Pale mistress

 

Awake in velvet.

Blackness framed her nails.

 

Then I fought desire
but
(captured by those eyes)
lost force.

 

Resistance gone
she drew me down
toward both hungry lips
and sharp
white

teeth.

 

“Dear Lord, preserve my soul…”

I grasped at words
which fled away.

They drifted
through dead air
like falling snow.

 

Too late for escape

I noticed sounds

as if small
flapping wings
evaded sight.

Or strange
melodies were
(somehow)
produced

by tiny hands

on glinting stabs
across piano
keyboards.

 

While feeling
coldness
stretching
wide as night

over
distant trees.

 

(O life: where is thy warmth?)

 

 

 

Beside me, now
she lay
content.

Yet said

“Past victims haunt our rest.
Old wounds pollute
the psyche with
dread
mortality.”

 

 

I trembled:

Sensing

that voice

rise.

 

 

From a
void

 

 

which had

 

no

end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

(Above is a revised version of poem written at the age of 21.

As a lonely young man I secretly longed to meet a seductress.
Of course, I didn’t really want her to be undead or soulless.
(Though, many people I met in daily life showed little sign of having a soul, either.)

Anyway, I was always attracted by goth looking females.
So went a bit “full vampire” with this. 🧛🏻‍♀️)

 

My post-flu depression has eased, yet left me still unable to write poetry, at present.

 

Art on the blog is mine: I hope you like it? 🙏

 

Comments are always VERY welcome! 🙂

 

Has anyone else spent more time on WordPress than usual, recently?

(I’ve found many interesting new artists, poets, writers, and photographers to follow.)

 

Thank you
for reading.

 

---

( art / beauty / blog /depression / drawing / fiction / goth / love / mental health / poem / poems / poetry /  romance / writing )

Advertisement

Dream triad

 

 

 

 

1)    Entrance.

 

Grotesque impressions

flashed before her mind.

Forms which moved
through shadows.

“I feel faint,” she thought
“but can’t give in.”

Intuiting
cold vastness
beyond her frightened face.

From where an updraught blew.

Its source:
that entrance
like a grave.

Steps slanted down.

What passageway was this?

She found a door
yet froze.

As if held back
by clinging vines.

Or some malign narcotic
slowly weakening
her will.

 

 

 

2)   The click.

 

With sounds of falling
dim light blinked.

Then motion
overhead
came closer.

Unknown shapes.

She braced herself.

 

And heard

the click.

 

 

 

 

3)   Ivy.

 

The door had shut.

Trapped there
groping round in darkness
hands brushed ivy.

Massed leaves
meeting fingertips.

She tore a large
old spider’s web.

While fear
suffused
her heart.

 

 

It seemed
now

such
a long
time

 

 

since

 

she had been

kissed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

---

 

Hello everyone!

This poem dates from when I was 19.

For me, it marks a period of using poetry and music (learning guitar) against depression.
Which had marred my previous year.

 

(Art on the blog is mine. I hope you like the painting?)

Comments are always VERY welcome! 🙏

 

Thank you
for reading.

 

 

---

 

(PS:

The virus mentioned last week has flared up again.
Brain fog, exhaustion, and pain are making writing difficult.

But life would feel even lonelier without blogging.

Best wishes to you all. )

---

 

( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / depression / fiction / life / mental health / painting / poem / poems / poetry / reading / writing )

Gratifying cruelty

 

 

He wrote the word “crackdown”.

Envisioning a huge heel
which crushed some parasite.

Best not mention any resemblance to a jackboot.
That would never do.
The sneaky media inflated such details.
Especially from government spokesmen.

Similar problems curbed rants about “scum”.
When veering toward despotic shadows.
“Adolf ruined it for us. We can hardly show our balls,” he grumbled,
“Or get the juices flowing.”

 

Released bowel gas
spread sensations like a warm eel
uncoiling round his pants.
But he ignored anal distraction.
This unruly orifice, too often disrupted thought.

 

His department planned intensifying policy.
Cutting payments to the sick.
(Cloaked by its usual rhetoric: of “helping”
and “reform”.)

A renamed “Wellness scheme”.
Seeing everyone “reviewed”.
All declared “fit”.

He hoped the badly ill might just give up
or kill themselves.
Ability to mount appeals
“revealed” more health.
Should courts (despite instruction) rule in claimant’s
favour, automatic “reassessment” must occur.

Via long forms so elaborate
and framed with legal threats
many quit before the end.

Recurrently retesting.

Til the weak began relapsing
at the sight
of official letters posted
through their doors.

“Relentless pressure.
Wear those bastards down!”
he jeered.

“Good riddance!

Whiny spongers
won’t be missed.”

 

One could enjoy a stimulating
sugar-coated cruelty.

Enthused
he started writing once again.

“We shall create new hope,
and guide the lost
from welfare to wage slavery…”

Oops!
He crossed out “wage slavery”.
Inserting
“the dignity of work”.

(Pious lies were safer options.)

 

Discomfort sensed
he raised his leg.
A hot fart ripped across the duvet.

He sat up, eager.
Seeking
for an odorous afterglow.

Yet sniffed in vain.

“Damn! The bugger’s gone to ground.
Like a furtive vole.”

 

It was growng rather late.

He put aside both pad and pen
then flicked the lightswitch.
Turning off his reading lamp.

“A job well done.”

 

He lay and smiled.

 

Enveloped

by a gratifying

 

darkness.

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2012)

 

---

 

Hi everyone!

I’ve lived 32 years in fear of large official letters arriving.
They are almost always bad news.

Being unfit for work, due to chronic illness, left me dependent on the state.

Underlying anxiety never really ends, while sick, alone and poor.
That “safety net” is only a decision away from letting you fall.
(If having no family or friends, to keep one off the streets.)

Though (being so unwell) I was, eventually, granted benefit “for life”.

But then “reforms” abolished it.
And now all payments have ceased.

 

Comments are VERY welcome!

(Art on the blog is mine.)

 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

---

( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / fiction / humor / life / mental health / poetry / politics / reading / thoughts / writing )

Letter to Satan

 

Dear Satan

I wish to make a complaint.

About unsatisfactory service
received from your minions.

 

Tempted with glossy ads
promising granted desires
for all prepared to pay the price:
I signed a deal
agreeing transfer of my soul to you
at death.

In return, it was stipulated
I’d gain lifelong grandmaster skills
exactly matching those possessed by
former world chess champion
the late Bobby Fischer.

 

Several weeks elapsed.

Seeing no change
I phoned Daemonic Plc
customer care team.
They assured me complex abilities
might take months developing.

 

Trustingly, I waited a whole year.
Anticipating.

Yet remained on the same mediocre level as before.
Still miscalculating during games.

 

After ringing again, some details were checked.

Then infernal staff informed me that
due to glitches in data entry
the single “talent” passed
had not been Bobby Fischer’s
or even chess-related.

But, instead (mistakenly)
derived from a certain Nobby Fischer.

An obscure, Scunthorpe based, tobacconist
successful only at completing “easy” crossword puzzles
in his local newspaper!

 

Given such gross mismanagement
I am appealing to your Luciferian sense
of honour and fair play:

by requesting our contract is immediately
annulled.

 

Yours Faithfully, etc.

 

 

 

PS:

 

I hope this matter can be swiftly resolved
without any recourse to

 

 

a higher power?

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2011)

 

---

 

 

Hi everyone!

I’m reaching the end of blogging past prose, here.

My attempts at humour have had less appeal than sad poetry.

Writing feels even harder this week as, aside from all my other symptoms,
depression has recently spiked. Pulling me toward giving up altogether,
while enveloping work in an atmosphere of futility.

But I’ve ground out another post, anyway.

 

Hope you are all well?

Comments are always VERY welcome!

(Art on the blog is mine.)

 

Thank you for reading.

---

( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / depression / fiction / humor / life / mental health / poetry / reading / story / writing )

 

Nympho Nazi?

---

      Please do not read if easily offended!

---

 

 

Recognising my desperation, the guys at chess club suggested dating sites.

Being a pessimist, I was doubtful about joining.
But still signed up.

 

Sole success came in the form of an improbable beauty.

Her profile picture drew me.
I’d always adored blondes.
Incurably.
Hopelessly.

“Far too young. Way out of your league,” my inner voice judged.
Then I read she sought “Hot times, with older men.”

Hmm?

 

After messaging her, surprisingly, I soon received a contact number.

Our initial conversation followed an unexpected course.

“Hi Magda.”
“Hi Ken.”
“The bio says you’re pansexual.”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask a related question?”
“Ooh, go on.”
“Is there a role you especially enjoy?”

“Nazi slut.”
“Meaning?”
“SS uniforms. And cock!”

 

“I noticed your rune-shaped earrings.”
“Very good. Did you also fancy pounding me with your hammer of Thor?”

“I planned on going for a meal, first.”
“Sounds rather lame, Ken. The only thing I want to watch you eat, is me.”
“Hey! I could be vegan.”
“No need to play innocent. I’m a dirty girl.”
“Dirty?”
“Yes: I swallow. And I take it front and back.”

“I shall bear that in mind.”

“You’re a funny guy. Which is why I gave you my number.”
“It’s easy for me. If I need a laugh I just stand before the mirror.”
“Aw! You look quite distinguished, with your grey hair.”

“I’m starting to like you already,” I said.

 

“We live in the same city, Ken. Are you free tonight?”

 

 

My penis urged my brain to drop its qualms.

I paused.
Remembering the last sixteen, lovelorn, years.
Five thousand four hundred days:
yearning for a woman.

Unending physical loneliness.
So intense, it felt as if I wore my own touch deprivation,
in an unseen suit of aching body armour.

Why reject this unique chance to gain relief?

 

Magda was pleasant enough, allowing for her provocative style.
Might she be giving me a kind of female “test”?
I’d surely often failed those, in the past?

 

Would I ever get such an opportunity again?

 

 

 

“You’ve gone all quiet on me,” she said, softly.
“Sorry, Magda. I got distracted.”

“Can you make it, tonight?”
“Umm…”

“I have some videos, to get you in the mood.”
“That may not be necessary.”

“Are you coming, then?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Guess you’ve talked me into it”

I heard myself say.

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2011)

 

---

 

Hi everyone!

 

This is almost the last of my old prose.

I was anxious over how much to self-censor?
While reluctant about excluding such work altogether
(as I’m blogging all types of past writing, not just musings and poetry).

 

Art on the blog is mine: I hope you like it?

 

Comments are always very VERY welcome!

 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

---

( art / beauty / blog / blogging / fiction / humor / love / mental health / reading / relationships / sex / story / writing )

Horny toad

 

 

 

“The night had gone OK, until Dave tried getting his knob out.”

“Cringe!”

“Where was this?”
“The Horny Toad.”
“Crap pub.”
“Yeah, he knew somebody in the band, though.”
“When?”
“Friday.”
“Was it The Tampons?”
“Who?”
“They got a fit bass player: she’s proper stacked!”
“No. And I prefer flat-chested.”
“Wuss!”

“Do you wanna hear the story, or what?”

“Alright.”

 

“The group were late…”
“Hey, was it Sword of pork? They just released Wedding tackle.”
“Can’t remember. We mainly scoped the local talent in there.”
“Thought you preferred The Newt & Gherkin for that?”
“Well, he’d told me their singer attracted women like flies round shit.”

“You felt up for some rock chick style poon?”
“Full tattoos and chlamydia, mate!”
“Lol!”

 

“Six pints on board, Dave’s messing about in front of these girls.”
“Are you pretending he isn’t with you, by then?”
“I’m looking the other way, as he gets hit.”
“Bit of handbags?”
“I only saw him fall across a table, hand down trousers.”
“Did they have boyfriends in tow?”
“Thankfully, no.”

“What was he doing?”
“Said one of them asked who Mr Percy is: he offered to show her.”
“Lucky you never had more trouble.”
“Cider drinkers, eh?”

 

“So how big is it?”
“What?”
“His donger. Vlad the Impaler.”
“Don’t know.”
“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Why would I be interested?”

“Because you are gay!”

 

“F**k off!”

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2010)

 

---

 

Hi everyone!

Though I have avoided alcohol for 40 years and rarely spend time in bars,
this piece attempted to imitate a type of non-PC banter, once overheard among young men, after several drinks.
For the crudity, I apologise.

Please do not take it seriously.

Most profanity has been edited out; but some retained, for the sake of authenticity.

 

It was also a writing experiment: at using only dialogue, with no added description.
I hope you found it intelligible?

 

Comments are always VERY welcome!  😊

 

 

Visitors may now be relieved to hear I did not produce much prose after 2010, and thus,
shall soon resume blogging my more usual musings, and depressive poetry.

 

(Art on the blog is mine.)

 

Thank you all for reading.

 

 

---

( art / blog / culture / depression / fiction / fun / humor / life / mental health / music / reading / story / writing )

An argument with my penis

 

 

 

 

 

“Remember me?” it asks,
as I undress for bed.

“I’ve been trying to forget, but you keep turning up,” I reply.

“Oo-er! Turning up, eh?  Never know yer luck,” chirps my penis:
having a fondness for double entendres and vulgarity.

“Vulgarity is it? Get him! On that high horse,” he sneers,
with a slight toss of the head.

“I reckon it’s time you did a bit more tossing, around here.”

“Pipe down,” I said.
“Too late. I’m wide awake, ready for action.”

“Well, there isn’t going to be any.”

“Why can’t you find a girlfriend, then?”
“Because I’m a loser.”
“Depressive, you mean.”
“Melancholy realist.”

“You need a good woman!”

“Or even a bad one,” I thought.

“Yes. And how about me? Ten years lacking female company.”
“You aren’t helping to lessen the pain, either,” I grumbled.

“At least I function normally. Unlike some.”

“This conversation’s giving “self abuse” a new twist.”

“So, pay me a little attention.”

“In the end, that only leaves a sense of increased emptiness.
Over an aloneness.”

“Oh! Who’d be chained to such a pantywaist!” he mutters,
shrinking back, resentfully.

 

 

Being estranged from one’s manhood is an unhappy state.

Actually, I feel sorry for it, yet don’t want to stir things up.

 

 

Anyway, he’s fallen asleep, again, now.

 

 

Just wish I

 

 

 

could do
the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2006)

 

---

 

 

Hi everyone!

After being surprised by old prose morphing toward poetry (during editing) in some previous posts, I’m finding pieces based around dialogue are more resistant to change.

Sorry for lowering the tone somewhat, this week, but fear not:
I intend returning to fairly respectable musings,
and sad poetry,
eventually…

 

Art on the blog is mine: I hope you like it?

Your comments are always VERY welcome! 😊

 

Thank you for reading.

 

---

( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / depression / fiction / humor / life / mental health / poetry / reading / thoughts / writing )

 

Sulphur shadow

 

 

 

A muffled cry rang out.

His colon issued plaintive sounds.
As if small beings were imprisoned there.

“What sort of person even pities their flatulence?”  he mumbled,
after feeling sympathetic emotional responses.

 

Pressure continued building.
He tried abdomenal relaxation. (Visualising a smooth snake, gently making an exit.)

But the source of disturbance was stubborn. Approaching release several times;
only to shrink back, as might a timid mammal, hiding in its burrow.

 

Then, suddenly, casting off all inhibition with scandalous impudence,
a profound explosion burst forth, echoing around the flat.
Pain sparked across his anus, resembling the cut from a laser blade,
while he jolted upward, spasmodically.

Battling urges to lie down, he resolved on checking potential toxicity levels.

Nothing was detectable.

Suspicious of apparent odourlessness, he quickly leaned back, sniffing over one shoulder…

“Yes!”

Lurking behind him like a sulphurous shadow, hung an invisible gas cloud.
Redolent of warm exhalations from some unseen jungle. Elusive yet corrupt.

 

“Dignity is undermined by our own innards,” he complained.

The powerful blast could also be viewed as a coarse reproach, against absent vigour.

“My farts are more masculine than I am,” he said, ruefully.
“If a blind woman heard one, perhaps she’d mistake me for an alpha male,
and not this feeble weed?”

 

He made efforts to regain composure, hoping the worst had passed.
Beyond that distressed orifice, spread weary emptiness.
Plus primal fear.
Of eventual anal nemesis.

And the road to fartmageddon.

 

 

“A man cannot escape his end. Or his rear end,” he mused.

 

“Ass is destiny.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

(2003)

 

---

 

 

Hi everyone!

 

Hope you are well?

 

My old prose resisted transitioning to poetry, during rewriting, this time.

Sorry for slightly lowering the tone, but I decided not to exclude an attempt at, ahem, milking a little humour, from the experience of lactose intolerance.

 

(Any art on the blog is mine.)

Comments are VERY welcome!  😀

 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

---

(PS: Next week will be my 200th post.)

 

---

( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / fiction / humor / humour / life / mental health / poetry / reading / thoughts / writing )

The phone imp

 

 

 

 

Our home phone began to warble
like a frightened thing.

While I sat, and swore, inside the upstairs lavatory.

This had happened many times before.

A believer in imps might imagine such devices contained one.

 

I now faced a choice.

Between frustratedly listening, as noise echoed along the hallway.
(Usually, for far longer than answering would have taken.)

Or rushing downstairs, pulling trousers on.
Wary of falling headfirst through the window, directly behind our phone.
And into the street.

 

(Visions flashed across my mind…

Of losing balance.

Then my unconscious, bare-arsed, body, being scrutinized by police.
Amid crystalline debris.

An eye-witness, giving her shocked account:
“He just came crashing out with his pants half off.”
“Sorry to ask, madam, but did he appear, er, aroused?”)

 

 

In reality, patience failed again.
(“You can do it!” Urged the imp.)

Soon, reaching the bottom tread,
I bend toward a flimsy table, where the phone vibrates loudly.
Stretching a hand at its receiver.

There, about to touch the surface,
in what seems a strangely decelerated, frozen moment.
Caught
upon this lit horizon of virtually-achieved success…

The ringing
stops.

 

Picking up the handset, futile reflex brings it to my ear.

“Click. Brrrrrrr…”

Dial tone drones on.

I picture an imp: smirking within that machine lair.

 

The phone’s coiled plastic cord continues swaying back and forth.
Resembling some useless tendril, hanging from my arm.

 

 

 

“Gotcha!”
Says the imp.

 

 

 

 

---

 

(1985)

 

---

 

 

Hi everyone!

Hope you are well?

My old work resisted transition to poetry, during editing, this time.

(After writing the above piece, then falling ill with M.E/CFS, I produced no more prose until 2003. A gap of 18 years.)

Last week’s virus-related depression and anxiety eased back a little recently.
Books also became slightly less difficult to understand.
(Though, I fear, my blogging abilities resist improvement.)

 

Any art on the blog is mine.

Comments are VERY welcome!

Thank you for reading.

 

 

---

( anxiety / art / blog / blogging / depression / fiction / humor / life / mental health / poetry / reading / thoughts / writing )

Suspended normality

 

 

 

That moment when

for reasons unexplained
a train halts in
darkness.

People wonder where
they are, but
nothing can be seen
outside.

The view has donned
night’s veil.
Gone indistinct.

 

We peer from
well-lit carriages
at an enigmatic blank.

Vague unease
stirs slightly
behind masks of
unconcern.

 

Normality suspended
leaves new doubt
round journey plans
or calculated times.

 

Certain faces look constrained
as if exposed
to scrutinising stares.

While others talk
with neighbours, now
and humanise the silence.

 

 

Alone

I gaze
at my reflection’s
odd distortion

set across
the window’s glass.

 

 

Envisaging a limbo

where this situation
turns into an
afterlife:

 

Our spirits trapped
through metal cells.

Unendingly.

 

 

What pointless fate.

 

To maybe
find oneself

surrounded.

 

By
some

throng

 

of decayed
souls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like
mine.

 

 

 

---

 

(1981)

 

---

 

 

 

Hi guys!

 

Older prose has morphed toward poetry again, in editing.
But past work is still categorised according to its original form.

 

(My health problems are so dominant at present, I was worried about managing any blogging this weekend.

I’ve attended two hospitals and a medical walk-in centre in the space of four days.

The infected thumb and finger on my writing hand will not clear up.
Hard to do the simplest things, and the pain is bad.

Have also been losing my vision due to migraines.
Plus a cold, viral outbreak, and the usual mass of M.E./CFS/ pancreatic symptoms.
The stress of illness affects mental health as well. Anxiety especially.)

 

Sorry to be missing out on other people’s posts, being too unwell for much activity on WordPress, recently.

 

Art on the blog is mine: I hope you like it?

Comments are always very welcome!

Thank you for reading.

 

 

 

---

(anxiety / art / blog / blogging / depression / fiction /life / mental health / painting / poem / poetry / thoughts / writing)