Tuesday 30 November 2010

Therapy Room - Bill Lewis (1/8/53)



Joe's making a stool
i'm weaving a basket
someone's making coffee
Dee says I can sing
and she does.
Jane won't make an
ashtray
Arthur's sulking because
the priest wouldn't re-
christen him Jesus.
Jane still won't make
an ashtray, instead
she becomes a dog
ggrrr Woof woof WOOF!
Dogs don't make ashtrays.
Dee's singing the
national anthem
Arthur blesses me.
Sydney hasn't spoken
all morning, or yesterday
or the day before
gggrrrr Woof Woof!
Shit said Joe
I'm going to disharge
myself from this place
it's driving me mad.

realising what he had
said, he starts to laugh
i also start to laugh
the man on my left
(who didn't hear Joe)
starts to laugh as well.
we all laugh.
except Sid who wants
to die (and means it)
then we had coffee.

Bill Lewis - God is an an athiest she doesn't believe in me.


Bill Lewis is a poet, artist, storyteller and mythographer, since being hospitalsed in 1976 for clinical depression he has made a career as a writer. He has read, lectured and published on both sides of the Atlantic. He was also founder member of the Medway Poets and the Stuckist Art group along with Billy Childish and Charles Thomson. He was later found teaching Myth, Magic and Spirituallity at Kent Childrens hospital.His work explores the whole human shadow encompassing themes of madness, individuallity, spirituallity, sexuality and politics.
He has published numerous books of poetry and short stories and was included " The Grandchildren of Albion" edited by Michael Horovitz.

I admire his work, it offers a triumphant realism.


The above poem is from " Rage Without Anger, " Lazerwolf/Hangmans Books (1988)





http://www.stuckism.com/lewis/index.html





Personally speaking
i used to be a support worker,
who then became a user,
now live in state of limbo
inhale a lot though
some of it illegal.

Sunday 28 November 2010

Gaef stiw gerwinder teifidancer/ teifidancer Winter austerity stew.

Preselis West Wales.

At the moment it is time to keep our bodies and heads from cold. Time to go into the kitchen for some apothecay, try and keep warm, heating bloody expensive I know, better wear some warm clothes, try and keep merry in company, best not mix with tories.
Heres a nice hearty meal thats nice to share ( Suitable for vegetarians) as CoNDem policies become increasingly surreal, mean and destructive ,this meal is at least affordable and will pehaps disract a little. It might sound like a right old mixture but I think is very tasty and quick to make. Hope you enjoy.

INGREDIENTS

3 Potatoes - diced into half inch cubes

cup full of frozen peas

2 onions - finely chopped

2 cloves garlic - crushed

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

2 chillies red or green - deseeded and finely chopped

Lg Tin of Baked Beans

1 and a half pints of vegetable or chicken stock

half a pint of ale

3 grated carrots

125 g mushrooms - roughly chopped

knob of butter.

Boil potatoes seprately for 10 mins, meanwhile fry onions, garlc , chillies for 5 minutes in knob of butter. Drain spuds and add to large saucepan adding rest of ingredients .... onions, garlic and stock etc. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper anda couple of dashes of worcester sauce.
Simmer for half an hour and there you have it.
Oh and at end you could stir in some cream and if required grate some cheese and serve with some brown bread.

Friday 26 November 2010

Samuel Beckett (13/04/06 -22/12/89) - FIVE POEMS

1

DIEPPE

again the last ebb
the dead shingle
the turning then the steps
towards the lighted town

2

my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts

3

what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where evbery instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmours die
the paintings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterday and rhe day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
that throng my hiddeness

4

I would like my love to die
and the rain to be falling on the graveyard
and on me waling the streets
mourning the first and last to love me

CASCANDO



why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed
it is not better abort than be barren
the hours after you are gone are so leaden
yhey will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want slplashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
for nine months
for nine lives

2

saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times f begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
peatling the unalterable
whey of words

terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending

I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

3

unless they love you


Thursday 25 November 2010

Taking back the Future.


I think the public, realise now that things aren't as good as they used to be. I think too that they know who has been fostering this. We cannot blame the students or ordinary people in the streets.
They see a mounting anger , they see their Liberal Democrat representatives in Westminster, as yellow as yellow can be, gradually turning into shades of deepest blue.
The cuts that the ConDem coalition have announced will not effect themselves one iota, do they really ignore the passion emerging , yes I'm afraid they do. They don't care about anyone but themselves, but people are waking up and realising this. They know now this coalition never wanted any real change,a shift of power perhaps and a country utterly divided between rich and poor.
They believe their own right wing press , so much so that they are so much on a pedestal that the only way they will come of , is if they are mightily pushed.
If they even tried living for one minute the life of me and my friends, they would see for themselves how hard it is in the real world, they would not last a minute.
The ConDem coalition keep saying how necesaary these cuts are. They are not speaking the truth. The cuts are plainly ideologically driven , based on complete economic falseness.
Against this backdrop of government driven austerity the recent actions of students up and down the country must be welcomed. They have significant support despite sensational reportage in the right wing press. It is nice to see the young revitalised and energised, the public I believe will get behind them. A broad coalition is forming against these cuts, standing united and without nothing to fear, and nothing to lose.
Sadly this is not being reported truthfully on the mainstream news at the moment, so we have a situation where Murdoch and his cronies are doin the coalitions job for them, but in the words of Billy Bragg _ "When you wake up to the fact that your paper is prejudiced - just remember there are two sides to every story."
Goin beyond resistance and putting an end to Captalism is perhaps another issue but we have to some how work together to oppose this government and take back the future before its too bloody late.
Take it easy out there.

Kenneth Patchen - The Wolf of Winter.


The wolf of winter
Devours roads and towns
In his white hunger.

The wolf of winter
Sticks his paw into the city's rancid pot,
Wanly stirring its soup of whores and suicides.

O the wolf of winter
Crunched on the bones of the poor
In his chill white cave.

The wolf of winter . . .
The grim, the cold, the white
Beautiful winter wolf
That feeds on our world.

Sunday 21 November 2010

BURROUGHS IN TANGIER - By Paul Bowles.

Paul Bowles

Paul Frederic Bowles was born on December the Thirtieth 1910 in New York, where he studied composition with Aaron Copland.Bought up in a cultured middle-class upbringing, he developed a talent for music and writing. In 1931 he met Gertrude Stein (whom he had adored since his teenage years) and other iconographic figures in Paris and visited Morocco for the first time, where he fell in love with its nebulousness. Best known today for his brilliant novels 'The Sheltering Sky', 'The Spider's House' and 'Let it all come down'. His books were often full of violent events and tales of psychological collapse, written in a detached and elegant style.His travel writings are essential reading.
In 1938 he married Jane Auer herself a gifted novelist and playwright and shortly after the Second World War they settled in Tangier, Morocco.


A keen experimenter, his life an eternal thirst for knowing. He was one of the first purveyors of what is now called World Music, he was particularly entranced by indigeneous Moroccan tribal music. A brilliant mind, intense to the point of reclusiveness, his eyes were lucky enough to gaze upon many of the greats of the twentieth century avant garde.
A keen devotee and user of Kif, the fine leaves at the base of the flowers of the common hemp plant and mescalin, they both allowed him to open his mind, and despite his legendary reclusiveness and high drug use wrote and wrote and wrote.His life spent on the boundaries and on the edge. His autobiography ' Without Stopping' was of particular interest because of what it did not reveal.
He fell in love with Morocco and stayed there for the rest of his life until he died by now like a mysterious old man of the mountain on November 18th , 1999 aged 88.
His collected letters 'In Touch'; Harper Collins 1994, are well worth searching for some of his insights into the mad, mystic space he enveloped himsrlf in.
A fine portrait writer, the following is on one of my favourite writers and heroes William Burroughs. Their first meeting was not a success but gradually the mystification of their senses bought them together and they became great friends. It's quite enjoyable so I thought I'd share it. Two genuine outsiders , two tourists at home who found bridges that became roots, As I've said before, no borders are necessary, just some kind of understanding.



'I first saw Bill Burroughs in 1953, passing along a back street of Tangier in the rain. He was on H at the time, and he didn't look very fit.
The next year he came to see me about some detail in his contract for Junky, in which he said he had been taken. I had paratyphoid and wasn't vey helpful. It wasn't until the winter of 1955-56 that we became friends and started to see each other regularly. Naturally I had been told about him: how he practiced shooting in his room down in the Medina, and all the rest of the legend. When I got to know him I realized the legend existed in spite of him and not because of him: he didn't give a damn about it.
His life had no visible organization about it, but knowing he was an addictive type he had chosen that way of giving himself an automatic interior discipline which was far more rigorous than any he could have imposed upon himself objectively. He lived in a damp little room whose single door opened onto the garden of the Hotel Villa Muniriya. One wall of the room, his shooting gallery , was pockmarked with bullet holes. Another wall was completely covered with snapshots, most of which he had taken on a trip to the headwaters of the Amazon. I liked to hear about that voyage, and always got him to talk lengthily about it.
Going there had been part of the self-imposed discipline, since the only reason he had gone was to try the effects of a local drug called Yage, a concoction made by the Indians of the region, and which must be taken on the spot since its efficacy vanishes within a few hours after it is brewed. The point about Yage is that it is, more than any other , a group drug, its particular property being the facilitation of mental telepathy and emotional empathy among those who have taken it. He insisted that with it communication was possible with the Indians, although it made him violently ill.
During the two years that I saw Bill regularly in Tangiers, he took only kif,majoun and alcohol. But he managed to take vast amounts of all three. The litter on his desk and under it, on the floor was chaotic,but it cosisted only of pages of 'Naked Lunch' at which he was constantly working. When he read aloud from it, at random (any sheet of paper he happened to grab would do) he laughed a good deal, as well he might, since it is very funny, but from reading he would suddenly (the paper still in hand) go into a bitter conversational attack upon whatever sapect of life had prompted the passage he had just read. The best thing about Bill Burroughs is that he always makes sense and he is always humorous, even at his most vitriolic. At any point of the night or day you might happen to catch him, you will always find that whole machine is going full blast, and that means that he is laughing or about to laugh.



He spends more money on food than most of us Tangerines, I've noticed; perhaps he has more to spend - I don't know - but the fact remains that he insists om eating well, which is part of his insistence on living just as he likes at all times. (Gertrude Stein would have called him sel-indulgent; he certainly is not ever hampered by even a shadow of the feeling of guilt, ever.)He goes on his way enjoying wven his own misfortunes. I've never heard him mention an experience that made him more than temporarily happy. At the Hotel Muniriya he has a Reich orgone box in which he used to sit doubled up, smoking kif. I believe he made it himself. He had a little stove in his room over which he cooked his own hashish candy, of which he was very proud, and which he distributed to anyone who was interested.
Th months that Allen Ginsberg was here in Tangier, he and Bill used to sit around half the night having endless fights about literature and aesthetics. It was always Bill who attacked the intellect from all sides, which I suspect was exactly what Allen wanted to hear. Surely it was worth hearing, and worth watching too, as Bill stumbled from one side of the room to another, shouting in his cowboy voice, stirring his drink around and around without stopping, with his index ad middle finger, and with two or three Kif cigarettes lighted simultaneously but lying in different ashtrays which he visited on his way around the room.'

1959




Burroughs in Tangier (by Paul Bowles): (Big Table 2 9op cit);
Parkinson, T. (op cit)
The Burroughs File; City Lights,1984.
http://www.paulbowles.org/

Friday 19 November 2010

Out of the Blue.



Yesterday  saw a kingfisher
by the shoreline at half tide
how unusual I thought
as I chain smoked
and dived for pearls,
swam against currents
and gasped for air.

Followed instinct
stayed calm,carried on,
removed all labels
passed admission wards
moved beyond breakdown..

Later avoided the news
inhaled deep breaths instead,
reached out for her soft touch
in the twilight healed myself,
practiced containment locked all doors.

Ah Love is a warm drug
keeps us on track,
imposes no conditions
no holding back.

Offers endless beginnings
in the morning bubbling
leaves fingerprinted petals
at the scene of the crime.

Does a dying rose protest 
when dark clouds bring the rain 
does a lonely shore deny waves  
when the tide returns again.

Does a poet put their pen down  
when they see an empty page  
no, I will keep dreaming 
these heartbeats believing
until my final breath is made.


Wednesday 17 November 2010

Beating police repression after the student occupation.

The following piece is one that led to Fitwatch website being suspended, so in solidarity with them and with the students at Millbank and all who deemed it time to fight the cuts thought I'd reprint their last post.I leave it up to you to read it and consider the implications of police officers demanding the closure of blogs and websites without due process. The words contained in the following apparently attempt to "pervert the course of justice", judge for yourselves . I would not want to encourage any perversions ,well of justice that is. Please reproduce and circulate Spartacus style.....

The remarkable and brilliant student action at Millbank has produced some predictable frothing at the mouth from the establishment and right wing press. Cameron has called for the "full weight of the law" to fall on those who had caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage to the expensive decor at Tory party HQ. Responsibility is being placed on a "a violent faction", after the march was "infiltrated" by anarchists.

There are an encouraging number of initiatives to show solidarity with the arrested students - something that is vital if they are to avoid the sort of punitive "deterrent" sentences handed outto the Gaza demonstrators. A legal support group has been established and the National Campaign against Cuts and Fessa has started a support campaign. Goldsmiths lecturers union has publicly commended the students for a "magnificent demonstation". This is all much needed, as the establishment is clearly on the march with this one. TheTorygraph has published an irresponsible and frenzied "shop-a-student" piece and the Met are clearly under pressure to produce "results" after what they have admitted was a policing "embarrassment".
51 people have been arrested so far, and the police have claimed they took the deatails of a further 250 people in the kettle using powers under the Police Reform Act. There may be more arrests to come.
Students who are worried should consider taking the following actions:
. if you have been arrested, or had your details taken- contact the legal support campaign. As a group you can support each other , and mount a coherent campaign.
. if you fear you may be arrested as a result of identification by CCTV, FIT or press photography;

.DON'T panic. Press photos are not necessarily conclusive evidence, and just because the police have a photo of you doesn't mean they know who you are.

DON'T hand yourself in. The police often use the psychological pressure of knowing they have your picture to persuade you to come forward. Unless you have a very pressing reason to do otherwise, let them come and find you, if they know who you are.

DO get rid of your clothes. There is no chance of suggesting the bloke in the video is not you if the clothes he is wearing hve been found in your wardrobe. Get rid of all clothes you wre wearing at the demo, including your shoes, your bag, and any distinctive jewellery you were wearing at the time. Yes, this is difficult, especially if it is your only warm coat or decent pair of boots. But it will be harder still if finding these clothes in your flat gets you convicted of violent disorder.

.DON'T assume that because you can identify yourself in a video, a judge will be able to as well. That isn't me . has got many a person off before now.

.DO keep away from other demos for a while. The police will be on the look-out at other demos, especially student ones, for people they have put on their wanted list. Keep a low profile.

DO think about changing your appearance. Perhaps now is a good time for a make-over. Get a haircut and colour, grow a beard, wear glasses. It isn't a guarantee, but may help throwthem off the scent.

DO keep your house clean. Get rid of spray cans, demo related stuff, and dodgy texts/photos on your phone. Don't make life easy for them by having drugs,weapons or anything illegal in the house.

.DO get the name and number of a good lawyer you can call if things go badly. The support group has the names of recommended lawyers on their site. Take a bit of time to read up on your rights in custody; especially the benefits of not commenting in interview.

.DO be careful who you speak about this to. Admit your involvement in criminal damage/ disorder only to people you really trust.

.DO try and control the nerves and panic. Waiting for a knock on the door is strssfull in the extreme, but you need to find a way to get on with business as normal. Otherwise you'll be serving the sentence before yo are even arrested.

Once again - we can't let them get away with this. They - the police, the government, and all the other insruments of power which seem to get confused about this on a regular basis - are sworn to serve us. They are there for our convenience and protection. Not vice versa ,no matter how much they wish to believe so. Accordingly if they start acting like they're in charge and w'ere just there to give them a nominal raison d'etre, then at the very least they have abused the power we have granted them - and at worst, they have committed treason and crime against humanity. They must be stopped - if nothing else, for their own protection. We cannot allow them to lose the humanity their jobs and orders continually threaten to chase into oblivion; we must look after them, and stop them if they go too far. It's what the Big Society is about, after all...
-
Seems like plain old common sense to me.
Laters.

Monday 15 November 2010

The Censor - Ivan Kraus ( born, Prague 1/3/39/ )

Ivan Kraus, a witty Czech author and puppeteer, was one of the artists who started the first Black Theatre of Prague in the 1960s. He emigrated after the Soviet invaion in the summer of 1968 and made his home in West Germany. 'The Censor' comes from his collection of short satirical pieces and appeared in Index on Censorship in 1976.


The Censor is seated on a stool ( or possibly two stools).
The Dancer enters.
At a sign from the Censor she begins to dance.
Censor: More slowly, please.
The dancer continues to dance.
The Censor stops her.
Censor: Hold it! Show me that last movement again.
The Dancer does so.
The Censor shakes his head.
Censor: No. Not that. Omit it.
The Dancer resumes her dance.
Censor: No. Not that. Onit it.
The Dancer dances.
Censor: That's not allowed.
The Dancer again resumes dancing.
Censor: Omit!
(after a while)
Omit!
(after a while)
Leave out!
(after a while)
And that!
The Dancer no longer dances, she is merely walking about
the stage.
Censor: What's this? Call that a dance? Why aren't you
dancing?
The Dancer shrugs her shoulders helplessly.
Censor: Don't do that!
The Curtain starts to come down.
Censor: Just a moment!
The Curtain stops.
Censor: I won't stand for any innuendo. Gently, now...
that's better... gently ... very, very slowly ...

The End


Translated by George Theiner



http://www.indexoncensorship.org/



Saturday 13 November 2010

HENRY MORGAN'S MARCH ON PANAMA -A.G.Prys-Jones (1888 -??)

Henry Morgan  (Harri Morgan ) who was born in 1635 in Llanrhymney, then a village between Cardiff and Newport, in South Wales, to a prosperous farming family, who died on 25th August in 1688 in  Jamaica , was otherwise known as Admiral Henry Morgan, privateer. Regarded as the greatest of the privateers, amassing huge fleets, attacking prominent targets and being the worst enemy of the Spanish since Sir Francis Drake. Now the face of spiced Rum, which on all accounts, his excessive consumption off led to his demise from acute alcoholism.

Morgan's curls are matted,
His lips are cracked and dry,
His tawny beard is tangled,
And his plumed hat hangs awry:
But his voice still booms like thunder
Through the foetid jungle glade
As he marches, bold as Lucifer,
Leading his gaunt brigade.

Twelve hundred famished buccaneers
Blistered, bitten and bled,
A stricken mob of men accursed
By the monstous sun o'erhead:
Twelve hundred starveling scarecrows
Without a crumb to eat,
And not a drink for tortured throats
In that grim, festering heat.
Twelve hundred threadbare musketeers
Rotting in tropic mud
Where the reeking, fevered mangroves
Wake havoc in their blood:
Twelve hundred febrile wretches,
A legion of the dead:
But Morgan in his blue brocade
Goes striding on ahead.
Twelve hundred tatterdemalions,
The sorriest, maddest crew
That ever the green savannahs saw
When the Spanish bugles blew:
Twelve hudred rattling skeletons
Who sprang to life, and then
Like a wild wave took Panama,
For they were Morgan's men.


a captive bows begore Welsh pirate Sir Henry Morgan's as Morgan and his men sack the city of Panama in the 1870s.



Thursday 11 November 2010

Raymond Garlick - Auguries of Guilt.

One must be realistic : man
Is crueller and more violent than
All other living creatures. We
Alone of animals agree
To decimate our species by
Polluting land and sea and sky.
This we must face: the human lot
Is to be capable of garrotte.
To be a creature who guillotines,
Hangs, shoots, tortures; builds a store
Of nuclear weapons; goes to war.

No other animal does this -
Not the hamadryad's kiss
Nor the scorpion's plunging thorn
Match the weapons man has worn.
No cloud of hook-beaked birds of prey
Dismembered Dresden that dark day.
The leopard nor the jaguar
Ripped apart Hiroshima.
No flame-eyed, ravening tiger fell
On Guernica. Man shaped its hell.
Wolf and hyena had no part
In Auschwitz. All was human art.

The world view of a red-eyed bull
Today is quite respectable.
Who are our Great? The school-books pick
Alexander and Frederick;
And, to impress that violence rules,
The cane and strap sing in the schools.
What is honour? a gun-bright guard,
Its files inspected in charade;
A statue in a city square
Of General X slashing the air,
The shadow of arch-violence thrown
Down the ages from the stone.

Mock machine-guns make fine toys
For nicely bought up little boys,
And tailored royals ride the street
Costumed for bloodshed, gloved and neat
Whose image many a church augments
With laid-up flags of regiments.
Each village has its cenotaph
Raised on violence's behalf.
Man is the animal that hates.
What hope for us, for nations, states?
This: only we, who hate like hell,
Only we can love as well.

FROM:- Glas-nos, Cerddi Dros Heddwch/ Poems for Peace. CND Cymru 1987.


LEST WE
FORGET

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Thursday 4 November 2010

Dance with your Neighbours for F**K's Sake.

Many Western media outlets have been delighted to report that two Israeli women have teamed up to become the first same-sex couple to compete in a version of the internationally popular television series 'Dancing with the Stars'.
Indeed it is a great day for humanity with even Rupert Murdoch's Sky news reporting that "30 different countries have versions of the show, but none have done what Israel has done this week.

Israel because of this is now being praised for being an exemplary , tolerant and liberal society, but how come it won't even dance with it's own neighbours. Ah the smell of hypocricy.

Keep on dancing everybody. Heddwch.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-dance-with-your-neighbours-for-fks-sake.html

Sakineh Astiani; EMERGENCY, THERE ARE 24 HRS TO GET KEY POWERS TO TAKE EMERGENCY ACTION TO STOP HER EXECUTION.


Take action to try stop her execution here.



http://www.avaaz.org/en/24h_to_save_sakineh/?v1



Monday 1 November 2010

Britons Never Shall be Slaves. - Helen Heslop.

Henry Drake still at school sees
His father, put away for
Misbehaviour, wave goodbye.
He cries.

A teenager before the
Word is born, the Army claims
Him for the country's fight for
Freedom.

Benghazi - weather sunny,
Plenty grub; that's new. Payment
Too. Peace intervenes; home to
Blighty.

Better off by one new suit
He's free to find a job, low
Pay, and a girlfriend, Ann, keen
To save.

Romance falls through, but there's his
Cycling, gardening, fishing,
Same boring job, same low wage,
But free,

At forty-four Henry Drake
Is made redundant. 'Sorry. . . .
Years. . . cut backs, but we . . . thanks for. . . '
He's free

To care for his mother, ailing
Fast. He does his nest; she dies
At eighty-two, leaving him
Free to

Stare awhile, at least he's hept
Some hair; he'll join . . . make new . . .
But Englishmen of Henry's
Station

Unprivileged, no decent
Education, find themselves
Ditched by a freedom loving
Nation.




REPRINTED FROM :-
SING FREEDOM, ed Judith Nicholls
Faber and Faber, Published with assistance of Amnesty International, 1991.