April

in a moleskin notebook
on a mirrored table
in a Paris bookshop
the dying pen
describes fading black threads snarling
Damned Scotus Eriugina,
St Aquinas head
in a vacuum

pictures are hung
on fading walls
lost, lost, toast
between rows of dusty books
by lost authors
like city pedestrians
a plague of dumb jellyfish

Aristotle!
which way to turn in a vacuum?

which way?
in tabernacle of head,
in ghost factory of lung
in avenue of sight
in drum of ear
in omphalos close
to button and bell

Petroleum burns
ink runs
the mirrored table top reflects
Hydrocarbon Manicheans and

Damned Scotus Eriugina
St Aquinas head
in a vacuum

this pen
an old oxen yoked for ploughing
will soon fade, die
turn
to white bulk under olives
where mules are gabled with slate on the hillroad
to carry the bower of Ceres daughter Proserpina
Queen of Hades
who ate six seeds from the pomegranate
six seeds and 6 months
in Pluto´s winter arms
must end in April
when Ceres spring
arrives

Hernandez eats fresh cherries on a big stone bench in Gracia. Hernandez tastes the sweet red juice on his tongue. Hernandez watches Spanish children run like wild antelope. A mellow light reflects in their eyes, a certain contentedness.

Hernandez is ever hungry for adventure, for a sign. It is still not clear why he came here.

Hernandez wonders if he is living a topsy turvy life in a dream world, if perhaps he has died. The quality of the information he is receiving, the people his path crosses with, what they say, what is shown to him - is driving him quite quite insane with joy. His dreams are dull compared to this. Such a vivid existence.

IF THIS IS A DREAM THEN I CAN FLY

Hernandez lifts off. He tumbles upwards over Gracia, over avenues of running children, over balconies dripping with happy plants, over tiled apartments, over heavy stone slabs of paving. Hernandez floats, his subtle bodies as one, and everything throbs in the veins of a leaf and turns from charcoal black to green embers.

EVERYTHING IS NOW!

ALL THAT WAS WRITTEN,

ALL THAT WAS SAID,

AND ALL THAT WILL BE:

IS!

AND IT´S AS SIMPLE AS THAT:

THE TOOTHLESS CLOWNS AND THE TRANSVESTITE RENT BOYS,

THE INDIAN BEER WALLAHS AND THE ANTELOPE,

THE RED CHERRY JUICE,

THE CHILDREN ON ALL FOURS,

THE WOMEN ON RUNNING MACHINES,

THE WOOLY MAMMOTHS,

THE HANDS DIGGING IN SAND,

ALL ARE MADE OF STARDUST!

THE BANGKOK SKYLINE,

BUBBLE BATH,

PERSONAL OXYGEN AND CHOPSTICKS,

ALL ARE MADE OF STARDUST!

ALL OF THEM! GREEN EMBERS GLOWING IN THE VEINS OF A LEAF!

WE ARE ONE!

Hernandez feels that - and he is not afraid. He floats, not even breathing, and he starts to feel oriented in the dizzying infinite, in the silvery firmament, flying over the quiet world, the green embers soft in the heart of unknowing, the peaceful flow of lava in the chest, the meaning of meaninglessness, the secret of labrynths, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE LOST! The pleasure is in the journey!

He swallows the red juice and knows he must walk forever, exist here forever,

FOR NONE SHALL BE FORGOTTON, AND NONE SHALL BE FORGOT, AND ALL SHALL BE WELL, AND ALL SHALL BE WELL, AND ALL MANNER OF THINGS SHALL BE WELL.

he draweth likeness and hue from nature
so making pleasure more certain in seeming
nor can stand hid in such nearness
beauty's be darts tho' not savage
skilled from such fear man follows
deserving spirit, that pierceth
nor is he known from his face
but taken in the white light that is allness
toucheth his aim
who heareth, seeth not form
but is led by its emanation
being divided, set out from colour,
disjunct in mid darkness
grazeth the light, one morning by other
being divided, divided from all falsity
worthy of trust
from him alone mercy proceedeth

(BELCHES LOUDLY) OH EXCUSE ME... ACTUALLY, I USUALLY VOMIT. I'M SICK ALL THE TIME, I'M JUST USED TO IT. I FEEL BAD ALL THE TIME SO ITS... BAD LUNGS, BAD LIVER, BROKEN HEART, AFTER A WHILE YOU GET USED TO IT.

I'M THINKING ABOUT OPENING UP A NIGHTCLUB:

YOU CAN GO INTO THE CLUB AND, LIKE, THE CIGARETTE MACHINE'S BUSTED, NOBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH, AND YOU CAN'T GET CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR. WHILE YOU'RE IN THERE, SOMEBODY'S SHIPPING YOUR WIFE AND STEALING YOUR CAR, AND A BIG SUMO WRESTLER WANTS TO BREAK YOUR NECK. ALL THE GIRLS ARE CARRYING THE DISEASE, AND THEY'RE REALLY TRANSVESTITES. THE BAND ARE SIX WINOS THAT WERE SELECTED AT RANDOM AND GIVEN ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS. ITS FOR PEOPLE THAT REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO HAVE A BAD TIME. AND THERE'S NO COVER CHARGE. THEY DON'T CHARGE ANYTHING TO GET IN BUT THEY CHARGE $100 JUST TO GET OUT.

the scarecrow
with the teachers face
will sing to you
after you've gone

mother is in the ground
all covered in dirt
only the scarecrow
comes to you now
at night
creeping through the ward
leaving a trail of hay and maggots

you wait
hands bundled into little fists
clinging to your pyjamas
she is not in a field by the railway

she is here
watching you
at the end of the bed
and mother is in the ground
all covered in dirt

the scarecrow
looking at you with an odd sort of glint
says

you filthy, wicked, horrible child

and somewhere a piano starts playing

and so she sings

Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But some day the sun will shine

Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts
But when I think of you another shower starts
Into each life
some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine

white wash walls loom in tentative warmth,
the spring sun dancing with winter winds tentative,
and a middle aged woman holds the arm of her elderly father,
walks tentative,
as birds sing slow, tentative

the plants drink up a cool warm light,
throw their shadows at the paving, at the mortar, bright,
their leaves stretch and swoon,
under the cool warm sky which hides a yellow moon

a hard-skinned old drunk limps slow
leans against a wall, holding a plastic bag, he speaks alone,

he flexes the fingers of his hands,
looks through the window of the jewelary shop,
at gold and silver bands
and white pearls from the sea

the clock strikes three.

1pm Stansted Airport

Sitting in Ryanair's yellow nightmare box for the magic carpet ride to Ibiza. Squeezed in like a zit. They are playing Mozart, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Leaving home was easy. The entire archive of books records garments ephemera personal bricbrac diaries photographs artworks furnitures, boxed and bagged and stowed and loaned.

Has been a mad December January Febuary. In and out of UK in twelve weeks. I created a big drama out of leaving, made it into a story. The Landlady Hancher played into my hands really, that fucking devil-woman. People who hate like that can end up being a sort of magic puppet for creative types. There seems to be some truth in the premiss that good always triumphs over evil. The support of friends through the eviction was life affirming, and the finality of it - the celebration of impermanence, the acknowledgement of how temporary things are, was a healthy and creative pursuit. We lived as if it was the last days, because it was. So Hancher can keep her space - I have done my magic - and I am about to take off in a flying machine!

6pm Sant Josep, Ibiza

Hitch-hiked from the airport. Was soon picked up by Beatrice. Had a conversation in Spanish about the island. She said 'Mira, los almendras estan en flor'. 'Look, the almonds are in blossom'. And they are. The island is covered in blossoming almond trees. Got dropped off in Sant Josep and called Francesca, who was in a car 5 minutes away. She arrived shortly, her face painted and glittering. By chance I have arrived on 'Noche de Brujas', the Night of the Witches, a monthly cabaret at Bont's International Clown School. Tonight I will perform. This seems like a good sign, a good place to begin.

I had just finished reading Daniel Pinchbeck’s excellent psychedelic and shamanic account ‘Breaking Open the Head’, (http://www.breakingopenthehead.com) and was in the mood to take some psychedelics again. I have taken LSD on many occasions, and also had mushrooms and mescaline a few times, as well as dabbling with other substances, such as MDMA. I have explored meditation a little as well and have always had an interest in altered states.

Through a series of what at the time seemed like strange coincidences, a small quantity – enough for one hit - of Salvia Divinorum 20x extract ended up in a little ziplock plastic bag in my kitchen drawer very soon afterwards. It was almost as if the leaf found me rather than me seeking it out.

The person that left it with me explained that to get a good effect I should inhale the smoke deeply and hold it for as long as possible, in a dark and comfortable place. He said he couldn’t explain what would happen, that he didn’t want to put it into words. He just said it would take me out of my body. He suggested I smoke with a sitter. I had not at this point read any accounts of the Salvia experience apart from a short note in the Pinchback book saying that it was similar to DMT. Never having had the chance to try DMT this didn’t give much of a reference at all.

The following Sunday I was alone in the house. It seemed like a good moment to try the Salvia. I thought that with my previous experience of other psychedelics it would be fine to take it without a sitter. I don’t really know anyone who could do that for me, and at the time it seemed like a strange thing to ask of someone. I was afraid that having someone there would alter the experience and decided to do it alone. It was fine, but on reflexion a sitter might have been beneficial after the trip because the experience was so strong that it would have been good to talk to someone. This was absolutely nothing like an LSD trip or anything else I have tried before.

I got comfortable in my bed, propped myself up on some cushions, put all of the Salvia 20x into a pipe, lit it, and smoked it all in one hit, holding it in my lungs for as long as possible. I can hold my breath for a long time, and even before I exhaled I felt a pleasantly numb rushing feeling quickly enveloping my whole body. I held the smoke in, and the room melted completely as I laid back and closed my eyes. As I exhaled the smoke I felt it rasp in the back of my throat. I heard a strange rasping sound, and experienced a kind of time echo of the moment of exhalation, hearing feeling tasting and seeing it from different directions simultaneously, as if time was skipping, jerking and repeating like a scratched record.

At this point I was catapulted into a profoundly black void. The effect was so strong that I no longer had any idea where I was. There was no understanding that I had just smoked something, no safe haven or internal voice telling me that I was on drugs and that the effect would stop. I had no concept of my body at all. This was not like a hallucination or visual effect that you might experience on LSD, but another place, something I experienced as very real, even though at this point it had no form and was just a mad black void sucking me in. The totality of the experience erased all other awareness. There was a strong sensation of momentum that was sustained through the whole trip.

Now I felt a very strong force pulling me into the blackness and heard laughter. There were 2 presences that I couldn’t see, but I could clearly hear them laughing and saying: ‘He’s never done that before!’

Then I heard a voice again – I think it was my own even though it didn’t feel like it was me speaking. It said: ‘This is where you go when you die.’

Then I was pulled by very strong force into the blackness. I felt the sensation of accelerating towards and into it. I was dismayed and didn’t want to go there. It didn’t seem like a healthy or good place that I was being taken too. There was a strong sense of fear and trepidation and danger, of being totally out of my depth and at the mercy of forces stronger than myself which didn’t necessarily have my best interests at heart. I tried with all my might not to be sucked into the black void.

Now I was somewhere else. I seemed to be rolling over a never ending landscape of fleshy protuberances, formed of something soft and wet, like brain tissues, with strange pieces that resembled body parts or branches, which reached out and fitted together with me. It is difficult to describe what I experienced, as its dimensions were infinite. I saw the fleshy protuberances stretching out into infinity as I rolled over them, not in my body, but as a surface that was also fleshy and infinite, with its own protuberances that fitted perfectly into those of the surface I was rolling over. There was a tremendous roaring sound as the infinite wet flesh joined and parted rolling infinitely over itself. I felt tiny and huge at the same time, as if I was an atom or tiny part of the surface of some huge planet-sized cell membrane meeting merging and rolling over the surface of another. I was rolling to the right, but by an effort of concentration was able to slow the rolling down until it came to a halt, rocking back into another roll in the opposite direction. I rolled the other way in the infinite flesh and then again was able to control the direction and rolled back the other way.

Somehow I had rolled back into my own body. I was rolling in the bed, tangled and sweating in the sheets. I sat up in bed, I was back in my room, but it wasn’t my room, or was it? I had the feeling I was dreaming the room, or remembering it. There were echoes again, a kind of skipping and repeating for a short time. The room was melting a bit but it was coming back rapidly. I was totally disoriented. I really wasn’t sure which part of my life I was in, and felt as if it would have been possible to come back into a different moment of my life, or as if this moment was actually just a memory or a dream. Reality just seemed like a vague recollection, something very ephemeral and unimportant.

I tasted the smoke and felt the rasping sensation in the back of my throat and realised where I was and what had just happened. I managed to get up for a glass of water, but felt quite shaken and then went back to bed. I didn’t know what to do and felt very restless and still a bit out of my body. I was astonished! I was talking incessantly to myself about what had happened for about an hour afterwards, calming myself down, and reasoning with myself. For a while I felt totally unhinged and feared my own sanity would break under the weight of what I had just experienced. I wondered how I could go on with this way of living. I looked around my room, at my home, at my possessions, my life, and realised – not for the first time, but with an increased conviction - that none of it meant anything. I reasoned with myself that this knowledge would enable me to be more happy and playful while I am here, that truly I can follow my dreams without fear and not be overwhelmed by whatever hardships I encounter.

I would like to try Salvia again some day. I’m not going to push it but I am open to the idea. It might seem strange after the terror that I experienced, but somehow it opened doors for me creatively. I feel as if it sunk in on a physical and psychic level that I value. I still see the rocking, rolling infinity when I am dancing, or focused on some other creative pursuit. It has increased my ability to focus and deal with situations in my life. If nothing else it makes a bad trip on LSD seem like a walk in the park! Somehow seeing the void and making the choice to come back here was life-affirming in the end, even if the shock was hard to bear. Despite coming-to thinking i might have lost my marbles i can say with confidence that i feel stronger mentally from this experience.

I suspect that if I had gone into the black void without fear I may have had a less traumatic experience, and even gone through it into... somewhere else? I feel like a lot of the fear I had represents the fear and the blockages which I carry with me due to my own experience, attachments and conditioning, and that with a greater ability to focus on the moment and let go of everything I would be able to travel much further to unthought-of realms of experience, which perhaps would be less menacing. But - since I have not taken Salvia again - this is just a feeling and it really is a very unfamiliar place to travel, quite possibly not without its dangers, quite a shock to the system, and not a place I believe you can navigate easily, but certainly very revealing.

This is very strong medicine. Use with care.

Pueblo Clowns (sometimes called sacred clowns) is a generic term for jester or trickster in the Kachina religion practiced by the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern USA. There are a number of figures in the ritual practice of the Pueblo people. Each has a unique role and belongs to separate Kivas (secret societies or confraternities), and each has a name that differs from one mesa or pueblo to another.

They perform during the spring and summer fertility rites. Among the Hopi there are five figures who serve as clowns: the Payakyamu, the Koshare (or Koyaala or Hano Clown), the Tsuku, the Tatsiqto (or Koyemshi or Mudhead) and the Kwikwilyak. With the exception of the Koshare, each is a kachinam or personification of a spirit. It is believed that when a member of a kiva dons the mask of a kachinam, he abandons his personality and becomes possessed by the spirit. Each figure performs a set role within the religious ceremonies; often their behavior is comic, lewd, scatological, eccentric and alarming. Among the Zuni, to enter the Ne'wekwe order, one is initiated "by a ritual of filth-eating"; "mud and excrement are smeared on the body for the clown performance, and parts of the performance may consist of sporting with excreta, smearing and daubing it, or drinking urine and pouring it one another"

Anthropologists, most notably Adolf Bandelier in his 1890 book The Delight Makers, and Elsie Clews Parsons’s Pueblo Indian Religion, have extensively studied the meaning of the Pueblo Clowns. Bandelier notes that the Koshare were somewhat feared by the Hopi as the source of public criticism and censure of un-Hopi like behavior. Their function can also include defusing community tensions, re-enforcing taboo and communicating tradition.

Heyoka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Sacred clown"

The word Heyókȟa refers to the Lakota concept of a contrarian, jester, satirist or sacred clown.

Heyókȟa are thought of as being backwards-forwards, upside-down, or contrary in nature. This spirit is often manifest by doing things backwards or unconventionally -- riding a horse backwards, wearing clothes inside-out, or speaking in a backwards language. For example, if food were scarce, a Heyókȟa would sit around and complain about how full he was; during a baking hot heat wave a Heyókȟa would shiver with cold and put on gloves and cover himself with a thick blanket. Similarly, when it is 40 degrees below freezing he will wander around naked for hours complaining that it is too hot. A unique example is the famous Heyókȟa sacred clown called "the Straighten-Outer":

During the Sun Dance, a Heyókȟa sacred clown may appear to tempt the dancers with water and food and to dance backwards around the circle in a show of respect. If a dancer looks into the mirrored eyes of the Heyókȟa, his or her dance is finished.

Social role

The Heyókȟa symbolize and portray many aspects of the sacred, the Wakȟáŋ. Their satire presents important questions by fooling around. They ask difficult questions, and say things others are too afraid to say. By reading between the lines, the audience is able to think about things not usually thought about, or to look at things in a different way.

Principally, the Heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, thereby forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟas also have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame--they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are.

In addition, sacred clowns serve an important role in shaping tribal codes. Heyókȟa's don’t seem to care about taboos, rules, regulations, social norms, or boundaries. Paradoxically, however, it is by violating these norms and taboos that they help to define the accepted boundaries, rules, and societal guidelines for ethical and moral behavior. This is because they are the only ones who can ask "Why?" about sensitive topics and employ satire to question the specialists and carriers of sacred knowledge or those in positions of power and authority. In doing so, they demonstrate concretely the theories of balance and imbalance. Their role is to penetrate deception, turn over rocks, and create a deeper awareness.

For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift. When we were dying like flies from white man's disease, when we were driven into reservations, when the government rations did not arrive and we were starving, watching the pranks and capers of Heyókȟa were a blessing.
—John Fire Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, p250

Wičháša Wakȟáŋ means Holy man, not "Medicine man" or "shaman" (a term of Siberian origin). This is an important distinction. A Lakota medicine man is called pȟežúta wičháša.

Thunder dreamer

It is believed among the Lakota that if you had a dream or vision of birds you were destined to be a medicine man, but if you had a vision of the Wakíŋyaŋ Thunderbird, it was your destiny to become a Heyókȟa, or sacred clown. Like the Thunderbird, the heyoka are both feared and held in reverence.

When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm... you have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping... as lightning illuminates the dark, for it is the power of lightning that heyokas have.
—Black Elk, quoted in Neihardt (1959), p160

The Heyoka are healers and have many functions, for example healing through laughter and awakening people to deeper meaning and concealed truth and to prepare the people for oncoming disaster with laughter

26.12.04
here i sit, on a beach in thailand, amongst many lazy holiday makers, bathing, sleeping, smoking, reading, and chatting. I'm slightly confused. Many thoughts run though my mind, but basically I am dissatisfied with my lot. Something in me resists seduction by these sparkling waters before me. I sense a deep sadness, a feeling of lostness in people around me. lost, looking for a spot to sit, hoping to find companionship, searching for a MOMENT. Perhaps this feeling is entirely my own, a reflection of my own sense of disquiet, symptomatic of that.

27.12.04
Last nights dream: calysto was biting my finger quite hard and I had to get my fingers into her jaws to get her mouth open. Finally, when i pulled out my finger it suctioned right through her head and when I looked her eyes were just whites. She was dead!
Later in the morning I had a cool flying dream

oesophagus swallow smokey lung eye. The surrealist nightmare. A dream of venus realised and made true. The same game played again. A gain again that enriches & sickens at the same time. Creaking in the iris that bridges between us. Betwixt the pupils of swollen forgotton. Recalling the wail of the tunnel that pulls you in, down, under. Under a fold or flap of hot skin. The heat that blossoms like a bleeding rose in your womb, running in runnels down your thighs, tightens in your abdomen, more intense with each contraction, soft hip lick slick flips sex lips shakes snakes squirm shoot sperm scratch harm drips juices I smell on myself, absorbing the scent then oozing it from my armpits. A weight pressing down on my head and up through my trousers. I Love You.

To softly lick you on the hipslips
Spinning sick flips around your sex lips
makes snakes squirm inside my fingertips
tattoed skin and smelt you in my armpits

Symbolism

The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. He represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world. The sun shining behind him represents the divine nature of the Fool's wisdom and exuberance. On his back are all the possessions he might need. In his hand there is a flower, showing his appreciation of beauty. He is frequently accompanied by a dog, sometimes seen as his animal desires, sometimes as the call of the "real world", nipping at his heels and distracting him. He is seemingly unconcerned that he is standing on a precipice, apparently about to step off.

"Is The Fool making a mistake, or is The Fool making a leap of faith?"

the Rabbi Judah Low ben Bezulel breathed life into a humanoid creature, a golem that he had made from clay

So strong was the fear of going against the word of God by man-made creation of life, that acting was banned under the laws of the Christian world from the time of Christ until the Council of Vierre in 1311.

To act is to breathe life into a creature that is not you; it is to make, as the early Christian fathers believed, a new living soul.

Luke Dixon

its weird for me, looking at the first part of this and thinking about the streets i walked as a kid in bristol. the atmosphere, the sounds, the people i knew. my life wasn't as rough as all that, but, the rough lives were all around and i felt it. i remember the fear of being mugged or getting into a fight. i've walked with that fear for a big part of my life, living in bristol, in london. i don't feel like that is unusual but i do think it is important to try to understand how that fear shapes you. its not always bad, some things can come from it creatively.

6 december, LONDON

3pm
Tate Modern: POP LIFE exhibition

here is a poster, proclaiming:
"YOU ARE INVITED TO A PARTY TO CELEBRATE PROSTITUTION"

here is a photograph of Warhol, kissing Dali.

here is an article in a 1970's tabloid newspaper:
COSEY F. TUTTI, TOPLESS DANCER, STREET PLAYER, RECORDING ARTIST GETS HER KICKS HORRIFYING THE CHOLESTEROL GENERATION

here are 2 twins. 2 real life flesh and blood twins, wearing identical clothes, sitting side by side knitting. The effect is very strange. a human zoo.

3am
Night Bus: N253

kids crowd in the back of the bus behind me. they are singing 'DON'T TAKE ACID! IT KILLS' over and over. then someone plays The Beatles through a cellphone.

the bus stops at Clapton, some other kids stagger on, faces and clothes covered in luminous yellow and red spray paint. they sit right by me

'LOOK AT MY SKELETON'

the kid pulls up his shirt and he has a skeleton badly spray painted on his stomach. it is pretty funny. his friends are laughing too, in a ketamine haze, falling all over the bus.

from the back the acid teenagers pile towards us, phone blaring rolling stones: two twins, who must be 13 years old, dressed leather jackets, looking like they came straight out of 1969, and another friend, a taller kid with a mess of long blond hair and john lennon glasses, their pupils are blowing up like black marshmallows.

the painted kid sees them and shouts
'HEY! I LOOK LIKE A HAMBURGER! MUSTARD AND KETCHUP!'

one of the twins turns and says, with a eastern european twist in her voice,
'I WANT IT PAINTED BLACK'

they jump off the bus and and disappear into the night, shouting
'MICK JAGGER!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DDpmyPZZA

Bar 23. Jam Session

the saxman deflates his lungs into the metal tube
squirting the notes out
falling into a slow refrain

the bassman licks his lips

the guitarman starts floating tones up like bubbles
watched by the drummer, who squints a downturned smile

behind them a geisha is painted on a wood panel wall
and bass drops in over stacatto beats
deep as an african laugh

he speaks each accent through his teeth

the drummer falters for a moment
before they all fall back in step

more musicians keep arriving
the cellar encasing it all in stone

enter piano
for the next number
ornette coleman
making shells of his fingers
and keeping his head under his hat
when the saxman elbows in again
eyes not without
movement

i listen to the breaths
with my body
as you stand there solid
sewing velvet linings into my ears
with soft fabric fingers that
stroke white columns of belly flesh

heavy in the bosom of sound

the black pistons click and the key changes
disfinding harmonix that confound logical thought

i speak not of music
i speak of your eyes squeezed tight to the fretboard
the wrists that turn palms
against eachother

steps up the next alto saxist in fedora hat
stares hard at the stone floor and lifts it right up
with an insanely high note
sliding ivory over the rooves of our skulls
kraa! kraa! kraa!
the thin whine stretches like knicker elastic and snaps
a new nylon tone then melts and burns his lungs
forcing him to take another gulp of 02
and start an echoing movement of the
shoulder
that will not remit
that changes and loops

right there the solo ends
and a whilstle and clap erupts from the audience

bites the guitarist then down on his lip
searching out the same kraakraakraa!
in camera lento
reverse flipping it
an act of concentration that sends the pianist on a hammer mission
whack whacking the notes down like nails

and here comes the drum solo on a trip to the new world
Lagos! Rio! Havana! Marrakesh!

and there it is:
contact:

a trumpet:
pushing hard towards unknown heights and pressures

in a white stripe shirt
another sax player forces the reed into his
mouth
making each play look like laughter
i fear he may burst at any moment
some sort of invisible fluid emerging from the bell of his instrument
transparent cool molten chocolate

the personnel keeps changing

i've counted 16 musicians in the room
a new bassman lollops under a flop of fringe
looking all of 16 years old
but such long strong fingers that waggle like tongues
chanting mantras in unrecognisable languages

the new, bigger combination
swells
jumps
doubling at the knees
making more confounding movements of the mouth
twitches and ticks that try not to understand or attenuate

5 horns now
5 mouths now spike the smoking room
and the next drummer
mulatto, mouth wide wide wide
is pinning the beat down with one hand
and ripping it open with the other

they are stringing notes into a confusion of beads and baubles
coming at us with jewels from all sides of the room
a wad of mad matted solos

but i'm waiting for them to give the drummer some again

i know he will destroy us
the hot lava in his mulatto eyes tells me so
but first, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 solos more
building the fire...

here he comes

4.

gawp at the dead piglets as you walk past the butchers stall.

hung inside the refrigerated display cabinet is a cute monochrome picture of a living piglet wearing a bonnet.

the piglet in the picture appears to be laughing.

the butcherwoman stands and chops at the meat, a small piece of food hanging unselfconciously from her fat lips.

(they say Hemingway used to stand and chop at the typer with his big hands, cutting the sentences down to their essence.)

it is a cool day, but not cold.

you are leaning on the coffee stand at the entrance to the market.

shoppers flow in and out, cocooned in the soft rustle of plastic bags.

tourists often stop to ask the coffeeman for information.

"do you know where there is an Arabic restaurant?"

demands a middle aged woman bronzed by a thick layer of makeup,

"no."

"an ARABIC restaurant?" she insists, stressing the word ARABIC.

the coffeeman shakes his balding head.

she sighs, walking away.

moments later an arabic looking man arrives.

"SIMCARD?" he asks, pulling a battered mobile telephone from his pocket and showing it to the coffeeman.

the coffeeman shakes his balding head.

5.

two elderly ladies approach

"how much for a bottle of water?"

"1 euro 20."

one of the elderly ladies spends a very long time counting out the correct money while the coffeeman waits.

she has a dark mole on her chin.

she takes the water.

"do you have a serviette?" she asks, holding out an upturned palm without waiting for his reply.

the coffeeman hesitates. he looks at her for a moment.

she does not see him.

the elderly woman stands, talking to her friend, holding her upturned palm towards the coffeeman.

he delivers a serviette to her palm and she wipes her hands.

"its all sticky here," she says, gesturing at a spot of spilled coffee.

6.

every other person stops to look at the dead piglets.

some people point and shoot with cameras.

the long pink backs are stretched out and wrinkled.

the pale eyelashes do not move.

the innards and arseholes have been cut out.

they are very clean and still and the butcherwoman keeps chopping away.

she also has pale eyelashes.

you see the waves in her orange hair, her lips full on her face.

you see the pores of her skin as she chops.

caffeine sharpened visions of people in places.

a few stand out from the crowd.

you meet the gaze of a legless man pushing through the throng on a wheelchair, bright and lively.

dandylion moons blaze blue on the stalks of his eyes.

three dark ethiopians glide past as a church bell tolls, taller and more graceful than the others.

a proud strange drunk homeless woman passes, eating beans from a plastic bowl with a dirty spoon, her greasy hair unkempt, haloed in the sunlight.

an ancient woman in knee length stockings and tweed smokes a pipe as she browses,

she is as wrinkled as the dried fruits she scoops up into a transparent plastic bag, but there is a vitality to her movements that denies her age.

she wears bright red lipstick.

the rest, the masses, only walk ceaselessly,

as if they were really moving

as if they were really moving

as if they were really moving

.

a smartly dressed man reaches to answer his phone.

for one honest moment, he stops, standing dead still in the moving crowd,

stuck fast, motionless, a statue, with his hand at his ear, listening

i will make a mermaid of her:

i will whisper
of lips
of red eyelashes

of the freckles around her coral mouth

as if all the things in the ocean
conspired to make her face
a beautiful sad diagonal
swaying in the undertow,

a soft sea gaze
floating in a moving tangle of amber seaweed

she will fix her eyes to yours like barnicles
and her skin will dip and slide beneath yours
full of sea-fruits and salty promises

you will see her for as long as you can hold your breath

when you surface
still tasting red honey
you'll remember her tongue
swimming slowly
like a sleepy pink fish
as she tried to mouth something to you
under water

so, beloved ones,

its official, will be staying in spain til at least november - have enrolled for autumn academy here at The Independent Republique of Failure on Ibiza... (its a clown school... the documentary below sold it to me) looks juicy and challenging - 2 months from sept 28, and probably doing 2 weeks trapeze intensive 14-23rd sep in barcelona's Escola de Circ Rogelio Rivel... - spending the rest of the time studying spanish, swimming and eating fruit... VENGA!

http://www.bonts.com/

come visit ibiza or barcelona!
x
love

--
---
"Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern."
Henry Miller

blog: hernandez.blog.co.uk
number: +447946457908
skype username: tryhardtobekind