You set the page before you, your sad eyes roam. Memories torn from stretches of time weave a crown you are fain to relinquish, but as suits, you encased in your own lore of wounds; a dull breathing which fear stands to shine you, one pillar, through doors tained with life.
On the shortest night the poet obeys the summons of beating sticks and takes a break from his meanderings to perform a magical rite. As creative fluids rush from his brain and find their outlet he floods the leaf mould about him, savouring in the darkness the fragrance of fungi and the croaking of the frogs attracted by the numerous pools. As he looks up to the stars he listens, and with penis gripped, as though it might be a wand, relives a vivid scene, at which he seeds the throat of the clouds that blot the evening sky, which gulley by return sends an impenetrable rain. But let us mould this with a prayer into a form that can more easily be digested: a canopy that drinks substance from the fluid body and, traversing space in the form of a golden scarab, blocks out the sky behind a variously textured framework of chestnut and cream coloured wood, shuttered with glass, from behind which the faces of young women, lit by lightning and washed by the storm from one pane to another, beam upon him from on high, whilst spidery black monkeys climb between the intersecting bones and phallic protrusions that project threateningly from their points of intersection. As they gamble and chatter they evoke a peculiar strain of poetry: they conjure phalluses and breasts from their dreams, and span these with a lattice of wood that indulges itself in the peaks and troughs of lavishly carved vaginas and vulvae, over which they run their hands and lips in praise Φ The whole framework is filled with sheets of glass. The moon passes slowly from one frame to another.
From the projecting breasts shower streams of gold dust and from the phalluses spurt little worms of oil, which anoint the head of the bull, who has been stripped naked and who/(whose artificial brain) is to be improved. The oil and dust mingle in the cup of his head and tumble from his mouth in the form of discs (coins) that fall and clatter upon the floor. When his brain pan has emptied twelve skilled practitioners, possessing twelve skilled pairs of hands, come forward to improve his mind:
The first, who is an artist, tattoos a blueprint into the hollow shell that is his skull.
The second installs four chambers and plumbs them together.
The third pours the Ideal into one.
The fourth fills another with love.
The fifth illumines another with dreams.
The sixth fills the last one with logic.
The seventh is the alchemist who blends and mingles these in carefully balanced measures of pain and blood (birth, milking).
The eighth installs the clockworks.
The ninth plants the seeds. At this point the heart is resuscitated and the cogs start to turn. Everything spins and tumbles and chops and grinds. The bull is ready to fight. He fills the scene with laughter and song. He sticks a cigarette into his mouth and lights it.
The tenth gives him the facility of speech. He is weighed and given a number.
The eleventh, however, sows the seeds of doubt.
The twelfth conveys mortality and stitches him back up.
Within the cradle of his mind, from the taps and the drippers which form the plumbing of his cerebellum, droplets of blood feed the carnivorous flora that are its seat. Through their interaction is released a sumptuous fragrance. The blood is the catalytic fuel. The twelve form a ring about him, with rapturous applause.
Once the bull has been improved he pulls on a mantle of tightly curled hair, as black as gloom, speckled with the fragments of meat that had fallen from his skull. Over his head he draws a cover of the same material, as though he were about to present himself at the guillotine. Then he leaves. What need has he of ears, and eyes, or speech? His brain has been improved. There is, however, a hole between his posterior cheeks. This, moreover, provides release for anything he may have to say. Around his neck he wears a heavy stone, to keep his feet from leaving the ground (but don't forget he is a bull). As he charges into the wilds of the open air to reclaim his freedom his heart explodes.
At first he reaches into the sky on tiptoes, then collapses to the ground with his four legs splayed.
This lifeless mass is lifted and slapped down hard upon the revolving platform of a sculptor's turn-table. It is photographed. The apostles set to work again, shaping the grimy dough. They throw in handfuls of leaves. They beat the pudding with long canes, and from this pulp twelve giant, long stalked mushrooms grow, reaching one hundred feet or more into the sky. The stalks form the bars of a circular cell, within which an artist rises from the beaten hide, upon which he starts to etch, using his finger, dipped into the pool of blood that has collected at the centre of the cage. Twelve symbols:
Art (the artist, red of flesh, as earthly as the hero of a cave painting).
Plumbing (boiler, chambers - a fire beneath a pan/still).
Ideals (the artist floats/flies).
Love (a hand, spanking).
Dreams (a pumpkin with big, sharp teeth).
Logic (a white elephant).
Life (pain, blood, nurturing - a vessel that is a droplet of sulphurous blood - a mote of fire)
Clockworks (the passage of the earth and moon around the sun)
Seeds (an egg assailed by sprouted seeds)
Speech (a bubble upon a severed tongue)
Doubt (a book)
Death (a map, outside is marked with an X).
At the centre, now drained of blood, he squeezes the edges of the naked wound that has been revealed. He squeezes out a flag on a pole and some stones, which he uses to set the flag erect. The apostles salute, but he does not. They each discover that one of the symbols has appeared upon their brow/belly. Their penises rise erect, then erupt. The artist is gripped by a violent peristalsis. He brings up a flightless songbird (Stephens Island Wren). It sings briefly as its rudimentary wings open as though they were leaves and it starts to bloom as it rises on its stalk from his belly through his throat. It reaches upwards to one of the breasts in the canopy. He starts to cry and tug at his hair. The sun is seen to rise. Black berries sprout from the vine that trails between the drinking bird and the artist's gaping mouth. One by one they drop, sploshing like turds as they hit the ground. The Prophet now enters with the apostles behind, anticipating. The air is scented as white ejaculate spins from the bursting fruits. The sperm cells spark as they die. The apostles run from one to the other, trying to catch them, as though they were bubbles or dandelion spores that could grant their every wish. But the sparks simply fade away, no matter how quickly they are caught. The Prophet takes the men in hand, one by one, and yokes them by the neck. The herd are thereby gathered into a single unit of order and obedience and stand in a rigid formation, three ranks by four. The Prophet is exempt from such rules and restrictions. As one, the Apostles drop to their knees in prayer. The Prophet draws a razor from its place of concealment within his robe. In unison, the apostles do the same. Suddenly, however, they become embarrassed by their action and quickly conceal the blades. They even (attempt to) rise to their feet of their own volition. They start to march. They dream of desertion. In their hands they hold blades of grass. They imagine wreaking destruction upon the order of the day. Clutching wooden swords they win great victories. Now they are dancing, wagging their swords. The Prophet has become a vague memory. They approach the artist as one and waft their swords back and forth across his skin, as though they might depilate him. Slowly his husk is winnowed away. As the flesh is revealed they cannibalise him. Beneath the flesh a cage bathed in blue light. At the centre of the cage is a bloodless heart. They gather round and remove it then tentatively inspect it, unsure what they might find. They pass it around and each gives it a kiss. One by one they are touched by a sweet melancholy. They rub the heart upon their chests, above their own hearts. They hear a great commotion and into the dome flood twelve beautiful maidens with, at their centre, one whose beauty outshines them all. Together, they lead the men to one side. They take the heart, conceal it beneath their skirts, subject it to heat, then retrieve it and peel away its surface before passing it on, until it is finally in the hands of the one who leads them. She takes it and pushes it into the Disintegrator. She lays herself down, on her back. Everyone crowds around expectantly. She folds up her skirts. Their faces crimson richly over. A bubble issues from between her legs and then retracts. She jumps up and starts to run, whilst the men strip off their robes and follow in hot pursuit, their erections bobbing. As she passes out of the dome to liberty she pulls out a sharp, saw-toothed blade. As they break into the open air the men's phalluses rage, such that their foreskins are stretched back taut as their glandes swell. The men flap around like brainless idiots. She stops when she arrives at an ornamental pond and turns. The men clutch their chests and fall to the ground. She walks in amongst them, turns them onto their backs and starts to cut letters into the nearest one's chest: LOSER. She bends over him and whispers in his ear. She then looks into his ear hole. Whatever it is she has seen compels her to insert the knife. Brutally, she prises open his skull. An ancient bloom is thus revealed. It is shaped like a star. She shakes this over the other men like a wand as she spits and pisses onto their bodies, which cover over in sores of red and black pinpricks. They start to thrust their limbs this way and that. They start to lift weightlessly into the air. Their arms and legs remain un-coordinated, although their movements describe an irregular form of clockwork. However, the momentum is lost and they come back down to earth. Of a sudden a rain of chilling hail comes down. The men's wounds start to wash away and one picks himself up, kneeling. She affixes the coins she has retrieved from the floor of the domed gallery to his limbs and joints. Once covered, he stands, rigid as a statue. From out of the golden husk he starts to emerge. He looks upon her with eyes that aspire to love, but she strides away. The other men look up to him with looks of genuine concern on their faces as they try to understand the cause of his agitation. He is flattered by their attentions but pays them no heed. She glances back at him and he makes his mind up to follow. As he gains upon her she turns and quickly flashes the knife along the length of his body, drawing a thin line of blood from his crown to his groin, so that he holds back for a moment, but then persists, an air of angelic mildness about his face. The others, with a new lease of life, start to cast the gold coins in his direction. As each of them lands a blow the coin drops to the ground, where it turns to a medallion of meat. He splits into two. Both halves continue their pursuit separately, but show visible signs of decline; they will never catch up. Nevertheless, as the two halves hop along [singing their song, side by side], crushing the meat as they advance, they unite with a strangely compelling and beautiful song and she starts to exhibit signs that she is succumbing to its allure. She weeps as she bucks with laughter, which she jettisons his way. And that laughter it is then, that finally cuts him down.
Upon the ground where he fell, an undulating mass of seething white and grey, a rising mist and in the air, a siren wail. From this fermentation she starts to raise the dough. She shapes a head, but only a head. Things, however, are not as they seem. It was all make believe. She is in fact the bride, clutching between her hands the head of her husband, so handsome, so right. She puts a thermometer into his mouth to test his heat. She kisses and adorns him: from her mouth stream acid trailing bugs. They masterfully etch feathers into his skin. His sex is now indecipherable. The head emits a gasp. She lashes out but finds the skin is hard as plated steel. The head unleashes a wild growl. Without hesitation, she reins it, tames it and sits astride it to ride it into the city. She takes it straight to church. She enters, and starts to follow a trail of footprints. These start to rise from the ground, as though leading over a bridge. As she makes the crossing she encounters a woman on a mule who is crossing the other way. Her skin is blue, particularly her teats and vulva. It is exceptionally absorbent. She is sucked within. She thrashes around insanely. She steams and sparks. Although it is day she can see nothing and zigzags like a drunk. The mule and the head are lost from view. It matters not, they are already forgotten. She runs her hands over the walls and fingers the cracks as she stumbles along. She passes through a crack in time to a magical land. She is now astride a small, grey horse and rides across a cracked mirror sea toward a dark island, which may just be a chasm in the glass. There are lines of fish, laid out upon its surface. Eggs rain from above. The glass begins to split and opens up a passage for her. Wherever this passage leads, however, it does not lead below. She rides into a gathering cloud of scents with people crowding round. The onlookers pull chickens from baskets and hold them up to display whilst the chickens flap, as they may, and fill the air with excited commotion. However, their bellies are disfigured by rot. They gape and hard, grey stones tumble from them. These are followed by butterflies, delicately embroidered in greyscale, which take off into the sky. To the side, a dying man offers her a curious bundle, wrapped in a drab old, worn cloth. The horse immediately rears up in horror. She struggles to restore confidence to the beast. She reaches to its mouth, with the pretence that her hand contains food. Though it seems to have worked; through the power of her thought she appears to have appeased the creature and her deified position is thus restored. Slowly, she brings it to its knees then draws a sabre from the bundle she had been given and swiftly severs the arteries of its throat. She then repeats a simple mantra: mass red mana dee. However, after some cycles her chanting starts to become more carnal, with increasingly lascivious and bestial interjections. Finally, she emits a cry of anguish and collapses, crestfallen, upon the flank of the beast. She clamps her lips to the wound in the horse's neck and starts to breath new life into it, whence its collapsed carcass starts to inflate. As it bloats so does its mouth issue food. Thus, she drinks of the beast's blood and then turns to eat of its body. However, the produce has been sanitised by polythene, but what did she expect when she had pacified the beast with imaginary food? She finds she is incapable of penetrating the film. She sinks in her teeth but always there is a barrier of plastic between her mouth and the contents. She further unwraps the bundle she had been given, to reveal tools that resemble instruments of torture. Clearly, if these morsels were intended for anyone, it was not her.
A loud siren recalls her; she is in a supermarket, sprawled across the floor of the freezer aisle, surrounded by defrosting fish and with her teeth embedded in a bag of peas. They spill across the floor and mix with egg yolk and oil. Police are approaching. She whinnies with laughter. They are so intent on promoting themselves that they make scarcely any progress. A nun starts to say a prayer. However, she quickly realises she has made a mistake and stops. But more step in, seeming carbon copies of the first, and pick up where she left off. The police move away and block all the exits. The peas in the oil ignite and burn like candles. A man steps forward and starts to recite poetry:
"I have withdrawn from the fluffy birds
Help me adapt to the depth of
Creations penned from sleep
Lint ..."
At which he is lynched and taken to be locked away, but the woman (the Queen) calls for them to bring him back so that she might hear more. He returns astride a hobby horse and resumes:
"Sweets go naked
On the table
In our shop."
"My earliest recollection is of a lion-tamer turned back to written gold a story begun in the father line tattoo I afterwards inherited the rules of genius. When we were ..."
But so compulsive is her gaze that as he has spoken, so has he moved towards her. He has removed his jacket. As he has uttered his words, so has he folded his arms about her. Like flora his arms, his long fingers, envelope her. She does not return the embrace, however, but instead starts to inspect the foliage, picking through it judiciously. As she does so, she urges him to continue:
"lying in bed I remember still a good tale you told of soft shelled animals encrusted with Chinese characters which contrived to relieve themselves in a wind pump but stiffened like freaks under blades at the first hint of risk ..."
Her attention, however, has been drawn elsewhere, and she stands and strides to the entrance foyer. Here there is a gathering of men who are unwell. Each is clutching a pint; undoubtedly it is not their first. She retrieves an oil sump from the ground outside and attempts to force the nearest to drink from it. He seems to enjoy this ambrosia immensely, like a baby at the breast. When she pulls the sump away, he has a large piece of foaming black fat between his teeth. He makes a jump and roughly tries to embrace her. No matter how hard he tries, however, he cannot make contact. He does not so much miss her as fall into her, into her body, into the forest of her. He is seized there by a cutthroat. He finds himself incapable of offering resistance. The blade cuts into his neck like butter. The neck of the assassin is likewise scored. Each falls twitching and ejaculating and lands with his head in the lap of the other. A red light, that appears to be from a fire, shines through tall, silhouette trees. A monkey emerges and starts to groom the men, initially picking at their sleeves. It then breaks off a thin branch, with the intention of thrashing them. A sparkling sky acts as a distraction. Long, thin, salt-like shards rain down. The ape vomits and drops to its knees. His phallus is erect and, with tears running down his cheeks, he grasps it and starts to pull. His ejaculate falls as snow flakes across the clothes of the dead men, melting to droplets of blood. He suffers a massive brain seizure. His phallus is still erect as he collapses onto his back and along its length there are windows that exude light. Behind each is an eatery, a bar, a dancehall. The clientele, however, are beasts, beautiful in their own right, whose forms conceal fatal and poisonous weapons. The improved bull is there (in the bar), seeming made of diamond, and obediently mounts the stairs, down which the spidery form of the Prophet descends (from the restaurant), whilst the Queen (in the dancehall) opens her mouth to release her shaping words to instruct their rise and fall, over and over, until she presses her palm over her eyes and the lights are extinguished.
They flick back on in another aisle of the supermarket, where the shelves are draped with offal, brains, ears, trotters, sweetbreads and hearts. The Poet scoops up a plate, cracks an egg over the top, and presents it to the Queen, who presses a hand to it and invites him to do the same. Beneath the meat they detect the movements of a living creature. However, the thing is cold as ice. Their hands together slowly confer warmth. They pull dry scales from beneath the protective offal layers. Then there is thick cream. Finally a seething swarm of insects, preparing to fly. They pull their hands free from the mass and wring them as they start to walk together along the aisle. But step by step they are drifting apart. Until he grips her by the arm and leads her outside for a talk:
"I am falling through ideas, and as before you watch me through the spoken walls of words you manage to refuse me sleep when I must put this book into an orchard mood."
At this she begins to sing:
"Another explanation is a trade of thirst for drama like a certainty which till now treats us blankly as moons."
She presents her card: "By virtue of my flesh"
The way he is looking at her immediately changes. In fact, he starts to look rather foolish. He stares blankly at her teeth. When he attempts to take the card he fumbles and drops it. He offers her coins. A man on horseback proceeds along the aisle towards them. This man is of the type "naked black savage". His horse is laden with all manner of goods for trade. There are books (erotica/porn?). There are china birds. There are stacks of tightly bundled black leotards. There are suitcases. There are cash boxes. The Savage jumps from the horse and steps forward to greet the Queen (Reinette). But she and the Poet set about smashing, breaking and tearing to pieces the items his horse has been carrying. The Savage lowers his eyes and weeps inwardly, muttering, as a gaseous fluid leaks from between his lips. As this stuff drops to the floor he grinds it to powder with his feet. He picks this up and sprinkles it towards Reinette and the poet. She starts to dance a powerful dance. The Poet stops destroying things, drops down and starts to search intently through the pieces, as though wishing to make sense of them. Reinette's wild dance, however, causes a piece of masonry to detach from the wall and onto the head of the Savage, who appears to be now lost in trance, his mind far away. From his mouth runs a constant stream of a milk-white substance that flows around his feet. Like a chameleon, his skin starts to take on the same hew. His heart bursts from his chest like a shooting star. As it hits the ceiling it divides and a pattern of hearts spreads from its centre. The Poet now turns his attention to the ceiling, and to the closest of the hearts. He pushes his finger into its centre and gently unfurls a spiral of tails that hang there, just above his head. From the next one he plucks a pair of eyes. They hang for but a moment then turn inward again. He delves into the one beside it and draws from this a long truncheon, embossed with curious markings: eight of them in total: bite marks: in opposing pairs. He sinks his teeth into the tip. He feels for the next heart and opens it up. This one is entirely covered in the black fur of a satyr. Inside is a ball of rice. The fur conceals growths that, to his touch, feel like acne. Droplets of dew are suspended from the filaments. He probes this one for several minutes. As he does so his trousers tent. He sweats, he appears lost in dreams:
Subjects appear to be aroused by tactile sensation but become less mobile when engaged;
Subjects are gullible and struggle with the crippling grief that is the burden of this vulnerability;
Subjects appear to be awaiting a reply;
Subjects enjoy variety and are loathe to allow one trend to dominate;
Subjects appear never to be completely satisfied;
Subjects are committed to the advent of the impossible;
Subjects are torn between co-operation and competition;
Subjects are unable to realise their dreams.
This record is inserted into a folder which is itself sealed and inserted into a locker drawer. The locker is turned onto its back and is carried to the waterfront, from where it is floated far out to sea. Those who had carried it turn back and head into the heart of town to join the festival. In the central garden a large horn pipes out music. This is where the Artist has set up his easel. He pulls the covering off of the canvas, unzips his flies, and directs an arc of golden piss across it. He then unpicks the canvas fixings and removes it from the frame. The Carriers bind him up with the canvas and broken frame then lift him and carry him towards the sea. They march in unison, excruciatingly slowly. The sun sets as a full moon illuminates the night sky. When a Carrier falls from exhaustion he is quickly replaced, and in this way they proceed. Suddenly, however, they drop their burden and scatter. A giantess approaches the bundle that contains the Artist and with her hands digs a hole, into which she drops him, before covering him over with earth. Steam rises from the ground above. The Invisible People crowd around. They discretely poke holes into the soil. As they finish they drop a die inside. A man who looks a little like the Artist rises from beneath the ground. He stands and mutters, but his words are indecipherable. His eyes are lost in a dream to which no-one is privy. From his mouth issue rings of smoke. The Giantess fastens a red carnation to his buttonhole. He walks, guided by the fog as he puffs it out and, with determination, attempts to forge a path through it. As he walks the character of the land quickly changes. The town at the edge of the sea is now in ruins. He heads towards a bunker. There is a telephone ringing inside. Without apparent motive he proceeds to smash it apart. He then plucks up the receiver and speaks into it in a language I do not recognize. He speaks cautiously, as though fearing he may betray a truth.
