me wouldnt it make sense to cut out the middle man and go for heaven instead?
Yes it would, I hear you say.

Except life aint like that. In fact by my calculations, and to some extent this was agreed at one of the meetings of the Anti-deluvian Order of the Rat, a part of life is all about experiencing what it is like to be the devil.
There is no short cut. That is the point.
You dont get to Heaven until you have been through Hell.

Ergo, never trust a churchgoer who hasnt committed every sin in the book because he must before the good lord will admit him. And for that he must have come to terms with the devil inside himself. You dont stamp it out, you dont deny it, no, you experience it, then you master it, and only then will it let you go.
Anyone who doesnt follow this path, is trouble waiting to happen
because there is one other clause in the rule of life and it is this;

if you dont deal with the devil, then the devil wins by default.

It is logic my friends.

Twisted and sick I agree, but I didnt make this universe, I just play by its rules, as we all must. But I have been to the crossroads and been given but one hour to sing for my soul. Despite this I do not believe in God, nor do I believe in the Devil. They are but allegories to the mind of man.
Though I do believe in prisons of hell, and I do believe there is the possibility of ultimate liberation; a heavenly freedom.

So my route through life has been into hell. I think any man worth his salt, any character worth their salt, has been forged in the prisons of hell on earth. The trick, and I dont pretend to have figured it out, is to find a way back out of them again. To get to heaven you must pass through hell, just most people cant find their way out of the labyrinth, the floors are sticky and none of the inmates seem to know the way. And it is a labyrinth of infinite proportions. In hell, a man becomes truly lost. Except hell is not really outside of him, but inside, therefore, a lost man, is lost inside himself.

I do talk some shit, actually. But there is a thread of sense in there somewhere.

*

I was with a friend and she knew a few of my darker stories and she had a few of her own, but she dealt with her secrets in a wholly different way to me. I couldnt understand her motives. I felt and still do, that she was maybe a little colder than I , a little more calculating, maybe even a little more dark. I felt I was just an adventurer who had gotten lost along the way. She was something else but I think she was a good person. Our conversation had been about a stupid thing I had done which had hurt a few people. Rather than smooth the whole thing over and try to forget it I had confessed to all in my attempt to find some kind of redemption. That was my way based loosely at the time on the theory I outlined above. Which was, to summarise;

we fuck up in life, it is what we do, we create hell for ourselves, but then the art is to find your way out and in doing so, one assumes one learns and doesnt do it again. Eventually maybe one becomes free.

'I dont understand why you told everyone' she said
'I didnt want to carry it around like a cross to bear' I told her
'But now a load more people think you are an asshole and you dont feel better' She surmised correctly.
'Hmmm' I said. My plan wasnt working out, she was right.
'What would you suggest?' I said
'Well you are likely to do it again if circumstance occurs that way, right?'
'It is my nature, I think' I replied.
'So do it, but dont get caught, and dont tell anyone' she said. I squirmed. Maybe I was evil.
'I feel like I opened Pandora's box and now I cant shut it.' I was whining. She gave me a look only a woman can, they were always so much better than guys when it came to self control. Some of them at least, the smart ones, the ones men feared.
'Oh, sort it out. Behave yourself, you dont have to fuck everything, and you dont have to fight everyone. People are basically nice, they just want to feel good. Help them with that instead. You'll make less enemies.' She said.
'I dont seem to be able to control it though. I get caught up in the flow and find myself going wrong.' I whined some more.
'That's a pathetic excuse. You are using excuses for your behaviour, you're basically lazy and selfish.' She said, again rather too accurately for my liking. Still it was good to talk to someone who didnt just hang their jaw when I told them of my antics.
'How can I get out of this mess? Give me something practical to work with, something that makes sense' I said
'To work that out, you have to work out what you really need, what is motivating you, causing you to do these things, then address that key thing. What do you need?' She asked.
'Thrills.' I stated, more to myself in trying to work out what the root problem was, 'I get bored, I get opportunities, I take them. I have good intentions at the time but somehow afterwards it ends messy. I am needy. I annoy myself with it.' I said, feeling a little dejected and stupid. It hurt to admit.
'I think you just need to grow up a bit, really people deserve to be treated better, I think you are basically lonely too, you have been hurt too much, you are vicious because of that.' She was good at this, I almost hated her. The thought crossed my mind that I wanted to fuck her. I found myself looking for sexuality in her eyes.
'Dont do that' she said, reading me. Christ, I thought, she's a fucking witch, knows what I am thinking!
'You are so obvious to women,' she said reading my look again. I was hornier than a five legged coyote now, I was convinced she could see into my soul, I had no idea she was so good at this. She had the potential of a fucking tarantula, I felt out of my depth. I felt like a fly in a web. I felt like easy food. My manhood was quivering in fear and anger at her dominance. I think the concept of hitting her even crossed my mind, I wouldnt have done it but it was my internal reflex, my ego, my terror at being usurped, found out, revealed. I didnt like people getting in.
'Jesus, you are scaring me' I said, 'and making me horny at the same time' I added trying to make a joke out of it. She didnt respond. I was some way down the intelligence ladder compared to her. She could run rings around me. She was out of my league, I didnt interest her in the slightest. I felt like nothing. The bitch!
But I appreciated her honesty, her wisdom, it was cold and direct, no one had ever been willing to cut me down to size, everyone always agreed with me or kept quiet. It dawned on me that she was saying what everyone else saw. I thought I had been camouflaged, it would seem I had not. I really was an asshole.
'Look,' she said. 'Women see you for what you are, you get to lay some of them because some of them like your charm, you are charming, but you are also a player, a flirt, you cant be trusted. We know that, even if we play along with you. Dont think that there arent 1000 men just like you but better at it that we can choose from. So, you get lucky with a few stupid ones who are needy, great. You may share a bed with someone, but you go sleep alone each night, and that cant possibly make you happy.'
I swear this woman knew everything. If she ruled the world men like me would be obsolete in week. I listened and quaked in fear.
'But love just makes me feel weak, I get bored of it, I need sex. That leads to affairs, which leads to shagging someones girlfriend, leads to a fight, leads to ...well, you know what happened.' I said. It scared me to think of it. I was in fear of my life at that point. I was being hunted and I didnt know how to switch it all off.
'You got yourself into the mess.' She said, but it wasnt helping.
'I know, I know. Oh fuck and bollocks!' I lent back. I was torn between my own burning lust and a deep regret of who I was. I really wished it hadnt happened. I really wanted to take it all back but it was too late. Someone was going to whack me and, well, I deserved it.
'I am fucked.' I said, and a feeling only a trapped rabbit really knows came over me.
'So learn from it.' She said. 'Maybe you needed it to get this serious to teach you a lesson.'
'I have to survive a lesson to learn from it. I dont want this to get any worse, I dont want to fight him but what can I do. I'll have to kill him to stop him. He's insane.' I said. I had no problem with killing him whatsoever. I'd happily screw his girlfriend right after too, and that was my problem; I could be so ruthless and cold when it called for it. The other problem was the law, the god damn legal system. I was still an asshole. A cornered and quivering asshole. I was scared.
'So take the beating, and then move on with your life.' She suggested.
'Are you kidding? what if he kills me or I end up a vegetable?'
'You fucked his girlfriend' she stated.
'I'll fuck him too' I said with pathetic false bravado.
'I doubt that,' she said, 'he's insane.'
'Oh Jesus!' I wanted to pewk. I was a coward and an asshole. How low could this go?

I thought of taking the beating, but opted to leave the country instead. I went to a monastery and tried to figure out where I was going wrong in life. It had been great right up until the moment I got caught out. It was at that point I realised that the person I had become was not the person I wanted to be. I had gone wrong somewhere, I was an ugly creation. It took a long time, but in the end I realised that the enemies I had made were my helpers in disguise. They still wanted me dead, sure, but it was the sense of death breathing down my neck that reminded me to keep to the path. To keep looking for the good, to keep trying to do the right thing. If I could out-pace them, out-run them, hell, maybe in the end I could make it. It took those devils to wake me up from my ignorance. They are still hunting me, they will bay for my blood until the day I die. That's the price you pay for knowledge I guess. I dont blame them, they helped me to move on. You cant ever go back, but then again, I dont think I would want to. The person I was is dead and it's better that way. The way to heaven is through hell, and hell is not a place you want to waste your time making friends.

'You cannot live sheltered forever without ever being exposed, and at the same time be a spiritual adventurer.
Be audacious. Be crazy in your own way, with that madness in the eyes of man that is wisdom in the eyes of God.
Take risks, search and search again, search everywhere, in every way,
do not let a single opportunity or chance that life offers pass you by,
and do not be petty and mean, trying to drive a hard bargain.' - Arnaud Desjardins

Licking honey from the razor's edge

We were drinking in a bar in Barcelona, I wasnt drunk but pretty close. I dont recall the month nor the year but the sun was shining, though I do remember we had jumpers on so it must have been somewhat chilly. I'd just paid for the entire holiday in two goes on the roulette in a casino down near the beach. I was a winner in those days, I could have kissed the devil and not gotten burned, or so it felt like anyhoo. I was knocking back a whisky or two and trying to pull myself back down by the feet. You had to go a little insane to lay down 2 grand on a table and wait for a small ivory ball to destroy your life, or open the pearly gates. That moment is something hard to describe, but the sound of it's tinkle click gets etched into you deeper than any therapy will ever reach. It's pure madness. It is the doorway to life or death. Still, I won, as I often did in those days. I think the S.A.S. have a saying for it, as does Del-boy Trotter.

'Fuuuuuck!' I breathed, and sat waiting for my poor little heart to stop doing drum and bass.
'I can't believe you.' She said, giving my arm a squeeze and a hug.
'I'm a winner baby, what can I say.'
I was in the saddle like a fucking prince. God's smile was on my face. Nothing could have toppled me. I was a returning crusader, I was a king, I was the saviour of the human race, I was a playboy maaaann, a fucking playboy you better believe. The world was mine. Still, I knew it could have gone either way, I was a realist too.

Adrenalin is a funny thing, it's the original drug, the first high man ever felt was while escaping a dinosaur, or maybe a marauding pack of Neanderthals, who knows. It was ancient to feel this way. I wondered how many of my ancestors had felt this kind of rush. I figured a few of the early ones, but the rest? They probably avoided it like the plague. I was caveman. We were back, baby!

I had more cash than I knew what to do with. I looked at her. It got me to wondering. We were in a strange city, we were on a high like never before. We were winners. We were getting drunk. What next? Hmmm. I thought of going back to the hotel and fucking her lovely little tits off, but tonight I wanted to max out that streak of luck. I wanted to play.

'Hey honey' I said. She was in my hand today I could feel it. I had wowed her out.
'Yea' she said.
'You know we talked that time about threesomes and stuff.' I said
'Yea?' she said wondering where I was going, but she was hot for me, today was a good day to push the boundaries, and I was the devil in Barcelona.
'Well, feel free to say no, but how do you fancy trying it. We are in a city we dont know and no one knows us. This could be the place to give that fantasy a go.' I said.
She was silent for a while. Then she got a bit coy, hugged into my arm again, and hid her face. When she looked back up I could see excitement in her eyes, just a little, there was a trace of fear there too.
Only natural, I thought.
'I dont know, how you going to find someone willing for a start?' she asked.
'Leave the details to me honey.' I said, and sucked on the cigar I had bought. I was onto port now, I dipped the end into the glass, let it drip there a moment, then toked that motherfucker back. Hmmm. The devil was in Barcelona and he was ready to ride.

If you dont say 'no' to the devil he takes it as a yes. Ladies, take note. So I took us out of the bar and stood blinking in the afternoon light. I was still sober, I guess the adrenalin hadnt finished with me yet. That cigar hung in my mouth and a smile sat behind it on my face. I felt pretty damn good, and if I played it right things were about to get better. I dont recall quite how I found out, but I guess we attract things to us when we are flying high. Either way I ended up with an address in a part of town not far from where we were, and we started heading that way. Through back alleys and past building sites, houses with people doing normal things, people living normal lives, watching TV, sleeping, working. Thinking about sex, sure, most of them were, but you could be sure hardly any of them were doing it. Then, after a little confusion as to exactly where the entrance was to this address, we climbed some concrete stairs, knocked on a door that seemed like completely the wrong place to be, but it opened and we were let in to a plain square room by a woman. I assumed it was the right place.

'Hola' I said.
'Anglais?' she said
'Exactamundo,' I replied.
She looked a little quizzically at the girl on my arm.
'She's with me, I am here for some fucky-fucky.' I said, but I guess that much was obvious.
She didnt seem put out, I had half expected her to throw us out, which was why I was acting kind of stupid.
She said something that I think meant that it was for men only.
'Can I see the girls?' I said
I knew we were hot stuff today, and I figured if the girls saw us maybe they might sway the bargain in my favour. I also didnt want to waste any more time in the place than I had too if they had rotten meat for sale.

She ushered us into the next room and along one wall there was a bench. They gave me a beer. As I drank it I started to feel the outskirts of drunk and eased back. Beer was not the way forward today. A few girls came in. Nothing special but ok. Then a dark haired woman of about 25 came in with a true Spanish look about her and a sparkle in the eye that I liked. She did a double take when she saw the girl with me. Then smiled at me, she knew something was up. Yea, I liked her. She sat with me and started to chat, her English was pretty good. I dont recall her name.

'We want a girl for both of us,' I said.
'We dont really do that,' she said.
I found that odd. I had come across the same thing in Amsterdam, women would do anything with a man but nothing with a woman. I guess it was harder to make it safe. Amsterdam was professional. Spain was a bit wilder, but it seemed clean enough to me, I am not sure why I thought that.
'Well, I am ok with it, but I need to check with the lady.' She said, motioning towards the woman who had let us in. She went over and talked for a while discussing the business. The lady seemed not to be bothered, maybe they were discussing prices, or the law, or something. As they spoke another girl came in, and then another. The place was rife with prostitutes, if a smile could break your face from getting too large mine would have have shattered. I was in the snake enclosure. Unbe-fuckin-lievable!
She came back and sat down next to me. She was smiling, and I thought I detected some hot excitement smouldering in those eyes. I wondered what kind of monsters she had been fucking all day.
'She says it is ok, but will cost extra for both' she said.
'How much?' I asked
She named a price, but I would have paid anything then.
'So,' I said. 'How about we double that, and she comes too.' I said pointing to the girl sat over the way looking at me. She was well built, good looking, and to my mind probably liked a good fight. Girls like that made me hot. She was also blond. I now had a raven, a blond, and a brunette. I felt the colour scheme was correct for some sex magick. I lit a smoke as I waited for the raven haired girl to check out how blondy felt about it.
She came back,
'She said she will do it.'
I looked over at her, she was making eye contact with my girl. I looked at them both, they were checking each other out like a pair of cats. I liked this.
I considered asking for a red head too, but thought it might all get a bit confusing if there were too many felines in the scrum.
'She has to attend to someone first, so it will be about 45 minutes'
'45 minutes is fine' I said. And she got up and spoke to the main lady again. They started working out a final price.

Now, all this time I had been distracted by the whole shenanigans and newness of this crazy behaviour I was getting involved in, I hadnt paid much attention to the girl with me. I looked at her, and smiled. She had such a light in her eyes, I fancied a lotus flower inside her was opening up. For a brief moment a guilt crossed my heart, no, it wasnt guilt so much as it mattered to me that this only happened if she wanted it to. The last thing I needed was her to look back on this day thinking I forced the whole situation, even if I did.
'You ok?' I said
'I am scared,' she admitted.
'Look honey, we have 45 minutes, if you dont want to do this just tell me and we are walking out of here and not looking back. I dont need this, I dont even really know why I am doing this, I guess it is just the chance to open a door and step through, it seems to have come together almost by itself. Take it only as far as you want go. This is about you, not about me. Think about that.' I smiled again at her to tell her that I meant it, I did. If she had showed any signs of discomfort I would have left. She showed none. She was as excited as me.
What a cool chick, I thought.
And I concluded then, that probably every woman in the world wanted to know what it was like to push the boundaries, the trouble was they just never found somewhere safe to do it, or someone safe to do it with. By luck, or my nature, or maybe my insanity, I had just made it so.
Jesus, maybe I was the devil.
How cool, I thought, and my red pointed tail flicked a little under my chair.
There was another problem I was aware of; I was feeling so fucking horny that I was on the point of going off in my trousers if one of those women so much as breathed on me. I thought about this for a moment then a solution presented itself.

'Honey,' I said.
'Yea.'
'I need to shoot one off before we go in for the big fight,' I said.
'What?' She looked at me quizzically. Maybe I hadnt made myself clear.
'I need to come once, else I am going to come too quick when we go in.' I laid it out in the Queen's English, if she had only known I was using it this way I would probably have been shot for treason.
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
I dont remember how it came about, but it was decided I would take another girl into a room, and get myself in shape for the big match. She was fine with this. I guess it was the setting, kind of like seeing so much candy in a shop that one wouldn't imagine a small sweet is going to do much harm.

I picked a tall thing, she looked great, but when we got in the room I found her tired and disinterested. Funny what cash does. I was glad she wasnt the main dish of the day. I didnt feel cruel, I didnt feel cold. I had visited many whores in my time, I wasnt ashamed of this fact. I felt I understood it, there were occasions I might have said that to see a prostitute was wrong, but I also felt there were right ones too. This was one of them. The world needed to evolve and open it's eyes to what was going on within it's dark and repressed soul, and that wasn't my problem. I understood this place, and it wasnt so bad, but this is something one could argue for eternity, I was in there and I was doing it. It didnt take me long and I was back out. My girl smiled at me as I walked back into the room, I was glad of that. I had wondered if she might have flipped while I was gone and realised what was going on. It was only really then that I knew she was ok to go ahead, up until then I wasnt sure if she was just doing it all for me.

Heaven was but moments away. Every mans dream, so they say, I guess to some extent it is. 3 women all willing to get naked and do whatever you request of them. There is only one thing to do in such a situation; Jeeves, release the hounds, we're going to Hell.

Pretty soon the girls were ready, and we were lead to a room near the front entrance, the door was opened and we entered in to a moment that most people only get to imagine in their rudest fantasies. The room had a jacuzzi that was full and bubbling, there were beds, and mirrors on all the walls. It was made to measure, clean, clinical, white, bright, every surface plastic so it could be washed down easily. This was the penthouse suite of spunk. The raven checked the water. I began to strip. My girl stood there looking at me, she was timid, excited, afraid, rushing on adrenalin. The blond knew what to do; she moved to her and gently began to kiss her open mouth. I stood there with my pants half down, frozen watching. Knowing this was the moment a woman experienced feminine pleasure for the first time in her life, this was innocence being lost, the virgin being lead into knowledge, sacrifice upon the altar, this was holy, divine, magical, letting go of the soul and falling into pleasures of the flesh. I felt a shiver of thrill run through me, god, I loved this, I lived for moments like it. Inexplicable.

I removed the rest of my clothes and went in for the raven. She held me off a moment and made me step over into the jacuzzi, there was room enough for 4. The blond brought my girlfriend over, and we all sat in there smiling at each other. There wasnt nervousness, there was something else present. It was a question of sorts, lingering there, it seemed funny. I realised then, that this wasnt really any kind of fantasy, this was real. This was what fantasy led you towards only to discover it was kind of awkward, bodies were awkward, sex was awkward, it was all too real. You had to move and manoeuvre, and you might slip a bit, or maybe crack a knee against a bone, or poke a finger a little too hard into a place it wasnt used to being. There was just so much realness to it that you wanted to be high, so high that your spirits might find escape from the fleshy awkward bodies that held them captive. That was the dream, the true fantasy, and I the knew it actually didnt exist in this place at all. Even so, it was pretty fucking top notch, and I was excited as hell. I think the raven was too, the blond on the other hand was clearly more interested in my girl than me, and to some extent I was glad. I wanted her to have the experience of a female. She seemed to be enjoying it, so I stopped thinking about the whole setting and got down to play.

We rolled about the jacuzzi splishing, splashing, snogging and fingering, and at some point rolled out of it. I bent the raven over the edge of the plastic sex tub. I worked slowly. Fighting to hold back the moment, le petit mort. I used every trick in the book and it was hard, most especially when you are going doggy on a hot black-haired prostitute, while your girl is sat an arm stretch in front of you being brought to heightened pleasure by an equally fit and feisty blond. It is something to savour. Like a good turtle egg desert maybe, or being fired into space.

In the end I came like a gunner; I squinted and writhed and gurned and yelped and howled and pushed it in as deep as it would go, and screamed Hallelujah! Jeeves had released the hounds, and we were in hell, fucking. I flopped down on the bed that was behind me and lay there looking at the girls go at it. The raven had moved to me, but I had motioned her to join the others. I wanted to watch.
I felt satisfied I guess, I had made some kind of grade, but like I said, great as it was, it was not the fantasy you imagine it to be at all. It was all too real. There was no enlightenment, no love, no heavenly experience, no paradise, no spiritual release, no sex magick entwining spirits in a holy divinity. There was something amazing about it, something special, but I knew that the thing we really thought we sought in this menage a quartre, was not to be found here at all. Maybe it wasnt even in sex. I wondered this, as I watched those harpies slay my girl on the jacuzzi sex altar. They did a good job. When it was over the girls looked like they were ready to leave, but I wanted my money's worth and insisted on taking the blond. She didnt seem too happy about it, I dont think she much liked men, and I couldnt blame her one bit. Selfish sex driven idiots the lot of us. Even so, she lay down dutifully, and I spent the next 5 minutes working on her. I came, I am pretty sure she didnt. And then it was all over.


I've had my moments in life, and that was one of them. It was perfect, it fell into place and we rolled with it. The mistake I made was thinking it could be repeated. Such things never can and shouldnt be. They are singular moments that happen through a mix of personal preparedness and opportunity. You find yourself somewhere unexpected, you are on a roll, you go with it. The thing you have to do, and the thing that is hardest to do, is then let it go again. We intuit this, and that is why most people avoid such situations, fear them and maybe they are right to. Those who enter into the gates often dont come back. I gave up roulette when I finally got burned, I gave up looking for sexual liaisons of that sort too for much the same reason. I wasnt a wise man, I just wanted my innocence back, being the devil isnt any great thing, but I guess those who wish it, have to find that out in their own way.


'To taste the full spread of the joys of samsara, such as wealth and other pleasures, is like tasting poisoned food, licking honey from a razors edge; in short it is the jewel on the head of a rattlesnake; one touch and you are annihilated.' - Shabkar