31/01/2013 - ERASMUS THE INNOCENT

They said he was Erasmus the Innocent but I knew him before they started handing out names. He had a little pigeon which he brought out on weekends to exemplify the effects of particles on West Ham supporters. He had an eye that swallowed a jewel in front of the blind spot. He had a plastered ball that he threw at the Quakers whenever they wished him a Merry Christmas bleeding all over the gropers. He always found a reason to exit stage north, provided that nobody implemented a hasty dash in front of the period in his name. He called it a full stop and wouldn't let anyone touch it for fear that a shrivelled finger might prod it into submission. He had a brochure to do the laundry for him and demanded that Rachel change her name to Raquel for the sake of the children. He was a warlock drinking hemlock. He was a right-handed bastard when you wanted him to be a left-handed wazzock. He was a textbook case for something yet to be written about in the big anthologies. He was a friend and he was a liar and always at the same time. He had a favourite piano key that he insisted on playing whenever his girlfriends used the rest room. He had a marching tune that he wished no elephants would stomp to. He kept a gallery of pen lids in case the world should end and the crayons dried out. He would have gladly given his life for you provided that you were a hirsute Asian housemaid. He would have gladly given his feet for a dance with Bloody-Stump Susan, in the pale moonlight of yesterday evening. He never bit, he byte. He rectified situations that were above his comprehension as well as his pay cheque. He grew flowers in his garden.

Erasmus was a friend who lived in your kitchen cupboard. Erasmus hated contractions of his name and abhorred the way that nobody listened to the sound of his hair growing into wire. Erasmus was a force to be reckoned with if you were made of slate and lacked functioning thumbs. Erasmus left my publisher and drowned his cat in a bathtub of dog mush. I pinned my hopes to his notice board and watched it biodegrade. Erasmus had mugs without handles and that was why he was the best man at my son's wedding. When my boxing gloves blew up, Erasmus provided a feasible explanation that didn't require permanent markers or multiple pencils. Erasmus, Erasmus, Erasmus lingered on the tip of my axe. I bit his skull and sent it flying into the chasm. He sang a song that dreaded symphonies with a cold sweat and soggy lip syncs. Erasmus grabbed good people and gave them cigarettes to play with on their mother's front porch. Erasmus was a bad man: he wore tie-dye shirts and took long walks into ear canals. We may never see the like of him again in all predictable lifetimes. Such good, good badness.

29/01/2013 AND 30/01/2013 - AMBLING THROUGH THE BRAMBLE PATCH and EAT MY PORRIDGE

Ambling through the bramble patch is like licking the eye patch of a dead queen. Let them scurry through the undergrowth as they bowl for suds and twigs and lightning rods. I blame the parents. I blame those salamanders of South France. The stamp says differently. They are the bosses of their low-hanging bibs; where the bricks are stones and the stones are something everybody wants. Where the kleptomaniacs wonder  who is on after the next guy. Where they dream of silver-lined pockets and the dull trinkets that reside inside. Splash pages of glory and glory's tribunal. Then again Cobcroft could be the end of the left-handed masses. Nobody asks crows for trustworthy answers. They tell in accents, indecipherable and dull. Crush me in squawks, my lovely. Green is the myth of brown, shared among the blackened night. Hayley eats the hay and I bend over forwards then back again then elsewhere. Beat them softly and they will shout out your hopes. Dustmen are here to kill you, spike the trash above their heads and wish for the best. Their hands are pronounced in shattered leaves. Their fingers are eaten for the teeth's sake. My, my, my. What pretty clouds of nothing burnt and rolled in fiery shit. Travesty for transvestites. Let's leave before the gang war ensues and I lose my handkerchief. Print me and putt me. I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't exist in the present state of things. I am matter and you are the lonely opposite that wishes me luck in future endeavours. What a lovely goodbye to nobody's swatch. Swarm upon the dustmen before they turn draconian. You see that turnstile and they don't. They can't see beneath their chins. Chuck them under and watch them writhe across the tennis court. Blandness will be the end of the afternoon of lively kisses. Ghosts are out for love and will take it from you when you are sleeping with the West border. No. Not again. Not again twice. Quite enough cuddles from the dawn. The tickets are clicking and they are North of the plane again. Bite down incessantly and watch them chew cottages through the middle. Putting the receiver down will do nothing for the dustmen's temperament. Muck is on the window and that's not their job. Who's job is it again? We know but we may never meet them. The plank is falling. Hope for damp and hope for tribal ties. The paint is grey and no-one is eating. Run to the wheel and hope for change. I feel coins in my wellies. You will receive them in the mail intact, God willing. Blasphemy is for the dead grass. Let us know when it regurgitates and tells me something I don't know. The gross-out is coming and the Gods are among the slime. The Gods are good at being Godly but not at being Goodly. I will fill them with ink and hope they stay the course for a while. The spittoon is for the lovelies.

 

Eat my porridge and face the demons of Burgundy. I am the poseur and the poser and the position is closed. You are my left nipple and my right nipple and the good space in between. The hairs are feeling up my mouth and I won't last long enough to test them with a functioning calculator. Sponge the question and the graft will grift. Gristle is my way forward and you aren't allowed to deny me what I so obviously hear. The roses are seeding and the typeface is glowing. See my pretty paper clip chain and watch as I garrotte you with it. The baby will be there so I'll leave a blindfold out in case they want it. It's nice to feel nylon so close to your soul. The eyes are all squinting now as I pass out among the daffodils. I've spent an entire afternoon painting them true gold and I fear my time may have just been wasted. You'll tell me as if you were Michael in the daytime. The mountain's are clawing: I staple its paws to the table of the Gods. Conch shell printer parties are there if you can handle them. Pinkie is a tie between the Glaswegian and the nepotism. I'm suffering from lead poisoning and you can't tell me anymore than I need to know. Memory is decent enough, like retching on the back of a post-it note. Kittens are watching from the pencil pot, plotting a way to open my leg and throw me to Hades from the inside out. Place mats in a palace is a copacetic notion. Yanks will have it and I won't let you dance with them so you can snatch it from between their yellowing teeth. Wood is a wig that is falling from an aeroplane so fast that no-one will want to touch it without a curling stick. Nibbles and sasquatches have come to declare their undying hunger for lemon pies taped to the backs of live goats. Creamy paper is not so creamy as a night in the circles of my backyard. Neil is near to guide me to Heaven because Heaven is not a black place but a slate grey place which belongs to the lapel of good leather jackets. Crust implants are the wisest investment if you are a burning idiot who forgot his lathe in someone's fine idea of a jolly good time. The nape of the neck is not in fact a neck but a place to store your record collection, but only if pristine is just not good enough. Throw a punch and watch it fall before the failing light of my severest headache. Sever the times ahead and watch your land dribble melted plastic all over the begonias. Yates and my wives are having it off behind the feather duster but that's alright because they can't touch me without a permit from the cyclical letterhead. Tie the bow, end the bow and bow before the bounty of ancient grape fruit.

28/01/2013 - A TOY STOOD ON THE COUNTERTOP/MYSTERIES IN THE LIBRARY

A toy stood on the counter top. He was bent at the knees and looking severe. He had a ring on each arm, wedding bands as arm bands. He couldn't dive with semi-precious caution or seven-carat cartwheels. His head was lead and the lead was painted a delicious colour. Ultraviolet eyes looked out on the lino floor and a half-open mouth sucked in and snarled at shattered tea cups. He would fall in his own time and the time on the clock on the wall was as ripe as a green banana. If he had anything but tiny screws holding up his arms he would be formidable. His legs were plastic and stuff. He will fall on your foot, just give him a chance. A chance will come as a chance will come. It is a minty madness. There are sugar cubes on the opposite table. He will ignore them as he doesn't eat. The lino will shatter him anyway; his loosened arm will fly the farthest, possibly under the washing machine. It will stop on the limb when it rumbles out of place. Oh, the long way down. Oh, the cracking acrylic. He will land on his head, his heaviest part. It will not hurt again.

 

Mysteries in the library are all to do with the books. The spines are for the particulars and the leaves are shrivelled for the right sort of queen. Never question the awe-inspiring power of lemonade sipped behind a bookcase. Never say never in Hindi or Swahili: it'll burn your heart. Rocks live for ages and like for nothing short of eternity. Let us frolic to the library and see what is on the shelves. Maybe we'll find a guide to a computer long since obsolete. Maybe we'll find a fridge magnet wrapped around a pillar. Maybe we'll find the answers to what you've been looking for since yesterday evening. I might just tell you everything. I might throw CD covers at you. The LP is hidden  behind my left eye: they've dared you to pluck it out. Call up or shrivel up. I want to go to the black section where they keep all the dark tomes and goodies. I want to read Satanic works and scoff at their wording. I want to read early editions of the Bible and do the same but with cheesy biscuits in my mouth. I want to hope to read nothing so poor for the rest of my life. I will wish at your latest edition and bow below the reams of thought. I have poured my soul onto an envelope and I will send it to my sister in Quebec. She will open it and deposit it into her library and tell absolutely no-one to put it among the poetry pamphlets. The boards must be walked upon by rain drops or nobody will believe the sound of empty creaks. The novels are my bastard friends and the short stories my collective youngsters. I shall eat with them on my shoulders.

 

27/01/2013 - IT IS A TWISTED PLANE

It is a twisted plane that we tread on with wet feet. We have no idea these days how to live in strife or anything else beginning with the letter 's'. It is a passion play to be alive and one that is so easily missed if you spend your time staring at arses. The water is the land and the land is the water. All surfaces are level to the ageing mind. Stoop and you're doing something wrong.

            There was a man I met once whilst on the River Ganges.  He had hairy toes and pink eyelids that never flickered even when I stabbed at them. He was bleeding from the nose and crying from the lips. Something about lost crayons and eternal damnation. I asked him about the cliff and if he had ever attempted to traverse it. He told me in a whisper that his wife had tumbled from it in the most horrific way possible. I tried guessing but each time a thought popped into my head he always turned to me and told me 'No, that isn't the right one'. Dear God, what this man must have been through. He treads through water every day and yet he is never clean enough to squat down and pass the time in child's play.

            He opened his mind to me and let me peek through his ear hole. It was a precious sight and a precious site. There was no citation I could have made that would make him wink into nowhere. His skull was as pink as his eyelids and his soul as dark green as a dark green thing. I tried to drink from it but he kept looking at me. The rose was blowing in the wind behind us and nobody had stopped to ask it for shelter. Dandelions laughed at the sadness with which it's stem broke.

            I suppose I am binding my hands with this tale now. I suppose the yes on my lips is a no on the hips. I feel disconnected from connections to connectives from my past and I cannot help but bleed and lead. The dog will falter if you call its name. Elvis costs nothing more than a handful of grain and a kiss from the Netherlands. It will not bring him or the dog back again. All it takes is the shards of ice you sometimes find in the Ganges. It is so fine it does not break the surface. There is a mystery to my ethanol. I drink from it purely to go blind and yet it never allows me the pleasure.

            I do hope this means something to you because this means absolutely nothing to me. Vienna is where I shall go to next, in search of an answer to the markings on my calendar. The paper is thin and lightly glossed. New York is in the potato; I carry it around with me to remind me. I hope you think me callous when I say this. I hope you realise that I am bleeding urine all over your furniture and the furniture you will have in the future. I stab at thee. I stab at the last bell. The boiler is boiling burnt boils and I cannot understand the hum. Roll and you are droll to the last. There are no bells in the land of the seaside.

What is the 500 Word Nonsense Quota?

As a writer, I need to practice discipline. Discipline usually boils down to writing a certain number of words each day regardless of distractions and general temperament. This is hard.
A practice I've picked up in order to get around this problem is a method called automatic writing. This means that I write down anything and everything that's on my mind at the time of writing and, in doing so, whip my lazy, flabby mind into shape.
Sometimes you find something salvageable from these automatic writing exercises, most of the time it is pure nonsense. Either way it is good for me.
So why make a blog out of what is essentially word salad? Well, it gives me incentive to reach my 500-words-a-day goal. It also provides a world of amusement that only true bloggers can appreciate.
I'll admit it, this blog is going to be pretty egostical.  However, if you're the type of person who likes to scratch their head once in a while (maybe even to reach your own quota) then this is a good place to start.