squished flowers

beaks

The bear hugged the sun till the damage was done

And the cartwheels rolled over her tears

The fireflies smoked while the chimneypots choked

But the ice in his heartstrings had rusted the gears

A beautiful girl he once promised the world

From the stars to the moon on a stick

But his cupboards are bare and he’s lost all his hair

And his timepiece has lost all its tick

The pelicans cry when they hear that the sky

Is fixing to poison their corn

When the mockingbirds hear they holler and cheer

Till their beaks are all swollen and torn

But what does it mean when this broken machine

Is spewing out nothing of note

We could always rewind to a happier time

But the magpies half-inched the remote

hole observations (part one)

just an empty hole

forever nowhere - a nice little reminder

forever nowhere is the bee's knees.

you should see it.

what a glorious sight.

behold its beauty

leave feeling hypnotised and maybe a little warmer inside

etc etc

http://www.forevernowhere.com/

eyelid

I woke up this morning and one of my eyes was completely sealed over.

‘Where is my eye?’ I asked my wife.

‘It’s there,’ she said, pointing at the place where my eye used to be.

‘Where?’

‘There,’ she repeated. ‘Behind your eyelid.’

‘How do you know, if I can’t move my eyelid out of the way?’

‘Where else would it be?’

On the way to work I walked into seven people, one of which punched me in the left ear, causing it to swell horribly.

When I got to work I tried to hang up my coat but it fell in a heap on the floor. I tried to sit down but I fell in a heap on the floor.

‘Enough of this!’ I said, from beneath my desk.

I boiled some water to unseal my eyelid but missed and poured it over the other eye.

‘Shit!’ I screamed at the kettle.

Now I was blind. I found it impossible to work so I handed in my notice.

‘And your reason for leaving?’ asked my boss.

‘I’m blind.’

‘That’s no reason at all,’ he said, and threw a hole-punch at me. It hit me square in the mouth and I was rendered mute. I left without another word.

On the way home I walked into fourteen people, one of which punched me in the right ear, causing it to swell horribly. Another broke my nose in a spectacular fashion. Crossing the train track to my house proved difficult in my present condition and I was hit full-on by a steam train. The collision broke both my legs and one of my arms. I lay tangled in a barbed wire fence. A sheep walked up to the fence and began licking the blood from my face. The sun appeared from behind the clouds and warmed me up nicely. I could hear my wife’s whistling through our open kitchen window.

‘What a beautiful whistle my wife has. I’m a lucky man to have such a woman.’

And then I lost consciousness.

loop of laughter

His laughter filled the great hall of his mind with a thousand laughing people.

They were sat around a huge banquet table.

When he stopped laughing they all turned to look at him.

One thousand nine hundred and ninety nine piercing eyes and one dead glass eye.

They all laughed even harder.

The eyes that is.

The mouths were as lifeless as the glass eye.

The laughing eyes were much too much for him.

The terror of it all.

He shrank away to the far corner of the great hall of his mind.

The hall shrank away from his mind and he was left alone.

Laughing.

At himself.

His laughter filled the great hall of his mind with a thousand laughing people.

carnivore costume VII

cranium

A young boy went to bed one evening and woke up the following morning a man. He decided there and then to go out into the world to make his fortune. ‘I’m going out into the world to make my fortune’ said the man to his mother (blind mute) and his father (deaf).

‘Okay’ shouted his father.

His mother nodded.

So he went out into the world. He made his fortune selling frisbees to men with dogs. But then he lost it all on a bet. He thought camels don’t have knees – turns out they do. He pennilessly returned home on a Tuesday morning a few minutes after the postman had called. The postman is of no importance to this story. When the son walked through the door his father’s face was anguished beyond belief.

‘What troubles you so father?’

‘Your mother is ill.’

‘She is?’

‘Yes. She’s dead.’

‘What happened?’ asked the grief-stricken son.

‘The postman shot her through the cranium and stole her eyes.’

‘Why did he steal her eyes?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he thought they were fully functioning or something.’

‘Where were you when all of this happened?’

‘I was in the garden. She tried to cry out but she was mute, as you know.’

‘How d’you know it was the postman?’

‘He left this letter.’

The son pulled a sword out of his belt.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the father.

‘I’m going to seek revenge for mother’s death.’

‘Wait’ crowed the father.

‘What?’

‘Don’t be so hasty. Let’s read this letter first.’

‘Letter. I have no time for letters. My poor mother’s killer is out there breathing and very much alive.’

The father opened the letter anyway.

‘Merry Christmas’ said the father.

‘What?’

‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Be quiet you old fool.’

‘That’s what it says, Merry Christmas.’

‘It’s not even Christmas.’

‘I know.’

Just then a killer bee flew out of the torn envelope and stung the father on the eyelid – the left one I think. The father, being a pretty old very deaf man, suffered about seven seconds of excruciating pain before falling down as dead as a paving slab. The bee flew over to the son and stung him on the left elbow. The man was transformed back into a boy and the bee flew out of the window and disappeared forever. I guess the postman did have some bearing on the story after all.

Juras(sic)

sparrow

An angel visited me today, whilst I was walking in the woods. I came to a clearing and there he was, the angel. He was hanging from a tree, all angel-like, with a broken neck. From where I stood the sun framed his head like a halo. He looked down at me with eyes deader than air. I picked up a stone and threw it at him. It missed his head by a few inches and was consumed by the halo and burnt up. Somewhere a bird laughed all trill-like: maybe a woodpecker, maybe a sparrow. A piece of paper fell from the angel’s left hand into the brown and yellow leaves. I took up the paper and smoothed it out.

‘Goodbye’ it read.

‘Goodbye’ I said. ‘Goodbye? Where are you going?’

The angel was silent.

‘That’s what I thought.’

A bird laughed again. Blood was dripping from behind the angel’s left eye and collecting in a pool on his soiled t-shirt. He looked as though he’d been shot through the chest and frozen mid-air, to stay suspended ten feet above the ground, forever. The wind rattled through the forest. The angel swung from side to side and the tree creaked. A plane flew overhead. I picked up another stone and threw it at the angel, hitting him on the shoulder. One of his shoes was missing and his jeans were torn at the left knee, a small scab showing through the hole.

‘What sort of angel are you anyway?’

Silence.

‘No message for me?’

Silence.

‘If I’d met any other angels I’d say you’re the worst angel I’ve ever met.’

The tree branch snapped. The angel fell to the ground. I stood over his broken body. He looked so beautiful. Somewhere a bird had stopped laughing and started singing instead. I didn’t recognise the tune. It sounded good though. I took the watch from the angel’s wrist and fastened it to my own. It shone like the sun. I walked home, the bird’s beautiful singing to keep me company.

eleven

Strawberry bonbons I bite through your skull and I’m home

I’m eleven years old and I’m out in the cold skimming stones.

My gross older cousin is telling of girls that he’s kissed

But in my small world things like snogging and girls don’t exist.

The cows edge away as I’m lobbing a stick at a tree

When right out of nowhere the farmer is shouting at me…

I jump over fences his shotgun so clear in my head

I went out for conkers but now I’ll be gunned down instead.

Stole chocolate from Woolworths one criminal August weekend

And sat on the wall as I shared out the haul with my friends.

If only my parents would let me camp out overnight

But now I’ve been grounded cause John and I started to fight.

It’s Saturday evening, dad’s hooked up the brand new t.v.

We wrestle and scrap as the Betamax plays Rocky 3.

With soldiers approaching we’re frantically building a base

I’ve a stick for a rifle and mud smeared all over my face.

Thunder and lightning I’m cowering under the slide

If I run like a demon I think I can make it inside.

In the street playing kerbie we battle it out until ten

It’s light and we’re happy cause summer is ours again.

Strawberry bonbons I finally now understand

I was eleven years old with the world in the palm of my hand.

sandpit

the heart felt truly happy in the bird's claws

and began to beat wildly.

this freaked the bird out

and she dropped the heart and flew away.

the heart landed in a sandpit

and a little boy picked up the heart

and put it in his cart next to a

Thundercats figurine (probably Panthro).

the pocket watch

Emmett bought a pocket watch from a man at the market for five pounds. He stood there and admired the pocket watch.

‘Shoo!’ said the market man.

Emmett paid him no mind. The market man hit Emmett square on the nose with a sweeping broom. Emmett sneezed and fell down unconsciously. An onlooker by the name of Tarp took the watch from Emmett’s sleeping hand and admired it beside the market stall.

‘Shoo!’ said the market man. ‘Unless you want more of what he got.’

Tarp shooed away with his shiny new pocket watch.

‘This is such a nice pocket watch’ squawked Tarp. ‘I think I might listen to it tick some in the woods.’

When he got to the woods he held the watch to his ear.

ticktock-ticktock-ticktock-ticktock-ticktock-ticktock

‘Beautiful’ exclaimed Tarp.

Just then a tree fell on him and he died instantly. The watch fell from Tarp’s dead hand into a stream. The stream swallowed the watch and dried up instantly. Two days later Letta was walking Rascal. The dog found the pocket watch and scooped it up in his slobbering chops.

‘What you got there?’ asked Letta.

Rascal began to tremble violently before dying right there on the spot. Letta extracted the pocket watch from the dog’s clenched jaws.

‘Oh what a beautiful pocket watch’ cried Letta. She put it in her watch pocket and walked back to the car, leaving the dog to nature etc. On the drive home the watch began to glow red in her pocket. Letta didn’t notice this. She became inexplicably angry. She became so angry she drove right into the woods and hit three deer before wrapping her car around and old oak tree.

‘I wonder why I became so angry just then’ said Letta softly, before slipping into a coma from which she would never waken. The watch continued to glow in her pocket. Meanwhile the market man drove home to his wife Silt, who was pregnant with his baby. Silt glowed beatifically and the market man loved her very much, calling her his pregnant angel. Three months later Silt gave birth to Denny. Silt and the market man were over the moon and stayed that way for a long time.

Denny was slow-witted but beautiful and good with his hands. He grew up to be a master watchmaker. He bought a house in the woods and made watches from dawn ‘til dusk. He lived to be ninety-nine years old. In his lifetime he made 17,629 watches. 15,481 of these even outlived Denny and made their owners very happy.

the end etc.

today i saw a man step into the road and his heart fell out and suddenly a bird swooped down and stole his heart and flew away

train observations

Pyllyp was uneasy. The train was moving backwards and he was facing forwards; this fact, coupled with the sound of an old rusty saw blade hacking through a massive oak tree somewhere outside, caused Pyllyp to suffer a mild aneurism. It felt like a headache to Pyllyp but in reality he’d be dead before the day was out.

* * *

A little boy threw a peanut at the window. It bounced off the glass and landed on Elmyr’s lap. Elmyr was asleep. The peanut stayed on his lap for the remainder of the journey.

* * *

Tomas’ pocket watch announced silently that the time was 4:45 in the p.m. The watch was running slow. Tomas was not aware of this fact. Tomas would, subsequently, miss his connecting bus later that night. Whilst waiting in the bus station he would fall in love with a woman’s voice, a voice like frail honey, and spend the night trying to track down the owner of the voice, only to find that the tannoy announcement was a week-old recording and the woman had died of cancer two days before.

* * *

Someone coughed in the next carriage.

* * *

The ticket collector didn’t collect one ticket.

* * *

Coral wished he hadn’t bothered wasting money on a ticket. His shoes were too small. He undid the laces and yanked the shoes off, placing them in the luggage compartment above his head. One sock was yellow and one blue. Neither had holes but one was stained blood-red where he’d stubbed his toe on the table leg the previous morning.

* * *

A man fell off the train. The train continued on without him. Nobody noticed. He probably died.

* * *

Joan was talking to her mother on the telephone. Three weeks later Joan’s mother won the lottery and disappeared from her daughter’s life forever.

* * *

At some point the sunlight disappeared. It was effortlessly replaced by darkness.

* * *

A woman shone a torch on a newspaper.

* * *

Where was the ticket collector?

* * *

Pyllyp died in his seat (facing the wrong way) without so much as a murmur. Nobody noticed.

* * *

A child ate a peanut whilst watching the lights flash by the window.

* * *

etc etc

the shimmering eyes of thousands missed

moonlight

Having not caught a single thing all day Elmyr packs away his fishing tackle and walks behind a tree to relieve himself before the long walk home, where his wife is waiting anxiously for her fish supper. She’ll be disappointed, thinks Elmer. He takes off his hat and hangs it on the branch of an oak tree. Elmyr has always removed his hat before emptying himself. Elmyr has worn a hat ever since he first started losing his hair nearly twenty years before; the same hat for twenty years; the very hat that Elmyr has hung on the branch of the oak tree. He relieves himself, shakes off and zips up. He reaches for his hat and catches only air.

‘Where is my hat?’ says Elmyr to nobody but the tree.

He walks around the tree. No hat.

‘Where is my hat?’ he repeats.

The tree is silent. He is forced to walk home in the cold without his hat, the moonlight shining on his smooth pink head.

rope ladder (part 2)

yellow eyes

The light in the shed had died and he was left sitting in the dark. He was supposed to be working. He wasn’t. He was sitting in the dark. He’d been sitting there for two days. She hadn’t even checked on him. This made him happy and sad. An animal of some sort brushed against his leg. He bent over to stroke it. Its fur was soft and warm and felt good. The animal made a noise. Its eyes shone yellow in the darkness. He stroked its fur some more and the animal bit his hand. He pulled away and then the eyes were gone. He sucked on his hand until he couldn't taste blood anymore. He felt calm in the darkness, away from the house. Maybe i'll stay here forever, he thought. That'll give her something to think about. A rock smashed through the shed window and sailed past his head. He looked out. She was standing in the garden, a rock in her hand. He considered calling out to her but decided against it. To hell with her, he thought. Then her hand was empty and the rock was smashing through the hole where the window had been a few seconds earlier. It cracked against his skull and he went down clutching his head. Now it was truly dark.

the wind whispered some

the bridge

The bridge were the covering for his shame. The bridge were his only friend. The bridge and Luptk, but Luptk weren’t hardly no friend at all and came and went as she pleased, most usually when she wanted something from him. The bridge were always there, solid as a rock. The bridge were likely enough to stand by him till his dyin’ day, which were any day now he thought and he were right.

‘Where is you at Luptk?’ crowed the man ‘neath the bridge

The crowings fell out of his mouth and onto the road where they trembled and convulsed some like a fish on a hot roof. A yellow car drove over them and they were stilled.

‘Watch it!’ crowed the man ‘neath the bridge but the yellow car were long gone down the road apiece.

The man ‘neath the bridge decided the wiseness would be to hold onto his last remaindering crows, less they meet a similar classification of death. Instead he whistled a tune. It were a tune unlike another, partness cause he forgot the tune and partness cause he were the world’s worstest whsitler. A nearing sparrow heard the man’s poor attemptations at songing and swooped down and gobbled up the entirety of the tune in one, even the spaces inbetween.

‘Watch it!’ crowed the man ‘neath the bridge but the sparrow were long gone and with it the man’s purloined whistlings.

The man ‘neath the bridge decided to hold onto his last few songings so he tied them down real tight at the back of his mouth with his last few crows to keep them company some. Instead he purposed to draw a picture. He took his last ever piece of chalk in the world from his watch pocket and drawed what could have either been a moon a fish or a cloud on the underbelly of his friend the bridge. Presently a train took to rattling over the bridge making a godawful racket. A fishing rod protruded from one of his carriages and hooked the moonfishcloud up in one, tearing it from the bridge’s belly and thiefing off with it.

‘Watch it!’ crowed the man ‘neath the bridge but the train were long gone and with it his moonfishcloud.

The man ‘neath the bridge resolved to hold onto the remaindering of his last ever bit of chalk in the world so he tied it up real nice with his last crows and songings. The chalk took to dissolving in his mouth and it felt good some to his lonely palate. He worked his mouth some and chewed on the chalkings awhile ‘fore swallowing it all up and with it his last crows and songings. The man ‘neath the bridge were muted. That same yellow car came tumbling from the other direction and drove over his foot. The pain were horrible and the man ‘neath the bridge crowed out nothingness. That same nearing sparrow swooped down swallowed up all the nothingness in its entirety leaving the man ‘neath the bridge with less than nothingness. That same godawful train rattled back from where it’d been just a moment before and that same protruding fishing rod protruded some more and hooked up all the air the man were breathing and he died a little after three in the p.m. A fermentation of chalkness gathered round his lips. Luptk appeared from the rear end of a rock and took to chewing off his tongue.

the smoke stacks

rope ladder

[ Unsense Poeme No.17 ]

My days fell away like candlesticks


Your dandelion face left me in a trance


Never to be broken


Until you have spoken


Of the seas and the trees and the bees of youth


Then you will see


My tree


And bee youthful once more


A pillow in a field does not compare


To the criss-cross-criss-cross-toss of your hair


Your glare leaves me cold


Your tear will unfold


My very essence


Until I am nothing but a bee in a field


Carrying honey to your pillow


Under the willow


On top of the hill, Oh!


Sweet lady of mine


You shall have me for all time


Until the stars realign


And take you to your real keeper


And take you to the bee keeper


He keeps your bees he does


He keeps your bees because


Your pillow wants its honey


And I am but one bee


Compared to the millions


He keeps beneath his hat


For you


My true


Dandelion


Love

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{ plucked from the hind leg of www.forevernowhere.com }

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bricks

wooden morsels

alp horn

www.forevernowhere.com - a word of warning

okayokay. Now seems a perfect time to mention my wondrous website:

www.forevernowhere.com

Here you will find more golden goodness conceived in the uppermost drawers of my mind. Forevernowhere is a many-headed beast that will leave you:

a)Happy

b)Sad

c)Nonplussed

d)Indifferent

Concealed within its metaphorical glass walls are many splendid things to chew on, including a bundle of sticks, some hedgehogs, human origami, Wally’s famous marmalade, some baby alligators, pink lemonade etcetcetc.

Here is a snippet:

Last Night I Saw A Man Trying To Climb Out Of A Window

Last night I saw a man trying to climb out of a window. There was nothing on television so I thought I'd see if there was anything going on in next door's back garden, and there was. I saw an old wood-wormed-to-hell ladder placed against the back of their house. There was nothing on the ladder but an open window hovering about six-inches above it. I liked the look of the ladder so I watched it for a while.

Soon after, a foot emerged from the window, followed by a lower leg and then part of an upper leg. The foot moved hesitantly above the ladder, like a badger sniffing the air outside its sett. The foot-badger didn't seem too happy with its surroundings and disappeared back into its den. It appeared soon after for another try. It finally rested its leather nose on the top rung of the ladder and began to look more comfortable. The first foot was closely followed by a second, this one seeming a lot more sure of itself. It found its way to the top rung to join its friend. The rest of the body soon followed. The owner of the body was faceless and very unsteady perched atop that old wood-wormed-to-hell ladder. He shook a lot. His arms were still inside the house and he seemed to be struggling with something. The left arm eventually showed its face, at the end of which was a ginger cat. The arm was holding the ginger cat by the collar so that everything minus its head hung limp in the warm evening air. There appeared to be no hope for the cat, hanging there like yesterdays towels, spent and forgotten. I resolved to say a prayer for the dead woollen cat once the window proceedings had run aground. The man stood there for a long time with one arm still inside the window. He looked as though he had been paused by an invisible remote control. I wondered if I should go and make a coffee in the intermission but, afraid I might miss something, stayed and continued to watch the man on pause, lines of static running down his face. Nothing happened for five minutes and so, consumed with a thirst for caffeine, I went into the kitchen and made a drink.

When I returned to the bedroom window things had changed quite significantly. The cat was the same but the other arm belonging to the man was now exposed and holding a full-length lamp. The lamp was upside-down with the lead wrapped around the neck of the man. I wondered briefly how the lead had found its way around the man's neck. The man really seemed to be struggling now, with an upside-down-full-length-lamp-with-a-boa-constrictor-for-a-lead in one hand and a dead-ginger-towel-cat in the other. He was just lying flat against the ladder unable to move, his gut protruding through one of the gaps between the rungs. All of a sudden the cat, by some miracle, rose from the dead like a feline Lazarus and began slashing at the air as though it were shadow boxing. The man became increasingly unsteady until, in a crescendo of crazed-ginger-heavyweight-cats and possessed-reptilian-lamps, the cat slashed the man's arm, causing the man to squeal in agony, omitting a cry that sounded very much like aaghouchyousonofabricks. He subsequently dropped the cat, which landed feet first and ran away to a saner place where cats aren't throttled on top of ladders. The lamp then managed to fall about three feet before snapping back and pulling the man's neck, together with the rest of the man and the ladder that the rest of the man had grabbed on to, away from the house and plummeting to the ground below. I moved closer to the window and looked down at the garden. I saw the man and the lamp entwined beneath the wood-wormed-to-hell old ladder, none of which were moving. They all lay there like some beautiful high-speed train-wreck.

I switched off the light and got into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly and dreamt of throwing parachutes from my bedroom window. The parachutes, made from carrier bags, were tied to small green plastic army men. In the dream the heads of the green plastic figures lit up and looked like slowly falling fireflies. They all rested on the ground below, a thousand little lights that slowly became dimmer and dimmer until they disappeared completely. When I awoke in the morning I found the man and the lamp gone and only the ladder left where it had fallen. It looked happy, lying there in the grass, the sun shining on its old and torn body.

as it moves away backwards

shoe + shoe = Oprah Winfrey etc.

I saw a man wearing only one shoe. He appeared from out of the shadows and the shoe, or lack of it, was the first thing I saw. For all I knew he might have had the head of a dragon, but his feet demanded all of my attention. I just couldn’t tear my gaze away from his feet. It was a very shiny red shoe. On his left foot he wore a stripy sock. I finally made the journey north to his face and fortunately found a very normal human head resting quite happily on his shoulders. He smiled at me. I was completely nonplussed. Everything about this man spelled out normalcy, everything but the missing shoe. I wanted to ask him where his other shoe had disappeared to but he ran off, just like that. I watched him awkwardly run across the road. Veering to his shoeless left a little.

A few days later or maybe as much as a week later I saw another man wearing only one shoe at a bus stop. When I got closer to investigate I realised that this shiny red shoe was in fact the left hand twin of the one I had seen a few days before. The shoes were brothers. But why weren’t they together? Why had they been torn apart to be shared by two different men? The man caught me looking at the shoe and he covered it up with his right foot. This seemed strange to me. If anything he should be covering up the naked foot with the shoe.

‘Nice shoe’ I said to him.

He looked sheepish. A bus pulled in. The man hobbled onto the bus and it drove off, taking the man and the mystery of the shoe away forever.

I wondered if the shoes would ever be reunited. I imagined the story on Oprah Winfrey:

‘Twin brothers, torn apart at birth and living their whole lives unaware of each other’s existence, reunited on live television.’

Maybe tears would form in their eyelets and roll down the cheap red imitation leather to create a pool on Oprah’s couch.