tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99307802024-03-08T20:28:34.070+00:00In The Night FactoryNeilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-78241693726128329132008-07-21T13:06:00.003+01:002008-08-20T11:04:30.919+01:00Skids and Blurps<p>I cannot really think clearly due to being surrounded by gamers making bleeps and skids and blurps and chatting about their image maps, viruses, about re-installing, installing; “Where is the Fog?” “Who downloaded the Fog?”, all around me the skid of pixellated cars. The ones that screech around the corners ride on meticulously constructed roads and when they pass a certain point in the landscape a simple tune screeches quietly from the speakers with the signal “SCORE TWO POINTS” centrally aligned on the two inch screen.<br /><br />We are to be infantilised. We are hoarded into these rooms that even though air conditioned have the feeling of a prison about them. We are not given anything to do. Unfortunately for the supervisors there is the internet so most of we so called “clients” spend time playing virtual snooker, Umming and arring, grinning into the screen and acting as if looking at a successful incentive award scheme. Admin staff clomp to and fro, trying to avert their attention, appearing like rabbits from holes, flitting from secluded office to office, chatting, mixing, mingling, in an effort to normalise the experience. Concentrating on the abstractions of filing and shuffling, hiding inside of paperwork systems, shielding themselves with the aid of the open lid of a photocopier, glancing occasionally at the clock, attempting to kill time. </p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-13952353604553464022008-06-08T12:33:00.011+01:002008-08-20T11:13:20.672+01:00Out and About<p>Surrounded by the twitter and sliding whistles of hidden birds. The waving meadow sprinkled with buttercups. I sit, on an old wooden log, long dead, gilded like the elegant decoration of a tall mans tomb by a group of energetic nettles. They carry on guarding even as I sit here trying to stamp them out in case I get stung on my exposed legs. The ground is cracked and at selected times the odd beetle or ant crawls up from it's hideaway to give me a glance.<br /><br />Whilst dangling from a tree lavishly, like a lion or leopard in the shade, an ant crawls up wild terrain of my index finger. Held up by the cross of branches, I angle my head to caste gaze across the hills and valley. Little toy houses bunch together amongst groups of pimply trees. It could be 1969, it could be a secret place. It could be for a Secret Seven. But I just sit in a natural seat, watching the ant crawl all over my white rectangle like it were football pitch, testing the grounds. The sun disappears, now just a luminescent glow fading towards the skyline. A coolness draws down on me and the buttercups go still. Telephone poles turn dark grey and I turn into just another shadow surrounding a log. The ant is blown off my hand. I elongate my legs and proceed to lurch over the long grass towards the dark corner of the field.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-81784977833141005372008-02-26T16:32:00.014+00:002008-07-11T13:57:11.445+01:00Inside<p>The wind is rushing about outside and I enjoy closing the windows to it. It quietens to a dull whistling breeze shifting the curtains slightly. I like the quietness; I like it that you can hear every noise as though inside a film, the creek of the floor and the drip of the piping outside. I turn off lights and turn small lamps on. Still, like candles, the lamps spray shadows across the magnolia paintwork. Everything adjusts to the new ambiance which is soft and delicate. As fine and outlined as I want them to be, devoid of any description from outside. At night the real-time worries, plans and purposeful noises fade and all that is left are the shapes of things when left with no purpose. The wind and the rain patter on the streets. The night is crowded out.<br /><br />My place is here in my bed, the covers surrounding. The whole scene is straight out of some tale, with a knock at the door, my eye darting towards the handle; streams of water flowing through the dark streets. Putting my arm out and hanging onto passing lamp-posts. Being swirled around corners and being swept down into underground stations platforms.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-11842684973378804062008-01-07T15:10:00.000+00:002008-01-07T15:12:11.398+00:00Dreaming of Sounds<p><table bgcolor="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000" width="328" height="94" src="http://res0.esnips.com/escentral/images/widgets/flash/esnips_player.swf" flashvars="theTheme=blue&autoPlay=no&theFile=http://www.esnips.com//nsdoc/9c42d3c9-f190-4fe2-87ad-47c017e591c1&theName=planes_copters&thePlayerURL=http://res0.esnips.com/escentral/images/widgets/flash/mp3WidgetPlayer.swf"></embed></td></tr><tr><td><table cellpadding="2" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; padding-left:2px; color:#FFFFFF; text-decoration:none ; ; font-size:10px; font-weight:bold"><tr><td><a style="color:#FFFFFF; text-decoration:none " href="http://www.esnips.com/CreateWidgetAction.ns?type=0&objectid=9c42d3c9-f190-4fe2-87ad-47c017e591c1"> Get this widget </a></td><td style="font-size:7px; font-weight:normal;">|</td><td align="center"><a align="center" style="color:#FFFFFF; text-decoration:none " href="http://www.esnips.com/doc/9c42d3c9-f190-4fe2-87ad-47c017e591c1/planes_copters/?widget=flash_player_esnips_blue"> Track details </a></td><td style="font-size:7px; font-weight:normal;">|</td><td><a align="center" style="color:#FF6600; text-decoration:none" href="http://www.esnips.com//adserver/?action=visit&cid=player_dna&url=/socialdna"> eSnips Social DNA </a></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-32919801738762648222008-01-07T14:57:00.000+00:002008-01-16T14:15:20.933+00:00Laughter in The Woods<p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#000000"><tbody><tr><td><embed pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" src="http://res0.esnips.com/escentral/images/widgets/flash/esnips_player.swf" width="328" height="94" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="theTheme=blue&autoPlay=no&theFile=http://www.esnips.com//nsdoc/f434b8fb-ed68-4548-bab1-eb7651bf1904&theName=Child_in_Woods02&thePlayerURL=http://res0.esnips.com/escentral/images/widgets/flash/mp3WidgetPlayer.swf" bgcolor="#000" quality="high"></embed></td></tr><tr><td><table style="PADDING-LEFT: 2px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 10px; COLOR: #ffffff; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-DECORATION: none" cellpadding="2"><tbody><tr><td><a style="COLOR: #ffffff; TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.esnips.com/CreateWidgetAction.ns?type=0&objectid=f434b8fb-ed68-4548-bab1-eb7651bf1904">Get this widget </a></td><td style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 7px"></td><td align="middle"><a style="COLOR: #ffffff; TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.esnips.com/doc/f434b8fb-ed68-4548-bab1-eb7651bf1904/Child_in_Woods02/?widget=flash_player_esnips_blue" align="center">Track details </a></td><td style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 7px"></td><td><a style="COLOR: #ff6600; TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.esnips.com//adserver/?action=visit&cid=player_dna&url=/socialdna" align="center">eSnips Social DNA </a></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-2585903596568993502007-10-22T03:32:00.000+01:002007-12-27T09:39:03.731+00:00Purgatory (Treasure Island)<p><div>I go from one room to another and there is no sign of the terrors lifting. No sign that the events that have befallen me will not continue to befall me until I can find the deepest, darkest refuge in which to crawl. Even then the feeling of safety does in no way completely encase me in its charm delusion. I find the air dank also. The surfaces rough to the touch. It is at least quiet now, thank god. The screaming was sending me under. Pacing up and down the pavement outside, traversing the outside walls, trying to bore a moat around the castle with my feet. Looking up at my fortress, the drawbridge being lowered, I knock the board with my workmen's style shoes before cautiously stepping onto the bridge. It lifts again soon after I had lay my last step. I hear the laughter from across the waters and then and there I stubbornly decide to make my time in that timeless building, take them for all they were worth. Nothing was going to spoil my ideal, my quest for a better life. <br /><br />As I stand and think at the threshold to my new life I look down noticing the numerous books being lowered by crane onto the ferry at the end of the now distant waters. Merrily the boat chuffs its smoke at my very calling. I wave. The villagers peered over the moat walls. Strangely they are allowing me to make my voyage unharmed this time and even my luggage seems all intact by the binoculars. I see no tears nor bent spines. Glory it will be to unpack my great discoveries. Miraculously they have already rid my investment of corrugated Amazon card wrapping. Pity that, I was so looking forward to doing it myself. </div></p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-27275428613073438492007-10-21T06:17:00.000+01:002008-01-16T14:29:01.574+00:00The Empty Space<p>Put those things, those events, those misfortunate happenings, those guilt inducing memories all together into a lockable box. Put that box inside another box. Then into another larger box. Then inside another this time with a turn-dial lock. Shut it away inside a cupboard. Then put that cupboard inside another cupboard and then another cupboard. Place the cupboard in the corner of a room out of the way. Ignore the cupboard. Do not bring the cupboard up in conversation. You find that you begin using that particular room more and more infrequently. Even though it is the natural to enter this room as one enters at the front door you still guide them past. Unintentionally you in part create the mystery of that room, the door, it's locked nature; what is it locked for, what is going on in that room? Where do you sleep, Is that your bedroom? No it is just the work room; "Clive likes to keep it locked as it contains many of his expensive tools". It becomes generally know that the door must not be opened. "Oh, Bridget’s house with the door, the door house, the crazy house!" Bridget now smiles, portraying no effects of stress or worry. She guides visitors into the kitchen. “A cup of tea? A scone? Have you seen the weather?" Phew it's not even December, hopefully not another cold one like last time."<br /></p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-44369685479582742022007-05-18T22:26:00.000+01:002007-10-26T10:25:07.402+01:00On The Sofa<p>My guitar is leaning and waiting against the middle of the sofa. The stereo is crunched up between a queue of disinterested comic books. Plants grow leaf by slowly developing leaf. Bits of drawing material sit together on crispy layout paper next to me. I can see where I have sketched lines into the underside. Disks and history books clutter down the sides of cushions into the valley, the light sky glinting on their sides. No homes are fully showing through the window frames as usuall, their horizontals and verticals edging casually around. Lines upon lines of slate cutting into the isometric facade of weathered rectangles. Best to go and sleep, shift things out of the way, dive away under the mass of covers, protect myself from the web of encroaching things.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1176558994957329742007-04-14T14:53:00.000+01:002007-08-21T22:12:45.137+01:00Fall In<p>The phone rang and afterwards there was a long silence. Only marching soldiers are heard outside an open window. A fresh breeze blows the grey curtain away from its resting place on the green ledge. <br /><br />Chief Commander Roberts instructs his fellow sergeants to stand to attention. "Welcome to the new world men, future generations will thank us when all is said and done, but remember this; tell them only the good things, the career prospects, the life of action, helping of poor and underprivileged refugees like, not killing them or anything nor manipulating their plight for queen and country and OKay, got that, eh Mr Jones? (Shouting in Jones’s ear) Have you got that Mr Jones I say (eyeing him closely, faces nearly touching). Superintendent Jones here, he is the company historian, isn’t you Mr Jones, “Yes Sir” who is employed to sort out everything out nice and tidily isn’t he, Mr Jones, heh. “Yes sir.” (Turning at last towards the lined up men, standing to attention) Go give it your best boys. We are outmoded. We are cannon fodder. When I die I will just be replaced by another? We will be heroes when we get it, typical of the M.O.D. that one, all their spin in’ it? Our helmets are made of cardboard and tin, our armoured vehicles fitted out with not enough protection for all the dangerous situations that they place us in. Yet men, we shall never complain, those are orders, but just remember, you've signed up for five years. Just thought I’d chuck that last one in to cheer the guys up, heh. Right, Fall out.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1176425841362431152007-04-13T01:57:00.000+01:002007-08-21T22:24:57.478+01:00True Bombs<p>True bombs never land on our home towns. No missiles will land on our domiciles. Then there are the so called terrorist projectiles, passed through hands, placed secretly onto trains, riding with the passengers, cosying up to and resting against your under-sides. Every journey you get closer to bombs. Bombs, bombs everywhere you look. No bomb is a bomb until a bomber decides, then you get fragments all inside you and over you, hundreds and thousands of metallic messages. The evil menace then becomes flashed up on many news reels, political campaigns run with it, documentary retrospectives inform you about it, loosing its impact, loosing its steel. But there are always more out ready to re-new their charge, competing with the terror exchange; learning from experience, hiding on your journey home, watching where you rest and where you clatter on your computer desk. You think bombs can go flying and come to rest, in your tea and down your string vest. You fidget and scratch but that itch is still there. Itch, itch, itch, and then boom bam boom! Another person’s life is, sadly, and needlessly, over too soon.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1176425807185815282007-04-13T01:55:00.000+01:002007-05-18T23:04:32.290+01:00The Policeman Who Fell to Earth<p>There is a new Mad Max film coming out. Set again in the desert at an unspecified time in the future and gangs roam the deserted landscape, adrenaline pumped and mega-death music blasting through their ears. In this version the police are the enemy, arrived recently from a distant planet, desperate for fuel and economic resources, with the aim of seizing control of earth and 'policing' the occupants into submission. Whilst siphoning off the worlds resources the bogus police demand legitimacy for their actions from the various tribes in the area, seeking to divide and rule they instigate a civil war amongst the various ethnic populations, arming and instructing various sides in order to establish their version of 'stability', i.e; the illusion that they, the alien police are a force for order and peace. The Alien police sit back and watch as the populace war with each other instead of with their own forces, being unable themselves to fend off a full scale rebelion. They want a national government on their terms, not the local populations, to secure their dominance of this vital resource area in the Universe. Until this happens no nationalism (dissidence) is allowed to sprout and grow out of control. Popular opinion is important to the these police, both on earth and on their own distant planet as this supports their legitimacy as a force of good. To this end the media is tightly controlled so as to 'shield' the public from the truth of what 'our brave men' are doing and why they are doing it. The 'police' are working towards 'democracy' and liberation for the earths people.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1176425720832461732007-04-13T00:17:00.000+01:002007-04-14T15:02:11.893+01:00Incontinent Ordnance<p>A surgical strike. They write their names on the bombs that roll out on the carpet, falling finally, ultimately, gloriously, across the towns and cities and people, not having time to run to the hills, to deny the enemy their assets. Admittedly some confusion was caused by areas by incontinent ordnance, the Germans and the Italians, oops sorry, the Americans and the British, unable by some logistical error to deliver their missiles to theatre on time or in the correct localities. Media outlets confirm: eighty percent total collateral damage. <br /><br />The coalition verges on collapse with 'international' allies held back by an angry public at home. There will only be small demonstrations around the world reports government channels, only ten percent turn out, the rest staying at home and believing the news that we tell them on their TV sets; of heroes saving captives from nasty totalitarian leaders, whom we must hang, of the success of democracy and the failure of terror, of there being winners and losers and enhanced credibility. <br /></p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1176334774158077612007-04-12T00:27:00.000+01:002007-05-18T22:26:15.231+01:00The Vanishing<p>It began as a normal office; large windows and areas of sectioned flooring running the whole length the ground level, rooms set aside for the purposes of induction and basic training, with a main reception at the end of a long hall. All tables and chairs are cleared, replaced by hard wearing de-constructible types, easy to fix, looking just like the normal emptied out business spaces, now being been transformed for quite a different purpose. Squared intersections hide large winding snakes of packed electrical wire connecting to hidden cameras, security alarm systems and air conditioning units. They exit at flap-up electric socket covers every few meters. Water alarm sensors flash, remote controls beep, push button speakers are checked for use at entries and exits, and are all working well, ready to receive, to accept the first intake, the sixty odd people estimated to be travelling from all over the county that week.<br /> <br />Clients in their homes, nervous about the induction procedure, phoned in to check on the correct times; “no need to bring anything, just yourselves, alright Mr Hargreaves, Miss Plummory, Amy Inglewood, Trevor Harp, Billy Name, make sure you get here fifteen minutes early, it pays to be early.” The phone clunked down. A shrill shiver perhaps running down their spines, “that’s what they think, they think we’re just cattle to be herded around, prodded and poked around into stiles!” <br /><br />“She, he, is for CDG!” ran the company saying. With quiet excitement, over the photocopier or printing machine, letting a laugh or a shared giggle mix with the mechanical paper shifter or the hoarse scanner repetitively etching A4 copies into the tray. The two women processing new applicants looked forward to the change of faces, the new clients for the corporation to guide towards righteousness, a valued place on earth. Satisfied in their world of official social security make believe, incarcerated high up there on the tenth floor of the work and pension’s administration office building. “Hey, look at him, do you think you’d give him’ a job - I wouldn’t give him a job (giggle), glancing at the latest mug shot to be positioned onto the A4 glass. <br /><br />Certain people would disappear overnight from their homes. Nobody in the community knew where they went. “They’re not missed” neighbours would say. The T.V. news proudly proclaimed low government figures for the month. People were overlooked, not thought about, vanished from local towns and villages, sent to special camps, travel paid, told by officials that they are to receive special employment training. “Get there on time, don’t be late. We know you’re not used to getting up so early so remember to set your clock for nine. Time waits for no man; we'll give you extra money at a fixed rate.” The phone went down clunk.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1166819598608931652006-12-22T20:18:00.001+00:002008-06-08T10:47:47.297+01:00So<p>Waiting for the fangs of time to sink into my vital veins, cutting off all supply. Hands are numb and are no longer able to draw my eyes open. The front of my head closes down with a slide of a bolt and a clang of metal that rings out across the floor. My Jawbone cracks and a zip slashes across my mouth. <br /><br />Now I am thrown across a cold table, casually discarded, hands, elbows and feet over the edge. Then slapped to the ground. Gravity stamps on my stitched and bloody carcass as it flails about ridiculously on the floor. <br /><br />Specks of rain hit the fire, sending sparks. Closer now, to burning in hell. <br /><br />A hollow wind blows through the shattered glass. Rain flows with it, trampling steadily across the hallway and into my room, drenching the richly woven carpet, filling it up like a swimming pool, weighing the carpet down, threatening to submerge the carcass of meat. Some material underneath breaks and falls into the black, as if through a mirror, propelled like a magnetic lump of carbon into an endless pit. There, the other fallen lay about, some will never have left, the oldest now moulded into stones. <br /><br />Acrid air eats into my constricted lungs. Grit grinds into my teeth to dust. My hair travels across the sand, held up by insects</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1164475011408385142006-11-25T17:16:00.000+00:002007-04-12T01:07:55.540+01:00Behind Closed Doors<p>We live with the objects of our past; the worn out toys, ornaments that decorate the ledges and mantles of our rooms. Old clothes that remain at the end of the racks, compressed into the corners of our second-hand drawers. Items worn from trundling around with us everywhere, shuffling around from one rental room to another.<br /><br />Books are piled up to keep the door open or to hold the computer screen at head height, else leaned on to form a shelf. These things induce the hoarders’ guilt of not wanting to give away or borrow for fear of loosing; feeling the urge to keep but not actually re-read. We create a familiar space, maintaining the order of a familiar world. Perhaps I delude myself that they will have some use some day in the future when I am dead and buried and gone.<br /><br />Uncaring men or women wearing government uniforms will in the end be allowed to enter and clean the rooms, rendering my complex storage system that I have striven tirelessly to construct over the years meaningless. Unmarked trucks and cars will drive up next to the black mark scribbled on my door. A silhouette of cut-out people will be seen to fold out across the garden path, forming a chain. My things will trundle along from outstretched puppet arm to outstretched arm towards the back of the vehicles. When the job is done the men retract themselves backwards, clinging on as the vehicle bounces them back up the hill and away.<br /><br /><br />Due to a continuous neglect of layers, objects sink gradually downwards. They submerge and are gradually compressed into a peat bog of time. Nobody but the owner can prevent this process from happening. Particles dissolve to form a thick encrusted layer at the bottom. Dark figures pass through the drawers and cabinets snatching items and passing them from hand to hand, piling them up into a mountain of things. The tables finally begin to break, crumbling under the inevitable force of gravity; the slow motion demolition of a tower block, wavering awkwardly before finally crashing to the ground. What looks like a cloud of volcanic dust is in fact millions upon millions of human hairs drifts up, forming a dense cloud that disperses its content across a the wide area, killing the nutrients in the soil, spoiling the vegetation, killing the cattle for miles around.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1164468386855546172006-11-25T15:23:00.000+00:002007-04-12T00:46:07.333+01:00Resuscitating Friends<p>Ladies and gentleman, I have before me a person whom I had once befriended in the past. His name is Gary I think I remember. I knew him for quite some time in the eighties. You say that his face is not real but I say that that is not what matters. You see him lying there on the table with his eyes glazed over, a wooden doll you think, a mannequin, one that you might find in shop windows but no, watch this, watch my actions now. I begin projecting my thoughts onto him like this look, waving my arms like so. You can see immediately a small flow of blood beginning to run through the veins there, just there, look, where I'm pointing. The inert object will then miraculously become alert. Look! his arms, they are grabbing the table. No need to be alarmed, he won't hurt you. He is harmless, really.<br /><br />I have now shown that I can project my memories onto limp body of a friend and resuscitate it temporarily to life. It is next my aim prove to you that it is possible to carry out some unfinished conversations or indeed say in reality what I had wanted to say long ago but could not. Now, with him there breathing in front of me, I can reflect upon bad ideas and apologise for my being so insensitive in situations past, no questions asked. I will take him for a trip out and around my home, explaining about my life now and how I’ve changed, how I’ve altered my clothing style etc. We will probably have to cut the odd sentence short, you know, try not to fall into the same old behavioural patterns. We attempt to break the strange new silences. We launch into familiar conversations, argue, fight, but then you cannot expect old habits to die just like that on the first night.<br /><br />Finding that I have less common with him than I had thought I find trouble capturing neither quite the same atmosphere of rebelliousness nor the intensity of emotion that once first drove our friendship. Trying in vain to remember and recreate crazy situations that have been lost in memory we get increasingly frustrated. Inevitably, towards the end of the day he will get tired and slowly loose breathe, crumpling to a heap, head crashing loosely against the floorboards. In the end there is never enough time to say what you want to say. I place him back safely inside the cupboard, lean him up against the side like so. He will be O.K. there till later when I will probably resuscitate him again. Even though I know that it will not be successful I still try. Until, after a while, he no longer re-awakens and keeps perpetually falling to the ground.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1159555867235109092006-09-29T19:49:00.000+01:002007-04-12T01:11:20.910+01:00This Man<p>This man can walk around all day without a worry about when the end might come or how he could get the workload finished. He can let his mind be distracted by learning to play the guitar say or maybe watering the plants, that is if the leaves are drooping or the soil has become too dry. He can take a part in his own life and can consciously get involved all of the thoughts dancing around his mind, and comments; hasn’t that tree got an interesting texture out the window and is not the sky up there a shade greener this hour and if I record the sound of that man tapping his shoes then repeat it via a loop machine will I be able to edit the resultant base sounds to create an interesting repetitive thud over which I could dub a high pitched monologue. He makes tea, sees what’s in the fridge then boils potatoes, switching the microwave on but it is in the lounge that he thinks up the new narrative idea. Nothing can prevent this man from seeking out new areas of thought because of course his conceptual space is limitless. He knows that he can always walk outside if he wishes but opts to stay inside, searching now for Ballard or Orton, Philip K Dick or stuff by the Marquis de Sade on his bookshelf. Fiddling with the lapel of his shirt he casually turns to see if his computer has finished downloading the latest intellectual material. Everything is possible; This man can dream and create models for future developments, write plans for necessary projects and maybe the plan is the work and there is nothing else that needs doing to it; the end result an open ended structure that leaves the viewer free to imagine his or her own encapsulated world, fixed only temporarily to the original idea, leaving them free to unlock their pouches and pocket the art, carrying it along with them along their winding paths.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1159555708876287552006-09-29T19:45:00.000+01:002007-04-12T01:16:39.503+01:00Fold-out Mountains<p>Standing behind the lady at the hotel balcony I was pondering the difference between the mountains in the distance and the mountains pictured in the fold-out postcard that she held close to her body. It was difficult for me to lean over and take a look for any satisfying length of time before she shuffled off once more and I had to follow her surreptitiously to regain my vantage point. Each time I peered over to take a look the apparent distinction between the two visions of landscape grew ever more blurred. Their tinted ice blue slopes and whiter than white peaks glowed in the thin air. A cloak of trees hung as if a large crayon had haphazardly scribbled itself with increasing density around the uppermost tips, dropping to fill in the valley floor with a carpet of loosely stippled vermilion gestures, adding layered marks of burnt sienna and viridian green to give textured cover to over around about I’d say fifty percent of the white postcard background.<br /><br />After chancing a closer look I think I interpreted some far away figures wandering in the distance; tiny clusters of opposite colours sprinkled like confetti across a faded blue horizon. From a distance Skiers maybe, possibly holiday makers.<br /><br />She looked up at me as I lurched away giving me a look of sharp indignation, apparently perturbed I thought by my increasing scrutiny of her paraphernalia. With her hand wrapped in a velvet glove around the series of mountain ranges packed together again she swiftly removed them from my view by slotting them into her jacket top pocket, whilst staring at me with a look of deep suspicion. </p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1155091054807061652006-08-09T03:37:00.001+01:002006-08-09T11:22:23.620+01:00Moon Dust<p>If one was to go on one of those bizarre fair rides where your whole body (upright) revolves around a central globe; your feet on it’s mottled surface whilst the rest of your body is moved around various different axis points at tremendous speed, your head would be very like the moon, a moon with hair drawn from it in direct line with the Y axis. The craters of the moon, if one rakes ones fingernails over it, can seem painful and sore. The moon dust that falls is of a flaky texture that melts into the atmosphere and one will find a light covering like sieved flour on the various work surfaces inside your space.<br /> The lines of hair, when grown too long, need cutting back, this is key; If grown too long fingers can then come and attack hair, becoming twisted and even causing strands to loosen and fall to the ground. The smoke of this is dust that can drift towards those darker, more vulnerable surfaces.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1155090678717253182006-08-09T03:30:00.000+01:002006-08-09T10:53:34.113+01:00Room Traveller<p>The rooms had become unfamiliar to me, drifting off to discover their own separate identities. I moved now from one enclosed space to another not knowing where to tread, sometimes getting completely lost, as if I was instead crossing the borders of previously undiscovered towns or countries. I struggled to keep up with the ongoing conventions that were continually attaching themselves to each individual space I entered. It was becoming impossible to keep a track of everything. The changing cupboard spaces and seating arrangements required constant alterations of my body configuration, indeed if a chair or large ornament were moved then that room’s space would then become an entirely new area complete with new feelings and ergonomic demands upon me. At times it felt that I was surely being coerced into becoming a foreign traveller in my own home, my role now being reduced to tidying up after it and attending to the routine menial tasks like washing up and taking the bin out. <br /><br />Yes, I could move around in whatever way or which ever direction that I wanted to, but then, out of intuition or merely by accident, I would find myself knocking into the jutting angle of a newly placed book or a casually laid box dropped awkwardly across a low lying coffee table. I would find myself falling, having to angle my body out of the way of objects in order to direct myself towards the horizontal carpet, landing like a giant Godzilla actor onto the artificially lit model landscape compiled of pens, pencils and heaps of dust covered papers. After first stabilising from the shudder of the impact, looking left and right to gauge my position, I would raise my chin up to assess the corners of the space above me. High up there amongst the light shades and light bulbs a new space would be caste into being, narrower and taller than the incarnations of the room that I had previously noted. My mind would then instinctively process new rules in order to secure the area.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1153949836908625962006-07-26T22:34:00.000+01:002006-08-04T01:24:11.400+01:00Police Incident<p>Some scuffling in the corridor, a clicking of heals and the distinct sound of those below being questioned? Door to door salesmen I think. I receive a knock and my attention darts to the door and I wait inside the darkness of a side room, for them to go. They take their time. I hear feet tapping and then a brief silence. Up and down the stairs they go, rapping the letter boxes and getting no response, each resident I think hiding, waiting, having first scrambled over to turn their stereos down. <br /><br />I hear the distinct sound of police radio’s echoing through the brickwork, ear pinned to the wall, a sound for condensed electrical cheering comes through from their little hand held gadgets. It’s definitely the police or children with speaker mobiles. Already they trace me; I suppose they must have my details from work; flashes of a possible Trial cross through my brain, the exposure, the humiliation! I know that the next time thy knock I will be too curious to hold back. I will not be able to help having tea with them out in the corridor to drill them on all their activities and before they are finished I will be blurt out a long self-confession of all my crimes in my life thus far. They will cease their inquiries right there and then and begin looking at me with a newly focused intensity; I will come across so suspiciously that my case will become a priority ‘down the yard’.<br /><br />They seem to be lingering in my corridor, knocking and fiddling with the handle of the opposite door, clunking keys. The rectangular block of my door shakes with yet another knock, I lift the latch tentatively, receiving a flood of light, reflections bouncing from the white floor panels, the corridor open and cold. The policeman stands contrasting the white glare, his mouth expounding muffled sounds through the haze of my newly awoken hearing deficiency. I break the harsh light by digging my knuckles into the corners of my retinas before crossing and raking my misshapen hair. What are they staring at me like that for? I stand there a while focusing on them, their eyes of course focus on my facial signatures, logically fitting a mug shot of my features together; is he a suspect or not, we must take into account his dishevelled state. They talk at unfamiliar speed, the interplay between the two officers hard to analyse and understand in the instance of my just having opened the door, still in my night clothes, wondering how I was going to respond with sufficient confidence in the required dialect, to cohesively knit myself into their speech pattern.<br /><br />- Hello sir, do you know the man at number eight?<br />- No never hardly see him, he’s never about or I a mean, I never see him, that is.<br />- Can you remember the last time you saw him?<br />- Er, I dunno, about a month, maybe a month ago. What’s happening, what’s happened?<br />- We’ve had an enquiry, just checking it out. <br />- Enquiry?<br />- His mothers asked us to check on him. He’s not answered the phone in a month and she’s worried.<br />- Oh, hmm. <br />- OK we won’t keep you. We may have to force the door in so if you hear anything. <br />- OK, right, OK then, I understand.OK, Bye. <br /><br />I close the door slowly, not wanting to do it too fast so as to not cause suspicion; “er could we also search your flat sir, just procedure in these circumstances sir, nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about here, is that your rug sir, buy that yourself did you sir? I wandered about the flat trying to act normal, sit down, try to think about comics, check plants have grown, count the books. I just couldn’t concentrate somehow, with the police still roaming around the hallways knocking on doors; it was eleven in the morning, nobody in except me and that fact could being suspicious in and of itself. Must manage this situation delicately I thought, not wanting to fall accidentally into any wanted list, get trawled in as a percentage case; fall into a new personality category, where they are ninety percent certain I could have done it or if not now but likely to do so in the future given the correct circumstances, motivation, etc, etc. Get me on a charge enabling the interrogation to carry on yet further, plant something in my flat, create a muffled tape confession of someone that sounds like me, my twin brother. But that said, that man across the way, it must be serious, and would they come and find me if I… no, my circumstances are quite different. That man had a suite on, a grey pin striped suite. Was he the one who the family at number 3 persecute mostly on Sundays with vile language out of their window for slamming doors way past curfew time and is he the one drunk and growling at me for staring as I wait for him to go first and not get in his way and therefore mind my own business on the way to my flat just a cross the way from his, I didn’t know that. <br /><br />Another knock at the door; I recognise the officious tone of it, my excitement grows, I speed, I try to get there before they burst in with that iron door bashing machine, that I’ve seen on TV. The policeman stood directly in the middle of the door this time, his partner to the right, eying me with more apparent interest and concern.<br /><br />- Sorry to bother you again but can you give us more detail about the man at number seven.<br />- Have you found out anything?<br />- I’m afraid he has passed away.<br />- Oh, dead. God! Oh, what, suicide or something?<br />- We can’t make a judgment on that until forensics have been in there. Did you know the man at all.<br />- Well to be honest I um, not sure what he looks like, I’m sure we’re talking about the same person though. I think he drives a…(looking out of the hallway window) Which car’s his?<br />- The one in the middle.<br />- The large grey one.<br />- Yes, I that’s it.<br />- Sort of quite large build.<br />- I know him, well vaguely, yes. Hardly ever see him. Last time he seemed a bit agitated about something, angry or something. Oddly he had a grey pin striped suit on which seemed most uncharacteristic as if he had been to an important meeting or interview, I don’t know, just vague memories really.<br />- Bit of a loner was he? The policeman casually aired as if it was the most normal thing to say, expecting an instinctual agreement, casual response.<br /><br />I did not answer, feeling that the pigeon hole had just there been blocked by those last words, feeling the oppressive atmosphere created by a stereotype; a loner, the loner, two words conjuring a whole array of negative image types, denigrating the grey man in his grey suite to the back pages, gossip column spaces, that mostly end up in disagreeable court cases.<br /><br />- Can we have your name sir, just for the record? <br />I gave him it; I had become one of his records for that day.<br />- Do you know about any other tenants who might be able to give us more information, next door neighbours? Who lives below, above?<br />- Well, there’s a family downstairs, number three I think that is, they I think would know more about him, been here longer than me, upstairs just kids I think, students,I’m not sure about anybody else. <br /><br />They had the look of wrapping the case up, flapping the notebook shut, one of them already at the staircase waiting to go. I did not focus my eyes in time to catch their name labels, a couple of sergeants.They went away I closed the door after saying OK, right, that’s all then, right, Ok, Bye.<br /><br />Only two hours later I heard in the corridor, a lady, could be a cleaner, could be from forensics complete with white powder and cameras, talking with familiarity to the policemen, who were still hanging around. A clatter of a trolley as it wheels past my door. Amongst the inane surface chatter, the police gossip, the weather, what time are you off type banter, I hear the distinct sound of a bag being zipped. It was a long zip, perhaps for a long bag, a coarse zipper of industrial strength, sweeping the length, the sound coming to a definite stop. The final closure, body bag number 451, heaped onto the trolley, to be parcelled off, filed away, slide into the cold metal draws at the morgue to wait dispensing. I wonder how many people would be at the funeral. How many people during the past five weeks had phoned him or sent letters, knocked at his door while he had laid down dead on the living room floor.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1149853064192061502006-06-09T12:34:00.000+01:002006-07-04T04:05:28.466+01:00Flat Rap<p>What kind of child am I?<br />You’re playing silly beggars with you’re lies and deceitful spies.<br />Press down upon my door step, stand on my door mat<br />Tell me that in no way are you going to pay<br />So get out of my flat, look<br />Get out of my flat, a matter of fact<br /><br />The trouble with your sort is they keep coming back.<br />They keep coming back your sort,<br />They keep coming back,<br />Get out of my flat.<br /><br />Since when you came to town I’ve been drowning with dept<br />Not two pennies have been met and every day having to drive you and your pesky mother and you’re flipping brother down to the dept.<br />With a ticket for my trouble and the road charging double and the doctor saying there is no green light and no way for me out of this restricting bubble.<br /><br />And there’s nothing for me with not two pennies to rub together, that’s what I say. And you better bloody believe it because it is my car, my electrocution table and administration cabinet all together chattering about all my behavioural records.<br />Don’t touch those recs, give em ere unless you want to be electric-cuted.<br />Because they won’t understand, because they shine a light on my hidden secrets and they just won’t understand.<br />Well you might let them finger through my papers and convict me with the fine blessing of the magistrate, but let me tell you, you can put me in bands of metal and close the clasp shut, see if I care.<br /><br />The trouble with my sort is I keep coming back.<br />They keep coming back, my sort,<br />They keep coming back.<br />Don't step over that mat<br />and get out of my flat!</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1149553854491434752006-06-06T01:21:00.000+01:002006-08-04T01:33:47.010+01:00Unchecked Minds<p>I had been out of work for thirteen months when there came the time when I had to join a course for my self improvement in the areas of CV making and general job search activity. This was of course not due to my own divining but instead was as a result of certain initiatives laid out by the work and pensions department. It was yet again trying to revamp the welfare state into a more streamlined and efficient organisation, its various organs working as hard as can be expected to invigorate we job shy youths, and some old, to pass our time more actively in the work area. Their version of work being of the paying and full time kind, our form of hell that is. Our ultimate betrayal to a lifetimes studying at the table, fending off cries of wastrel and layabout from relatives and old fashioned old men with long moustaches and old ideas about a days work and the fact that they pay taxes - codswallop! We have the right to walk the streets like anybody else. The maintenance of a well stocked pool of fit and efficient non workers is our mission, not the passive submission to a scandalous work ethic contradicting the real need for activity in the work markets. Work being in reality a social control acting in much the same way as school, the training place for work. That everybody should file in and line up and be at attendance otherwise how could they possibly control us? What would people do without work? They would lounge about and do pointless activities just in order to pass the time. Their unchecked minds would run riot without the sensible and firm controls of leadership only to be found in the rigid structure of the workplace, full time not part-time.<br /><br />I walked tentatively through the double swing doors. Before meeting the course leader I stood taking in the scene that lay before me. The first impression was of the smell, the room being used, I found out, as a public bar in the day time and stank of stale beer and fag smoke. The sound of constant singing with awkward drumming backbeat came through the semi-permanent left wall, under which you could see feet moving. On the makeshift tables gathered in the long room lay strewn around an array of newspapers taken apart and half read. Towards one end of this display before me lay, or sat, a woman with her head and arms sunk downwards in a heap across an open newspaper, making no sound, in the midst of some sort of seizure maybe, as if having dropped dead in mid read, gravity had caused the front of her forehead to fall upon the beer ringed formica coated chipboard table. I turned my head slowly around, eyes passing the worn out nicotine grey sofas, a landscape of neglect strewn all around me. Suddenly I found Bob the course leader up close and in my face, standing and introducing himself with interview like formality, beckoning me towards a scruffy looking moulded plastic seat standing opposite a desk, informing me that he would explain how it all works and everything, thanks for coming, I’m waiting for two others, no point starting till then. <p><br /></p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1149207153834327502006-06-02T01:11:00.000+01:002006-08-04T01:38:20.336+01:00Fields<p>They have cut me up into their convenient squares, have rolled me over with their loud rickety industrial machines and chemical sprinklers, trampled upon my battered hide so that it is now marked with all manner of cracks and abrasions. To cap it all off the intense rays of a harsh sun also beat unrelentingly down upon my dry baked skin as I lie in wait hoping for it to end. like the weather it must pass and go away. Only a matter of time now. <br /><br />I keep saying to myself, reassuring myself that this is just passing phase, just a temporary altercation. This plague will die away and be replaced by a more benevolent occupier; the land will go back perhaps to how it was before when there were forests, gullies, large hawks and giant dinosaurs that wandered around and stamped reasuringly upon me. Let the ants take over that’s what I say, that’s what I say, or the trees or the vegetation.<br /><br />You can rest assured that there is no death in me, I will merely change and morph into other forms along with the environment. You see I have that ability, I know what I will be like in the future, like stone or like sand and then I will be able to cruise down through the mountains again like once before. I know these things. Of these things I am certain; because the whole thing repeats itself.<br /><br />The occupiers sometimes forget that I have lain here for thousands of years. Layers of peat and earth having gradually engulfed me, pressed me down further and further, flattened to form a layer at the point where I now lie. I have decided that I must deny the present and try to think more of the future. I will try to think that it is for the best that this has happened. I do not bear grudges. In the thousands of year that it has taken for this world to form me whole species have evolved and died away. The planet can get restless sometimes, whose logic is beyond every species that have ever lived upon it. The only thing that I can rely on is the fact that things will change and carry on changing for time eternity, which is the only saving grace.<br /><br />They have slain me and dug me, then rolled me over and over, reworking my de-forested soil. They have chemically enhanced me; have plagued my arching back with tons upon tons of poison thrown from planes. Could they not leave me fallow at least and leave alone my friends the insects and familiar habitations nearby that over the years I have come to be like friends to me, just take me, leave them. They have suffered; the worms, the centipedes, the beetles and the grasshoppers that travel through me, in me and over me, keeping me irrigated and ventilated. The plants seek their darkness, spearing through me, pushing me further down, sucking at my residues, nitrifying my soil, what could I do without them.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9930780.post-1147706437031368622006-05-15T16:19:00.000+01:002006-08-04T01:40:50.193+01:00Fish Sounds<p>I am like a sea creature lurking in the depths of the sea and my bulbous eyes are constantly revolving as I watch slimy bodies swim all around me. Waves of sonic currents flow across the sensitive Antennae. Deep down there across the flats amphibian fish scatter as they sense a shadow creaking upon their ceilings, the currents shifting, a potential predator hovering above.<br /><br />I swim low, wagging my elaborate tail. The little Escipodes and Flinchpods take one glance at me with their dots for eyes and sink further down into the gloom.<br />I do not say I am nosey but I do want to know what is going on, my ears alert. I concoct my fictions around their every movement and muffled vocal sounds. Each sound could be a new fish. Some fish are hidden and rarely come out and just appear as a faint shimmer of grey on the sea floor, hardly noticeable at all.<br /><br />This evening I take a thirty degree diagonal trajectory straight down into the depths, letting oxygen seep slowly from my breathing apparatus as I fall. The large disc shaped salamander arhchipodes rest upon the sea floor like giant almond slices decorating the hills and crevices, their joint sound of hundreds of coughs, splutters and lettings off of wind becoming louder as I swim deeper, the bubbles rising around me, oxygenating the water. I touch one by accident and it nearly swallows me. I block up my air holes with my right fin which causes me to rise out of danger.<br /><br />I press hold of my ears when I am passed by a glowing anti-worm with its spiralling horned drill tail using the strength of the current to pass through the water, drilling downwards, causing impromptu sounds of combined lawnmower and hand drill effect. They are so keen on mowing around this area. Every fish has a drilled tail to show off, a primax 300 or a detax 900. Competition is fierce.<br /><br />The layers of apartments tower up into the sky but also plummet downwards towards the ground from up here. The echoing sounds layered one on top of the other scream past me and through me. Sandwiched as I am in between them I am entrenched, with the plasterboards barricading my head while occupants go about their daily activities.</p>Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07100680002159677222noreply@blogger.com