darkness of daylight

In the darkness of the daylight
In the midnight sunshine bright
When the wolves are howlin’ hollowly
In the grey/green automatic moonlight.
As the milk is turnin’ blue.
As the hellhound’s followin’ you.
As you fall down on hard stones,
With ne’er a soul to hear your moan.
In that cold intellectual darkness
That is just before the dawn;
That heartless soul-less arid wasteland
That of which ‘the poets’ tell.
&! when your damned blood burns in it’s chains!
Raging for release & peace & some kind of, recompense!
For all the weakness of our worries!
For all the confusion of our minds!
When distempered dogs are barking!
When dyspeptic cats make yowl!!!!!!!!
That my friend that……………THAT.
That is the darkness of the daylight.
That is the midnight daybreak noon.
That is the devil that reason cannot fight.
That is the darkness of the daylight.

garden of fire

In a garden of fire
The flowers burn
With formless desire.
Where immaculate borders
Of liquescent lava
Are wreathed in a gaseous blue fog
In which lightning sparks,
As you walk, on paths,
Of cinder stars!
Anger blossoming
Under your toes;
And who knows
What will grow
In a garden of fire?
What germinates deep
In it’s molten depths?
Maybe it grows
Tongues of flame
To speak in riddles
That enter our minds
Like smoke or fire
Consuming the dry tinder
Of our thoughts
Leaving us burnt black
And charred
With a zen-like echo
In the void;
That once more becomes
A garden whole
To sprout forth fire
Or holy words.

qUANTUM OWL

QUANTUM OWL

Skinner’s rats
run rhapsodically
round a maze
amazingly like
a nightmare
in a quantum owl’s brain!
Full of bad wallpaper
disconcerting smells
things glimpsed
from the corner of your eye
slit by a Bunelian razor
in the hairless moonshine
shining phantasmorgorically
on the quantum owl
with quasonic isotopes illuminating
his owlish mind
as he props up the bar
at the Dog and Duck
talkin’ turkey
to a dyspeptic kangaroo
& behaviourism too!
as the bell rings last orders
the maze turns inside out
flowers blooming
in the magnitude
of it’s bleeding & infinite depths
the rats escaping into the sun
only to run round and round
in the same way
they have always done!
no surprise to the quantum owl
who smiles
& puts down his trowel
& drags his incomprehensible self
to the bus station
where he waits
for a 15b
to take him home
to sleep
perchance to dream
of skinner’s rats
running rhapsodically
in …… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

MEETING BOB

Meeting Bob

Anjee works on sex line. Lonely. Lives with Monica. Actress. They go clubs but guys always creeps. Bob keeps calling her on sex line. He wants to meet her. They get on well, he makes her laugh but strict rule. Never date client or ‘jerks’ as they call them. Scare story about girl who was raped, chopped up and posted to different embassies. Anjee gets friendly with Sandra. Older woman who works on sex-line. She has abusive relationship but afraid of losing job or being alone. Monica’s (Anjee’s flatmate) boyfriend dumps her. Suicide attempt. Dr. at hospital fancies Anjee. She heroically decides to be honest about her job. He is shocked and disgusted. Anjee goes home through graveyard. Is thinking of Monica and Sandra. Their wasted lives. Hears voices of dead people telling stories of un-fulfilment. Puts hands on ears and runs. Decides it mustn’t happen her. IT MUST NOT HAPPEN HER! Must do something. What? Inspired by something she decides to break the rules. 1. Lights fag in Macdonalds. Argument with manager. 2. Talks loudly in library. Ejected. 3. Tells Sandra (fellow worker) she will meet Bob. (Mrs Xavier, manager of sex line office is horrible to her.) She imagines Bob as tall and handsome. Sandra is opposed to it. Anjee has talk her into helping her. They think of plan to foil management. All calls monitored. A diversion. Sandra will have epileptic fit. (Turns out to be real fit.) Anjee saw one at hospital. Then Bob doesn’t call. Time passing. No call. Anjee depressed. Stands on Blackfriars Bridge looking at black waters. Friendly policeman moves her on. Then Bob calls! He was on holiday in Athens. Tells someone get Sandra. Keeps bob talking. Sandra comes. But she can’t do it. Too embarrassed. Then Sandra has real fit. Spontaneously! Anjee forced arrange date with Bob on day of date. Anjee sick with anticipation thinking of scare stories. Almost backs out. They meet. Shock. Bob is fat and bald! But he, HE, doesn’t fancy HER! Anjee bemused. Date goes well. Agree to meet again as friends. Bob kind and cultured type. Introduces her to his friends. Takes her art galleries et cetera. Big secret of what she does for a living. Mortally afraid he will let on. Visits Sandra in hospital. Discuss how she had real fit. Back at work she gets annoyed with jerk. Called see Mrs Xavier. She belittles her. Threatens her. Anjee says nothing. Home. Monica has new boyfriend. Usual routine. Tells Bob about Mrs X. He advises her not to put up with it. That night. Dream about screaming abuse at her father. Anjee wakes up feeling different. Next day on way work buys tin of orange paint. Then says outrageous things to her first client. Called office. Mrs X about to go into her evil routine. Takes out tin of paint and pours it over her head. Girls react by cheering. She is office hero! In coffee bar she circles job adverts. Bob rings on mob. How did it go? Fine. Just fine. End.

OLD CROW

OLD CROW


Old crow
U been around too long
U old crow
Cokkin’ ur disdainful eye
At the passin’ scene
Cus u were ther
When Adam met a talking snake
When Babel babbled in Men’s ears
When the great water rose
& covered all
U were ther
& u didn’t turn a feather
Did u old crow?
Because ur just an old crow
Aren’t u?
U old crow
& I can hear u cawing now
Up in ur tree top
& plague – war – reality t.v.
Is all the same to u
Ain’t it old crow
If it good
If it evil
If it some zen craziness…
U just carry on
Bein’ an old crow
Knowin’
What an old crow knows
& that’s u
U OLD CROW.

return of the man in the leopard skin boots

An enormous mountain in a desert of broken bottles and old tin cans. On the top of the mountain a lone Burger King, its chimney belching smoke like one of the towers at Dachau. The manager is giving orders to his staff. A lot of small innocent faced children who work feverishly to supply the demand for burgers to vast numbers of faceless people who constantly mill in and out, toiling up the mountain from the desert where they live in pre-fabricated houses, all squashed together in one corner of the desert with a big sign in front saying ‘WELCOME TO NOWHERESVILLE.’ The residents of N.V. have a simple routine. Their days are spent watching long, convoluted soap operas on T.V. which have special breaks in them so the residents can go for burgers. These breaks are called burger breaks. The only other thing they do is have sex to have children in order to supply the fast food outlet on the mountain with more staff, owing to the fact that the workforce there, quickly become exhausted and die, largely owning, to the inhuman conditions under which they are forced to work. If anyone raised the question of the horrible inhumanity of this process, the residents of N.V. would shake their heads and say, “Well. You’ve got to have burgers.”

Then one day a man came, out of the west. He was a strange looking man with bright orange hair, a camel haired coat and leopard-skin boots. He went round N.V., knocking on doors and always asking the same simple question. Would they mind if he, free of charge, built a temple, there in N.V. on an available space, that they of course would select, if, of course, there was one. The man went round asking the same simple question and he always got the same simple response. “Yes! We do mind! We don’t need a temple. We’ve got a burger king. Up on the mountain, which is twice as good as any temple so just **** off!” Or words of similar import. Every time he got this response the man would hang his head, and then go quietly to the next pre-fabricated house and knock there. ”Yes! We do mind …” et cetera. When the man had conscientiously knocked on every door he toiled up the mountain to see this thing they called Burger King which they said, was better than a temple. The manager, having heard of his arrival, showed him round with a smirk on his face. When the man saw the innocent faced children, struggling to supply the continuous demand for burgers, maxi, cheese, and veggie, there was a tear in his eye. But he didn’t say anything. When he’d seen what there was to see he went back down the mountain, through the town and disappeared, into the west, from whence he came. The residents watched him go. Disdainful expressions on their faces. Then went back to watching their soaps, until the next burger break.

“The burgers are off!” the cry went up through the town. Yes. The unthinkable had happened. Some off burgers had got through the rigorous and anti-septic inspection systems, up at B.K. and a few people had actually, actually! eaten some of them! It was inexplicable. It was unthinkable. It was unhygienic! However. The situation was under control. The manager assured everyone, severe steps had been taken. A thorough programme of rigorous inspections had been instituted. Then. A pre-fabricated house fell down! Killing someone right in the middle of a soap. This too was unprecedented. Never before had a pre-fabricated house fallen down either during a soap, or not during a soap! Then. Strange clouds were seen in the sky in the shape of burgers. A two headed duck, landed on the burger king roof, and then it flew off again. Then. Then for 3 whole days a resident went off the taste of burgers. Off the taste completely! Then. And then at last a big tornado came out of the desert and circled N.V. for seven days and seven nights. Then phut! It was gone. It was all very odd. If the residents N.V. had had any knowledge at all whatsoever, they might have seen these strange and ominous events as ‘omens’ of some dire and terrible thing to come. But they hadn’t. So they didn’t.

Then, exactly a week later, they saw very far off, a big cloud of dust, moving towards N.V. over the desert. What could it be? The next day it was bigger. And the next. And the next. Until, the cloud was practically upon them. But then it stopped moving. Settled down. And standing there in the desert was a huge phalanx of Sherman tanks. The man with the orange hair sat on one in the middle with his arm raised. He lowered his arm, there was slight pause, and then an enormous explosion. Before they new what was happening N.V. was being blown off the face of the earth! Then the tanks moved forward, through the rubble, up the mountain, and after the children had been safely removed, the same thing there. Bang went burger king! Then the orange haired man rounded up all the surviving residents and made them clear a big space in the very centre of N.V., where he proceeded to build the most marvellous, post-modern Temple. It had a big sign in front in gothic letters saying, ‘The Temple of Man.’ Then he took all the children off with him, into the west, and the remaining residents were left there, in the desert, with a spanking new Temple, wondering what to do. And no burgers! And no children to make them! What a catastrophe! Most of them sat on the ground in a trance of despair, and before them the wonderful Temple, bright new and shiny. Glinting in the sun.

seed sonnet

Seed Sonnet

If we could be conscious of just one small seed
We’d know the all of heaven contained there,
We’d know that we must all forthwith take heed
For that which germinates is beyond compare.
It is that most transcendent spark of all,
Which produces all within the mothering womb;
It is that which nothing ever can forestall
As it marches on it's way from birth to tomb.
But even more than this it confounds our mind
That only dimly grasps, perhaps even less,
No matter how much sharp intellect seeks to find
Our mind at last must simply acquiesce.
So we of the seed should always stand in awe
To humbly acknowledge her mysterious and en-
compassing law.

ian joynson 2004

Sons And Buns

A man had 7 sons who were all obsessed with buns. Buns! Buns! Buns! They would scream, morning noon and night. The man was quite at a loss with having to provide mountains of buns for his 7 sons. Then there came a National bun shortage. Buns could not be had for love or money. Politicians appeared on T.V., wringing their hands and weeping copiously as they earnestly promised to short out the bun situation. This did not help the man, for his sons said; old man, if you cannot provide buns for your sons you are a bad father and do not deserve to live! And they dragged him to the gallows tree at the crossroads just outside of their town, which was called ‘Bun Town’, and was named after the big Bun factory in the middle of it, where the man just happened to work, driving a fork-lift truck, and began to string him up. As they were stringing him up they sang a happy song which went like this.
Buns, buns, buns.
They should always come
in tons
& be very sweet
& nice to eat
& knocky you off your feet
O wonderful buns!
O stupendous buns!
It was not as good as a song by the Beach Boys but it was definitely a good song. Howheffalump. There was some dirty gravel around the roots of the gallows tree and under it lived a nasty old devil named Neville. Neville the devil. & when he heard the racket the sons obsessed with buns were making, stringing up their bun-less father, out he popped and all the sons said- A devil! Named Neville! And ran off amok, or amuck, and then Neville the devil said to the man, -what’s going on? And the man said, -you have saved my life, Mr nasty devil person, and therefore I owe you an explanation. -Damn right, said the devil. And the man explained about his relations with his 7 sons vis a vis, the bun shortage, and parenting in it’s more general aspect. -Hum, said the devil and the cogs in his nasty devil brain began grinding round. (Grind, grind.) -Listen. If you want buns, I can get tons of them. But you’ll have to give me something in return. -What? Said the man. -A motorcar? -No. -A season ticket to Hull Kingston Rovers? -No. -A signed copy of Naomi Campbell’s novel ‘Swan’, which was ghost written for her by a professional writer who’s name escapes me? -No. Your immortal soul. And the man thought, it’s always a mistake to expect originality from the devil class of person. And he was in a quandary. (A quarry?) No. A quandary. For he did so want to be a good father and yet, he only had the one soul and it was not as if he could just buy another. Well. Not a good one, with all the extra attachments including power steering and inflatable fenders! And anyway. What precisely did his soul do? He was damned if he knew. (Ha, ha.) So he said, alright. Where do I sign?

After that the sons opened the pantry door and it was full to the rafters with buns. B.U.N.S! and the more they took out and ate the more there was in it. And the sons grew so fat from eating buns they couldn’t leave the house but just lay around watching t.v. and farting. The man went back to work at the bun factory driving his fork lift truck and everything seemed normal except… that now the world had gone grey. G.R.E.Y. no colour anymore. Anywhere. Grey trees. Grey skies. Grey people. Grey bun factory, which had been grey anyway, but that’s not the point! He went to the cinema to cheer himself up. The film was ‘Greystoke’. But it didn’t help. He couldn’t bear the sight of his sons anymore so he went to live in a bed-sitter in town in the red-light district where all the ‘good-time’ girls lived. They were a friendly bunch and would always chat to him on his way home from work.
-Hello luv. You look down in the dumps.
-Yes.
-What’s the matter? And he explained about Neville and his sons and the bun situation and the loss of his soul. One girl, Mandy, took a great interest and offered him some good advice to the effect that he would have to get it back. But how? Mandy didn’t know. Prompted though by Mandy’s concern the man went to see Neville again. He knocked on the gravel. Knock. Knock. Knock. Neville popped up.
-Yes?
- I want my soul back.
- I’m sorry. You made a non-refundable bargain. And he showed the man the contract. -It’s watertight. Ask anyone. The man snatched the contract out of Neville’s claw (hoof) and ran off. He ran straight to ‘Drab,Grey and Tendatious’, the local solicitors,where, for an exorbitant fee, paid in advance, in cash, Mr Drab, (Grey and Tendatious were busy fleecing someone else,) examined the contract looking for a waterhole. (doh!) LOOPHOLE! And there it was. In the small-print. The contract could be revoked on condition of the return of all the buns.

All? But that’s impossible! Said Mandy. Yes, said the man. Impossible. Hum. I know! Said Mandy, for she was a good-time girl with big breasts and died blonde hair and tight P.V.C. outfits, and was never at a loss as regards practical solutions to practical problems – We’ll just have to go and see my Granny. Granny Randy. She lives in the heart of the scary wood with her cat named bosun. Or is it Raphael? No, it’s bosun. Lower case ‘b’. So, at midnight, as grey thunder clouds mounted each other ominously in the west/north… off they went. As they approached the scary wood banshees howled and hound dogs wailed and they could hear a scary song.
‘If you go down to the woods today……’
I’m scared, said the man. Don’t worry said Mandy, I have a magic charm that will protect us. Thank god! said the man. The scary wood was dark and dense not to mention dark. Eyes of ferocious wild animals shone malevolently in the scary foliage. They entered a clearing. There in front of them was an enormous mangy drooling yellow-eyed tiger! The man immediately wet himself! But Mandy, unafraid, strode up to the tiger and catching hold of the hem of her P.V.C. mini-skirt, hoisted it aloft, over her head. A huge cloud of foul-smelling miasma issued forth from out the crack in Mandy’s crotch-less panties; one whiff of which sent the tiger running for his life!
–That sorted him, said Mandy.
-Yes, said the man. He wasn’t expecting that.
–No one ever is, said Mandy, wisely. They went on and then there before them was Granny Randy’s council maisonette.
–Granny Randy, it is me, or rather I, randy Mandy, your granddaughter! Granny Randy appeared in her door wearing a pointed black hat, black cloak, holding a broom with a big hairy wart on the end of her big hairy nose.
-Is she a witch, said the man, frightened.
–A witch? Come off it! Granny Mandy is a new-age psychic! They entered her Maisonette.
–Wow! Said the man. Astrological wall-paper. Spiritualistic curtains. A channelling rug! Pagan futon! And a shamanistic fitted kitchen! Crikey! Granny shooed bosun off the sofa and they sat down.
–You see, said Mandy, and she explained the whole boring plot to Granny.
-Sounds like a plot, said Granny.
–Yes, said the man. It does. But it’s not. It’s real life.
–Fair enough, said Granny.
–So what should we do? Said Mandy.
–Oh. That’s easy, said Granny. I was at the Mind,Body,Spirit Festival near Victoria, last week. There was a stall promoting this. All purpose Bun Emetic.
–All purpose bun emetic! Said Mandy.
–Does it work? Of course it works! What d’you think it is? Some crackpot new-age type nonsense?
-Well, yes.
–Well it isn’t. Here’s what you do.

At the crack of dawn the very next day Mandy and the man arrived at his old house where his 7 sons were all sleeping off another bun fest. So big a fest was it the sons did not notice themselves being roughly piled onto a pallet on the man’s fork lift truck he had resourcefully borrowed from work. Once they were on, Mandy and the man drove straight to the gallows tree on the edge of town where they carefully funnelled bun emetic into the mouths of the sleeping sons. Then the man knocked on the gravel for the last time.
KNOCK.KNOCK.KNOCK.
Neville the devil appeared. The sons all started to wake up. Then they all started to puke, and as they puked back up all the buns they had swallowed down, the man tipped them all right on top of the Devil’s head!
-Curses! Says Neville. Foiled by a slapper and her emetic wielding Granny! As Neville says this the world bursts back into colour before the man’s eyes! Neville disappears in a cloud of rage and the man beats his sons all the way home with a cricket bat saying-------------You’re bun days are over! Or words to that effect.

9 months later Mandy and the man are walking down the aisle of Bun Town Church. Mandy in a beautiful white sexy P.V.C. dress. The sons are bridesmaids. The ‘good-time’ girls occupying the front row. Mandy winks at them as she says –I do. Looking at her big belly, one thing is certain. Mandy definitely has got one in the oven!

A HAND TURNS THE PAGE

A hand turns the page
Of the book of time
That is written in symbols
And sounds of the forest
Which covers the earth
From pole to pole
Breeding strange monsters
To terrorise the sleep
Of innocent man
Carrying his troubles
In a suitcase of yesterday
Which he puts under his bed
Full to the brim
Of shiny black beetles
That explode like a bomb
And rush in a river
An iridescent flood
Over his carpet
And the man screaming “No!
I am not an Egyptian!
Organising slaves
To build the big pyramid
Of secret intent
And unearthly magic
A triangular obsession
Deep in the desert
That grows in Do-It-All
Ikea and Mothercare!
A desert of blood
And red red roses
Blooming painfully
In my inmost soul
That should be whole
Like the Garden of Eden
Where Adam and Eve
Naked as children
Live in eternal
Innocent bliss!”

* * * * * * * * *
A hand turns the page
And the symbols are singing
Songs of redemption
In an alien key
Full of dissonant splendour
Like isotope soup
Brooding, diseased
Bursting in chaotic patterns
From a pomegranate
That grew in time
In a garden of now
While on a beach of transition
The sea coloured night
Plays games
With the incense burning fraternity
Who cough at the door
And stumble on stones
With fog in the hallway
And fog on the stairs
And fog on the runway
And fog in their hair
When the spiders from mars
Drive cars in the street
And all the lumpen dead-leg sailors
Graft for a burning bush
In the rain
In time
Nothing.

* * * * * * *
The hand turns the page
Full of wordless rage
And words of pain
Dripped like honey
Down the window pane
All frosted over
With the cold snows
Of Killy-man-jarr-oh
& she said,- “oh no.
Now I must take King Lear
To the mini-market
For a bottle of beer
My, I am feeling queer
I feel like Beelzebub’s bum
Sitting on some faucet
In the hottest sink of hell!
For who can tell
What winds shall blow
And what storms will rage
Over my page
Full of wordless words.”

* * * * * * * * *

The hand turned the page
And at last you realise
There is no hand
There is no page
There isn’t
There never was
There are only your tears
Streaming down your amazed face
As you stand
In the holy English rain
Thinking – this is the hand
That turned the page.