Whimper
In Response to Howl by Allen Gnsberg
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by sanity,
seen bold new visionaries resign themselves to clinical long-haul deaths,
drug-numbed to their own suffering, and everyone else’s;
seen raving revolutionaries give up, retire to minimalist Swedish-designed armchairs,
and never move again;
seen the horizon dim and draw ever closer,
and the tenacious lunatics with the wanderlust to stray beyond
become fewer and further between.
There are uglier destructive forces than madness:
Consider cognitive rehabilitation.
Consider absolutely nothing immeasurable.
Consider utter rationality.
Ritalin, lithium, risperidone, duloxatine. [I thought I heard a man speaking in tongues,
then I realised he was simply reading out loud from a pharmaceutical directory.]
Imagine a generation of loan brokers and loss adjustors;
Hicks gone these past seventeen years and Leary still alive;
sharks floating in formaldehyde;
all real human significance lost in pretentious symbols,
and repetition
and repetition
and repetition,
and no one raging.
No one raging for real.
Where are Plato’s maniacs now?
Where are their lunatic songs?
I hear only the steady, rational tapping of the accountants’ calculators,
occasionally, some lost and lonely bum crying out for one more shot,
and the PA system calling the next patient through, the doctor will see you now,
or asking would the owner of a light blue Honda Civic please move their vehicle,
as it’s blocking in a black Lexus full of lawyers with an ambulance to chase.
Is there really nowhere between here
and the bellow and buzz, the shiver and shriek of the asylum?
Someplace between this sterile, static, silent, windowless room
and the fizzing frenzy of the electroconvulsion suite,
there must be somewhere we might have paused and breathed and set up shop,
where we could have been happy – if we’d wanted to be –
and no more or less sane than we chose.
Thompson saw it coming: the dawn of this new Age of Equilibrium.
He knew that football season was over, for good this time, and made his ballistic decision
to go stalk peacocks and hound Nixon through the Kingdom Hereafter,
assuring us, ‘Relax – This won’t hurt’.
Safe and stable and sanitized, we can no longer follow your desperate, dirty verse.
Straitjacketed by reason, we perceive our world only in terms
of quantum and co-efficiency, of the logical and logistical,
of what can be conjured in the duration of the average commercial break,
of what can be computed to at least two decimal places.
We are the chemically castrated.
We are lobotomised by mutual consent.
We are the perfect ones: regular and moderate and so healthy, so functional.
We are the white strobing smiles of the toothpaste ads,
the poster children for good mental hygiene,
the footsoldiers of no more conflict.
We have lost our skill for the alchemy
that once distilled genius from the seething crucible of lunacy.
We medicate those whose vision would otherwise put our own to shame,
leave them as myopic and blinkered as the rest of us,
the breadth and depth and distance of their sight no longer a worry to anyone.
Give us back our madmen: we need them.
Give us back our crazed anthems, our burning shrouds, our leprous one-man-bands.
Give us back the fire and the filth and the fornication that kept us howling through
those endlessly polluted nights of Windscale and Watergate, McCarthy and motorcades, Hanoi and Hiroshima.
Please. Give us back our madmen.
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by sanity.
* View Ginsberg's original poem *
In Response to Howl by Allen Gnsberg
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by sanity,
seen bold new visionaries resign themselves to clinical long-haul deaths,
drug-numbed to their own suffering, and everyone else’s;
seen raving revolutionaries give up, retire to minimalist Swedish-designed armchairs,
and never move again;
seen the horizon dim and draw ever closer,
and the tenacious lunatics with the wanderlust to stray beyond
become fewer and further between.
There are uglier destructive forces than madness:
Consider cognitive rehabilitation.
Consider absolutely nothing immeasurable.
Consider utter rationality.
Ritalin, lithium, risperidone, duloxatine. [I thought I heard a man speaking in tongues,
then I realised he was simply reading out loud from a pharmaceutical directory.]
Imagine a generation of loan brokers and loss adjustors;
Hicks gone these past seventeen years and Leary still alive;
sharks floating in formaldehyde;
all real human significance lost in pretentious symbols,
and repetition
and repetition
and repetition,
and no one raging.
No one raging for real.
Where are Plato’s maniacs now?
Where are their lunatic songs?
I hear only the steady, rational tapping of the accountants’ calculators,
occasionally, some lost and lonely bum crying out for one more shot,
and the PA system calling the next patient through, the doctor will see you now,
or asking would the owner of a light blue Honda Civic please move their vehicle,
as it’s blocking in a black Lexus full of lawyers with an ambulance to chase.
Is there really nowhere between here
and the bellow and buzz, the shiver and shriek of the asylum?
Someplace between this sterile, static, silent, windowless room
and the fizzing frenzy of the electroconvulsion suite,
there must be somewhere we might have paused and breathed and set up shop,
where we could have been happy – if we’d wanted to be –
and no more or less sane than we chose.
Thompson saw it coming: the dawn of this new Age of Equilibrium.
He knew that football season was over, for good this time, and made his ballistic decision
to go stalk peacocks and hound Nixon through the Kingdom Hereafter,
assuring us, ‘Relax – This won’t hurt’.
Safe and stable and sanitized, we can no longer follow your desperate, dirty verse.
Straitjacketed by reason, we perceive our world only in terms
of quantum and co-efficiency, of the logical and logistical,
of what can be conjured in the duration of the average commercial break,
of what can be computed to at least two decimal places.
We are the chemically castrated.
We are lobotomised by mutual consent.
We are the perfect ones: regular and moderate and so healthy, so functional.
We are the white strobing smiles of the toothpaste ads,
the poster children for good mental hygiene,
the footsoldiers of no more conflict.
We have lost our skill for the alchemy
that once distilled genius from the seething crucible of lunacy.
We medicate those whose vision would otherwise put our own to shame,
leave them as myopic and blinkered as the rest of us,
the breadth and depth and distance of their sight no longer a worry to anyone.
Give us back our madmen: we need them.
Give us back our crazed anthems, our burning shrouds, our leprous one-man-bands.
Give us back the fire and the filth and the fornication that kept us howling through
those endlessly polluted nights of Windscale and Watergate, McCarthy and motorcades, Hanoi and Hiroshima.
Please. Give us back our madmen.
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by sanity.
* View Ginsberg's original poem *
Lenka
A Love Poem for a Stripper
Slovak blond
in fluid, perfumed contortions
of milk-cool skin and arching cat spine,
an endlessness of legs
terminating stiletto-tipped,
height boosted six clear inches
for the strut-sway-strut
through the reverberating swell of bass,
polished perfect in black light,
flexing and strobing in sleazy incandescence...
and that accent,
like some coded transmission
- urgent and indecipherable -
out of the enigmatic, broken heart of the Old Country;
a strangling entanglement of limbs,
torso pulled long and taut,
smooth-muscled,
ripples skip and quake
in the inferno of red-filtered light bulbs,
amid the whisper-soft fall of lingerie,
in the mist of sighs and moans,
atmosphere turned syrupy
with the heavy mouth-breathing hunger of strangers,
shivering feverish like sick dogs
for those pneumatic thighs and high, alabaster breasts,
sick with wanting to hold, reach, grab,
possess
full, implacable, unkissable lips;
hips grind in sweet, cruel, maddening parody
of something more:
this disambiguation of
willing flesh,
weak spirit...
Press close to me, devotchka.
Press close and let me believe you could want me.
Press close, in the heaving, panting, tongue-lolling half-light,
and convince me I'm not just another punter,
dragging desperate carcass to you
through the indifferent drizzle of some restless Tuesday night.
Armoured and invulnerable in your nakedness,
press close enough
and let me believe this could be everything.
In this moment,
meaningless and throwaway
and perfect for those very reasons...
in this moment,
that will be reduced by tomorrow to the fading linger of perfume on
soiled clothes,
the soft, pliant recollection of flesh and the knife-edge memory of
Eastern European cheekbones
and a name...
in this moment, Lenka, I am yours,
as much in love
as Keats ever was with his nightingale,
Coleridge with his opium,
Wilde with his crippling sin.
I am
in love with the tone, the scent, the lines of you. I am
in love with your cool, professional detachment. I am
in love with my total anonymity. I am
in love with the benevolence of your
impersonal, indiscriminating hospitality.
I am in love
with my own aching, thwarted frustration.
In this brief and beautifully disposable moment, Lenka,
there is nothing I need beyond this.
A Love Poem for a Stripper
Slovak blond
in fluid, perfumed contortions
of milk-cool skin and arching cat spine,
an endlessness of legs
terminating stiletto-tipped,
height boosted six clear inches
for the strut-sway-strut
through the reverberating swell of bass,
polished perfect in black light,
flexing and strobing in sleazy incandescence...
and that accent,
like some coded transmission
- urgent and indecipherable -
out of the enigmatic, broken heart of the Old Country;
a strangling entanglement of limbs,
torso pulled long and taut,
smooth-muscled,
ripples skip and quake
in the inferno of red-filtered light bulbs,
amid the whisper-soft fall of lingerie,
in the mist of sighs and moans,
atmosphere turned syrupy
with the heavy mouth-breathing hunger of strangers,
shivering feverish like sick dogs
for those pneumatic thighs and high, alabaster breasts,
sick with wanting to hold, reach, grab,
possess
full, implacable, unkissable lips;
hips grind in sweet, cruel, maddening parody
of something more:
this disambiguation of
willing flesh,
weak spirit...
Press close to me, devotchka.
Press close and let me believe you could want me.
Press close, in the heaving, panting, tongue-lolling half-light,
and convince me I'm not just another punter,
dragging desperate carcass to you
through the indifferent drizzle of some restless Tuesday night.
Armoured and invulnerable in your nakedness,
press close enough
and let me believe this could be everything.
In this moment,
meaningless and throwaway
and perfect for those very reasons...
in this moment,
that will be reduced by tomorrow to the fading linger of perfume on
soiled clothes,
the soft, pliant recollection of flesh and the knife-edge memory of
Eastern European cheekbones
and a name...
in this moment, Lenka, I am yours,
as much in love
as Keats ever was with his nightingale,
Coleridge with his opium,
Wilde with his crippling sin.
I am
in love with the tone, the scent, the lines of you. I am
in love with your cool, professional detachment. I am
in love with my total anonymity. I am
in love with the benevolence of your
impersonal, indiscriminating hospitality.
I am in love
with my own aching, thwarted frustration.
In this brief and beautifully disposable moment, Lenka,
there is nothing I need beyond this.
Also for Sarah Bruce - 06.08.1915 - 10.10.10
You’re away now, Sarah Bruce.
The party had gotten tired,
so you left.
There’s no one here
could hold that against you.
Rest easy, hen.
The chaos and the clamour
are fading out behind you:
all that noisy, needless carry-on
of us,
selfish and frightened,
holding on
too tightly.
-- We’re sorry.
-- We only did it because we love you.
Escape now,
as we learn this tender lesson
in letting go,
and a last brief flare
of Autumn sunlight
glints gold off the hard, polished outsides
of conkers,
gilds spiders’ webs
spun between branches,
burns away
the clinging, confusing fog
this one last time,
and blazes itself out.
Here is your exit:
washed through with a light
as warm and golden
as the toffee wrappers I’d find
balled in my pockets
after visiting you.
Sarah McStravick, Sissy Muirhead, Mrs Bruce,
mother, grandmother,
and everyone else you’ve been
in the ninety-five years
you owned,
from the cradle of the Clyde
to the banks of the Mersey,
to the streets above the Sherbourne,
to the ebbing tide of this final river:
You kept us watching.
You kept us laughing.
You kept us guessing.
But we know that you’re tired.
You’ve every right.
We thought those bright blue diamond eyes
would sparkle and smile forever,
but it’s time for you
to prove us wrong.
Just sleep now, my darling.
We have already kept you too long.
You’re away now, Sarah Bruce,
and the wind whispers cold songs
about the passing time,
and we walk away,
slowly, sombrely,
wading deep through the fallen leaves
that have gathered,
unnoticed,
around our shuffling, earthbound feet.
You’re away now, Sarah Bruce.
The party had gotten tired,
so you left.
There’s no one here
could hold that against you.
Rest easy, hen.
The chaos and the clamour
are fading out behind you:
all that noisy, needless carry-on
of us,
selfish and frightened,
holding on
too tightly.
-- We’re sorry.
-- We only did it because we love you.
Escape now,
as we learn this tender lesson
in letting go,
and a last brief flare
of Autumn sunlight
glints gold off the hard, polished outsides
of conkers,
gilds spiders’ webs
spun between branches,
burns away
the clinging, confusing fog
this one last time,
and blazes itself out.
Here is your exit:
washed through with a light
as warm and golden
as the toffee wrappers I’d find
balled in my pockets
after visiting you.
Sarah McStravick, Sissy Muirhead, Mrs Bruce,
mother, grandmother,
and everyone else you’ve been
in the ninety-five years
you owned,
from the cradle of the Clyde
to the banks of the Mersey,
to the streets above the Sherbourne,
to the ebbing tide of this final river:
You kept us watching.
You kept us laughing.
You kept us guessing.
But we know that you’re tired.
You’ve every right.
We thought those bright blue diamond eyes
would sparkle and smile forever,
but it’s time for you
to prove us wrong.
Just sleep now, my darling.
We have already kept you too long.
You’re away now, Sarah Bruce,
and the wind whispers cold songs
about the passing time,
and we walk away,
slowly, sombrely,
wading deep through the fallen leaves
that have gathered,
unnoticed,
around our shuffling, earthbound feet.
Paisley Girl
for Sarah Bruce, who kept us all guessing for so long, and left the party on Sunday at 4:10am
Sarah McStravick,
born into wartime,
wears fancy velvet dresses
- chosen with a mother’s care,
shipped all the way from Canada -
growing up in princess costumes, fairy gowns,
amid the rag-and-bone horse-and-cart-clatter
of Paisley between the wars.
All the boys say Sissy Muirhead
looks like an Irish Colleen,
falling in love with her long black hair
and laughing eyes,
dancing blue, chasing breathless
down the cobbles of Abbercorn Street.
Motorcycle engines rage and bellow in the Scottish dark,
come calling for Sissy Muirhead.
Adrenaline rush and sweltering throttle,
ready to streak her away
in a cloud of exhaust fumes,
on the wild, crazy helter-skelter of reckless youth.
Sissy Muirhead,
the toast of the Paisley Lads,
quits the scene and breaks their hearts,
moving on
to red coats and wedding bells,
to the future,
falling into place.
Sarah Bruce is a mother now,
heading home from the hospital
in the cold, brittle edge of the newborn year,
with a cargo
wrapped in blankets.
A daughter,
with all her mother’s fierce tenacity,
grows up strong and streetwise
on the banks of the Mersey.
Sarah Bruce enjoys a knees-up,
knocks back Scotch and ginger wine,
and argues with Banana Bill
- contented married bickering –
all the way home through the Coventry night.
It’s an argument as familiar,
as well-worn and comfortable as old cardigans.
When she goes away,
even the dog leaves home.
Sarah Bruce makes good time on her walking frame.
Guiding you along hospital corridors,
with the linoleum muting her footsteps to a hushed little shuffle,
she tells you,
she still knows how to fight,
and you’d better believe her.
Fists balled hard against the pain,
and angry at her busted hip,
her aching bones,
at others of time’s cruel jokes,
Sarah Bruce squares up to God,
ready to spit in His eye for the trouble He’s caused her.
She tells Him,
she’s not coming,
not yet,
but when she does,
He’ll have her to answer to.
Sarah Bruce spites Death each day
to keep the Almighty in suspense.
Sitting under blankets
in the weak, thin light of a winter sun,
she tells you,
she’s ninety-four;
she’s lived longer than you have,
further than you have,
wider than you have,
and deeper than you have.
She tells you,
she’s lived harder than you have an’ all,
so bollocks tae ye.
Then she laughs,
those diamond-blue eyes still sharp and dancing,
undimmed by almost a century and all it meant,
and she pats your hand,
and she tells you to have a sweetie,
and you realise you know nothing.
Sarah Bruce wears pink floral print
and a pale green shawl,
and sits in a bright window
in an oversized armchair
that seems to shrink her down to miniature,
and she sleeps.
She’s lived through two World Wars
and countless personal ones:
she deserves to rest a while.
She’ll be glad to see you when she wakes up.
She’ll smile, and she’ll settle her false teeth,
and she’ll welcome you,
making a warm and comfortable space for you
in her world.
She remembers, if you ask her,
the words to all of those old Scottish songs
(including the dirty ones,
especially the dirty ones).
She remembers the black and white strip
that St. Mirren still play in,
and the parrot that backed a horse and cart into a canal.
She remembers all of these
and a million other details
of a life
rich and grained and textured with unreserved living.
And she’ll tell you,
if you listen,
and she’ll hold your hand,
and she’ll thank you for the pink roses you brought her.
for Sarah Bruce, who kept us all guessing for so long, and left the party on Sunday at 4:10am
Sarah McStravick,
born into wartime,
wears fancy velvet dresses
- chosen with a mother’s care,
shipped all the way from Canada -
growing up in princess costumes, fairy gowns,
amid the rag-and-bone horse-and-cart-clatter
of Paisley between the wars.
All the boys say Sissy Muirhead
looks like an Irish Colleen,
falling in love with her long black hair
and laughing eyes,
dancing blue, chasing breathless
down the cobbles of Abbercorn Street.
Motorcycle engines rage and bellow in the Scottish dark,
come calling for Sissy Muirhead.
Adrenaline rush and sweltering throttle,
ready to streak her away
in a cloud of exhaust fumes,
on the wild, crazy helter-skelter of reckless youth.
Sissy Muirhead,
the toast of the Paisley Lads,
quits the scene and breaks their hearts,
moving on
to red coats and wedding bells,
to the future,
falling into place.
Sarah Bruce is a mother now,
heading home from the hospital
in the cold, brittle edge of the newborn year,
with a cargo
wrapped in blankets.
A daughter,
with all her mother’s fierce tenacity,
grows up strong and streetwise
on the banks of the Mersey.
Sarah Bruce enjoys a knees-up,
knocks back Scotch and ginger wine,
and argues with Banana Bill
- contented married bickering –
all the way home through the Coventry night.
It’s an argument as familiar,
as well-worn and comfortable as old cardigans.
When she goes away,
even the dog leaves home.
Sarah Bruce makes good time on her walking frame.
Guiding you along hospital corridors,
with the linoleum muting her footsteps to a hushed little shuffle,
she tells you,
she still knows how to fight,
and you’d better believe her.
Fists balled hard against the pain,
and angry at her busted hip,
her aching bones,
at others of time’s cruel jokes,
Sarah Bruce squares up to God,
ready to spit in His eye for the trouble He’s caused her.
She tells Him,
she’s not coming,
not yet,
but when she does,
He’ll have her to answer to.
Sarah Bruce spites Death each day
to keep the Almighty in suspense.
Sitting under blankets
in the weak, thin light of a winter sun,
she tells you,
she’s ninety-four;
she’s lived longer than you have,
further than you have,
wider than you have,
and deeper than you have.
She tells you,
she’s lived harder than you have an’ all,
so bollocks tae ye.
Then she laughs,
those diamond-blue eyes still sharp and dancing,
undimmed by almost a century and all it meant,
and she pats your hand,
and she tells you to have a sweetie,
and you realise you know nothing.
Sarah Bruce wears pink floral print
and a pale green shawl,
and sits in a bright window
in an oversized armchair
that seems to shrink her down to miniature,
and she sleeps.
She’s lived through two World Wars
and countless personal ones:
she deserves to rest a while.
She’ll be glad to see you when she wakes up.
She’ll smile, and she’ll settle her false teeth,
and she’ll welcome you,
making a warm and comfortable space for you
in her world.
She remembers, if you ask her,
the words to all of those old Scottish songs
(including the dirty ones,
especially the dirty ones).
She remembers the black and white strip
that St. Mirren still play in,
and the parrot that backed a horse and cart into a canal.
She remembers all of these
and a million other details
of a life
rich and grained and textured with unreserved living.
And she’ll tell you,
if you listen,
and she’ll hold your hand,
and she’ll thank you for the pink roses you brought her.
Stratford-Upon-Avon, April, in the rain
I see her,
fidgety April wind teasing
twists of her long, dark hair
across lips,
full and pouting,
reddened the colour of stop-signs.
I see her,
leant against the concrete wall’s
chilly blankness,
underneath the overhang,
so the pale April sun
catches on cheekbones, collar bones,
chipped out of soapstone,
but the rain misses her.
I see her shiver against damp air
brushing the strip of exposed white skin
where jeans and jacket
don’t quite meet,
and I’m in lust.
I see her bangled hand
reach into the bag
bumping the slice of her hip,
come up with a pack of smokes,
and I’m in love.
Just for a second or so
- as those red vinyl lips
coat a cigarette filter
glossy blood-stained,
as her lighter strikes sparks
in bottle-green eyes
before they sweep closed,
dark and smudgy with kohl,
on the inhale -
just for that second,
I swear it’s love.
I see pristine skin tighten
against the damp, cool edge of the breeze.
I see her throat twitch
as she breathes in smoke,
a taut, hungry motion,
and I think
perhaps I’ll speak to her.
Perhaps I’ll say something
incisive and brilliant,
and she’ll laugh,
and then everything else
will fall into place.
Perhaps...
But no.
Instead,
I just watch
from behind dark glasses,
as her boots kick restless rhythms on the pavement,
and I smoke my own cigarette,
and concentrate on sheltering from drizzle.
It’s better this way,
probably.
Probably,
all we have in common
is a shared craving for nicotine,
the desire to keep out of the rain.
All these and other random musings at The Angry Idealist
I see her,
fidgety April wind teasing
twists of her long, dark hair
across lips,
full and pouting,
reddened the colour of stop-signs.
I see her,
leant against the concrete wall’s
chilly blankness,
underneath the overhang,
so the pale April sun
catches on cheekbones, collar bones,
chipped out of soapstone,
but the rain misses her.
I see her shiver against damp air
brushing the strip of exposed white skin
where jeans and jacket
don’t quite meet,
and I’m in lust.
I see her bangled hand
reach into the bag
bumping the slice of her hip,
come up with a pack of smokes,
and I’m in love.
Just for a second or so
- as those red vinyl lips
coat a cigarette filter
glossy blood-stained,
as her lighter strikes sparks
in bottle-green eyes
before they sweep closed,
dark and smudgy with kohl,
on the inhale -
just for that second,
I swear it’s love.
I see pristine skin tighten
against the damp, cool edge of the breeze.
I see her throat twitch
as she breathes in smoke,
a taut, hungry motion,
and I think
perhaps I’ll speak to her.
Perhaps I’ll say something
incisive and brilliant,
and she’ll laugh,
and then everything else
will fall into place.
Perhaps...
But no.
Instead,
I just watch
from behind dark glasses,
as her boots kick restless rhythms on the pavement,
and I smoke my own cigarette,
and concentrate on sheltering from drizzle.
It’s better this way,
probably.
Probably,
all we have in common
is a shared craving for nicotine,
the desire to keep out of the rain.
All these and other random musings at The Angry Idealist
So, fully dressed, in biker boots, carrying a cat, I'm my optimal healthy weight.
Someone donate me their insides. Mine are broken.
Incidentally, taste my bile...
Someone donate me their insides. Mine are broken.
Incidentally, taste my bile...
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm aching to get laid, and have a camera and a big bag of weed keeping me going through a sleepless night.
The inevitable outcome was this...
Here are a few of the resulting photos. These are straight off the camera, and were shot completely unplanned.
Warning: the following images contain scenes depicting female masturbation. If this type of material offends you, then readers are advised to stop being shit.
The inevitable outcome was this...
Here are a few of the resulting photos. These are straight off the camera, and were shot completely unplanned.
Warning: the following images contain scenes depicting female masturbation. If this type of material offends you, then readers are advised to stop being shit.
