Halloween post: Never joke about evil.

A haunted charity shop in my hometown

Axed

So it starts off in this house that used to belong to a mutual friend but it’s a house that you never got to go to because you didn’t know him back then but I did because I’d met him through someone else that I think you’ve heard us talking about but never got to meet for whatever reason and it’s a mixture of the upstairs and downstairs that our friend used to have there’s a half a bit of his bathroom and half a bit of this weird little nothing room that used to separate a corridor and a kitchen but the kitchen isn’t there now because my brain has decided that’s where the bathroom should now be it’s also got this dank abandoned house vibe but I can’t tell you why probably just the filter that my dream is putting this through there’s a dog that’s been savagely mutilated but it doesn’t seem to have noticed a huge chunk has been axed from the top of its spine through to its hind legs but it looks like it’s been taken out with maths equipment because it’s like this insanely perfect diagonal line and there’s no blood probably just because of this half dog that is mostly just clean looking bone is terrifying enough without gore and I realise that the piece of bone with some tripe gauged into the middle hollowed out area that the dog is chewing on is most likely taken from the chunk of log looking white that’s been axed off its back that’s where it gets mixed up because I can’t remember what happened from there just my mother’s voice calling me downstairs which wakes me up even though she’s dead and so I couldn’t really hear it and I convince myself that my brother is singing Come As You Are by Nirvana even though I know he’d never listen to that song let alone sing it at the top of his voice takes about two minutes to realise that I just swapped dreams like someone got bored of a song and decided to skip before the end I don’t wake up for another twenty minutes even though I dream that I have

Former Ghosts

Really enjoying the Former Ghosts album Fleurs at the moment. And thus:


An interview with Former Ghosts for the excellent The Grizzly Life blog:

























Click here for more information about Former Ghosts.

TM x

Knowing the secrets that you've been keeping

“I like to be tied up,” he said.
“Oh yeah?” his eyes bulged a little bit.
“Yeah.” He looked so shy.
“I think we’re going to be able to have some fun.” He tried to make his voice sound sexy in a menacing way that someone compatible with him should hopefully be able to decipher as playful.
“I dunno,” he played with the sleeves of his jumper. “I’m not really into how that stuff usually works.”
“Meaning?” He tried to suck up a sigh, make it sound a little more aligned with intense interest.
“I just like to be left.”
“What do you mean? Neglected? I could do that.” There’s nothing more pathetic than a top sounding desperate.
“No. I mean, like, just left.”
“I don’t follow.” His erection couldn’t seem to decide whether to sustain itself. Decoding this kid was hard work.
“I like to be tied up by someone. I mean, I get real pleasure from that – like serious kicks, you know? But once I’m tied up, I just like to be left. I like the person who has tied me up to just leave. I like them to leave me there alone, tied up.”
“Okay.” His expression was an attempt to look like he was trying to work through a couple of interesting social theories all related to his libido – he wanted the person he was talking to be wondering if it was possible to fit into his plans. He wanted to give off the idea that he had big plans, complicated ideas that only certain people could hope to match the scope of.
“I don’t know if that’s what you had in mind.” He drooped his head a little so his fringe fell over one eye. “Not many people seem to be into it.”
“Umm,” words weren’t going to work so he decided to just let them fall out: “What would be in that for me?” Shit, was that too honest?
“I don’t know. I mean … would you like to make me happy?”

The Black Sky

“The sky looks black.”
“Yeah.”
“I keep thinking that I can see stars but each time I try to let my eyes rest on one of them they vanish. They appear in the corners of my line of vision and I try to catch them like a cat going after a bird but they’re gone before my eyeballs can touch them.”
“They might be appearing in blind spots. That means that your brain is trying to fill in gaps that it can’t see. Your brain must be guessing that there are stars there.”
“If that’s the case then it’s a cruel trick to be playing on myself.”

***

Whenever she heard a car door shutting she thought of being thirteen and in America. For her birthday that year her parents paid for her to go on a school trip to the Grand Canyon. Only fifteen children from her school got to go. Although she never managed to work out what made the sound of an American car door shutting different to the car doors at home, she knew that there was a difference. The difference seemed very distinct. She liked that there was a difference. The US car door shutting made her ears more satisfied. As she grew older she concluded that there was little point in trying to deconstruct her natural inclinations.

***

Grandma always looked like she was trying to not fall asleep. In the afternoons, usually by around 4 o’clock she would start to nod off. Grandma’s head would slowly lean forward, and her false teeth would slide to the very front of her mouth. Her head would lean a little more. Just when her chin was about to touch the point where the tops of her breasts started she’d wake up for a second raise her head and look around the room wide eyed but only briefly. Then her head would start to drop again. This pattern would repeat itself for about forty five minutes before she’d wake up properly and decide that it was high time for another pot of tea.

My grandma used to refer to comics and magazines as books.
“Your grandma’s going to have a kip, you read your book, that’s a good girl.” Or “She sat there good as gold looking at her book”. Or “Put your book away so as we can have dinner”. Or “Roll up your book and blast that fly for me would you?” I don’t think on any of those occasions the publication that I held in my small hands was actually an actual book or novel.

LEAN UPSTREAM: Chris Goode in Performance

Just thought I'd give you a heads up about this very exciting cluster of events taking place next month, in celebration of the work by my friend the theatre maker and poet Chris Goode (who I was fortunate enough to collaborate with on the Hey Mathew piece).

From the Lean Upstream website:

"LEAN UPSTREAM is a month-long season of work by London-based writer, director and performer Chris Goode, who has been described by The Guardian as "one of the most exciting talents working in Britain today."

The season includes a chance to catch up with two of Chris's recent experimental solo pieces, Hippo World Guest Book and YEAH BOOM!: A Christopher Knowles Reader; a brand new 'performance lecture', The Forest and the Field; a workshop as part of Artsadmin's Weekenders series; and an array of other readings and performances, including the launch of The History of Airports, Chris's new book of performance texts from the last fifteen years.

By concentrating on the more marginal areas of Chris's practice as a theatre-maker and poet, and by hosting the work of a number of other artists working in experimental modes in poetry, music and performance, LEAN UPSTREAM aims to spotlight just a small part of what's happening 'upstream' in contemporary performance, focusing on work that's exploratory and sometimes challenging but always lively and accessible to a wide, engaged audience: work whose influence gradually flows into the mainstream, shaping tomorrow's theatrical language and performance culture.

LEAN UPSTREAM has been made possible only through the generous support of its two principal hosts: Artsadmin (based at Toynbee Studios), where Chris is currently an associate artist; and Camden People's Theatre, the pioneering fringe space where Chris was artistic director between 2001-04, and which is celebrating its fifteenth birthday this autumn with a special festival season with which LEAN UPSTREAM intersects.

Click to view a calendar of events in the LEAN UPSTREAM season.
Click to find out how you can support the LEAN UPSTREAM season."

HIGHLY recommended.

He writes things when he feels depressed

He writes then he feels depressed.
But he can't tell whether it helps.
There are a lot of layers to try and get through.

Rainbow

It’s a rainbow that looks like it could have been stolen from Super Mario World. It’s a 2D design that has been made 3D. The curves and block sides are measured so that they are geometrically perfect. They are sanded down so that they are completely even. The seven colours have been given a mat finish so that the red is flat but deliciously attractive, the green unblemished, the purple is precise.

You have no idea how much I would do for you

Persistence

The only times I definitely know
that you like me
are when I sleep with someone else.

I've been thinking
about doing it more often,
for precisely that reason.

The majority of time
you're there in body,
but your spirit
feels more like a ghost,
like it's haunting
your person
by some cruel coincidence
rather than choice.

Maybe I need
constant reassurance,
but I'm thinking of doing this
over and
over
and over
and over
again.

Burning

"I can smell burning."
"Go to sleep."
"No seriously - it smells like someone has set a fire."
"Someone probably just had a barbeque. Lay down and go back to sleep."
"It didn't smell like that before we went to bed."
"It did, I think I smelt it before - you didn't notice because you were tired."
"It smells close - I'm going to look out the window."
"LIE DOWN!"

Parallel lines dots and stars |||||.:.:.:**

The fact that they knew each other
Actually made things
A certain amount easier.
First couple of rushes
Made them think about
Parallel lines
Jitters;
I think I’ve finally got it.

Felt about setting more
Of a division
To make those things easier.
After the first few brushes
They could think about
Dots and stars
Randomized;
They’re never going to have it.

Start imagining
What this will
Be like if
It all goes wrong.

A short extract from a new piece that I've been working on

I tell people that my boyfriend killed himself because it makes me feel unimpeachable. I tell them that he was horrifically depressed – the sort of depressed that people really just can’t understand. The really complicated depressed. I also tell people that he was dyslexic. I tell people that in his last months, he’d constantly be asking me how to spell certain words, or he’d ask me about various pieces of punctuation – how certain sentences were supposed to work – without ever revealing what sentences he was working on. I tell people that I was inadvertently helping him write his suicide note.

Whisper this so I can't hear

It came in a grey tatty slip case
Cardboard folded over and stuck
And now all it looks like is you
More the feel of it
It felt like things couldn't keep up
With themselves
When I listen to it now, it makes
Me think of people I know now
And what they were like before
I did

The Returners

They always come back.
When they do, it's as if
They're still the same
As they were
When they left;

But that's not the truth,
Just the way that they're
Acting, so no one worries
Too much:

They're fed up with drama.

Night times are the worse,
I know that
Because my friend was one:
A returner.
And when it got dark
There'd be this look in his eyes
- only there for the briefest of seconds -
- so you'd have to look really fast -
- because Returners always realise when they're letting slip -
- because they've spent so long watching every tiny subtlety of human behaviour -
But if you asked real quick
You might be able
To get something out of them.

Depends if you'd have the time
Because it can be quite a commitment,
Not in a bad way - not in a negative sense,
But it's time consuming
And it isn't fun for anyone,
Asking them questions
Trying to find out exactly where they've been.

3 poems for lost children

These are 3 of the 13 poems that I contributed to artist Matt Snowden for part of his Lost Children project. The texts will be printed on small cards backed with Matt's artwork and left annonymously in towns and cities in the West Midlands on England. They'll be hidden in coat pockets, parks, libraries and any other public place where they might be found by strangers. The text and artworks will not be credited to myself or Matt, just left annonymous.

Letters

The letters keep dropping through the letterbox.
I hand them to him and leave the room.

I thought about putting a sign on the door to the porch
asking the postman to check the name on the envelopes
of the stuff that he chucks through,

and

if it's got the wrong name on (the name we don't need
to keep seeing)

asking if he could just keep the letters for himself
or send them somewhere else.

Gagged

She gave him some clues
Checked his response at the end of each sentence
Because of the angle
They couldn't look each other in the eye
Which made things feel easier for both of them

They couldn't gage reaction totally
And their own could not be gaged

They felt gagged by their own fears
If it all goes wrong they'll be sent spinning

If it goes right for one of them
Then the other will feel like
They've been set on fire
And left burning like a Halloween scarecrow

Things feel impossible
Things feel blue like an empty sky

Balancing weights switches swifts

Blurred -----but I -----know it's a street
Feel like-------------I know it or
--------Perhaps it's---------just somewhere
that you-----------told me about

Nothing------------ like
letting someone that you wwwant
to---------be yours------- sharing memories
so that ------- you can pretend to
---------be in -----them -----too

Place yourself
---in moments that you mm ii ss ee dd
-------------------------try to
-------------------------balance
--------------------------things up

Show --------me photographs ---from the years
--------that never ---------happened
-----------remind me ---what that white cloud
is supposed -----to mean to me

Would you allow me a brief nostalgia trip?

The templates on my phone

- Please call me back
- I'm late. I will be there at
- Where are you now?
- I'm on the way
- Urgent! Please contact.
- I love you

*These are the text templates that came on my phone. I dunno, I ended up spending a bit of time thinking about them. I was kinda interested in how people came up with these - I guess they're just the most commonly texted things. But I ended up thinking in terms of personalized narratives that each different person might automatically relate or attach to these. Hmmm. Yeah, so ignore this if you want, but it set some strange buzzing off in my brain the other day. Make of it what you will, if anything at all.

The last time

The sky is playing magic tricks again. There’s a spread of yellow light that looks good enough to touch and it’s floating off, ducking down between a couple of semi-detached houses; it’s being pushed down by a weighty navy blue cloud. There’s something triumphant about this early evening. Each victory takes casualties – that’s why there’s this palpable sense of sadness wrapped around and weaved intricately in and out of the joy.

I had a dream last night that I kissed you. Two days earlier I’d felt confused.

Contour street sign

too much sugar in the hot chocolate
swallowed a lump
of powder that hadn’t

I like the old school logo more ……… the new one looks like
Something some emo kid scratched into his arm ………….

You started planning this when you were nineteen
And now forty something you’re starting to see it all
Start crumbling to little pieces.

+++
+++

mutual friends
then what makes this
so awkward?
???

I can tell you didn’t feel comfortable standing
Outside that house
Guess you’d always thought you could get by
With different anecdotes when it came to
Talking about that half square mile that shaped
All the strange guises and foliage that scrapes
Your face to this day
~@’~

Shit yeah, keep wearing
Black
I’m smiling writing this
Used to be everyday

Now it feels like a new way of figuring out something old
Never let yourself get to this point that I’m trying to talk myself out from
She can’t give advice
Because she fell to the side of the woods a lot longer
Before you will

We are perfect when we lie

We are perfect when we lie could have stayed in the exact same position with you for days waited my hands going round in circles in the same place your hands grabbing and squeezing endlessly want you to show me how to make you feel that way again endlessly want you to never stop

You said that you liked it when you saw me cry no masochism just that you thought it was good that I managed to let go of things for the afternoon these are all predictions

Bombard you with my favourite songs films lines hooks memories jokes stance

It’s a matter of convincing myself that I know when you’re finally feeling free you won’t want me and I read the most beautiful quote about love that I can’t remember properly but it was saying that love should be something that you give and do not expect in return you just give. You. just. give. you. give. you. just.give and nothing is needed to come back and nothing is traded so I need to start getting my brain ready to really believe that stuff because I think that time might be coming and I’m still going to be here

Some essays that I enjoyed reading in the last month or so

Aimee Walleston examines the idea of Blogs as exhibition spaces in : Curation in the Expanded Field: Changing Expectations of the Art Blog (in which she praises the phenomenal Bright Stupid Confetti blog to highlight her points).

Literary genius Gary Lutz shines a light on his unique writing process in: The Sentence is a Lonely Place.

Tom Ewing charts the evolution of mainstream music trends over the last ten years in his piece: A Decade in Pop.

The Voorfaces Posterous blog discusses whether or not video games need to be classified as art (the title might give away a little) in: Are Videogames Art? I Couldn't Care Less.

Shane Jones talks generously about how he got his Light Boxes novel published in: I hope this post is informative and interesting to other writers maybe.

And ok, I actually read this last piece last year but I was thinking about it again recently so I might as well point you in its direction - Dodie Bellamy remembers the amazing writer, the late Lawrence Braithwaite: Here.

I

I can tell you made the effort.
I saw your light go out early.
I just hope you’re tired enough.

where did you go?

Cloth fragments
Frayed threads like tentacles
Squirts push floor

Split lip
Real wet

So many fucking photographs
Brown dirty wallpaper
Brutalised hints left over in
Youtube videos that no one
Ever sees because no one
Would ever search for that stuff
Unless they knew

Can’t tell what he’s hearing
But he looks hungry
Can’t tell who he’s being
Talked at by
But he looks like he’s
Used to their company

Definitely ...
Questions

Jokes about death are
Really funny till you start
Getting sincere and actually
Taking this stuff apart

Skin stretched like gum
And holes forming
Like thawing ice

Clarity

She kept talking about clarity. I remember thinking that it was funny because out of all the things she did have clarity was perhaps one of the words that I would have least associated with her. About five men at the party all tried to fuck her.

I never worked out who she was there with. She had twisted brown hair that flopped over really pale skin – the sort of tan you get when you’ve really stayed inside for too long. Little cuts on her arms and tiny nicks on her hands kept catching my eye.

“Clarity – uuhhh – yeah – it’s gotta be about clarity – things get warped – you get tricked – but the one thing I know about is clarity – I can see things so clearly – I can see things so fucking clearly now.”

Jen Stark

www.jenstark.com

The nights that bring you back to life

My best memory of you has got my fingers inside you
And your body pressed into mine so hard we might snap
And when I'm lonely
I like to think of the sounds you make when you cum
As if I'm pretending that if I try hard enough
Nights like this can bring that back to life.