06.47

December rain.
a tam 'o shanter nightmare
drugs drippin' outta me
scarred arms and frantic wet dreams
a wooden bagpuss' proffesor yattle,
trapped inside a Victorian record player,
hideous dry feathers
all wrong
the thing turns and its creaking unreality

jars me to heart stopping wide awakidy
dream body coaxed back with cigarettes and gulps of wine
blood matted hair
amazed at the vibrant shining red as it dripped through my fingers
the perfect mathematics of the crimson spots
on the ancient tiled floor of a hell-blown landing
in Torry.

There's something behind you man
it drags it's bloody bandages and calls... "My brother, my seed".
the shadow.

I leave him spazzing out. he has fuck all to do with me, yeah we usda be close.

but I am impeccable now. deaf to the wail of the seagull. blind to the desolation of greasy paper and drunks with purple grape vine noses

blind to the pavement beggar, I hear not their pleas for alms.

the grey sky presses down on the warped steeples and chimney stacks, red liquorice ribbons, unnatural vistas, like El Greco's ‘View of Toledo‘.
a cemetery, kebab shop, taxi rank.

I stop, look, taste the venomous air, am transported well above this floating city

I wish I could show you. come with me, I can!
aye, the city in glorious flame
it licks at yer door-stop,
all the chippers and bars and thick carpeted hotels
are reduced to burned cathedrals of grinning colour photo's

and more than this...

a hailstorm, battering artillery, even the rodents are reluctant to leave...
this way life, this way the incinerator.

from the charcoal and burnt brick we are liberated and we dance a savage dance of fucking and fighting and raiding.

The city rests in our lungs. eventually, we'll re-create it in it's new shining image.

06.04am

The river was wide and flat and black
sylphs and salamanders watched us, So clumsy in our pink suits and ugly hair.
the water told us the obelisk was just a mile up the muddy sodden track.

we became diaphanous, spun like silk, air perfumed with musk and patchouli,
we stepped out
into the multiverse
we saw how we'd invented history. only picking the worst bits.

the people we were with had never even heard of time, aging, death.
they found it hilarious.
we had to agree

so psychonauts we, fire haloed, wings of shimmering membrane, projectiles in the night sky.

untitiled

Wanna get wasted… wanna get high/low, up/down. All the way down babies. All the drugs n’booze are not an escape but a dimension shift. IO Pan, IO Isis… hail Baphomet, the gods are whispering, I feel fuckin’ free man. Unimaginable vistas are opening up. The sound of a black sea rushin’ over a shingle beach. The white sun throwing amazing light on my floor boards. An 18th century clipper being dashed on jagged rocks, looking at myself proudly in my new S.S. uniform, deaths head gleaming… so many lives I have lived, none of them true.

A trip to the elephant’s graveyard, a polite bow, being in the company of the most beautiful gal I ever knew. Still covered in acrylic graffiti: “Rock n’roll nigga” and “Celine woz ‘ere“.
Oh, I feel the presence of someone who is not me. The lush strings of ‘Theme to Thomas Tallinn’ are makin’ me vibrate and shiver. Since I pawned my TV I feel so much freer. I been drawing like a madman, writing volumes of shit, possessed by the divine urge to create, modify, restructure. In the golden glow of valium and cheap cider I’ve found freedom. I wanna, so I do. Is this not the way sweet ones? No self censorship here. My imagination bypasses all restrictions and is free to roam in the multi-verse of half dreamt fantasy and memories so rosy…

Lovers past, present and future… the glow of waking up with someone, bodies all tangled up and to see those bright eyes light up. Put on some tunes. Watch you move like a ballet dancer with those long legs. Oh baby I love you… ah Steve Malkmus now… joy intensifies. Molly cat lies, impossibly balanced on the arm of the sofa… isn’t it strange that cats don’t seem to react at all to music? Had the most eyeball poppin’ sounds on all day but she doesn’t give a shit.

Lawdy, them things is kickin’ in proper. Can hardly see the keys… filled with a golden glow. I am the ark of the covenant, blessed, pure, unsullied by pain or suffering. I don’t care how you get here, mediation, magick, mushrooms… just get here. Second cloud on the right, write?

I was once a little boy. Now I’m all grown up I’m still the very same little dude! I think Blake had this idea in his ‘songs of innocence and experience’… hmmm, er… yeah!

While on the subject of art and poetry and whatnot, I strongly believe that all honestly expressed art is valid. Hence these weird blogs and strange paintings. I used to worry about my lack of talent but now it serves as a badge of honour. Damn right I’m a fuckin’ artist, not a good one, just got the brass balls to TRY!

Missive from front brain: “All basic functions are at 6%, please stop attempting to use brain until the drugs wear off”
Shit, better go then.

If you think this is bad, sign up fer me blog innit. I promise tales that’ll make yer toes curl and blush and possibly vomit.

Goodnight gentle readers,

more from 'work in...'

Stoned sphinx gazes at the pyramids of the insect gods. Sacred geometry thrown off kilter due to heroic efforts of the hoooman racist. Blood in the Nile. Lamb’s blood smeared on the doorways of the saved. Pliedian starfucks give garbled instructions to pysychonauts and dimension shifters. “Worship me with wine and strange drugs” she said. Well, we have and do. Something is gonna happen, be it rapture or apocalypse “let it all come down”. Incense and perfumed temple dancers. Ivory goblets, gold and silver. Diamonds, crystals. Opium and hashish. A celebration, a Bacchanal.. “Wake up, wake up, tis morning and the sun is rising in the east. We make a new covenant.

We are lead to an impossibly large pyramid chamber. No torches needed here. Everything glows with an unearthly golden light. Strange creatures mill around and make small talk. A band of nymphs and satyrs play psychedelic music on pipes and lutes and vocals like the sound of the soul, unmediated and clear as the shimmering flame of the vast, intense fire that burns in the centre of the hall. The dance becomes frenzied and blurred. Speed trails and feelings of undreamt pleasure and possibility. I find myself lying on purple silk cushions, not far from the stage where the elementals are rockin’ out cosmic punk rock. The dancer El-Tep sits so close we’re touching. Her Kohl eyeliner and pitch black hair remind me of someone else. I recognize from some other live. She offers me a cloudy red liquid in a purple glass. I squint into her spinning, pupils eyes and she grins with wild white teeth… “Welcome back”. I, without thinking, pull her close to me and kiss her. I black out for a minute or an hour and wake up expecting to be back in my bed in Torry. She whispers in my ear, “This is your home now”. The band has now grown to an orchestra, people from all the many galaxies are now in full party mode. El-Tep pours me another cup. I reel back and forward in time. My past lives are revealed… I feel myself fading, darkness crowding at the edges of vision. I try to tell El-Tep I’ve had too much but she just laughs. “I’ll always be with you now human”. I take this in like the vaguest of half remembered dreams.

another segment,,,

journal Entry 3rd September 2011


Well at last something dramatic has happened, just a shame I think I’m gonna die. All the horrible, poor quality gear I’ve been so proud of shooting lately seems to have had an unforeseen effect. I noticed yesterday that I had a small blister on my left wrist. I woke up drunk and drank again and presumed I’d burned it with a cigarette as a couldn’t remember injecting there. It quickly burst and became a small sore. Jackie came round, more booze, another hit and I thought no more about it. About an hour ago I felt it kinda itchy and hot and found another, larger blister. An article about drug addicts in Glasgow dying of a ‘flesh eating’ disease flashed into my mind. I immediately panicked and typed ‘intravenous drug related blisters and sores’ into Google. There were a couple of diagnosis‘, one, a side effect of HIV, oh god oh god, the other was a less frightening but still very uncool option of generally being in terrible health and using drugs cut with all kindsa crap. I know the gear we’ve been taking has been extremely dodgy, congealing… god knows what it’s been cut with. My stomach is churning as I write. The words of Thoth echo in my mind “If you take drugs again they’ll kill you!” the full horror of what I’ve been doing comes rushing at me like a high speed train. Jesus Christ am I so fuckin’ stupid that just coz I go lovesick for some girl that I’m gonna go through the whole junkie trip again? Smoking a bit of dope this morning probably didn’t help. Surely it’s not gonna kill me but through all the years of injecting crap into myself several times a day nothing like this has ever happened. I ran up to the doctor, which is luckily very near and made an emergency appointment. Suddenly I don’t feel wild and indestructible but scared as shit. I’ve always had disgust and fear about infections and all the terrifying stuff you hear happening to junkies. I’ve got the doctor at 4pm, it’s 3.17pm…

aonther snippet from 'work in progress'

'Journal Entry 5th Dember 2001'

“Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed” me ol’ pappy used to say. Just got an e-mail from Celene saying tonight is looking doubtful. Her folks are refusing to give her any money. Goddamn it’s dark and it’s only five to four. I can hardly see the keys to write this. She did end up saying “Fuck it, we’ll go to the flat and rough it” but neither of us has cigarettes. For us that’s pretty much fatal. My carer’s allowance comes in at midnight but that seems days away. Amazingly my zero electricity is still on though all I’m using are my speakers. All I have in the fridge is a tiny bit of cheese I stole from the Spar last night so I unplugged it. Cel’ said she’d get back to me 5.30ish so I just gotta hope she can wangle some concessions from her long suffering parents! Perhaps it’s time to light that spell candle, intention: get to Celene’s, smoke, drink and make love, it’s a big ask but me n’Thoth are kinda close…

Hah! The candle had no wick so I knew I was doomed. The darkness was closing in around me, I had to move. I pulled on my favourite blue plaid shirt, hat wiffa smiley face, scarf and the brown padded jacket Jill bought me. I looked through the out of date all day bus tickets I’ve been collecting and picked up the least grubby looking one. I’d easily make Torry to town but I’d try to get the 19 on Union Street, ma had told me she’d have enough for a packet of baccy and in the unlikely event of Celene making her flat I’d be within walking distance. (I’m writing this in The Spirit Level, 8.30 Monday morning… the barmaid just passed and said… “What’s that yer writin’ yer autobiography? Mind n’tell ‘em yer in this boozer!” (Consider it done darlin’). So, I get to the bus stop across from McDonald’s and wait and wait. As soon as I clock the bus driver I know I’ve got no chance. A big skinheaded bruiser with tiny intense eyes who glares at everyone. I’ve learned never to go on first with a dodgy ticket but also to try and make sure there are plenty folk behind me so the driver feels rushed and distracted. I flashed my ticket and tried to walk by the Perspex drivers cubicle but he pulled me back by curling his index finger at me. I went through the motions of rifling around in my pockets looking for a valid ticket then thought better of it and just walked off the bus before he could confiscate my pass. Ok gotta walk it. It was 5pm and cold as hell. My laptop only fits in a bag with no shoulder strap and I was imagining either getting it ripped outta my hand by a desperate crackhead or goin’ arse up and smashing it on the icy pavement but kept on walking. Halfway up George Street a number 17 appeared, this time the driver looked pleasant enough. I flashed the same ticket and gave him a smile and he nodded absently. The packed bus rumbled through the freezing night, carrying me to the cigarettes and light and the X- Factor results show. Celene texted me as soon as I got in the door at mum’s. tonight was definitely off but I already knew that. Within ten minutes she’d phoned. She was sorry, I told her not to worry. She’d missed me today, I told her I had too. We batted jokes and spoke in our Bo Selecta accents and mum shouted “Hellooooo Celeeeeeene” so she could hear her and Celene shouted back. We’d put our plans on hold till my money came in tomorrow (now today) and meet me at the doctor’s at 10pm, just an hour away. She won’t mind me already having been in the pub, she doesn’t seem to mind anything I do. God, I’m falling in love with her so fast. Walking here through the still dark city, cold grey granite all around me and seagulls and people hurrying to work I imagined she’d told me you loved me last night and felt myself floating upwards into the slate grey sky. “I love you, I love you, I love you”.

hallucna-torry fragment of 'work in progress'...

Remember, remember… life as a cubist still life ‘asshole wif pipe n’newspaper’… fragments, little bits o’dreams bleedin’ through. The glow of barely remembered roads to Damascus. The new Aeon, the boy with the blister on his wrist. Little vignettes, you and me, me and them, him, you, them, us and you again. I am just energy, I am just a series of chemical events. I become diaphanous, radiant, third eye open, seeing but not looking, being but not behaving. Trying but not suck-seeding. Cast adrift on the farthest shore. Washed up, dried out, hung out, strung over, loose/tight, fast/slow. Every heartbeat infinitely slow till I become the day before creation. Gimme some money, gimme some love, gimme shelter. Lord Baphomet of forests and silence, Lord Pan of music and sex and death in extreme forms. Geometry, the golden mean, fractals like D.N.A revealed on D.M.T. A blind and careless god spreading consciousness as a cruel joke. A beneficent god creating consciousness as a shaving mirror… Ganesh, Thoth, Isis, Hathor, who are thee and why dost thou come? Thy will be done in birth as it is in deathin’… come now holy ghost dance apocalypse of the 5th dimension. Come now, calling all tsars. Holy Jolene, Holy Jill, Holy Ben, Holy Tym, Holy Fran, Holy Bro… every song I ever loved, every girl I ever liked, every book I ever read, all here, present and correct. Stripey tops, tarot cards, the immaculate ever present now, yesterday, today, tomorrow. Nothing is separate, no wo/man is alone. Illusion, delusion, knowing and really not knowing anything. A strange light descends on back gardens and tennement flats and council blocks. The intelligence of the rhizome, the cunning of evolution. The divine name, cabbalism, divination, synchronicity in the form of numbers, geese, animal bones. Thee I call, thee I adore…