.

A Piano Burns And A Crowd Warm Their Ears By Its Sound.

2012-01-27T03:25:00.023-10:00

Benny And The Jets:

Biting his fingers into each key and note
a crazed typist darting a squad of ten
against the enemy of silence.
He awakens the lava of their passion
from inside the belly of the piano's hunger.

Clair De Lune:

Sound like light rain,
light raindrops
wearing ballerina shoes
turning in a soft wave.

Cheeky Little Article

2011-12-07T07:39:00.003-10:00

Reviewing The Mermaid.

The Mermaid and The Sailors.

Askew means 'not in a straight or level position' or 'wrong, awry'. It's synonymous with 'skew' or 'skewed' meaning 'to turn aside' or 'swerve' or 'to squint'. Some name for a poet. For perhaps the requirement for being a poet, if there are any other than simply a mouth and a pen, it might be that need to 'squint' at the world, not follow the straight line, to turn things aside, upside down, and not be afraid of the results. Claire Askew, squints her eyes at experience - in curiosity in concentration - and takes her slant on the page with control and clarity. Allow me to squint with my short-sighted eyes at the poetry of Lady Askew.

Read on at Cheeky Little Article. Read more reviews there and wait for more to come, ya cheeky bizim.

Cat Fight 2 a.m.

2011-11-22T11:15:00.002-10:00

Sitting beside my open window late at night.
Two cats are fighting over territory in the back garden,
I cannot see them, only hear, and listen.

They square up to one another, prowling in circles,
Eyeing each other Gladiatorial, swiping paws cutting through air.
letting out piercing screeches like sharpening blades.

They want to kill each other.
They want to wound so there will be a victory,
until the next cat comes along with bigger, sharper, smarter claws.

I take off my boxing gloves,
shut the window securely,
And leap into to bed.

I have no idea who won.
No one ever does.

A Splasher

2011-11-07T06:45:00.010-10:00

'Boys should be
strong enough
to keep
themselves
afloat.'

'But Da a canny,

I'll drown. Gonny
get us a pair
o arms bands.'

'You'll need more than that, Son.
You'll droon if yee don't stop bleatin.
A never got arms bands in ma day,
yee got flung in - sink or swim.

And that taught us.

None of this inflatable
life guard material.
Shower o splashers.
Wee safty.
Stoap yir gurnin fir Christ
Away doon the shallow end.'

Guy Fawke's Night. (a chorus of crazed baby chicks)

2011-11-04T13:57:00.001-10:00

What radicals you are blowing up in suburban streets.
Startling the solemn households from their quiet Sunday
breathing, lighting up thousands of tiny troops of Civil War.

Anarchy! Streets run amok!

In flocks you burst and scream, a chorus of crazed baby
chicks being strangled, a thousand wild light bulbs sent up
into the air fusing,
exploding
bouquets of flowers, flying out
like burning feathers.

You fizz and whistle like sparks of fat.
Breaking the rude silence of safe
towns, reminding us of a war
just
round
the corner, or
to shut the curtains, lock the door, and always
blow out candles.

(An old favourite I've posted before.)

Parable Of The Fence.

2011-10-22T11:59:00.003-10:00

'this went on for quite some time' from KickingParis on Vimeo.

McGuire reading in St Andrews, at Risk-A-Verse, with Inky Fingers and Stanza, Byre Theatre.

Thanks to Rachel McCrum for taking the footage.

Quiet night sponsored by the letters O and L.

2011-10-18T10:21:00.006-10:00

Olaf aloof in his loft, loafing on his lounger luxuriating in lofty litigations with his lifeforce while looking through the skylight skyward, lamenting the final harbour of loss and snuffed love of all life. Then, laughing lightly, he licks his lips and gulps a glass of cloudy lemonade, toasting to longevity.

Peck Rechublic.

2011-08-20T00:32:00.015-10:00

From a summer schooling.

I. In Czech - fined 700korun on tram check, played dumb but ticket master not fooled, repaired a burst Jeep tire check, huge bananas check, off to teach tomorrow check. A cloud in a pair of trousers - check. The sun is made of honey and shooting stars are bees spilling with pollen - check. Packed verbosity and pretension - Check. Still gay - check.

II.

Teaching in Czech - check. Work with raging friendly Alcoholic pervert professors, eyes drunk on young possibilities - check. Teach in a style aloof yet caring, confused yet powerful - check. Drink too much, alarm bells drinking, God put me here to teach me a lesson. Not to drink like it's a practical skill. Watch middle aged men ruin themselves. Run around barking like a dog at the world and my own obviousness for being crazy. Life redeemed by hundreds of glorious young engaged and engaging with alien words, the breaking world, their secret selves and Mr Doe-Eyed Me.

III.

Back in Prague - more drunk days and mornings - my liver sings a dirge! Possible divorce proceedings. In love, out of love, who to love. Same constant state of inertia. Hours of A.A. footage to confirm my suspicions. Kafka's house is a tiny prison. Can't find Hasek's bar. Beautiful day of orange juice. Smack head off low ceiling. Too surround sound self-involved. Lazy cow grazing on Prague. Perversions need my absolute attention - Czech. New day - going sailing under a blue pallet of sky and bright people. Open all the windows let the air in and the fruit flies out - check.

My Father in the Sun.

2011-06-18T08:54:00.004-10:00

Photo: August Sanders.

'Don't be such a fucking poof!
Be like me, Son,
Long in the tooth.

Why don't you go off
and bake a cake
with your Mum?'

He kneel's out of sight
continuing to cement the brick
wall he's building between us.

A Snail on Easter Road.

2011-06-16T04:06:00.004-10:00

A patient God in the rain;
oblivious to the business shoes.

Like the gentle progress
of an ocealiner across the atlantic.

The smallest most slow of comets
glittering a trail across wet night pavement.

What I Say About Him: A Review.

2011-05-31T09:36:00.005-10:00

What They Say About You – Eddie Gibbons: A Review.

Eddie Gibbons is a Liverpudlian living in Aberdeen. I've always liked the soft pudding like pud sound in pudlian and Gibbons is a Pudlian Poet and an accomplished one at that. He has the technical skill to weave his pen (or, press his key's) between form and formlessness with ease.

He has all the inventiveness a quality wordsmith should – juggling word play, toying with double meaning, jiving with associations, balling with rhetoric, scattered with allusions; the books buzzes with trickery, mischief and comedy.

Read the full (fool's) article by clicking here.

Mick Kelly's News.

2011-05-26T03:26:00.003-10:00

Twelve, May 1930, North Carolina.

Miz Colours is nice teacher. A real soft voice. Real smiler. Not as nice as Momma. Momma sayz neva play with peoples’ who lie or cheat or steal. Sayz the world is a danger untoitself and that each person has a devil inside thum equal to their angel. people are only people at the best of times and at the worst.

Dada works hard as hell and it's as hot as hell at the mill, like a furnace, he sayz, like momma's cooker on full for the bread. He don't beat me - and done more boys sayz they dada's hits them when theyz too hot or unhappy.My Dada don't hurt at all. He gone made me a swing, out back too. He is fast and hard when we wrestle. My idol. He doesn't cry.

Momma bakes pancakes with vanilla ice-cream and feeds Bubba scraps o' meat. It's summer. It's bright like all day, and sticky in da night, window open to let cool in, and i here the chip crickets and owl's call, and it sleeps me well. I play twist in the garden and the sun shines through the tress like one hundred swords.

I go school and learn to understand and make things and plus ones and twos and paint brilliant colours and listen to music on piana, which buils up side of me like a foutain. I play ball wit Joey and Sondra and everybody else who play. Momma and Dad sayz life wasn't prepared for me, thought they sayz I gotta make my own mark in thiz here world. Thiz is it a guess. My news for today.

Micky Kelly

Sing a rainbow.

2011-05-14T11:07:00.001-10:00

The sun catches the glass vase
at 12:40 in the afternoon -
painting on the wall
a circular burst of rainbow.

Contractual Obligations.

2011-04-14T05:59:00.010-10:00

Man, busy after work, scoops two goldfish out of the pond.
Drives home to put them in a large skull shaped bowl
with castle stone bridge and marble rock inside.
Time streches its long arm- hours, days, weeks -
then one day by means of a wayward elbow
the bowl crashes to the ground - obliterating.
The fish writhe out of water, struggle and gulp to breathe.
They are scooped up and flushed down the toilet
- thrust into the ocean to die
all without any form of contractual agreement.

This Collection Friendly Slam.

2011-03-30T23:33:00.011-10:00

'The holy miraculous difference between firstrate & second implies nonthinkable enormousness by contrast with the tiny stumble from second to tenthrate.' - e.e. cummings.

Aye Eddy, whatever you say son!

The inaugural ThisCollection FRIENDLY POETRY SLAM has been and gone. It was a great success, with consistent quality and entertainment, from a controlled crowd of temporary human beings and poets. It took place in the dark cavernous downstairs bar at The Banshee Labyrinth. It was hosted by the miraculous, relentless labourer of poetry Claire Askew.

1st place went to Young Dawkings: A quality controlled performance of orange juice compact passion. By that I mean, Dawkin's performance contained with the same 'juice' (energy/nuritional value in poetic terms) as a ripe orange. He was sincere, empassioned and caused the hair on my neck to stand on end.

2nd place went to Stephen Welsh: This was his first poetry slam and, I think, his first public reading. He was polished, confident, thoughtful, and gave us a poetic-lecture of the complexity and mystery of the universe.

3rd place went to Chris Lindores: A beardy man of quick wit and self-deprecating humour, and enough dirty realism to undermine the pretense of the far-too-serious of the night.

All three got money and booze and self-satisfaction, and what more deserved than that, on this shorttimespent-planet-earth! Well done to them.

Question: what's the difference between SLAM and a poetry reading? Anwser: SLAM (in this case) is COMPETITIVE, but poetry reading is not. SLAM involves score sheets, ten point scales of content form and delivery. It involves arithmetic/calculators. Time keeping. Stop watches. Shouting, reading, self-doubt, an excess of passion and microphone reverberation. It involves financial incentive and booze promise.

All in all, it was a quality night, and the three winners now get to go to St Andrews and read at an experimental poetry night. So, good luck on that wee poetry galivant. I think there may be more this collection SLAM nights to come. I hope so. Let there be mic!

End note: I came a tight, but not tight enough, 4th which astounded and encouraged me, like a child on stabilisers cycling for the tenth time and not worrying that you'll fall over.

Rip Van Winkle: A Review

2011-03-25T12:27:00.004-10:00

Tomorrow, we will live here. Ryan Van Winkle.

'RIP VAN WINKLE, known to all as a harmless, drinking, shiftless lout, who never would work, but roamed about, always ready with jest and song-idling, tippling all day long.'

Ryan Van Winkle arrived in Edinburgh in 1999, from USA, working in bars, cafés, and the Forest Café. He's came a long bloody way since that beginning. Jesus, I barely know him, but what I do know is he's a pro-active, tireless encourager organiser, and fair poet.

He recently won the Crashaw prize for poetry.

Read the complete review here.

Precision Engineering: A Review.

2011-03-06T08:45:00.001-10:00

This is not about what you think. A poetry collection by, Jim Murdoch.

Murdoch is not a poet of excess. Murdoch does not mess about. Murdoch gets to the point, and then gets off the page. In some respects the poems are sterile, not in the sense of imagination, but of being thoroughly clean and free of destructive elements.

Read the complete article by McGuire here

I wonder.

2011-03-04T04:01:00.016-10:00

Self does not exist, I say,
but we kept on talking to each other anyway.

All the while clouds shift and move -
giant white lawn mowers of the sky.
And God the great gardener of the sky
as the rain falls from his watering can.

Soul does not exist, I say,
but we kept on destroying them anyway.

All the while people are dominos
caught in random tragedies,
taken by bullets, by electricity
by everyday garden appliances.

Intellect, does not exist, I say,
but we kept on using logic and reason anyway.

All the while it rains in one part of the world
while it snows in another, a direct debt
is taken from someone’s bank account,
and someone chokes on a toffee.

Love, does not exist, I say,
but we kept on kissing anyway.

All the while trains shuttle past
graveyards, cars zoom through
puddles that spray passers by,
a blind woman walks in a flower garden.

Poetry, is shit, I say,
but I kept on writing anyway.

*Found a file full of old poems. Here is one. Wrote it in about 2004.

The Jobseeker.

2011-02-23T11:51:00.003-10:00

Tam: Awright son, long time no see, yuptay these dayz?

Alec: A laot a fuck all, on joabseekerz, been own it fir last five munf. Fuck all hapnin Tam. Hall worlds a riot man. Nay jobs ur nuntin. Even Helen no got nuntin. Shez volintearin it the charity shaop. Fuck all fir it. But, guid fir her c.v. They sayz. Better tay day somefin thin nufin, they sayz. Iz it fuck. Better tay day fuck all an git yir benefit. Fuck them. Government full o curption. O multie millionairz, floatin aboot on boats and aw that, in the fuckin hitlon, pish man, i'm no workin.

Tam: Fucksake, wish i'd nevir asked. A'v goat a joab the now, threw an agentcy, a day deliveries fir Tesco. Mind you son, I don't work fir Tesco – only goat the joab fay the agentcy. It's that bad. Git yirself tay an agentcy. Plenty o kitchen work goin'.

Alec: Me? A pot scrubber. Fuck that. Peelin potatos fir 5 pound a oor. Fuck washin ma ain dishez let alany a resturant full o shirt and tie fuckers. I'm aff tay the bookies, try on a coupla the horses. Mare luck on the gamble, I hink.

Tam: Fuck gamblin' that's a bottomless pit.

Alex: Lives a six feet pit. Fuck it. Am aff. Take it easy, Tam. Driving they wagonz for tesco. Tell the wife I sayz hello.

Tam: Aye, o right, you and yours too, Leck. Catch yee doon the local some time, I'll shout yee a pint.

Alex: Noted, Tam. Noted. Take it easy ma man.

Hole Poem.

2011-02-17T12:09:00.011-10:00

Book binding.

2011-01-10T13:25:00.018-10:00

Rather lounge on a couch nourished
by the sharp turn and talk of the page
than strain through the glare
of electrified screen pages.

Kneading the dough of the story
a warm loaf in the hands
rather than stretching cable to get
the just right tender angle at midnight.

Most of all I imagine my Mother or Father
reading to me, or me reading to the next
generation, as we fall asleep dreaming of
a game world, sugared with constellations.

Self Esteem.

2010-11-01T07:38:00.017-10:00

Colin McGuire, you're glorious, you're smouldering,
you're Adonis on the beach, honey glazed, apple bottomed,
speedo adorned, boy of the century.

You are The Great Wall of China, The Shining Path,
The Nation of Islam, you are the help line
for abused and abandoned children of Nations.

You are E = MC2 times the speed of light,
you are the galaxy of Andromeda,
you are a clear night sky framing a chandelier of stars.

Your eyes, bright lights upon a cliff,
guide ships to shore. Your mouth, wide open,
is for orphaned birds to nest and soar.

You guide planes to land
in your park sized back garden,
with your massive luminous hands.

You're the Edinburgh Playhouse on fire.
You are a scatter of atoms raining under lamp light.
You are twelve months of the calender.

You're all the rivers converging to meet the ocean,
the streams, the puddles, the rain drop, the moisture.
McGuire you are the entire process of rainfall.

You commune with the Angels and Cherubs
who doze to the sound of your harp
in an apple orchard in Eden.

Colin McGuire, you are the hand of God,
trembling slightly,
as it accepts the award for lifetime achievements.

*Work to be done.

At the other table.

2010-09-08T07:10:00.007-10:00

I have two eyes.

He has three.

We glance at each other,

awkwardly.

She orders coffee.
I order tea.

We drink together,

silently.

Taxi Italia.

2010-06-11T06:16:00.022-10:00

'Don't go to the station. Just get a taxi.' She explains. So I go to the taxi rank. 'How far to Reggio Emilia?' I ask the first driver. '100KM = 100Euros.' I nod, and put my bag into the boot. We set off in the air conditioned taxi from Bologna heading for Reggio Emilia. I take a moment to orient myself, look out the window, at the unfamiliar city passing by. Take the time to acknowledge I'm in Italy barely an hour since landing. Then, blank as a donkey, I stop to consider the meaning of that hurried mobile conversation.

100KM? 100EUROS O, God! Mamamia! Mio Dio! She meant go from Bologna Station to Reggio, then get a taxi from Reggio Station to her house! Idiot. Mamamia! 'Scuzi! Scuzi signore. Io, cretino. Returno per Bologna Stationze, Grazie Tanto mi amico.' No doubt confused, the driver turns back towards the station, I twiddle my fingers nipping my mind with insults: 'Scottish rare bit' 'Short bread attention span' 'Black pudding' 'Irn Bru brained girder'.

15 Euros it cost to take me nowhere and back, under a Sun that does not care and never could, and has nothing to do with public transportation. I get out of the taxi, the driver kindly brings me the bag, and leaves, I stretch in the Sun's oven, and pray for a bottle of water. 'Grazie tanto' I say to the driver. 'Niente' he says, and winks. Camomile skinned, smooth bald head, mid 30's. Bologna is a gay friendly city. Who cares? I do, now that I'm no longer ironing my mind to the impressions others may have of me.

So, off I go, needing Lassie, littlest Hobo, Flipper, to rescue me from Italy, to intuit where the correct train is, to guide me to Reggio, to help revise advanced English grammar. I get the train, sit down, talk with the man beside me. We do not understand each other particularly well. Meaning, we understand each other perfectly well. He speaks Italian, some broken English about Reggio Emilia being the stop after Modena. I speak English, some broken Italian, thanking him for the clarification.

I settle in for the ride past dry corn yellow fields, past industrial factories, and old men on ladders in Olive groves, nona's fanning themselves in deck chairs, and the firm buttocks of a guy ,
each cheek like a sand dune in a desert, down by a river. Someone is very angry with the train. It arrived late, he 's so angry he rolls tobacco, tobacco, tobacco, which is forbidden in the train, and a mother, in a hushed voice of quiet concern, asks him to put it out for the sake of the children for this Mother believes that children are cursed when they breathe in cigarette smoke for the first time.

I dream through the window. Imagine the rail lines precise as a sentences, and the rhythm of the wheels run through the countryside, like syllabic stresses. To think in five days I must give direction to a horde of 20 screaming children. I play the role of teacher, they reluctant language learners. Life is an error, I think and rest my head on the head rest, laugh quietly to myself in a manner which is understood immediately in every language. I tild my head back and close my eyes, waiting for the lessons ahead to teach me what I am missing.

-Rapid notation of something that will be worked on, should this be made into a short story. It's a horrible mess, I should wait and post it, what's the rush, Jim once asked? There isn't one, sometimes I think the internet is my downfall. I post it online, rather than sculpt on the page. Will I learn better practices? YES.

I'm in Italy again, two months this time, in the North, a place called Reggio Emilia, it is very small Artisan city. I can cylce around the old city in a loop within about 15minutes. It's lovely, civilised. I live in a beautiful house, with a mother and her daughter. I'm working out. I eat well. I'm teaching at a summer camp, which doesn't have an academic focus, so much as activity and basic language aim. All in all, things are going well.

Young things.

2010-05-12T03:37:00.003-10:00

It is summer and the young tree
has dyed its leaves pink,
in the latest fashion of the magazines.
Summer liberal, drunk experiment,
dope smoking moment, shhhh,
don't tell mumdad time.

Streets lined with pink haired trees.
Ah, so sweet, if only they knew,
winter governed their choices.
Still, summer is a sweet angle
to view life from. Young for a day.

Wrap the children in white.

2010-04-28T09:12:00.019-10:00

Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them. ~Pacifist Badge, 1978.

Send all your children out in white underwear
into the street before the carpet bombing.
Bring your babies out swaddled in white linen
in a procession of white prams.
Grandmothers and Mothers spread the white
family bed sheets flapping in canopy through the streets.

Men, pour the paint spill it over the wall,
roof and pavement in brilliant white.
Call the mechanics of the community;
Fathers and Sons, respray your cars:
Bone white, vanilla white, ice white,
then drag race in your thousands through the city.

Families unscrew the milk, leave hundreds of glasses
on hundreds of white on hundreds of tables in parks of green.
Rally the florists, line every gutter, decorate every tree
with white Roses, Gardenias, Orchids, Hydrangeas,
Wisteria, let the garlands hang empty and white.

Boys and girls, let hundreds of white footballs
pin pong through the streets, let fire extinguishers run
through with their white breath. Bakers let your sacks of flour
smoke through the air.

When the enemies of sleep come to put us to bed permanently
they will see clouds of white citizens in robes of Jesus,
in a City, for once, the colour of an ideal.

This is the day. The approaching bombers
will be blinded by the nuclear white landscape
by us all coming together in Universal whiteness.

Wild horse poems that bolt from the stable.

2010-04-11T07:59:00.008-10:00

Between the easy road of under achievement and the hard road of craftmanship, sits the learner, with a pencil worn down to the erazer. - McGuire.

Tepid is the life
which has not learned
the technicality
of its craft.

On fire is the life
which doesn't care
about its error.

Passion without skill
is a run away horse.

I just wanted to clarify that.
:P

Learned helplessness.

2010-03-30T13:19:00.004-10:00

The rise of the idiots - Nathan Barley.

My Dada is teacher at college
can't use grammar proper
and senior lady tell him
wrong-wrong-wrong, he snorts
like an Elephant feels strong,
roars like a Tiger in his private mind,
feeling inadequate but I say Dada
you is 53 you has had all of life
to learn the present continuous
and all the pins and needles
of the fretwork of grammar and
language, but he pats my head
rubs my hair, says he is busy.
And I think to myself maybe
on his tombstone
I will put a to do list.

Minutes on education.

2010-03-25T07:29:00.038-10:00

People are surprised to find out that an awful lot of people think that they're idiots. - Eric Shmidt.

Me want to write so bad
but no time to learn grammar
me scribble best effort and
leave it on internet for no-one to read.

Me no time to build a page of prose
me no patience to be page doctor.
Me write only best effort and leave
on square screen for praise from no-one.

Everything I write is already Shakespeare
because no hard work required anymore.
We are so developed no longer need
to know technicality of technique.

Man has eaten too much knowledge
and not metabolised understanding
stomach burn and rumble now
man must hold back its content.

Here come the next generation,
the McGonagall's of illiterature.
Disciples of illiterati scribbling
mistakes they are proud of.

*

I could have kept this in my drawer but, I like the spirit of it, the lack of Einstein, of course working toward stronger writing is necessary, but what's the problem with pouring out some chaos? So, there it is.

The City of summer.

2010-03-20T06:47:00.011-10:00

Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates - Marquis De Sade.

Why are the streets full of dead hair? Battalions of one-legged men, armies of the eyeless walk mutely along bread crumb pavements. A boy sits and fiddles with his anus like a light switch, the eely finger caked in brown. In rock fields, putrid runny vegetables are pulled up by armies of fingerless stumped hand wives wearing metal aprons, and sloshed into a wheelbarrow, were hunched back men without mouths drag them to the furnace. Armies of legless men drag their upper bodies through the streets, arms muscular, veins rigged like tree roots, they share the street with the blind dogs and scorched out cars, faces cut as they them scrape upon the jagged earth. And children without sex organs play in gas masks in a treeless summer, on a roundabout that is bronzed with rust, and screeches every slow turn, arthritically.

Apartment blocks of families sit down to dinner at moss green covered mouldy tables, and can't leave because they inhabit door less and windowless rooms. On the table is a brown loaf, two glasses of red wine and two glasses of milk, a steaming beef joint, all are plastic imitations. The family repeat the ritual of preparation hourly, bellies-churning, cheeks sunken eyes black, setting the cutlery, plates, glasses, talking as though the meal was fresh and the atmosphere congenial. Each member of the four has a stoop, and their left hands are without pinkie or ring finger. When time for bed comes, the children hum to themselves and knock their heads against the walls. Lying on their beds, the parents weep tearless sobs, opening their toothless fish mouths ocassionally, in soundless scream.

The sun bleaches the parched cracked landscape, no one has slept for centuries, the world lurches at a snails pace - insomniac and miserable; the heart beats in a slow thud, about to arrest, yawning in every chest. Headless bodies roam the main street without destination, walking into walls, old cars, trampling over lumps of flesh, like mad patients. Exhausted, exhumed, the dead century crawls to sleep. Somewhere from a distant window, a worn violin string is rubbed by a fettered bow, in sharp a high pitched meow. The violinists’ looks down over the wasted city, his mouth sown closed, on the table there lies a pair of silver scissors, and it is time to cut his lips apart. The sun, throwing flames upon the biscuit earth, sends out a high pitched call, the sound of an air raid siren which will go on for another century.

*Working on turning the entire city of Gas Glow into a hideous piece of prose. Only a few pages long, mind you. I want it gangrenous and as septic as possible....not sure if I'm capable of that grotesque ambition. This is a sample, nonetheless.

Design faults in the scrotum.

2010-02-23T02:04:00.038-10:00

Bigger ball’s, that's what's needed, one to keep us marching toward the aim the trick the destination in life. Another to keep our affections direct and clear as possible, all to easily the storm in the head becomes the storm in the heart. I knew a guy, Ed Lang, small stumpy blue eyed stutterer, who had to have an emergency operation, the cord of his epididymis entangled around his right testicle, as the swell increased, so did the pain. He called NHS 24, under the cold yellow sun of a summer night, while anxiously rolling the telephone cord between index and thumb. He had to go, the nurse assured, to get the cord untangled, if left to late, it would be lost. Some joked that his testicle had tried to commit suicide by tying the cord into a noose, for he was shy and unassuming in regard to sex; rumour has it he sails yachts around South America, with only a tiny surgical scar to remind him of that summer emergency years ago.

Another guy, the slightly camp, slender, brown-eyed olive skin Jonathan, 18 consultant of the vanity box, browning his skin, under UV light, he only had one testicle, his scrotum had a scar in the shape of a tiny mouth or a purse zipper. His epididymis had entangled round his left ball, before I ever knew him. After the operation, he could still get it up, enjoy the finer things in bed. His gender identity kit may well have been changed, but it had not corrupted his selfhood, rumour has it he lives somewhere in London, sharing only one thing in common with Hitler. Some joked he had enjoyed so much sex his testicle was sending him a warning against promiscuity.

Now come my balls, cancerous; found out a month ago, I never examined them with the precision the medical propaganda demanded. Roll them, between thumb and index finger, no pain should come, if you notice any lumps visit your G.P. I never did roll them often - my man dice! My bowling puns. I hoped for merely a cyst, a cord infection, but no luck, after ultra sound, it had been confirmed, it had been written. Finally, strange Mother, something was growing inside of me.

As I lie on a hospital bed, window view, looking out over the city from the Royal Infirmary, a dark purple sky above me, I sigh nervously, amongst purple shadows. I consider the testicles, tucked beneath fabric and norm, a gallery of eyeballs. I laugh and snort, shaking my head with a wry grin, thinking of the immaturity of our shyness. Two balls, the Sun and Mercury, fixing the trajectory of my fate. Some barely care to air them. I imagine a scene from my childhood - eight years old, a summer naked, licking into a pink ice-cream, sand blows onto the head. I lick it without knowing, salt and grit corrupt the taste. I screw my eyes and scrunch my face like eating something sour and ugly. My Mother smirks- don't get upset over anything so trivial. My Father offers to swap. The strawberry ice-cream trickles through my knuckles and fingers, I throw it on the sand and let it melt, running on to ask my brother how life is in the water.

Tears well in the ducts, salt of nostalgia and neurosis, cheer up; you will be back again, for more days, months, years, decades. Think of the odds, to live to die, all whim and chance of the past the future, and the inability to get anything back from time, then the peace of the present moment. Then, two testicles call you one Morning into the bathroom, you roll the dice, and the odds are against you, and you hold your breath, and think of a holiday in Spain, squinting at the sun, eating an orange as the juice dribbles down the chin. Think of the firm buttocks of your teenage years, sprinting through the forest, and all the boys with buttocks that were perfect, and immortal. Think of the girls with long hairless white legs that you wanted to smooth with the care and caress of a clay sculptor. Here I am an invalid, barely a man, naked to the future.

The moment is an orange in the mouth. Eat it carefully or tear it apart. Everything has a limit. Really, it might not be so bad, only 45 minutes. Imagine the face of God: the penis/the nose. The eyes/the testicles. The mop of hair/the pubic hair. There is nothing to worry about. Write a season of love letters when this is over. Rub your balls together; roll them for luck, one last time. The Nurses have arrived. 'Mr Knight, the time has come, we must administer the anaesthetic.' I'm rolled out into the corridor, with a tranquilised smile, holding back drugged laughter. I hear the patter of bare feet upon the linoleum, a young girl, in a white gown, with blonde hair and green eyes. She grips the bed, the nurses do not notice, leans over and looks into my eyes, then let’s go, and gone. She terrified me, an apparition, an omen; I lapse into reverie, mumbling as I sail off: '...chandeliers of green grapes, chandeliers of red grapes, try some, please, delicious and cold.'

Couple of a footballs walking down the street: http://www.sandyford.org/

- Error-nautical-engineering required on this. Man at work.

The Sexual.

2010-02-15T04:09:00.020-10:00

Am in the sex helf clinic way aw the uther shaggers, fair crowd o nail biters, pact tae the roof this mornin. We huff tae wait fir hours becawz a the number a folk waitin for a check up fir Clymid, Siflus, pregurrs, hiv, heshe, sproutin genital warts, hairpiece. And it servez as a warnin tae, no tae huhv sex tae aften way cockroachez or lice, cawz yee can be made tae wait fir two hours or mare, jist tae git seen tae. And in waitin u huff tae deal way the headache a artificial light, and the dizeaze o artifishal luv. Coarse place is full aw awkward silence, killed by the radeo, eye twitchin heed down matereal. lot of foot shufflin'. aw the folk sittin thegither, wonderin whose git wit, whoz bin shaggin wit, whoz the bummer, whoz git aids. A wiz seen but, ventually, nice blonde number sayz a huhv a clean bill o helf. Nay warts, jist a benine cyst. tries to get us tae tell her stuf but, asks me aw privat quetions bout sex - if men, if women, drugz, cock, fanny. i said nutin. wiz like kinfeshin man. hud me worried fir a minute. but gave me a new lease o life. a'll be oot again the night lookin fir luv in the darkest o cornerz, lookin fir firm buttocks way ma name on thum. Waitin fir God to come an gee uz aw a good seeing tae.

For your everyday eugenic or sexual health concerns: http://www.sandyford.org/

The constant who.

2010-02-04T06:09:00.007-10:00

27,000 selves in this head alone.
All wearing identical smiles.
Pretending not to notice each other.
Pretending to be shy
as they undress for the 57,000th time.
27,000 attitudes and opinions later
and still this man here.

Pornograffiti

2010-02-01T07:13:00.017-10:00

Scotland tonight

Personally I can't stop looking at gay pornography.
I'm looking at porn or the porn is looking at me?
The ego is afraid to answer: I'm afraid to say.

The sphincter is the ugliest part of the body
for many it's the feet the nostrils, armpits.
The sphincter is the ugliest part of the body.
It's like the tight chocolate smeared mouth of a child.

I've seen it on display, a mouth opening, as if to utter a word.
It appears again and again in the most cheap horrid sites
littered with ramshackle Russian porn, hosted by a man
known only as Yakov, though no one knows who he is or where.
Everyone viddys real horror show waters their hose cuts their cake.

Pornography streaks throughout the land and mind.
In secret people sing the word - debauchery.
In secret all the middle aged men/women are guilty
of a voyeur's lechery eyeing the school girls/boys sitting
in traffic jams, in the shopping queue, in a day dream.

In secret they change tab or window gaze or page
so wife-lover-dominatrix-psychiatrist won't catch
that bright eyed lo-lee-ta on the screen, in the school,
in the street, in the shower, on your mind.

Porn runs its long bony finger up and down the Nation.
Poor unzips the morals of millions of genitals and labia.
It's the last first temptation of the secret armies of midnight.

Pornography is to sex what the microwave is to food:
quick cheap and without nutrition
- au contraire, fast easy and so morish.

(Mess of a piece, much like the content, not sure whether to castrate this, or leave it as it is....)

One fine Morning in Fife.

2010-01-29T12:08:00.020-10:00

Elie, Fife by Bill Alston.

The sun is up, ripe as a bag of Clementine’s in summer, the juice of its light pours across rock and sea, upon the great vegetable earth, and the whole natural kingdom. Cormorants and Shags, squawk and hover, out for the morning market hunting for fish. Eager to return to their families, who at this moment, are huddled in their warm nests, chirping like an amateur choir in rehearsal, watching the great wide screen of the sky, waiting for news of breakfast. Mr Holliday is having a jaunt along the shore line, naked except for a tweed hat, a pair of binoculars round his neck, and a plastic bag containing a red thong, a pink vibrator a beach towel, and a pair of shorts. He allows the water to caress his ankles and feet. He enjoys the playful sensation of his toes sinking into the mushy sand. He eyes a small enclosure between two large rocks; looks like just the spot for him to settle down for the afternoon and sun. This quiet beach is ideal, no passersby this early, least they be affronted by the castle ruin of his body, and the uncommon sight of a naked pensioner. Slowly he jaunts to the rock alcove. Holliday whips out his towel, a hideous bright number, with two red parrots on the front; both perched on a branch in a luminous green tropical jungle. Holliday places the vibrator and thong and binoculars upon it carefully.

Exercise follows, star jumps, invigorating in the nude, even if his member and testicles swing up and down, like a dosing rod struck oil; best not to be embarrassed by the body. No red cheeked, shy eyed, God bothering about it. Like the tree to the branch, the head to the beak, the grass to the ground, it’s all a part of a part of a part of it. The despisers of the body – he’ll show them. Now he stretches: touches toes; loosens the leg muscles, inflates the solar plexus, and runs on the spot, warming himself up, get the old circulation sailing. Holliday moves onto the towel on all fours - arse to the sea head to the land. He stretches his leg out, back and in, as though pedalling in the air. Back and in, breathing in unison, out and in, left leg ten times, right leg ten times, deep breathes, exaggerated breathes, like a panting horse. He concentrates, staring down at the red parrots, with blue and yellow and green tipped wings - ah, to be tropical, he thinks - locked into his routine. Suddenly, there an anarchic scurry of leaps behind him, then he lets out a soprano scream, jumping into the air, clutching his buttocks, no hot poker, no cruel twig, nothing but the moist nose of a Golden Retriever momentarily inserted and sniffed where Apollo don’t shine.

Holliday startled, turns to scowl at the dog, which is joyfully bounding about licking at the air, trying to clamber up his body, while he, a man not easily scared by dogs, raises his arms in a cowardly manner, as though avoiding the flames of a fire that has suddenly broken out before him; pleading - 'Down boy, down boy.' Round the corner jogs the owner in purple top and purple shorts, she shriek, running mediation stunned by the unexpected site of a nude pensioner. She slips in the sand, landing arse first, clumsily staggers to her feet, mouth agape, quickly averts her gaze, like a voyeur caught in the act. She catches a glimpse of the towel, the bright parrots, the pink vibrator, the red thong, lying out in bold accusation. Where to look! Her eyes widen, shock turns to fear, fear to paranoia. She backs off slowly, ‘Don't come near me. ‘She warns. 'Daddy, come here, come here now, Daddy.’ The dog is sniffing around Holliday's privates, he tries to shew it, can't get back to the towel to grab his shorts. ‘I’m calling the police! You are perverse, predatory. Daddy, here boy, here boy, come on.’ The dog dumbly obeys, thinking it's all a game, oblivious to the shock - no shame for a dog, they'll shit in the street on busy weekend, without so much as a blush. The lady turns and bolts, grappling to get her mobile as she goes. Holliday, runs after her, round the two rocks, then realises the horror of such a scene, ‘it’s not what it looks like’ but how could he say that. It is what it is. ‘This is the nudist section.’ Who would believe that? This is over, he rushes to get the shorts, hopping leg for leg, stuff the things into the bag, and power walks the hell out of there. There's a hell of a charge for getting caught with your clothes off.

(Work to be done.)

Strawberry of the imagination.

2010-01-27T08:45:00.012-10:00

Rows of body bags: the fruit of war drying in the sun. - Saiom Shriver

When will families dance around a strawberry like a bonfire? Only when the last fruit has been picked from the last tree; how unreasonable! Distribute all strawberries immediately onto the grass, let the dew cling to them like the residue of a wet kiss. When the children and the wives and the husbands have awoken, the strawberries will be giants, casting large strawberry shadows, the veins will ripple as the juice circulates beneath the red skin. The families will dance around like there was no yesterday and is no tomorrow, infinity being only one day in summer that everyone is able to enjoy, without hand grenades falling from branches.

*Something about strawberries.

Love poem read by lamplight.

2010-01-21T11:19:00.016-10:00

The stars are the street lights of eternity. ~Author Unknown

My bed side lamp is crying. She threatens to leave me in the dark. I caress her curved spine gently with my hand. She tilts her head away casting the love poems in shadow. She hates love poetry: 'love is foreign' she says. It's wicked, I plead with her, not to shine your self upon the love poetry. The world is only bone and tombstone. Her filament trembles: Sentimentality is a funeral parlour, she hisses. You love poetry, but you don't know how to love me, you bed lying book possessed fool.

Stunned to hear these words, mouth O shaped, I speak to console. Then, without warning, she jumps from the bed side table, cable and plug trailing behind her, bursting the bright 40 watt bulb of her self, face first upon the wooden floor, shattering into smithereens. I lunge out of bed, startled, dropping the book of love poems upon her thin twisted body; I stand upon the hot pieces of glass in the darkness, wince as they slice into the soles of my feet. I fall to my knees sobbing; raise my hands to my face in mourning, then grope blindly in the dark gathering the broken bits and pieces.

High brow.

2010-01-17T06:23:00.004-10:00

The rain pisses down from the sky.
Swollen clouds amass like armies.
They have the look of two large
scholarly grey eyebrows crowding
into a frown of disappointment.

Great weather for air strikes.

2009-12-18T06:30:00.017-10:00

You'll need your umbrella in this weather - Granny Glasgow.