The yawning face of death approaches. Slanderous malodourous maleficent magnates molest a measly mite. Magnificent, isn’t it? How it all comes together? Yes, it really is quite something. Do you think that… No, I’m afraid that is an impossibility, at least in my opinion. Well, I don’t know what to say. Hmm, how to proceed?

Straight in no kissin’. Awful rude, but that’s how she likes it. Rough n’ ready. Grease the flagpole, we’re going for broke! Break necks at every opportunity. Broker deals across picnic tables with nameless dreadmongerers. Snort long lines of sulphorous schnoot, if that’s what gets ya kickin’. Me I like a little glass of water, maybe a coffee if I’m feeling flamboyant. And that is most of the time,  except on Wednesdays Tuesdays and Fridays. Sometimes I wear a dickie bow to the shops, nobody bats an eyelid.

And now vile revenge must be wreaked on everybody that ever sent a bad word my way in goodness. Retreat ye cumgoblins, ye slayers of the true. I shall beat your bums with pandy bat and chase. Ever anon. God if ye never woke up to the taste of bitterness there’d be something wrong. Now’s the time for morose reflection, for tears in the teacup woe betiding.

So I guess I’ll straighten up a moment and talk sense of a sort. It hurts ye know. Sometimes it does hurt. Act the eejit and you’re sure to be smitten. But like like what do ye do? Hurt a wee minute then pick yourself up and jump. Flyin’ about like a madman, some laugh. Yagh, the big laugh. A big laugh for everyone. Fuck I need a drink. Gimmie water, and a minute’s peace, lemme say a prayer here.

Bein’ mad is mad but bein’ straight up mad is madder. Like flauntin’ it. Doin’ it in the middle of the road so to speak. So look I’ll go one better and do it outside the Europa Buscentre on a Tuesday night.

Ain’t none so fly they can touch me, just me an’ ma girl here wappin’ out the tunes and all yousins getting snotnosed. Perfectly terrible for the oul wenches who never had their father’s backs, but they’ll make up for it in tubbytime. Getting’ round to it is awful afterwards later see ye naw wait stop a minute yes enter please forget it.

So yeah, outside a bustop duettin’ with a sanger. Singer’s sang the truth then angels fell from heaven’s gate right into yer wee daughter’s paddlin pool. I like ma breakfast scrambled mostly like ma brains after a fourday headache holiday with the one I call woman. To me she is mummy my sassy my son my sis my sickle head pickled keep her goin keep er lit.

I’ve taken off my jacket now because it was weighin’ me down somethin awful. Nae syndrome like it but sure we’re all on the spectrum. We all got a little bit of somethin’ a wise man once told me once. I don’t know if he made that up himself or thieved it from another. These wise men, goin’ roamin’ the country, romanticising every girl that’s goin’ And them none the wiser all the same but the girls’ll get a goof. And their reward’s in heaven which is easy to reach if you’re pliable and malleable and slippy and dippy. Queen bitch mother lord of the underworld. Great grannies have beseeched you. Wild women have stood by your side. Hungrymen of all shapes and sizes have begged ye no quarter.

Started off with a thrupenny bit and now I’ve nahin but holes in ma socks. Nah ony jokin, I buy the nice kind from tk maxx on sale after cunts have rifled through them like fuck. While you’re riflin be sure to butt butt butt cartridge retrieved from a well-renowned printers, pastoral in print.

Extra surges through the heavens so heavenly in their heathened heave hoave oh fuck up like. Just you sit down and be quiet a minute, ye wee root. Ginger root? Aye haha aye ginger haha well done lad, here take a smoke.

Crispy pancakes fish fingers and smash pure boggin corned beef cherry tomatoes awful garbage grind the fake stuff ye just bung in the oven for pure handiness and craic, maybe summon up the strength one day to make a full on curry. Now for spastics its plastics expletives not explosives ye madman, you shouldn’t be drivin a taxi atall. Over now to gentle jim corbett who’ll be leading us through the history of pugilism

Gooday travellers! I was once a great man until they let a negro at me and I got walloped te fuck! Actually a more honest rendition would be to say that he outfoxed me. Ah those wily blacks! Yes, full of cunning, not man enough to go toe to toe! Somebody wise that man up. Awful propaganda. The fuckin’ media, doin’ them dirty, big surprise there. Jack Jackson beat his shite in, whatever ye called the cunt. Only seen him in black an white slip time, but he played with him, showed him how to box. Not sayin’ all black men are the best boxers, but like most of them. Gimmie Floyd gimmie Roberto gimmie Sugar Ray the fuckin’ both of them, Marvellous Marvin, Hearns and Joe Calzaghe. There’s way loads more known to boys that know. Class craic for researchin’ then ye go in the gym one day an’ they bate the head off ye. All in good faith. Knowin’ the craic. But not knowin’ that ye know it at the same time. Cause the second ye think ye know it: You’re fucked!

Glory be to the altercations! Glands be suffering under a hand like this, pulsating and the like not for bad weather. Undo your skirt-strings it’s time for the ball! Yes, the ball. The ball. Wedding bells have been known to knock, and loungers’ retreat is a haven for the unhealthy. Glim Glam Shim Sham Shove. A handed glove. Binoculars orating at a tenth of the speed of a perambulator. Withins withouts withal where with. Glib is he that hassles. And glad is she that shamoans. Boots be filled with nectar divine, the brood it deepens, they’re leapin’.

Understood of course that always it’s a thing. Mostly always a thing unless of course stated otherwise. Listen lightly at lantern’s ledge for leakings of lickleworth’s proof. A sturdy man is he who hangs limp from a ledge. And avuncular is the oily one, greased from head to toe. None since the nun sent for nonsense has such a scene been repeated. Father Trip will have his day.

In the sun they were basking with a lollipop apiece, none said a word but the silence was sleek, with contentedness everpresent anon. Memories passed between them in thoughtforms beguiling, a trifle it seemed to the walkers who passed, and wondered why not had they been asked to bask?

Crisp tender tepid tender foul tender fiendish ghoulish ghastly ginormous ghastly tender. They got their exercise through the employment of joy mostly, and though athletic their frames were not, something about the troop begged a lookin.

Furthermore to my earlier point about the five fingered glove: I only have four fingers.

I made the mistake early on, the critical error, of stubbornly refusing every piece of advice what was ever offered me. “Don’t wash the mushrooms!” bleats a stoned bestfriend, bemoaning his mother’s exhortion, and her a schoolcook, woman who oughta know. But no, it was all my way, because I am smart and stubborn and stop fucking with all my shit! That was until I heard the boxers talking about it. They said that any true great must always be willing to learn, from another. And what I come to see much later is that it can be any other, regardless of appearance or seeming status. In fact it might be a damn sight better thing to side with the opinion of him least likely lookin’ to succeed. Not every winner’s a grinner.

I could probably be doing with some advice right about now, on how to deal with this ‘piece.’ “Fuckin’ make somethin’ out of it, you lazy kant,” or “Try adding up all the sensible bits until you have a full chapter.” I’m not sure if these advices are coming directly from my mind or the characters therein (forever bleeding,) Jesus, I’m not sure of anything much nowadays. But I will say this: Take The Advice.

A second example, for noseyparkers and the like. Once I was in a band full of grown grumpy men, well accomplished in their respective fields with battlescars to prove et all. This one in particular I had trouble with suggested to me mildly one evening that perhaps I might benefit from some singing lessons. Well to say I was affronted, insulted, and all the rest would be an undergarment. I said to the cunt, something like, “Naw, that’s not for me, I have to go my own way,”(the seriously taken, the little boy least) and he rejoined, adjusting his tone in a rare sensitive moment “Well I don’t think there’s many could teach ye. It’s just…” Now I could see nothing to be gained from such an arrangement then, but looking back, yes I see how it could’ve helped me along. What I needed was: A Mentor.

And so now I go running the streets asking every Jim, Joe or Mary advice on how to tie my laces, or what’s the best way to go shoplifting(for an acting role, you understand.) Anyway, I wouldn’t call this a desperate plea, or a call out or anything. But if there is some wise all-knower out there, willing to dispense a little of that somethin’ somethin’, then whack some my way. I’ll run it through my hair or use it like Vicks Vaporub, y’see. Need sorted, is all am sayin’. Right.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have… Or was it the? No, can’t have been. Can we put it down to? Yes, agreed, certainly too many of the other? Would you agree? Yes I can also confirm that, I mean, certainly that was how I seen it. Okay, well it seems things have taken a turn for the better, should we all? Yes, let’s do that. See you next time!

Gobbled his gook, that boy. Wasn’t very thoughtful with his word springs. Yes, mostly just rushed in like some Presley imitator. Mmmn, emperor’s clothes. Benign, most benign. Was he off his? Naw, no, he was only coddled from his forties. Alright, I see, took too big a spoonful, eh? That’s the man for a beggar’s job. Oho, yes, twice round the yard without a windbush, mmn hmmn. Is there a way of making our mmnn hmmns more grammatical? No there isn’t? Okay let’s just carry on then.

So ye had a big gravy chip? Thought you were up to the house sauce challenge, eh? When who should step in but Big Handsome Pete from up the road? Yes you found your level there, m’boy, that’s when we got the measure of you. If ye’d have only remained spoonfed you’d be in a very different situation now, but no, you had to go the whole hog. Tell me this, did ye ever clear the wax out of your ears? Or hear back from Granda Patterson, who ye told us was your only friend? Fell flat, m’boy, fell flat. Pondscum, that’s what they call ye. But you’ll not be hearin’ the half of it. Can ye dig a bigger hole? Can ye lift that shovel and spade and bang out a greaser? We’ll have to see. Sit yourself down there and drink water, you’ll be needin’ yer rest.

Evermore I am bleeding. From the face. It’s fantastic when you’re bleeding, dripping. An oily yellow discharge from the hole that sews itself up in times of peace. Bleeding for peace, bleeding for pie, bleeding in the forlorn hope that one day a robin will settle upon your perch and bless you nightly with surprises. Christmas day when the Amazon man lands, dog chased him off and he’s shouting, givin’ off like an oul granda. I laughed and he grumbled, didn’t quite catch what he said but I’m sure it was all complimentary. Next up it’s scissors with a side of slimy sandwich, faces once bleeding now changing contortions most comforting yes more for the mill I’ll reap, reap heat, reap heat. And grim is he who cuts corn in the night. And leaden is the chain that hangs round the wrangler’s neck. And every gravestone a place for you to park your Self. Gifted goons a-googlin’. Beefed up tarts do twinkle. Crazed crazies getting’ all crazy when they’re sensible, will I not no yes once more that’s the one one time yes huh oof off now stap.

Wore the wrong hat to the shop yesterday. It looked fine when I was leaving. My friend had me convinced that I looked like the ex-boyfriend of some dead famous singer. “Fame, you say? Why let me stumble out into the street.” An opportunity I just couldn’t pass up.

What happened next? Well I got laughed at, of course. At least I think so, I didn’t actually hear any laughter, but something told me to drop the hat. And so I did, right after shocking the shop girl (was it her face?) And so on to Tesco and looking only at the shelves and the goods and pick up what’s needed and extras of course heft heft heft. And look anyway to quit all this bollocks and get to the bottom of it, on the way out of the shop when who should cross my path but a lady dressed in pink fur, with mickey mouse ears, and a fella with big mad mutton chops. It worked! There was a reason. I knew I should’ve worn that hat.

Right down to business, too many things. I wore too many funky things. For a shop walk like. Me ma told me and I should’ve listened, ye only need one funky thing, one wee bit, then blend. Dressin’ ridiculous perhaps best kept for club dates and Pride. Mother’s pride, the whole damn brood. Buckaw!

Glisten. Sparkle. And subside. That’s an insult. I mean an order. Hard to know what way anything means nowadays, just blankity blankin ur way along like a deadbeat Michael Barrymore, legend that he was. There’ll be no strangers found dead in my swimming pool cause all’s I’ve gots is a puddle out the back. Of course lines can be drawn in the muck dirt and elsewhere either as a marker pointer or paw print, simply as a way of expressing one’s self which is what we’re here for after all. Excuse me did I just state a somethink? I may have done, but my eraser has gone out to play and so I must continue. A stale sandwich will suffice when starvink. A starved whale may betray your most earnest sincerities. A couched bloke can cure your cobbler’s creep. And a landmine will filter through, breakin the legs off ye. Onced yeve lost them there’s no goin back. Got to hobble along on a makeshift skateboard, pickin pennies from the people. I’ve a glinch the whoompwerchers won’t find, and it hasn’t been inserted up my you knew who. Anyhose, that’ll do for this evening, haven’t ate all day, gonna have steak an wheaten with maybe a side of beans, though poached eggs have been threatening.

Kutcha!

Gangsters. What are they for? Some say the gangster is a little man that lives in your coal bunker; others insist he a delinquent of the humanoid kind, forever twinkling. Well I’ve never met one so I couldn’t tell you the truth. Graphs show that things are changing, like this little one here that I drew (you can’t see it, it’s in my pocket). The machines are a rumblimbling and the folks they are a rambling with straw hats hay in the mouth and a drawn out feg. I haven’t worn lipstick in quite a while, but if you were to put me in a certain situation whereby the only way out was to fill the carpet with bicarbonate of soda and hoover the whole house I very well might do the opposite.

Now here look I’ve a question for ye. What makes a man moo. Who’s pullin’ the strings here? Is it them boys up in Stormont who pretend not even to be there, or could it be them other boys in the street playin bangbang? I’ve got a dog now and now everything smells like dog the bed smells like dog my hands smell like dog all ma clothes are dirty and there’s a baby on the way. Fuckin dogs. Used to have a cat but I hadda loan it out, country cat town cat wasn’t no city slick gangster cats scared it away and now the dog reigns supreme. Mike Tyson used to have a big cat but that’s cause he was fit to handle it smokin blunts flat out.

And now here comes the second cup of the day and so sense must be spoken. Spoken must be sense with umbilical chords on the strain all the way flat out. Yessum. All rods leading to the promised land and netherwords spoken in the gloom. Hoom hoom gloom bloom away back to schlep!

Are we quite finished? Are you prepared now to take your medicine? No ma’am no I can’t be fucked. Well here you’re fukin’ getting it now bend over ya wee k00nt!

So look, I’ve had my injection, and am now quite willing to admit that I have done wrong. I done the wrong thing, like a stupidhead, and now I’ve got to pay the price. I’m not sure what all this entails, just that something is changing. There’s a shift of some kind. I know better now to look to a friend for suggestions, clues and craic. Bein’ a stubborn bastardo of the highest degree will get you nowhere, fast! So off I go now on my merry way to see what needs done and do my best at doin’ it. Mightn’t always be perfect, or maybe never atall, but better to have half of nothin than nothing at all.

Signing off,
Schmecklan

Well ain’t it a cryin’ shame. The holy Moses are here all to burn and frazzle and celebrate and whatnot, orthodox pedigree being the operative term at all times. Likewise the nuns are a-grievin’, payin’ pity to all the philanderers who were freed. They’ve got a nonce in the building: he’s bald, and a sequined celebrant blazing the boilin’ pot for scumbags and lettuce scum and scumbum’s trottin’ round the kitchen out there somewhere in the back. Always altogether gleaming shrouding the tooth back where hounds roar in the night-time, grime blasitn’ through bunkers beneath. Wurlitzer won’t have a feck for the fricken. And not a pitty-pat for the peg-nosed. Not a flying flip for the unforgiven, so-so says their name so. And so it is and so it was written and so she was smitten and halve her head in three. A lady I would like to be. Bring to me the bunting it’s time for the twelfth.

Well as you can tell from the above statement I am quite out of my mind, but what’s new? I’d like to talk to you all (yes, all five of you) about a certain thing that goes on, that goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway. Did you ever argue with somebody? And you say “Well, I don’t like that you did that.” And then they say “Well I don’t like that you did this, that and the other?” You see what’s going on here? They’ve stacked ammunition. This person who has been disguising themselves as your friend for so long has been secretly compiling a list of complaints and judgements, any little thing you’ve done wrong, and they’ve got them all sitting ready should the occasion ever arise. The bastards were born to argue. At the age of four or five my brother and uncle would tease me maliciously, mercilessly, saying “Elijah’s got fifty girlfriends!” and I would cry like the baby I was and still am. Emotionally stunted. Some people get a dig out of that sort of thing, I get stunted, and haunted. Wednesday’s child is full of woe and woe bes me so woeful. Of course the skin thickens over time as a matter of coarse. Elephant hide. The coarse I curse, and spit at their feet.

I found out later in life that a suitable remedy to such insults was to launch the hard part of your head into the offender’s face, followed by a barrage of well-placed punches, alcohol imbibed a necessity. This however leads to the coming around of what went first, meaning a sound kicking lies somewhere not far off in your future, tread with care! It’s an awful quarry to be in, and I know I’m not making much sense here, but I’ve got to work with what I’ve got, which at the present time is heightened cognition thrown off balance by a savvy sense of the ridiculous and abandonment of all rationale.

Well words are weird and so you throw them together until they seem to make sense, doing it for the fun of it, and love and actual wanting and not the despising of discipline sitting down to grind out a round number just to suit your self-same savage serenity. But the question remains, will you find something here to relate to? Will any word will it’s way into your consciousness and dig out a divot? A little-known truth that was whiling the time away in wait. See it’s all open-ended, and that’s what’s so good about stuff. I hear a song and I don’t have to worry about what exactly the writer meant, that’s his business. I just want to grab a hold of one or two lines that appeal to me and hang on, derive my own meaning. What does it mean to me? Rigorous examination however may lead to revelation, revolution, resolution. Take it how you like it. Up the jacksy.

How could I even begin to express myself at a time like this. Every thought that runs through my head is paralyzing. People in colourful clothing. People in expensive clothing. People with style for whom money don’t matter. People wrapped in fierce black dufflecoats from head to foot, they’re storming the streets. People who walk hard. I veer to the left. Groups of young hoodlums, dressed in hoodlum gear, that’s how I know they’re hoodlums. I stand tall, walk hard, face fierce, forlorn inside. Attractive women assail me, I avert my eyes then dart back for a stolen glance. Women I’d sleep with. Women I’d marry. Women belonging to other men. Don’t talk too deep or you might draw them in. Always thoughts playing and preying on you as you try to adjust, to exist. Existence is bliss when the heart shines right through and everything that happens is a joy, but the laws of nature do not allow for this to be a permanent fixture. Who is measuring these moments? When can I cash in my suffering and get back to bliss again? Bliss. Bliss, bliss, bliss.

False assertions made by the minute. Judge you by your clothing by your build by your voice thereby your background by your mannerisms by your posture by your eyes by God bygones bye forever now bye bye. Of course I’m wrong, mostly. Can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Not that I’m putting you beneath me or anything, I’m simply trying to find out who you are before I get a chance to really know you. And you see there I used the word ‘simply’ rather than just ‘just’ because I’m sitting here typing and feeling all literary, and that can take you into another frame of mind altogether. Suddenly assume the identity of a man of letters. Strange things that go on in the mind. The mind. A vast expanse. And then there’s soul and the subconscious and all these other layers. Who knows what’s going on. I’m not sure if all minds work this way, perhaps they need altering somehow before reaching such a God-forsaken state.

Possible methods of mind alteration:

One: Childhood trauma, preferably a daily battering and the occasional fiddle.

Two: The ingestion of mind or mood altering substances. Clue’s in the name really. Take enough of these and you’re sure put a dent in the mainframe.

Three: Spiritual Awakening (Psychosis.) Perhaps induced by either or both of the above, the kind of thing we’re talking about here will blow you wide open hopefully, leading to all sorts of impossible adventures, implausible levels of pain endured.

So suffer we. Suffer on, sufferer. We all do, don’t we? Wee touch a depression, riddled with anxiety; it’s all part of the craic. Paranoia bustin’ your head open. Yes. Welcome, my friends. But it’s all about levels, isn’t it? And then again, it’s all relative. So ye can’t really be goin’ round flauntin’ your sufferin’ like ‘I am the fuckin’ man here,’ can ye? (And here you’ll notice my personality has sort of split quite suddenly and I’m leaning quite heavy into the vernacular, no doubt in an attempt to court the regard of ruffians.) Tis all quite impossible. Some folks bear their burden kind of half-gracefully, crushed beneath the weight of it all, but still dandering along as if everything’s quite alright and ‘it’s all good anyway, I know it’s mine and I own it and you’ll never catch me complainin’, by God, no!’ Not good for ye, that. Have to open up and whine sometimes. Problem is, if you happen to be an elite level sufferer, you can’t go breaking down your problems to some young up-and-comer, it just wouldn’t go over right. You have to tussle with people of a similar disposition, fellow super-sufferers. Sit between the two of you and have a whinin’ match, see who can complain the best. “I have borne seven tonnes over five craggy mountains!” “Pah! That is nothing. I have climbed twenty trees with no hands, yesterday and the day before.” Two moany cunts. But you see, that is all wrong. The key really is not so much to compete in our tellings (though it’s fun, and let’s face it, an unavoidable human fault,) but to commiserate with the other, to open our ears and listen to their sorry tale, empathise with the poor fucker, you might even find yourself relating to him. So this seems to have some kind of palliative effect, you come away feeling better, the other guy probably does too.

But anyway, suffering is life and life is suffering. For me anyway. Fuck me I got up this morning and didn’t know who I was. I looked myself in the mirror and my face was all red and abashed. Ran into a bunch of people, tried to have a conversation but I’d forgotten how to speak. Took me three hours to find myself and even then I still wasn’t sure. I suffered up them fuckin’ stairs and I suffered the whole way back down again. I’ve pains in me back, ma legs are hurtin’, shoes are on too tight, feel like a fuckin’ eejit walkin’ about in this florescent jacket. Jesus, I have suffered this day. But there’s more yet to come! And if I want to be the envy of all suffering bastards this time tomorrow, I’d better get ma head down and hurt. Just the way of it. Sit yourself down and suffer. Serves ye right to suffer, said John Lee. Serves ye fuckin’ right. Indeed it doth serve ye. What was it your man said? Ye empty the cup of sorrow then fill ‘er on back up with joy? Pile a shite. Suffer on!

Rooting

They’re rooting for you.
Watching from the shadows
Their intentions a mystery

You know that you know,
But you don’t know who else…

But
Don’t think about what you don’t know

Don’t think
Be

When you are
Busy Beeing

Then
There is

Nothing

To

Say.

Bruce Almighty

Uphold the right to be wrong to be right
Bruce Forsythe was a genuine man

Singed his creeping letters
A photo held too dearly

The spaces between moments
Are there to be filled

Lemonface

Can’t you see I’m inclement?
Got somethin’ stuck deep, it’s not yielding.

Lighten up a little, I lie a lot
Knock up little paintings with words
My script a scruff, never was well presented

Never draw the same letter twice
That’s what they advised, but I can’t help it

Some people just spill
They can’t help it.

‘It’ just happens

And we punish them for it?
Why.

Pissed on The Wind

Thoughts on a page it’s paralyzing
Preferable you’d pursue a surge of light
Blind to the mundane
Pay in pain to see other things

Wonder on the corner
Empty streets at night
Walk along in a trance
And later you can dance

Drunk on the wind
It helps to walk