The Boy Who Could But Didn't

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The Dysthymia Variations
2007-11-01 19:42:00
horror creeps curling from somewhere dark beneath unwashed carpet soon to be another’s mat mudding over once rich purples trod by the prince of anhedonia who would never be king this is the time but not a hand nor a finger moves only black keys and bomb blasts pepper the night where jasmine once hailed the coming of saints preambling a fanfare never heard, never finished the sand slips again untouchable behind cold glass this is the time but no one hears it called

10,000 days old today
2007-10-31 21:46:00
The air beyond the glass reeks of Samhain. The charge of gunpowder peppers the air as the season’s fireworks creep from hibernation. I imagine them crawling out of the rich chocolate mud from beneath a sea, tealike, of rotting leaves and crunching twigs, their snouts sniffing at the unburnt air before they shriek like banshees towards the stars, scorching the earth with sparks and smoke as they fly. I sit, hear, and smell the air, listen to the distant thud of reds, whites and blues creeping in from the cold between the gaps in the window. I sit here and my head is spinning in a mad, oxygen-high dance. And I’m going nowhere fast, the lyrics say, but it’s okay. It’s okay now. This is Samhain, Halloween, the eve of ghosts and spirits. This is the night of the dead, the end. This is the thirteenth card, poised inevitable between the magician and his trinity of cups, almost spilling their mulled wine in their eagerness for celebration. Nothing is eternal. Full mo...
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Normal
2007-10-20 13:58:00
This is really quite impressive as a piece of forward thinking. Unfortunately for me, it’s from an author I am particularly jealous of/frustrated with, but she’s clearly the only person in literature with the gravitas to pull it off. And indeed the balls. Dumbledore doesn’t like girls. A generation of children will now be growing up seeing just a few more things as normal, which means the usual psycho-loonies in the far right Christian Faculty Against Witchcraft and Buggeration will be denied many future acolytes to keep their vile pestilent philosophy of hate going. Must… resist…. urge to praise…
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Normal
2007-10-20 12:58:00
This is really quite impressive as a piece of forward thinking. Unfortunately for me, it's from an author I am particularly jealous of/frustrated with, but she's clearly the only person in literature with the gravitas to pull it off. And indeed the balls. Dumbledore doesn't like girls. A generation of children will now be growing up seeing just a few more things as normal, which means the usual psycho-loonies in the far right Christian Faculty Against Witchcraft and Buggeration will be denied many future acolytes to keep their vile pestilent philosophy of hate going. Must... resist.... urge to praise...
More About: Normal

Those white silent people
2007-10-15 16:27:00
This is the book where the precious things go. This is where I put love to grow mouldy, where I put lies told to loved ones to be forgotten about - to fade with time, blanched to inedible like asparagus left in dark cupboards for the rest of lives. This is where I put my dreams and fears, stapling their excitement and power to bored pages like hunting trophies, waiting for their blood to seep out and soak until they become just words on a page. This is where I put myself, where I tried to paint the childhood portrait that would age instead of me. This is where I lost myself, in a half finished game of hide-and-seek. This will be the only place left where anyone who looked could find me. Sometimes I hear their footsteps. Sometimes I hear their breath as they pause, hand reached out, taut with intent, pink with pulsing blood. But I, being only words upon a page, cannot call them in, cannot call for help. Cannot call. I listen instead to their footsteps as they turn and walk away, each...
More About: People , White , Silent , Lent

Those white silent people
2007-10-15 15:27:00
This is the book where the precious things go. This is where I put love to grow mouldy, where I put lies told to loved ones to be forgotten about - to fade with time, blanched to inedible like asparagus left in dark cupboards for the rest of lives. This is where I put my dreams and fears, stapling their excitement and power to bored pages like hunting trophies, waiting for their blood to seep out and soak until they become just words on a page. This is where I put myself, where I tried to paint the childhood portrait that would age instead of me. This is where I lost myself, in a half finished game of hide-and-seek. This will be the only place left where anyone who looked could find me. Sometimes I hear their footsteps. Sometimes I hear their breath as they pause, hand reached out, taut with intent, pink with pulsing blood. But I, being only words upon a page, cannot call them in, cannot call for help. Cannot call. I listen instead to their footsteps as they turn and walk away, each...
More About: People , White , Silent , Lent

A disordered day
2007-10-09 21:55:00
13:00 Wake up v bad. should have been up earlier than this. 13:01 Get up. Try and remember if I’ve had any nightmares but can’t remember any. v good. 13.03 Run bath. Have not washed in days since I went home to see my mum. v good. Attempt small activities throughout the day that you can accomplish. 13:09 Stare at own reflection, trying to see a soul behind the eyes looking back at me. Cannot. Notice how my features just hang off my face when feeling empty inside. Feel like laughing. Do not. v bad. You have not taken your pills yet. 13:15 Lie in bath. Listen to rain outside window. It’s like Grimsby outside. Grey. Oppressive. Relentless. Cold. Isolating. But fresh, cleansing. Consider the phrase ‘pathetic fallacy’. Feel warm water irradiating my dirty skin, fragmenting dirt and grime with near-intolerable laser blasts of heat. Think about oblivion. Imagine every cell in my body fragmenting like the dirt - dissolving, crumbling, melting. Feel calm as I ...
More About: Diso

A disordered day
2007-10-09 20:55:00
13:00 Wake up v bad. should have been up earlier than this. 13:01 Get up. Try and remember if I've had any nightmares but can't remember any. v good. 13.03 Run bath. Have not washed in days since I went home to see my mum. v good. Attempt small activities throughout the day that you can accomplish. 13:09 Stare at own reflection, trying to see a soul behind the eyes looking back at me. Cannot. Notice how my features just hang off my face when feeling empty inside. Feel like laughing. Do not. v bad. You have not taken your pills yet. 13:15 Lie in bath. Listen to rain outside window. It's like Grimsby outside. Grey. Oppressive. Relentless. Cold. Isolating. But fresh, cleansing. Consider the phrase 'pathetic fallacy'. Feel warm water irradiating my dirty skin, fragmenting dirt and grime with near-intolerable laser blasts of heat. Think about oblivion. Imagine every cell in my body fragmenting like the dirt - dissolving, crumbling, melting. Feel calm as I listen to the rain. v...
More About: Diso

Henkersmahlzeit of rhubarb
2007-10-09 00:26:00
“Is this going to go on much longer?” “Less than I knew, more than I expected.” “I can’t believe he chose this.” “Why?” “It’s a tragedy. A tragedy.” “Such a waste.” “Blimey, I haven’t seen him in years. Hasn’t he got fat?” “Do you think he’s watching us? Do you think he’s laughing his arse off?” *silence* “I can’t imagine what it must be like.” “Are you okay?” “Angry. I feel angry. It’s so stupid and senseless and so typically like him.” “I need a drink.” “Milking it, much?” “Makes you think I guess.” “No.” “Yeah, thanks a bunch.” “He just wanted to be loved for fuck’s sake, why was that so fucking scary to him?” “I didn’t really know him.” “Someone’s going to have to sort it all out.”
More About: Mahlzeit

Henkersmahlzeit of rhubarb
2007-10-08 23:26:00
"Is this going to go on much longer?" "Less than I knew, more than I expected." "I can't believe he chose this." "Why?" "It's a tragedy. A tragedy." "Such a waste." "Blimey, I haven't seen him in years. Hasn't he got fat?" "Do you think he's watching us? Do you think he's laughing his arse off?" *silence* "I can't imagine what it must be like." "Are you okay?" "Angry. I feel angry. It's so stupid and senseless and so typically like him." "I need a drink." "Milking it, much?" "Makes you think I guess." "No." "Yeah, thanks a bunch." "He just wanted to be loved for fuck's sake, why was that so fucking scary to him?" "I didn't really know him." "Someone's going to have to sort it all out."
More About: Mahlzeit

A Form of Ugliness So Intolerable
2007-10-07 16:08:00
As a result of my belligerent disinterest in the world of fashion, I’ve been entirely ignorant of the fact that Little Wolfie has now been moonlighting as the new Kate Moss for the past four months. As part of Burberry’s new campaign to demonstrate their clothes aren’t entirely for Victoria Beckham and people who want a weekend alternative to manmade fibre, Patrick Wolf, Edward Larrikin (then fresh from the sadly late Larrikin Love), Agyness Deyn and a handful of other people that to be honest I haven’t heard of have been appearing in magazines and on billboards all over the capital since June. Shows you how much I get out these days. I’d imagine that using famous musicians is the industry’s way of bringing the label “back to the people”. Oh Fashion, you cunning thing. Beth found the above in a magazine left on the tube. I do like his coat, though am sad to see that retro military clothing has now, inevitably, hit the high street store...
More About: Form

A Form of Ugliness So Intolerable
2007-10-07 15:08:00
As a result of my belligerent disinterest in the world of fashion, I've been entirely ignorant of the fact that Little Wolfie has now been moonlighting as the new Kate Moss for the past four months. As part of Burberry's new campaign to demonstrate their clothes aren't entirely for Victoria Beckham and people who want a weekend alternative to manmade fibre, Patrick Wolf, Edward Larrikin (then fresh from the sadly late Larrikin Love), Agyness Deyn and a handful of other people that to be honest I haven't heard of have been appearing in magazines and on billboards all over the capital since June. Shows you how much I get out these days. I'd imagine that using famous musicians is the industry's way of bringing the label "back to the people". Oh Fashion, you cunning thing. Beth found the above in a magazine left on the tube. I do like his coat, though am sad to see that retro military clothing has now, inevitably, hit the high street stores. Fashion: n. The art of raiding the b...
More About: Form

The Future of Camden Market
2007-10-03 18:12:00
looks pretty bleak. For anyone who has never been there, they'd probably find it similar to something out of a (cough, spit) J K Rowling novel. Every city has its districts (Chinatown, Gaytown etc) and London is far from an exception. London, like many larger cities, has Alientown, and Camden Market is its kooky and vibrantly beating heart, choking through the incense clouds and in a sea of Chinese women screeching at you to buy their food. For someone not entirely human, it's not at all surprising that The Stable Market is one of my most favourite places in London, if not the world, and I always take people who've never visited the city before there because it really is like nothing else the city has to offer. Over the years I have purchased from there pocket watches, clay skulls, occult texts and retro military clothing (proper original trenchcoats mind - none of this US Marines dress uniform-wearing Emo nonsense.) Now this precious little oasis of cobwebs, bric-a-bracs and ...
More About: Future , The Future

Paradox
2007-10-01 20:45:00
Twinkle twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?
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Little Gestures
2007-09-27 23:58:00
I'm going to tell you a secret. It's a very big secret... ... ... Although I probably shouldn't. You see, if someone tells you a secret, you shouldn't tell anyone else. Ever. Even if you're bursting to tell someone, as I am bursting to tell you now. The only reason I'm telling you is... well, I'll tell you that later too. Okay, here's my secret. I'm going to tell you about the Litt le-Gestures. Have you heard of them before? I didn't think so. Hardly anyone has. But there's a reason for this. And I'm going to tell you that now too. The Little-Gestures are a family of tiny tiny faeries who live in Highgate Wood in North London. No one knows how long they've lived there, but I would imagine it is a very long time. If you want to work out how long, take Wendy Richard and multiply her by twelve, then keep adding six for every time Jim Davidson isn't funny. I did say it was a very long time. Everyone knows faeries live in woods. A few even rent on Hampstead Heath...

Deny me and be doomed
2007-09-24 04:27:00
A few days ago now, I was sitting up late with iTunes on shuffle, as ever. I was considering the sorry state my poor flesh had led me to: my abysmal (I could even say laughable) history in the married-with kids department; my increasingly anaemic self-image of being a writer; and the little incidental fact that I'm now penniless and starving. I was feeling just a little bit sorry for myself. Suddenly a familiar series of chords came on - something low and maudlin. As I realised I was listening to Midnight Radio from Hedwig and The Angry Inch, it was suddenly as if I was hearing it for the first time: Rain falls hard Burns dry A dream Or a song That hits you so hard Filling you up And suddenly gone Artwork by Elise TomlinsonInstantly I remembered the film - its simple story laden with heavy and epic subtext about a consuming unrequited love that gave birth only to bittersweet music, and the following unrewarded struggle for recognition. What can one love best about this film? Th...
More About: Doomed

Shinbo
2007-09-19 00:39:00
Applied to go on the dole today. Why not? I either hear nothing back from recruitment agencies at all, or get a rejection email on the same day. It's not like I'm not trying, you know. I just have 'not enough experience'. Not enough. Experience. Did you see the bit in my CV and my covering letter? The bit where I indicated quite clearly how much experience I had that was relevant to the job? How much more experience does one need to answer a telephone? Do you know where I could purchase some experience as I seem unable to get any without any. Remains to be seen if the dole application will even be processed. The small print (was very small) on their website said that you can only use a Windows computer and Internet Explorer to fill in the forms. Ludicrous. Lazy programming. No excuse. Bloody minded - filled it out anyway. It was either that or not do it at all. At all. Because I'm going agoraphobic. It's a choice. I haven't left the flat in five days now. Why should I? Where...

Aether
2007-09-17 14:15:00
Sit in space and stare into terror. Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Blank lifeless faces stare back at me from the order that surrounds, wordless mouths pulled into self-conscious smiles. What is it they're saying that I am not? What is it I'm saying that they are not? I used to have a brain. Now I just have grey sludge leached out by sweetness into grey dishwater, grey bathwater. Grey, grey, grey and they see it as colours. Come splash around in my grey colour, I'm just like you. You're nothing like me. No, I'm nothing like you, so I'll cut you - let's take another colour, bright red this time. It's another grey day and the cold is creeping under the door, through the window, clutching my knuckles that clutch my knees and grasping my elbows in its firm icy clasp. Winter is coming, and what have you saved? Air. So clutch your precious nothing and sit tight. Sit in space and stare into terror. Into terror. Into terror. This is it. This is all it is. There is nothing e...

Epitaph or epithet?
2007-09-16 02:41:00
JOB not writing computer rubbish friends Just found the above sitting in the drafts folder of my Gmail account, written just under a year ago. This is either a peculiar attempt at three syllable tanka, an horrific summation of my life (bar the friends bit, who are all priceless), or both. Either way, it's depressing to know that much of what was apparently troubling me a year ago is still headlining at the chapel.

The Secret to a Starving Artist's Failure...
2007-09-12 17:31:00
Hi Firstly please accept my apologies for not getting back to you all sooner, it has taken me a lot longer than I thought to read everything. I received a lot of excellent short stories and poems and I'm no expert but there wasn't a bad one amongst them. It has been a very hard decision and to everyone who's receiving this email today I regret to say you haven't been chosen. We decided in the end to go with just one writer who's work seemed to fit perfectly with Hiroshi's art. I mentioned before that this project may take a while to be fully realised but once it is finished, and if it's successful we hope to then look at another one. Thank you all once again for your time and effort.
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The Secret to a Starving Artist's Success...
2007-09-12 17:22:00
Bored friends with access to a franking machine.
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The Industrial Revolution
2007-09-06 13:16:00
Voices mutter empty promises from the world beyond - the one that keeps turning beyond the window with everyone doing their little bit to keep pushing with palms and feet on wheels, keys and mice. The world is spun from promises. The music of the spheres recites dates, statistics and payments. The cog turns another notch. Black coffeemud and chained cigarettes oil the machine, otherwise grinding and whining at full steam as soon as I'm awake - earlier than I intended, like Wellington saying 'hallo' to a red fizzing dawn. London burns with low calorie chatter while the Luddites hide in daytime TV caves like chaos magicians playing with nylon and Oyster cards just enough to make it all work for them, nothing more. I am not a mouse in a wheel. I am not a God turning the lever. I am a man in a world that spins, regardless of my promises, regardless of whether I push it or not - my own music on loop bidding "get it done, get it done". The world spins, on and on, regardless. Everything...
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Anything to anyone
2007-09-04 01:14:00
I came back in the room, food in hand and I see a black cat. Black cat, watching the bed. Watching where I sleep. I blink. The cat becomes a chair, but I still see it as a cat, for a moment in my mind. An imprint, then it's gone. Bast. Bast. Like Wadjet, like someone else, but this is not Tybi. Tybi! - just now, like Toby, my black cat's name who died 9 years ago. But this is not Tybi. This is Pachon. This is not the 17th. This is the third. This is the third of the 9th. This is a pattern. This is a pattern where there isn't a pattern there. There is just me here. Me, the chair and these unwritten things.

My London Face
2007-08-30 14:56:00
Back only five minutes, I kick over another mound without realising, trampling the crazy paving of the undone. The Road to Hell. The half-finished, half-started journal entries and half-read books. Unfinished chapters and half eaten plates of food; plates and chapters staling together in the gardenshed air. This is London , where I could just as easily have kicked over an old woman. I stare at thy which has not been done, and my bed like a whore on tap perched despotically above it all. Slow sad breath. This is a war. It all looks exactly like the peoplechaos I encountered when I stepped off the train. An Asti bubble bursting into the bigger bubble of the surface. The world. Broken bubbles puffing air at the universe. London is more anonymous than ever. People scream across its paving with silent heavy footsteps. Not Tom, Dick, Harry or Harriet. Just people. Just Tomdickandharry. A sea where everyone is sludged together. A boiling pot of coffee, custard, beef, liquorice, bean spr...
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Panic
2007-08-16 16:37:00
Concrete. Concrete after the rain, or just before it. It's hard, and damp, and coarse, and cold, and pale. Colour is sluiced out of everything. Your vision throbs and spins from the lack of summer. The whole world has gone World War II documentary. No vaseline-lensed laughter here. No thunder overhead, but thunder isn't the scary part. It's the anticipation of it. Just concrete. Walking, or at a bus stop - every limb in your body aching, and your mind tries to make sense of the world through the grey, through the fatigue. Your heart pounds because it knows there will be thunder. At any moment. You try to think of something calming - seaside, ocean. Your brain crumbles and fails. Too big. Smaller. You think of a lake - serene, calm, peaceful, quiet. But you can't. The lake is grey and freezing and shale cuts the sky overhead. Suddenly you're in a boat and unseen boots kick it from the shore. Big heavy brutal and black - the kind that crack bones or kick boats. You're adrift in ...
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Only in Japan
2007-08-14 16:36:00
Or so they say. I remember Roger Mellie inventing one of these years ago on Tomorrow's World. If you're a bit perplexed as to what this is, then it does become more obvious the further down you scroll. My only question is, as usual, why? Why? Is this for the congenitally lazy or the impossibly busy? Either way I'll add it to my list of reasons for why I remain eternally perplexed by self-loving rich wankers.
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The Literary Slushpile Literally Beckons
2007-08-12 19:47:00
I'm clearly a proper writer now. Having so far totted up two whole rejection letters in as many months (with another six no doubt on the way after tomorrow's trip to the post office) I am now receiving what appears to be personally targeted spam. Twice in fact. Aside from the tiny oversight that I don't actually live in the US (though I did once enjoy a very pleasant breakfast there), my Wotalotov Detector started sounding when I looked up the sender's domain and found only a parking page. In Spanish. I then looked up the link that was subtly suggested throughout the email (actually it was about as subtle as a BNP Party Political Broadcast) and was naturally astounded to discover there was no contact address, phone number or even email offered. Anywhere. Just a lot of very encouraging suggestions to part with $125 for their excellent service. A quick Google revealed this from an apparently similarly minded cynic. But scroll down and you receive a post singing its praises. Mor...
More About: Literally , Tera , Ally , Literary

And the space between the seconds
2007-08-09 03:19:00
When I first read the following it profoundly affected me. There are times, such as now, when I still pick it up and read it, over and over. It's surely one of the most bleak and horrific letters ever written. But why do the words bring a sort of comfort, albeit damp and gnawing? Maybe comfort is the wrong word. Perhaps it's simply the frustration, the hopelessness, and yet the indefatigable effort to do something about it, even if it is ominously final and fatal. Perhaps it's the familiarity of each line, bleak and plain though they may be, and their struggle to give form and expression to a mind that has become incapable of it. Perhaps it's simply because in her attempt to explain her hopelessness, the very act of writing it is a sort of manifestation of hope. Putting order to chaos is, fundamentally, a very human endeavour. Yet all human endeavour can only come to one thing. That's the tragedy of it all, and the brilliance at the same time, because every day is a stan...
More About: Space , Ween , Seconds

The Sound of Buzzing
2007-07-24 07:28:00
Three wasps. Three. They were waiting for me when I went back to my room. Earlier I'd been sitting working in the front room when one flew in through the window and started buzzing angrily around the lamp. It took all of my courage to approach it, stick a glass over it and take it outside. I hate killing things. Detest it in fact. Almost as much as I detest wasps. But there were three in my room. Which is half the size. What was somehow more unnerving was that they weren't flying around most of the time. They were crawling quite casually (if there is indeed a nonchalance to how wasps move) over my bookcase near the door. First I thought there was one, having heard it buzzing as I went to shut the window, and retrieved my recently commended wasp-catcher beaker and newspaper to snare it back outside. Then, as I crept closer to it with the glass upturned, I heard another flitting irritably around the inside of my lampshade. And I ran away. I think there was even a small degree of...
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Text message from wrong number
2007-07-23 00:19:00
Mum do u know what i can take for runny stools? It's really bad and i've got a sore bum.
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