DIALOGUE ON PARK BENCH
(Woman sitting on bench. Man enters and sits next to her.)
Man.Oh god! When are we going to admit how boring and stupid it is to live the way we do? When!?
Woman. (Pause.)What?
Man. I said. When are we going to admit how boring and stupid it is to live the way we do? When!?
Woman. (Pause. Thinking.) What? Everything is fine. We’ve got Harry Potter. The Arsenal. The Time’s Literary Supplement. What more do you want?
Man. I’ll tell you what I bleeding want.
Woman. No need to swear.
Man. I want meaning. You idiot.
Woman. Now resorting to personal abuse will not help your case. Now be more explicit.
Man. Yeah. Right. Explicit.(Pause.) Look around at our godless world completely devoid of any kind of sacred element.
Woman. Oh! It’s religion you want! What? Protestant. Catholic. Hindu?
Man. No!!!!! Not religion!!!
Woman. Not religion??
Man. No. I want a sacred element.
Woman. But we have that. Look at all the spiritual bookshops like ‘paradox’ and ‘arcane’ and the new age crystal healing centers like ‘quartz.com.’ there’s definitely a sacred atmosphere in those places.
Man. Look. That ain’t sacred. That’s our view of the sacred. We’ve turned it into something nice. Digestible. Commercial. To suit us and our tastes. We made god into a product just like everything else.
Woman. Oh you shouldn’t take god’s name in vain. He might curse you with boils, or something.
Man. That’s just what I mean. God isn’t a name. A word. God is some kind of transcendant intelligent purpose beyond words or names.
Woman. Oh. He won’t like you saying that. Oh no. Not at all.
Man. And are you a Christian?
Woman. Yes. Yes I am.
Man. And do you go to church?
Woman. Well.. not exactly to church. It’s too boring. But I believe in love thy neighbor and do unto others etcetera.
Man. Yes. But you don’t go to church.
Woman. No.
Man. Because it’s boring.
Woman. Yes.
Man. So to all intents and purposes, if you don’t bother going, you have no church, because it doesn’t work for you, so what you need is one that does. A new kind of church. A church without god.
Woman. How can you have a church without god. That’s stupid.
Man. It would be the godless church of the sacred.
Woman. No! no! That’s impossible! Sacriligeous! Awful!
Man. And it would be shaped like a giant sphere, and inside it would be zero gravity and the vicar would be a red Indian, floating round with a pair of sacred pliers pulling out people’s teeth!!!!
Woman. (Hands over ears.) Stop! Stop! That’s horrible. Crazy! Insane! And you are a bad person to say it.
Man. Well. At the moment we have a church that people don’t go to. What’s the point in that?
Woman. Are you suggesting we should scrap thousands of years of religious history?
Man. No.
Woman. Thank… god.
Man. I’m suggesting we learn from it. Adapt it. Allow it to evolve. We can keep the church, but not our idea of what should happen in it. I mean. Take sex.
Woman. I thought we’d get round to sex, sooner or later.
Man. Why is there no sex in church?
Woman. For very good reasons, which must be obvious even to someone of your dubious moral standards.
Man. No sex, despite the fact that everywhere you look in our society/culture, in every pop vid, advert, movie, you see sex sex sex, and that even though we are, quite obsessed with it, the church, in it’s infinite wisdom chooses to act as if this were not the case, taking strategy of , if we just ignore it, or pretend it is otherwise and act all pure and pious it will just go away.
Woman. I suppose you. You’d have the pope making a porno vid or something.
Man. (Pause.) Yes! What a great idea! And afterwards he could explain that a true religious attitude embraces all aspects of life and he is in favour of pornography only he hopes people could use it as a springboard to a more meaningful relationship.
Woman. Oh god! I think ive definitely heard enough of this twaddle! Sex. Springboards. Churches. The next thing is you’ll be saying mankind had his dna spliced with an alien sub space crocodile. NO! Don’t! Enough is enough! (She stands. Hands on hips.) You know it’s people like you who underminded the moral climate and created all the dissatisfaction and unrest we see in the world. You spread unsettling and un nerving ideas that infiltrate the mass psyche causing hysteria outrage and confusion. Stop it! Stop it! Keep that big gob of yours, (takes hold jaw pressing lips shut.) shut! Sealed. Closed. (Letting go.) You want a better world? Just stay like that. Do us all a favour! (She exits. He sits with his lips compressed. Curtain.)
Monday 29 June 2009
The Stranger
I saw the stranger at the window,
he motioned me to stop.
There was something eerie, unnerving about him.
I turned and ran!
Blind panic coursing through my veins
like a bursting dam,
inundating the sleeping vales,
as I sped on, alongside a tram
and there in the window
sat the stranger! grinning a grin!!
Accursed stranger!!
And so I ran on
his smile pursuing me
under the lonely sky
until I found refuge
in the pages of an old antique book,
where swains, Knights and damsels bold
vouchsafed their troth
and plighted their.. plight
in a verdant sceptred sequined isle
set in a verdant sceptred sequined sea
and I by divine right
most correct aristocratic and fair
it’s monarch true!
it’s King!
in a palace, sumptuous and rich,
fit for a King! which I was
with a rich and goodly court
full of goodly courtiers
and here, to entertain me,
the King person, My Fool!
AARRGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
twas the stranger, dressed in motley
cap’n bells, holding a rubber chicken
and so, down to the servants quarters I nipped.
and out the back door, I ran
perused by the jester’s ringing laugh
as into a war zone I blindly fell
dark ominous skies, over twisty lanes
and in the distance the continual pock pock pock
of the guns, big Griselda and enormously fat Freddie
‘You there!’
‘What me sir?’
‘Yes you sir. what’s your regiment?’
I was being addressed y a fattish man I Colonel’s uniform.
‘The fourth foot and mouth sir.’
‘Well take this dispatch to the front.’
‘Yes sir. who shall I give it to sir?’
‘General stranger DSM and bar.’
Without stopping to think
I leapt into a passing taxi.
“To the front!”
I opened and read the dispatch.
“Situation hopeless. Men exhausted.
Enemy overwhelming. Oh Mother.
Where did I go wrong?
My bitter tears fall like the Sybil’s leaves
onto this fractious ashen earth.
Yours sincerely, Brigadier Smyth.
P.S. send more coffins, we’ve run out again!”
The taxi sped through a barren ‘no-man’s’ land.
Shell holes.
Torn barbed wire.
The occasional MacDonald’s.
At last H.Q. loomed out of the mist.
A large country house, standing strangely untouched
In the dead centre, of that barren place.
My interview with General Stranger
Filled me with apprehension and nervous tension
so I nipped into a pissior
for a quick one off the wrist.
As I jerked furiously away
I searched for a suitable image
to facilitate spurting.
Valerie Singleton? No.
Michelle Hunnziker? No.
Ah! I know! A robot.
Wearing a blonde wig,
& a wonder bra! Perfect!
AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Success! & I shot my life giving seed
All over a cartoon crudely drawn
on the bog wall
of Adolf Hitler being buggered
by Winston Churchill!
H.Q. was a gloomy place.
Officials wandered around looking serious and unhappy.
I was directed to a waiting room
I waited.
As I waited it all came back to me.
The stranger.
My panic.
The Antique book.
The war zone.
My nervous tension.
Spurting.
The General will see you now.
I entered furtively.
An old man with a lined face
sat at a large desk.
A window behind him
The sun streaming in.
“You have something for me?”
“Yes sir. This.”
He began to read the dispatch.
“Hopeless…Ashen…mother…coffins eh?”
“Is it all in order sir?”
“Yes. Private…?”
I looked at my name tag.
“Private…Stranger sir.”
“& do you know who I am?”
“Yes. You are General Stranger sir.”
“& not only that!”
& he ripped off his mask to reveal
‘the’ Stranger, leering at me,
Towering over me, a look of triumph,
On his strangely familiar, yet unknown face!
But luckily, in the waiting room,
I had had, had had
A Realisation!!!
“Not so fast ‘the’ stranger.
I think not.”
& grabbing his face I pulled.
The mask over the mask
(What an existential nightmare!)
came away to reveal…
standing before me…
looking abashed and caught out …
why…
It was me!
The stranger was I!
Stranger to me.
Stranger to you.
A stranger to what I felt welling up now
from that deep deep well,
at my very core.
A response to the pained troubled being
who now stood before me.
deny it if I can. Why…
It was love. Love.
& I warmly embraced the terrible stranger
who had perused me
all my days.
he motioned me to stop.
There was something eerie, unnerving about him.
I turned and ran!
Blind panic coursing through my veins
like a bursting dam,
inundating the sleeping vales,
as I sped on, alongside a tram
and there in the window
sat the stranger! grinning a grin!!
Accursed stranger!!
And so I ran on
his smile pursuing me
under the lonely sky
until I found refuge
in the pages of an old antique book,
where swains, Knights and damsels bold
vouchsafed their troth
and plighted their.. plight
in a verdant sceptred sequined isle
set in a verdant sceptred sequined sea
and I by divine right
most correct aristocratic and fair
it’s monarch true!
it’s King!
in a palace, sumptuous and rich,
fit for a King! which I was
with a rich and goodly court
full of goodly courtiers
and here, to entertain me,
the King person, My Fool!
AARRGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
twas the stranger, dressed in motley
cap’n bells, holding a rubber chicken
and so, down to the servants quarters I nipped.
and out the back door, I ran
perused by the jester’s ringing laugh
as into a war zone I blindly fell
dark ominous skies, over twisty lanes
and in the distance the continual pock pock pock
of the guns, big Griselda and enormously fat Freddie
‘You there!’
‘What me sir?’
‘Yes you sir. what’s your regiment?’
I was being addressed y a fattish man I Colonel’s uniform.
‘The fourth foot and mouth sir.’
‘Well take this dispatch to the front.’
‘Yes sir. who shall I give it to sir?’
‘General stranger DSM and bar.’
Without stopping to think
I leapt into a passing taxi.
“To the front!”
I opened and read the dispatch.
“Situation hopeless. Men exhausted.
Enemy overwhelming. Oh Mother.
Where did I go wrong?
My bitter tears fall like the Sybil’s leaves
onto this fractious ashen earth.
Yours sincerely, Brigadier Smyth.
P.S. send more coffins, we’ve run out again!”
The taxi sped through a barren ‘no-man’s’ land.
Shell holes.
Torn barbed wire.
The occasional MacDonald’s.
At last H.Q. loomed out of the mist.
A large country house, standing strangely untouched
In the dead centre, of that barren place.
My interview with General Stranger
Filled me with apprehension and nervous tension
so I nipped into a pissior
for a quick one off the wrist.
As I jerked furiously away
I searched for a suitable image
to facilitate spurting.
Valerie Singleton? No.
Michelle Hunnziker? No.
Ah! I know! A robot.
Wearing a blonde wig,
& a wonder bra! Perfect!
AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Success! & I shot my life giving seed
All over a cartoon crudely drawn
on the bog wall
of Adolf Hitler being buggered
by Winston Churchill!
H.Q. was a gloomy place.
Officials wandered around looking serious and unhappy.
I was directed to a waiting room
I waited.
As I waited it all came back to me.
The stranger.
My panic.
The Antique book.
The war zone.
My nervous tension.
Spurting.
The General will see you now.
I entered furtively.
An old man with a lined face
sat at a large desk.
A window behind him
The sun streaming in.
“You have something for me?”
“Yes sir. This.”
He began to read the dispatch.
“Hopeless…Ashen…mother…coffins eh?”
“Is it all in order sir?”
“Yes. Private…?”
I looked at my name tag.
“Private…Stranger sir.”
“& do you know who I am?”
“Yes. You are General Stranger sir.”
“& not only that!”
& he ripped off his mask to reveal
‘the’ Stranger, leering at me,
Towering over me, a look of triumph,
On his strangely familiar, yet unknown face!
But luckily, in the waiting room,
I had had, had had
A Realisation!!!
“Not so fast ‘the’ stranger.
I think not.”
& grabbing his face I pulled.
The mask over the mask
(What an existential nightmare!)
came away to reveal…
standing before me…
looking abashed and caught out …
why…
It was me!
The stranger was I!
Stranger to me.
Stranger to you.
A stranger to what I felt welling up now
from that deep deep well,
at my very core.
A response to the pained troubled being
who now stood before me.
deny it if I can. Why…
It was love. Love.
& I warmly embraced the terrible stranger
who had perused me
all my days.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Thursday 4 June 2009
tesco tragedian
The honey-colored air
drips over suburban lawns
policed by the negative police
standing guard over suburban mores
as Mrs Lear loses it in Tesco’s
because they have no brazil nuts,
and rants at the remote unfeeling gods.
“You bastards!!!!
I’ll shovel shit in your graves!
I’ll spit on your graven images!
I’ll piss on your altars!
you deaf and dumb Simon Cowell clones!”
Then she breaks down and weeps,
her painted fingernails clawing
the bitter fractious earth,
stroke Tesco’s laminated floor covering,
and the bemused assistants pause,
mid shelf stacking,
to stare uncomprehending,
and above them the Gods too,
taking note of Mrs. Lear’s aguish;
her heartfelt misery,
exchange concerned looks
for they do care,
only are prevented from interfering
by a clause in their contracts which states
‘if a mortal party of the first part,
influenced by a divine party of the second part,
is party to a part at a party,
(wearing a party hat ((divine or otherwise))
then the said party shall……’
Back home Mrs Lear cooks tea for Hubert.
For once she feels strangely forgiving
when he crankily insists
on watching the repeats of Top Gear
on Dave;
and as she does the dishes
the honey-colored air
drips over suburban lawns
lending all things that grow
an unearthly, ethereal glow.
Sunset.
Crow flit over the furrow.
Zen trousers 2009
drips over suburban lawns
policed by the negative police
standing guard over suburban mores
as Mrs Lear loses it in Tesco’s
because they have no brazil nuts,
and rants at the remote unfeeling gods.
“You bastards!!!!
I’ll shovel shit in your graves!
I’ll spit on your graven images!
I’ll piss on your altars!
you deaf and dumb Simon Cowell clones!”
Then she breaks down and weeps,
her painted fingernails clawing
the bitter fractious earth,
stroke Tesco’s laminated floor covering,
and the bemused assistants pause,
mid shelf stacking,
to stare uncomprehending,
and above them the Gods too,
taking note of Mrs. Lear’s aguish;
her heartfelt misery,
exchange concerned looks
for they do care,
only are prevented from interfering
by a clause in their contracts which states
‘if a mortal party of the first part,
influenced by a divine party of the second part,
is party to a part at a party,
(wearing a party hat ((divine or otherwise))
then the said party shall……’
Back home Mrs Lear cooks tea for Hubert.
For once she feels strangely forgiving
when he crankily insists
on watching the repeats of Top Gear
on Dave;
and as she does the dishes
the honey-colored air
drips over suburban lawns
lending all things that grow
an unearthly, ethereal glow.
Sunset.
Crow flit over the furrow.
Zen trousers 2009
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