the punk is in the corner

the punk is in the corner
with this inverted narcissism
that makes him need to prove
to everyone
how complicated he is
before he can fuck them
in some ways he thinks
it's how he can get them
to fuck him
the room is shaped like a tin
of something - processed food
his eyes are blue
and he wishes they weren't

With morning comes light

New ideas 111

He wants to phone Emma?

“You wanna/call/her?”

“Yeah/ok”

“What?”

“Do I wanna/call her?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Watching TV again. Feral game show savant. More/tastes/metallic. Gone. Strong winds holding things up/more metal/tinsel. Taste but no object. Alex has got these really great arms, and when he wears red it makes them look even better. Things I guess are this way just because they are – I mean everything.

Long awaited by me. Some fulfilled, others still anticipated ...

Some of the things I was looking forward to that have recently arrived, and some that I am still looking forward to:

Aspen Michael Taylor - God Land


Regular readers of this blog will need no introduction to the work of Aspen Michael Taylor, an artist who never fails to amaze me. 2009 will see the unveiling of his new masterpiece, the feature film, God Land. From the shots I've seen so far, I know it's going to be something very, very special.

Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light

The only problem with Antony and the Johnsons is the waiting. Because there are so few other artists currently producing music like that of Antony Hegarty and his band, it’s pretty much impossible to get a similar fix from anywhere else. So I waited. The last album gave me shivers and lived closely with me for a long time. From the first few listens, The Crying Light will be doing the same over the next couple of years.

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

It took a while for Animal Collective to completely win my favour. The name and the reviews had often sparked my interest, but each time I tried out their records something always seemed to miss the mark of my tastes – it’s hard to put my finger on now, but there was a certain something lacking, a slight inconsistency that stopped them clicking with me properly. That changed with Strawberry Jam – their previous and seventh album. I saw them play in Paris in October 2007 too, which further cemented them in my mind as very definite favourites. This meant that the follow up to Strawberry Jam – Merriweather Post Pavilion – had me chomping at the bit. And disappoint it didn’t. Sprawling, engulfing, dreamy pop sounds drowning in one of the most delightfully buoyant blurs this side of a good acid trip.

Harmony Korine - Mister Lonely

Harmony Korine is a filmmaker who unfortunately suffers from the fact that sometimes his reputation as some sort of enfant terrible precedes that of his work. Thankfully Mister Lonely has arrived and finally put another notch on his creative belt. A Michael Jackson impersonator feeling lost and directionless in Paris, meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who invites him to live in a commune populated exclusively by celebrity impersonators in the Highlands of Scotland. Korine manages to forge sadness, hilarity and darkness and hope from the surrealist ingredients of his latest movie.

Mark Gluth - The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis

Dennis Cooper (whose Ugly Man is another of the books I am most looking forward to this year) has steadily been carving out a very unique imprint in association with Akashic publishing. Via Little House on the Bowery he has selected and edited a unique series of novels from new North American writers that has released outstanding work from the likes of Derek McCormack, Trinnie Dalton and Travis Jeppesen. This year will see the release of the latest in the series: The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis, the debut novel from Mark Gluth. Mark Gluth is an astoundingly exciting writer with a wonderfully tight, idiosyncratic style. The prospect of his first novel has me salivating.

Jason Burns - The Day Doesn't Care

Last year Mal-O-Mar issued its first release - the incredible second book from Ariana Reines. This year I'm hoping to get my hands on The Day Doesn't Care, by Jason Burns, a phenomenal writer who I have so much admiration and respect for that words barely cover it. I want this book so bad.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Some links:

Holocaust Memorial Day website
Accounts of 8 Holocaust survivors
The Holocaust Educational Trust

TM x

8 attempts at Rimbaud

New ideas 110

If I look somewhere else it looks like the light in the room has been put through a paper shredder and is sprinkled down in its new shape of strips; or like a TV fucking up in bad weather. Tinsel swallows still like tinsel. Tinsel isn’t the right word. It hasn’t become the right word yet. I think it might have been the right word. It just hasn’t become the right word yet.

“Yeah – she’s fine. Emma.”
“She didn’t want to ...” Alex trails off. Laughter/his.
I’m really scared.
“Didn’t want to?” I’m waiting for him to answer I think.
Alex laughs some more.
“To come!”
I know what Alex means now, but I keep thinking of the word cum. I think of Emma in this blur that almost feels like I’m trying to stop myself from thinking of her. I think of her cumming. I think of her whole body tensing up over Alex. I think of his face looking hot, tired, then I try the same image with his face cocky, confident, Emma’s legs crossing round his. Crunching themselves together really slowly. Her hips grinding at his like she was trying to work his cock down to nothing. Something about the curve of Emma’s back – damp, glazed. I don’t even know if they actually ever fucked. It doesn’t matter I guess because most things seem to be separated from love and I know that I don’t love Alex, although I guess I probably would do if I found out that he loved me.

I feel like Alex probably knows Emma more than I ever could.

Transparency

"So I had a dream about you last night."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You were great."
"Haha - what?"
"It was a ... ha ... fun dream."
"What?"
"Yeah."
"Shit ..."
"Haha ... yeah, I hope you didn't mind me using your body."
"Umm ..."
"You didn't seem to last night ... in the dream ... haha ..."
"Ummm ... heh."
"Sorry - haha - you don't mind me saying ... ?"
"I dunno."
"It's kinda ... I dunno."
"Sorry."
"Nah, heh, it's fine."
"Can I just tell you one thing?"
"OK."
"One of the things you did ... "
"Ummm ... OK ..."
"Shit - it doesn't matter ..."
"Are you ok?"
"I feel bad."
"I'm sorry ... "
"No - it's not you."
"..."
"I should go."
"..."
"Sorry."

Freezer burn

let my hands grip
either side of your stomach
your eyes closed
pushing into you
so your legs are
brushing your waist
the music has turned
to silence i think
can't remember the last time
that i heard it
my dick rubs along your thigh
pre-cum smudged into
the skin that obsesses me
just the smell of you
is enough
for me to lose everything i know
you suck my cock till
i think i'll fall down
i want to land next to you
with your breath in my ears
i want to feel your air
fogging up my skull

SCENE

Someone watching through a window. A widower scrapes ice from the windscreen of his car. Each time his lungs exhale his breath is visible in cold. The sky is surprisingly bright. It’s quiet so the sound of the man’s footsteps in the snow – his wellington boots crunching softly downwards – can be heard from inside the house. Car doors shutting can be such a beautiful sound. A five minute walk away is a local primary school. The voices of the children on their morning break carry in the clear air.

The widower drives off, the hum of the car reducing as he gets further into streets away from his house. His daily errands to the post office, the pound shop, the newsagents and the supermarket have begun. The person watching through the window sits and stares at a blank television.

Come lunchtime, the widower has returned and put a saucepan of oxtail soup on a hob; he toasts some bread to dip in it.

The person watching at the window has gone for a walk through the local woods. They’re empty today. People are at work or inside staying warm. A single horse flaps about in one of the farmers fields that split the wood up into the various corridors of undergrowth.

Find a dryer patch. Find somewhere to sit. Falls asleep.

Banks Violette

"Violette's installations investigate the truly dark corners of American culture in a vernacular that weds an appreciation of high art forms to a kitsch Gothic sensibility. A consistent bearer of bad news, Violette here explores a recent horrific case with both passionate obsession and clinical detachment." - teamgal.com

"I'm interested in a visual language that's over-determined, exhausted, or just over-burdened by meaning. The heavy-handed one-to-one of 'black-equals-wrong' is incredibly interesting to me -- less as something that has a meaning in itself, but more in how those visual codes can somehow become reanimated. That's constant throughout my work. All those images are like zombies -- they're stripped of vitality, yet sometimes they get life back in them ... and. like zombies, usually something goes wrong when they wake up again." - Banks Violette



Death metal, ritual murder and teenage suicide are starting points for Banks Violette. His work is notable for combining references to excess from youth culture with minimalist form, often using glossy black and ghostly white materials. Citing examples where musical lyrics become instigating factors to real-life violence, Violette refers to an over-identification with fiction, where fantasy and reality are blurred. For example, for his first solo museum exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, May 27-Oct. 2, 2005, Violette erected a life-sized recreation of a burned-out church on a black stage, inspired by an image from the cover of a black metal record and surrounded by a 5.1 surround score composed by Thorns Ltd consisting of a varied backdrop of ambiences ( www.thornsltd.no ). According to Violette, the inspiration of the piece was a series of instances of arson committed by rival metal enthusiasts in Norway, which culminated in the 1993 knife murder of Øystein Aarseth, guitarist of the black metal band Mayhem by Varg Vikernes of the band Burzum. - Wiki

I don’t think that you have to take Violette quite so seriously to appreciate his work; in fact, I think taking it too seriously does the work violence. What makes his pieces so unique is not the big issues that they confront, but the unholy marriage that they propose between the high-brow muteness of minimalist sculpture and the creepy, nerdy, very sincere culture of heavy metal –- an uneasy coupling that accounts for the fluctuation that I have highlighted between the abstractness of their presentation and the richness of their referential content. In an art world full of conceptual sculpture, what makes Violette stand out is clearly not his acknowledgement, again in Momin’s words, of "hybridity, ambiguity, and the slippage (or permeability) of worlds" (isn’t this just a cliché about all postmodern art?), but rather his genuine attachment to this subculture, evidenced by his recurrent motifs of smashed instruments, Satanic symbols and spooky black mirrors.

As for Violette’s ambiguous references to the particularly "heavy" aspects of heavy metal (violence, murder, etc.), I’d say that they serve as a sort of Trojan horse, giving his work a cerebral shell that lets art about this relatively unsubtle, unironic subculture pass through the gates of the art world. But if one returns to the comparison with Marcus Harvey’s sensational serial killer painting, the different degree of seriousness is clear: Harvey’s intent was clearly to provoke the audience and test the limits of artistic tolerance, whereas the tale that underlies Violette’s Untitled is too foreign and esoteric to have much of a gut impact on its American audience –- it’s more a fanboyish display of heavy metal trivia than anything else. Read the full article here.

New ideas 109

I think I make Alex feel something that is closer to Emma for him. Cold air fizzing the inside of my skull. I always try not to think too much about bones. Skulls just freak me out. We’re all interiors. Hard to feel the direction of the breeze because it’s all at once.

Everything is at once.
Everything is so close that I can barely make it out.
Everything just works.
Everything just is.
Everything is.
Everything is cold.
Everything is infused.
Everything is constant.
Everything is electricity.
Everything is stretched till it loses shape.
Everything is shapes.
Everything has sides
Everything is sides.
Everything is friction.
Everything is everything else.
Everything is burning.
Everything is beautiful.
Everything is tragic.
Everything is shadows.
Everything is internet.
Everything is waiting.
Everything is forever.
Everything is sincere.
Everything is not watching things.

He picks something up. He puts it down. He looks at it. I look at it. I think I’m learning something. He might be too. I don’t pick it up because I can’t tell if he is going to again. He doesn’t but thinks about. I think about it too. He puts a hand back on it. I think I feel it. We’re learning the same thing. Cubed? No – but I can feel it. We’re both so nervous, wrapping our eyes round it like we want them or it to stretch somehow.

T/r/e/m/b/le

Untitled

“You don’t know anything and everything you do know is just, umm, just fucking bullshit, right? Laugh all you want but you know what will happen. I always know when someone’s pretending because every single person wants the same thing. People feel angry.”

Happy Birthday: Jim O'Rourke

Jim O'Rourke is one of my all time favourite musicians. It's his birthday today. I don't need much of an excuse to fill my blog with his stuff:


Mini documentary from 2002



Oldish interview



Jim O'Rourke plays the Tenori-On



Masaya Nakahara/Jim O'Rourke/Tomoo Gokita



suicidal 10cc　Masaya Nakahara+Jim O'Rourke　高円寺ミッション　大悪魔祭



Yoshio Kuge, Jim O'Rourke & Keiji Haino

Parallax again (for David Rylance)

Find me in the gap

I made between this

World and the same

One again and yeah

It’s a kinda a joke but

She’s going to hold this pose

Until we join the dots for her

Or learn not to doubt

Her intent

Growing

- Can you keep a secret?
- It depends. No.
- Depends on what?
- Scratch that – I mean, no, I can’t.
- I still want to tell you.
- I think I’d rather not know.
- Why?
- Would it hurt me?
- You’re too dramatic.
- So it’s not bad?
- It’s annoying.
- I mean the secret.
- It depends.
- Let me sleep?
- That’s part of it.

Chimes

so this
feels good
and nothing
had to change
you just act the same
without having to think

so you
agree completely
concerning simplicity
and nothing had to change
so this proves something more
than the original idea you had anyway

all this is set up with one purpose in mind and i’ve seen too many of their
faces to not care by now just stop and keep starting and we’ll see this through

Quenched breath, dirty knees from garage dust

Think about the last 5 things you did
In relation to the next 5 things
That you’re going to do

What did the room just ask you?
Guesses to do with old times.

I light fires
Just so I can put them out

The plan is that I’m going to walk in
Without saying anything

We stood and watched the scum
From dirty taps circling the just bleached sink
And you said that all these things affect your sleep

Things are going to be easier
When you think about the next five things
That you’re going to do

Catch yourself saying these things
And feel happy because they were just quiet enough
So that no one heard or the ones who did won’t remember to talk about them
They think they’ve realised how they do things

He said if you wanted to sneak outside
Then he’d give you a proper kiss goodnight

I had this dream where I was shouting

Goths, incest and boybands

A little while back I interviewed someone who used to write fan fiction. It was as research for a piece of writing that I am still thinking about writing at some point in the future. So today I thought that I'd post a little bit more of my research into fan fiction. I've collected a few stories written about different bands by some of their fans from around the world. While I was collecting them I was particularly interested in the form that they have used in their stories, the common themes that occur, and the techniques that were employed to set up the events. That stuff might not be of interest to anyone else beside myself. Heh. Either way, I thought it might make for a slightly different blog post to usual. So I guess this is the first time that the fiction on here hasn't been written by me. Anyways:

Slash fiction extract one:

An English teenager writes about her favourite pop group McFly:

"I do not own any of McFly, nor do i know them or about their sexualities.
Summary: Danny is in love with Dougie but is scared to tell him. Will Danny tell Dougie? If he does, what will Dougie's reaction be? Read on to find out more....;-)

“Doug…..Doug!” Danny shouted up the stairs to his band mate. He slowly made his way up the stairs and tapped lightly on Dougie’s bedroom door.
“Dougie, you in there?” questioned Danny and he slowly opened the door sliding his head around it. Dougie was curled up on his bed with his head phones in his ears and in a peaceful slumber. His eyes closed which flickered every few seconds showing that he was dreaming. He looked so sweet lying there, his fringe lightly falling across his beautiful facial features. Danny had to stop himself from going over and kissing him. He knew he couldn’t. Not only could it ruin the future of the band. It would completely destroy their friendship, and that was something Danny couldn’t risk.
He sighed deeply and closed Dougie’s door behind him. Running his hand through his hair, he walked off to his own bedroom. He slumped down onto his bed, tears starting to sting his eyes. He knew that if he told Dougie about his feelings for him, it would be the end of everything. He knew that if he told Harry and Tom, they would probably laugh at him, and tell him how stupid he was. He knew he would rather keep it to himself than loose Dougie’s friendship.
The tears were now flowing freely down his soft cheeks. Each tear filled with love, lust, and sorrow.
“Danny, have you started packing yet?” he heard Tom call from outside Danny’s bedroom door.
“Err….no.” Danny called back, trying to hide any signs in his voice that would indicate he was crying.
“Well, I think you’d better hurry up.” said Tom walking in and seeing an upset Danny lying in a heap at the bottom of the bed.
“Dude, what’s up?” Tom sat next to where Danny was on the bed, gently stroking his hair out of his eyes. Danny slowly lifted his head, looking Tom in the eye.
“It’s nothing….” He lied getting up and pulling an empty suitcase from under the bed.
“You wouldn’t be crying if it was nothing. Come on, you know you can tell me”
“I can’t tell you; anyway, you would probably laugh.”
“Danny, you know I won’t laugh. I hate seeing you like this. I would feel much better if you told me.”
“Ok,” Danny sighed as he sat down next to Tom. “Well……It’s…….It’s……just……I’m in love.”
“Shouldn’t you be happy about that?” asked Tom, putting his arm comfortingly around Danny’s shoulders.
“Not really, because I’m not sure this person feels the same, and I’m too scared to tell them.”
“I think you should tell her exactly how you feel.”
Danny looked at the floor and bit his lip.
“That’s where the problem is……it’s not a girl…….it’s….”
Tears started rolling down his cheeks again.
“Awww, Danny.” Tom pulled Danny into a tight comforting hug. “Who is it then?”
“It’s…….erm……It’s……..Dougie.” Danny stuttered, pulling away slightly to see Tom’s reaction.
“Are you being serious?” Tom asked, although he didn’t look surprised. Danny slowly nodded his head, a few tears still escaping from his beautiful blue eyes.
“I don’t know what to do, Tom. I want to tell him, but I’m scared that if I do, he’ll hate me.”
“Danny, Dougie could never hate you! Just tell him, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“But how do I tell him?”
“I’ll think of something,” said Tom winking. “If you need to talk I’ll be in my room.”
Tom stood up and walked towards the door. “And, Danny, Don’t worry about. I’m always here to help.” And with that Tom shut the door, leaving Danny to pack for their break the next day.

**********

Slash fiction extract two:

A goth fan writes her fantasy about Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor having sex:

Manson screams out the last of the lyrics, feeling the emotion rippedout from the depths of him, as Trent's guitar howls and wails in perfectharmony. The song is brutal and haunting, something Manson can relateto, his life.And then, finally, the lights go down for the last time and they're freeto make their way backstage and hurry through the interminable halls totheir shared dressing room. Once the door is locked behind them, they'rewrapped in each other's arms, kissing so harshly they'll leave bruises,tearing hard at each other's pants.Manson rips Trent's pants off hastily, finally getting to sweet, warmskin, skin he was denied when they were playing onstage. He rubs Trent'sstomach, silently wishing he could absorb him into his skin, wanting tobe a *part* of him so desperately that it's a gnawing hunger.Trent's exploration of Manson's skin is no less fervent. He flings hisarm out to find something, anything they can use as lube and finds athing of lip gloss. He hands it to Manson. "Please," he begs, unable tosay any more of what he wants. Manson understands, though, because hewants the same thing, and smears some of the lip gloss into Trent.Trent arches as Manson finds his pleasure spot, hissing slightly as thepain starts, but soon it fades, and he can concentrate on Mansontouching him deep inside.Manson murmurs nonsense into Trent's ear as he slowly, torturously pullshis fingers out of Trent. Trent whimpers, but is reassured by the firstpress of Manson's cock into him.Trent can smell the lip gloss, a sickly-sweet scent that's distractinghim. He buries his face into Manson's neck, preferring the smell ofsweat and man, mouthing his skin dreamily, like he could eat him up.Manson loves that, loves Trent's mouth on him, pulling at his skin,sucking hard enough, he hopes, to leave marks. He slowly pulls himselfalmost all the way out of Trent's body, then slams back in, hitting atTrent's insides just the way he knows Trent likes it.And Trent likes it so much, loves the way Manson just fucks him hard,grabbing his hips and manhandling him all the while. He bites Manson'scollarbone hard, marking him as his, wanting more, wanting it harder andfaster.Manson isn't about to refuse him that. He arches into Trent's teeth andthrusts into him in ever-harder, ever-faster movements, driving into himover and over and over again until Trent doesn't think he can stand itanymore.Pushed hard against the door, his head banging rhythmically, Trent digshis fingernails deep into Manson's back. "God, it's so good, so goodwhen you fuck me," he moans. His breath catches as Manson hits the spot,the one that always drives him crazy, makes him wild, makes him just . .. let . . . go . . .And his teeth close over Manson's skin again, and Manson *loves* that,pushes into it, shifts so that the teeth pull and tear his skin almostenough to draw blood and then he's shouting, yelling out Trent's nameand coming and coming and coming into his beloved Trent.Trent feels him shuddering against him, and bites down hard again; hewants the blood, he wants it to come gushing forth and cover him, hewants to drown in its coppery sweetness. He can already feel Manson'scome inside him, warming him, filling him; he's no longer alone, nolonger empty. His own semen is already cooling on their stomachs and he bites harderand then the blood spurts into his mouth and he swallows it down,wanting to consume every bit of Manson he can. Manson moans and slumpsagainst him.

**********

Slash fiction extract three:

A My Chemical Romance fan writes and imaginary account of incest within the band:

I tried to think of something I wanted. I could always buy myself some more art supplies, but…I was sick of that. I could always completely splurge and buy as many Ho-Ho's as I could fit in my grocery cart… but last time I did that, I ended up gaining about 20 pounds, and feeling sick for a month. Bad idea. I sighed. I knew the one thing I really wanted, and it was Mikey. Yes, my brother, Mikey Way-Mikey. I know...it's really sick. But actually...is it? We can't help who we fall in love with…
Of course, I had always been really messed up. I had these fantasies…not only about Mikey, but about killing people...anyways.
Okay, well, I want Mikey for my birthday...I smirked. I had an idea. I pulled on a shirt and a pair of pants and went out to the garage to see if we had any rope left from that time Frank's car broke down and the damn tow-truck wouldn't help, so we had to haul it all the way home.
---
A few minutes later, I had found the rope. I looked at my watch-6:30. No one will be up...good. I quietly open the door to Mikey's room, and shut it carefully behind me, turning the latch.
I walked over to his bed and looked down at him. He was so beautiful, and he had such a happy look on his face... not for long.
I lightly grabbed one of his wrists and tied a slipknot with the rope, and slid his hand through. Tightening it slightly, I pulled the other end and tied to one corner of his bed post. Repeating the action with his other arm and two feet, I then stepped back and sat down, waiting for him to wake up.
I saw him try to turn over in his sleep, then his face went from puzzled, to afraid, to aware as he snapped his eyes open. He didn't at first see me, as I was sitting in the shadows...I've always had a soft spot for melodrama.
When he finally did see me, however, rather than looked frightened, he looked relieved. We'll have to fix that...
I walked over to his bed.
'Gerard, what are you doing,' he asked exasperatedly.
'Whatever I want to,' I said. 'Not only do I have you at my complete disposal, it's my birthday.'
He gave me a weird look, then laughed nervously. 'I can just yell, then someone would hear me...'
'Oh, I don't think you want to do that, Mikey,' I said, casually pulling out the knife I had been holding behind my back. I began to toy with the blade, letting it cut my finger, then watching the blood run down, before slowly stopping.
'You're crazy,' he said, trying to make his tone light and joke-y, but you could see that he was really thinking 'what the fuck is he doing?!'
I smiled. 'Maybe. I doubt it, though.' I shrugged. 'I seem to have pretty good awareness that what I'm doing is wrong. I just don't really care.'
I put the tip of the blade where his collarbones met. I pressed down just hard enough to puncture the skin, then slowly drew a line down his chest and stopping at his navel. He gasped, and watched the blood trickle out of the wound. He looked up at me, with real fear in his eyes this time. Excellent.
I ran my finger along the wound, before putting it into my mouth and smiling evilly. 'Enjoying yourself?'
His eyes only widened, and I laughed. 'I love you, Mikey...' I said, sitting next to him on the bed.
I carefully took the knife and sliced off the boxers he had been wearing. I laughed again when I noticed his partially erect length.
He glared at me. 'It's not because of you!' I smirked, and asked 'then what is it?'
He blushed, and paused. 'My dream.'
'Really. What were you dreaming about?'
He blushed again. 'That's...that's not really any of your business.'
I put the knife to his throat lightly. 'And I don't think it's really any of your business to tell me what and what not to ask,' I said softly. I was reminding him that even though he was my brother, I still had humongous advantage on him.
'...do I have to tell you?' he asked, and I sighed. I do love him, after all...I said nothing, but kept the knife to his throat, just to see him squirm.

_____________________________________________

New ideas 108

“Where’s Emma?”
“...”
“How’s Emma?”
“..”
“.....................”
“.....”
“...................................”
“...”
“where’semmahow’semma?”
That hurts and everything feels like the ... the inside of ... some shape? that I can’t quite feel out. Maybe it’s dark inside every shape but people spend too much time looking at how many sides there are, so they can work out what shape they’re looking at.

Some irritating thoughts from some of Black Metal's less intelligent acolytes

People are fucking stupid sometimes. I've snagged an assortment of posts from the message board of black metal band Gorgoroth. Their singer Gaahl recently spoke of his homosexuality. Some not so enlightened discussion followed within their fanbase. I'm not sure why I thought to highlight some of this stuff. I guess maybe just because maybe I had this ridiculous idea that Black Metal fans - followers of a genre so often marginalized by reductive, prejudiced thinking - may be above all of this bullshit. I guess not:

---

"Haha...haha...hahahahahahaha!!!!! Gaahl's a pickle-kisser! Hahahahahahahahahahaha! What a fruit-cake!Next Gaahlgoroth album title: Troo Norwegian Butt-sex Metal"

"Lol the man is a joke now.. ofc i dont care too much gay or not but whats next.. pose in playboy with his gayfriend next or ?? haha he can go hide somewhere the entire bm scene laughs at this queen."

"I, as a Christian, will say: GAAHL YOU SUN OF A BITCH GO FUCK YOURSELF BY A MAN GAY BASTARD!"

"Uh...I don't know about natural. you never see 2 male animals lubein up for some hardcore ass-ramming...or walking hand-in-hand to buy some new Birkenstocks. And you never see 2 female animals eating eachothers muff's."

"Gaahl's a limp-wristed faggot. He's a disgrace as a man, a weak individual and a false idol. He says that only a few men in the world are to be king's, and he will be a queen. His fellow shoolmate that commited suicide, probably did it after Gaahl raped him. Gaahl deserves to die along with King for their treachery and pickle-kissery. If they win the name, I hope Infernus kills them."

"I love metal. Always have since I first heard Metallica as a child. But as my obsession grew, I now take music very seriously. i find faggotry to be a weak lifestyle, as it promotes femininity in men."

"Perversions are different. Doing deviant acts is one thing, but being an all-out faggot is another."

---

I was glad that as I read on there were some people picking apart the nonsense that was being written, but still, it annoyed me. Just thought I'd get it off my chest. It just makes me think of kids who were bullied at school making their own hierarchies so that they can bully others. Fools.

An ideal

I’d like to think that he paints every day. If he doesn’t paint then I’d like to think that he takes photographs. If he isn’t a photographer then I’d like to think that he’s writing. If he isn’t writing then I want to believe that he’s thinking about one of the above.

I’m not sure what the time difference is. I’m ahead. Maybe he’s eating lunch. If he’s eating lunch with a friend ... yeah, I can see him doing that ... His friend, I think she’s female. They’re both probably fairly low key. They’re both polite.

I want to think that he’s walking round in awe of the world, saying really sincere things to people. I want the things he says to be so sincere that people find them hard to believe and assume he is being sarcastic or hiding a deeper meaning behind his words. I want people to trip themselves up on their own hang ups.

“There is nothing like a good cup of coffee.”

“That’s the best piece of driving I have ever seen.”

“That’s fantastic, Katherine.”

“Don’t you just love that light?”

Things that should be said in a letter

1.
Let me
Tangle you
And fool
You warm
In something
Sinewy
That feels
Nothing like
A Topshop
Advertisement
And nothing like
We’re meant
To be meeting
For coffee in
A place that we
Can watch people.

2.
I couldn’t tell him
One thing
About you

3.
One thing I couldn’t
Tell him about
You

4.
I told you I couldn’t
Tell him
One thing about you

My new book - HOSPITAL - is available now

I’m happy to announce the release of my new book HOSPITAL. It’s been hovering around for a little while now, so it feels good (and also very strange) to finally send it into the world. HOSPITAL is a collection of 19 poems that I started work on over the summer. I guess anyone who knows what that period was like for me will know that it was perhaps the hardest time of my life so far. Because of that I feel very different to the majority of the new pieces in HOSPITAL than I do to the rest of my writing. In a lot of ways I just feel that I have no distance from the work. While my mother was dying I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I guess in many ways I still don’t. The only thing that I knew I could do during that time, was write. I don’t know whether it helped me work myself out of certain things or if it had no effect at all. I just knew that I didn’t for one second want to stop writing. I wanted to get some things down – I think I felt that I had no choice in a way. I don’t know how I will feel about some of these poems in a few months, in a few years time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to look at them. At the moment, some of them feel too raw to think about. HOSPITAL is a book so close to me right now. This isn’t in any way meant to sound melodramatic or anything like that. I guess I’m just introducing the collection and putting it in some kind of context. I don’t know whatever. Here it is anyway. This is dedicated to the memory of my mother. Like my previous book, it is a Broken Blood Press book, and it can be purchased by clicking here (I’ll put a permanent link up in the sidebar in the next few days).

If anyone is interesting in writing a review of HOSPITAL, or wants to write something about it/interview me etc, then get in touch and I can sort you out with an electronic version of the book for you to read.

I also want to take this opportunity to publically thank Aspen Michael Taylor for providing the breathtaking artwork featured on the front cover of HOSPITAL, and also just for his enthusiasm and encouragement with this project. Thank you, thank you, thank you.xxx


BLURBS:

“Thomas Moore's HOSPITAL is a harrowing, dazzling, magnificent collection of poems. From its rigorous mapping of the jagged miscommunication that dogs online conversation to its intensive, exquisite search for words precise enough to bear the meaning of an incommunicable sadness, this is a more powerful, brilliant book than I could have imagined.”
- Dennis Cooper, author of God Jr, The Sluts, and The George Miles Cycle.

“Moore made a striking debut with Surfaces, an edgy suite of poems on yearning, resistance, and beauty. Here he goes magically deeper, hammering his wrists on the door that separates the dead from the living—thin membrane on which this writing inscribes itself like a breath. It’s more fluid and persuasive now that it’s known tragedy. “Let me know,” Moore pleads, “when your body is tired/ So I can run water under every word that/ You say.” His prosody’s sometimes bumpy, but it gives him the leverage to heave the whole world from one level of consciousness to the next. Even in his sweats he is the most attentive of poets, attentive of sons.”
- Kevin Killian, author of Shy, Little Men and Action Kylie

HOSPITAL is a Broken Blood Press book.


BUY HOSPITAL HERE

Ron Asheton RIP

A friend sent me a text last night that read: "Ron Asheton is dead". Really sad news. For those not familiar, Ron Asheton was the guitarist in The Stooges. An important guy in my musical world. RIP Ron.

New ideas 107

The bar chart of a poster is still hovering about, divided into about 6 different continents of colour.

Someone just said something that made so little sense that I got it completely. Alex. He’s here, after all. Weird how all this looks. I shoot my eyes around the room a lot. When I was younger I used to draw a lot of pictures.

My shoulders tense up. Fuck. Because I don’t quite remember something.

I relax again when I hear that the music has changed. It’s nothing now. Maybe I don’t recognize it.

There’s still this really horny feeling that feels ... sincere? Everyone has been trained to miss something that they never actually had but they’ve been told so many times that they’re not complete without it that they’ll never ever be able to feel as special as they should and they are and probably could really be able to.

I put my head against Alex. I think we’re supposed to kiss, or maybe we did, but now my head is in his shoulder. It’s easier.

Halfway

The whispering stops for a second which makes me think that maybe he’s heard me. He must have just stopped for breath. He continues. Half like he’s learnt something from a film and half like he’s trying to intimidate someone younger than him who wouldn’t have the reference points needed to deal with it. The wood creaks under the carpet and I freeze. Some people sound so silly that it’s frightening. For a moment I feel like I might really shit my pants, my guts just ... wobbles? with fear. If I could be petrified then at least it wouldn’t hurt. He’s asking questions but not giving Whoeveritisintherewithhim time to answer. In all, I’m only 6 meters from the door. But that includes the stairs that I have to finish getting down. I’m halfway, if you wondered.

I want to write a poem about fantasizing about ideals & wanting to be an American teenager in the early 90s falling in love and listening to Pavement

In the Mouth a Desert



Summer Babe



Loretta's Scars



Stop Breathin'



Stereo



Carrot Rope



Major Leagues

New ideas 106

There are explosions of something that tickles but in a visual way that I can’t see, in my stomach. Alex is much closer than he was whenever I last thought about that stuff. His eyes are huge, especially the centres. I forget whether there was music playing before because I can’t tell if there is or not now. I’m so close to kissing Alex and I can feel my nails scratching and clutching against the top of his leg which is crossed but more like a heap. Alex blinks.

Open.

And.

Closed.

Open.

And.

Closer.

When you’re on acid. No. When I am. When I am on acid everything feels like words. But it feels like every single word has got apostrophes in the wrong places. There was some thing I read. It was on the internet? Maybe it was in school. Maybe someone showed me. If you keep the first and the last letters of a word in the same place, but you mix up the letters in the middle, people will still be able to read the word. I don’t know if acid is like that. It’s both. I can tell what all these words are but I can’t at the same time.

Something happens. Either I kissed Alex or he’s on the other side of the room. Oth’r s’de ‘f th’ r’’m.

Whether a band is punk or not depends on how you think about music.

Johnny Depp Gets Eaten by and then Regurgitated From His Bed

No-one’s watching and he wants her
All to himself so he can slip her underwear
To the side
And speak in a new accent
And pretend to be an alpha-male
Like his new body language is going to fool anyone

Happy New Year

2009 - take me! I'm yours x