clinging to the wreckage

People send me articles describing ‘the rules of writing short stories’ or ‘how to write a book.’ Complete crap. Fuck the rules. Just write. Writing is an obsession, a desire, it is unstoppable, it is essential to the life of the writer. The writer is often solitary and has thoughts and ideas that are often too unconventional to share with the external world through conversation... these things need to come out. Writing is an expression of the individual in whatever form and style he or she sees fit. How can there be rules? If there are rules, how can anything original and personal ever exist? How will writings differ from any others? All you need to write is a love of the word... to see the word forming on the page or the screen or wherever it is that you prefer to see the word form and grow into something of expression.                 We are conditioned into thinking that nothing is of value (including people) unless it is a success (success defined within the same doctrines that

It seems the world has finally slipped into the inevitable insanity that has threatened for such a long time. This week has been dominated by a mass panic in England for petrol. There was a threat of a strike... a threat... and the nation raced out and queued at petrol stations until all stocks were exhausted. Police had to rush out and close some petrol stations as the queues for these was so long that traffic in towns was backing up due to roads being blocked. The crisis rages on but I am fortunate enough to be able to walk to the local supermarket. I have just done so. I was sure it would be empty seeing as the nation is out of petrol and we have just slipped back into recession according to this week’s reports. I was very wrong. The store was crawling with humans. It reminded me of moments during the time that I lived in Africa when I would see sugar spilt on the floor and this would be covered in ants – ants upon ants – crawling over each other to get to the sugar. I started t

Dogs and cats do not intellectualise their existence, they merely exist. They are members of a species, organic species, and they grow old and die. We have no more right to live then them or any other organic compound... but we have evolved the ability to think and this causes us tremendous problems. We try to cushion the blow of death by creating a heaven and a god... a good place to go when we die. I wish it were true but, no, when we die we rot (unless we are cremated) and there is no more. There is no afterlife... there is no soul to carry on. Death is the end. We live such complicated lives, endlessly battling to find a purpose in life. Always hoping to find the ‘meaning of life’ or to find happiness... life is just life... we are organic matter... fragile, weak, destined to die and life begins when we accept our fate. 

They are unable to be alone. Why? Leaping from one thing to the next... often overlapping. Anything, as long as they are not alone. These poor, foolish creatures crave something more than love... They need to fulfil their obligation to society (although obligation is a word with too many syllables for them to understand), they need to appear successful, wanted, loved, needed, in demand. It's a sick game but one most people play. For me, I cannot express my delight at being single. What's more, I am happiest when I'm alone. Sure, there are moments when company is good but, for the most part, I long for the sweet moments that I find myself at home alone.

A day of communication, of lunch, of longing, of love and lust. A day to shatter the stagnant misery that had flooded recent times and then remained, still and untreated, immovable. A yawning dawn has broken through, red and full of promise. A dawn that you bring to the earth. And so, sober for a change, I lie in bed and read Kerouac whilst the British Blues, Artemis and Demeter, help to keep the blues at bay. Unsure if it is hot or cold I leave the all night heating set to come on downstairs whilst upstairs I lie next to an open window. Tired and worn from the pressures of last week I seem unable to decide things. Never the less, I feel somewhat hopeful that a decent sleep will be mine tonight... a deep sleep containing a dream in which you smile at me and assure me that you are mine.

Each night I lie awake in bed and stare at the walls. Falling asleep, initially, is usually not a problem, the problem lies in waking up at 3am and then being unable to return to sleep. Now I sit at my desk with reality flickering in and out of crashes. Sounds like static flash through my mind and my eyes blacken in momentary losses of vision. This is the ordinary state of the insomniac. Delving into a little modern research on insomnia the warning is ‘insomnia equals death.’ What can one do? I lie awake and await death… but it seems my mind is too active even for that. I lie awake and contemplate all the areas in which I cannot compete. I wonder how many people and how many animals are suffering terribly around the world whilst I lie in my bed and think that insomnia is a terrible problem. Looking up from my desk I see people pass by as if they are merely ghostly images. The most corporal part of them is the attitude that they exude. I reach out to one in longing and desire but

Through the smoky room I see your silhouette sat seductively behind the typewriter. You flick your hair to the side and roll your eyes with that way you have of looking so disgusted with a world in which convention is the overriding force. Slowly sliding your head towards the desk you raise a cigarette to your full lips and suck on it as if hoping to derive the last puffs of freedom from life itself. You’d rather live self destructively and taste life than live a clean and orderly life of family and home and children… and this I find irresistible. Chaos is your art. You part your legs as if to tempt and promise… a promise unfulfilled as you fold one leg over the other. You utter a few words and your French accent croaks from a smoky throat sending vibrations of pleasure through my body. I want to reach out and touch and kiss as you raise a glass to your lips and sip whiskey. I long to be that glass. I long to be the whiskey and the glass, to simultaneously touch your lips and be ins