Monthly Archives: June 2016

Oh, England.

Oh, England.What was that?

Are we still friends?

You’re scaring me.
You’re pulling out of the staff

Lottery syndicate.

Buying your own tickets now,

Hoping the big one comes along.
We turned one way

At the crossroads

Already convinced

That we were lost.
The loudest shouter

Demanded the way

That looked best for him.

He had no map.
Just instinct, 

Not even an app,

And now the engine sounds

Like its out of fuel.
England.

You shrank.

You stink.

You snarl.

You don’t think.

You regret.
The scariest thing is wondering what

Kind of language this seemingly legitimises,

What small stands a good man can take in a world

Where hate is now seen as justifiable

Because that funny Farage bloke looks like he might

Say something similar, you know,

Sipping a lager, probably, chortling and saying it

Not because it’s right but because it sounds

Good in the saying.

He’s got the rhythms,

He’s got the moves.

He looks like he thrives in chaos.
Perhaps he’ll buy us a round.
Oh, England.

I never felt comfortable with your flag,

Seeing it more as the appropriation of the mindless

Snivelling narrow minded seething loud mouthed 

Gut-led instinct ignoring boozer whose political 

Pronouncements sound leery in the pub environment,

Just one of the lads,

Waving that flag,

Waving it with all their might,

Waving that damn flag.
We are an island.

And some think that this means

We cannot join hands,

Reach out and help those jump across

When they need it the most,

Share some love because we all have love,

Even a skinhead can have a tender heart

If only he weren’t so

Afraid to show his true emotions.

The chanting of the pack might not make sense

But when it echoes back from high street shop fronts,

There’s a certain inevitability.

All it takes is an idiot with ambition

And a modicum of hatred.
Some think we need to build a wall,

But that would only succeed in

Keeping us in.
Oh, England.

I see no boundaries,

I see no politics,

And it’s not just me.

So long as we are on this planet

We cannot escape our duties,

Our humanity,

That others might be inclined to stand tall

And say that they exist for the greater good,

For peace and love, togetherness,

Understanding, sharing,

Kindness, curiosity,

Passions of the truest kind,

Rather than some localised upchuck,

And this at least makes me

Feel slightly better about the future.

Good people will always 

Be there.

Good people wilL always

Be there.
Oh, England.
 

The most significant full stop (part eight).

I asked my assistant Lars to write a full stop on a pebble and place it somewhere on the beach underneath the pier. (See fig A). The pen used for this was the same Parker pen that I’ve used every day since my Grandfather died in 1995. Because of this I thought I might be able to spot the pebble with the full stop on it immediately.

I was very keen to find the pebble with the full stop on it, but alas the search would be in vain. I like the idea of something so insignificant being there, unknown to almost everyone, yet very physical and real. A destination, in fact. Since I was a kid I’ve loved airports, so I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of destinations. I’m now away from the beach but the pebble will still be there and there are a few miles between me and it.

This reminds me of everything that has been lost over the years, and that makes me feel quite sad. 

The most insignificant full stop (part seven)

I asked my assistant Lars to write a full stop on the table while I was out of the room. My job was then to find it and eradicate this.
If I hadn’t found the full stop, the knowledge of its continued existence would have given it a significance far beyond its actual worth.

Or I would have begun to doubt that Lars had drawn it in the first place.

Or I would have begun to doubt the existence of Lars.

You can watch the video here.
https://youtu.be/9TDkQN-tbuI​

The most significant full stop (part six)

Today I have been attempting to make the most insignificant full stop disappear completely, and then bring it back. I’m doing this because I’m sure that everything that has ever existed has a memory of sorts, even if that memory resides in the minds of those who utilised it or witnessed it.
Electronically, it’s a whole different matter, as the insignificant full stop exists only on an electronic plain. Having spent time zooming in on it and magnifying it through the editing processes of my IPad, I’m now doing the opposite and zooming out to see if there is any representable essence of the full stop left.
I then zoomed back in again to see whether or not the iPad in question could then find the almost non-existent full stop.
The results are viewable below.


And then the magnification  process began anew.

I think this demonstrates that the reality will always been superseded by the memory of an event, as the full stop exists now more as a memory than a visual certainty. What does this say about the world?

There are philosophical and even religious proofs definable through the certainty through memory process. The full stop existed at one point, and now it no longer does. Yet there was a definite physical act in pressing the symbol on my keyboard which resulted in a full stop on the screen. The creation of the full stop by me, that one fleeting moment, was the ultimate performance act.

The most significant full stop (part five)

A few years ago I flew from Vancouver back to London having just caught a train from one side of Canada to the other. It was an amazing time with a lot of travelling and a lot of connections. With about ten minutes to go before the boarding was announced, I went to the toilet in the Vancouver terminal and, while I was enjoying a wee, I noticed a very small dot on the otherwise spotless cubicle wall. I remembered thinking, ‘That wall is not spotless’. But then I came over all profound and thought, ‘I will never see that tiny dot again. In a few hours I will be thousands of miles from that small dot. That insignificant dot’.
And do you know what happened? The plane developed a fault in one of its own toilets and we all had to get off and wait four hours for a new plane. I went for another wee a couple of hours later, and saw that tiny insignificant dot once again. Which meant that it wasn’t quite so insignificant any more. In fact, of all the dots in the world, it was now probably one of the most significant, because what were the chances of me ever seeing it again?
Here I am writing this at Manchester airport waiting for a flight to Exeter. It’s a 25 minute flight and it’s just been delayed by three hours.
I don’t want to repeat the significant dot experiment again because I don’t want to take precedence away from the dot that I saw in Vancouver, yet my mind is not so developed as I’d like it to be, and I’m seeing significant dots everywhere. Just look at this floor. It’s full of them.
This brings me back to the significant full stop experiment and how elements of the Vancouver Dot have been playing at the back of my mind these intervening years. Im wondering, of course, what has happened to the dot and whether the toilet in the terminal has been redecorated. It’s quite possible.



There. That one. There. 

Yesterday.

A man walked into a bar. It was actually a night club. We don’t know why but he killed a lot of people. The people who were there, were there to have a good time. Maybe he didn’t like people having a good time, but what’s known for sure is that he had a gun. It was a powerful gun and he was able to purchase it quite legally. The people who were having a good time were also doing so quite legally.
The man who did it had reasons which a lot of people would find different and quite at odds with their own way of living. The people who died most probably had a lifestyle which these same people would find at odds with their own way of living. But this isn’t about religion or sexuality, even though these are the labels which will be used for the next few days and weeks. It’s about a man who was angry or quite possibly deluded, and some people who were having a good time.
There will be those who disagree with the way other people live their lives, their own philosophies and methods of being. But life carries on and on the whole, people embrace the difference which makes being human so wonderfully diverse and interesting. We can learn from other cultures, belief systems, view points, and while we might not agree, we never enforce this with violence.
Having said that.
Fifty people died. And it was an attack on a very specific community of which I am a part. It happened in a place of symbolism, such as a church or a place of worship. It happened because of one persons ignorance. It happened possibly because of superstition. There’s no other way to look at it other than as a wilful expression of hatred. And naturally there will be underlying questions about weapons and religion (if indeed it was a religious act at all), and the response to it by those who commentate on such matters will be proportional to their own preconceived notions. But fifty people died, and right now, there is pain and suffering and disbelief.
There is no easy moral to this episode other than a man with a gun and a grudge, and how easily it happened.
 The doors.
For those who are the exquisite hidden in cupboards.

For those who fortune denies because they refuse to shout.

For those who would otherwise shine so bright were it not so dark and needlessly so.

For those who more conscious than the jaded so called moral imperative.

For those who multicolor the beige.

For those who feel that burning pounding quick-tempo heartbeat tick tick ticking absolute proof down deep within.

For those who don’t want to upset anyone.

For those who are being true to themselves.

For those who love.

For those who would dearly like to love but never will so long as they’re fumbling in the pitch dark.

For those who would spread compassion if given the chance.

For those who stand tall and proud in the face of ignorance.

For those who challenge the invented with the blinding torch of truth.

For those who caress and whisper sweet nothings and then open their eyes to find an empty bed.

For those who don’t want to shock and close the door voluntarily.

For those who care too much.

For those who feel they have no brothers or sisters.

For those who feel they are the only person ever ever ever ever to feel this way.

For those who make a thousand tiny differences a year.

For those whose revolution will knowingly take longer than their own lifetimes.

For those who would otherwise be flogged or hanged or stoned or cast from the safety of decent thought by those who profess to know the truth of words written fluently yet deliberately twisted ambiguous in order to hide the cultural anger seething beneath.

For those who delete their browsing history.

For those who try to prize open a door knowing that it will be slammed shut but keep on trying nonetheless.

For those who paid the ultimate price.

For those who resort to secret languages and those who give in and try to decipher filled with the eager promise of just knowing.

For those who are afraid.

For those who never will.

For those who see the world quivering ecstatic and reach out with trembling fingertips ever so eager to be a part yet knowing deep down they never will because they are really not as brave or as fortunate as those who color the world with love. 

For those who hide behind masks of dubious preferences just to make it look like they are one of the crowd.

For those who are furious.

For those who are curious.

For those who log on with an alias.

For those who dance ecstatic the most writhing sexual beautiful hypnotic dance but only to themselves alone alone alone in the mirror.

For those who feel that everything is hopeless faced with ninety six percent against, newspaper editorials, fuming spitting evangelists, political bullies, idiots with guns and clubs and religious texts, charismatic spirituality, cultural commentators and peddlers of hated.

For those who burst out so fast that the world never could catch them.

For those who burned up too soon.

For those who took a chance and flowered briefly then disappeared leaving behind them the hint that if done differently it might actually work.

For those who are vehement in their love.

For those who are just plain unlucky.

For those who are scared.

For those who are scarred.

For those who would otherwise be sacred.
You are the real

And your time will come

When superstition loses and common sense takes over.

Pile up your love right now

So that when the doors finally open

It will all come tumbling through.
Performance Poet, Writer, Spoken Word Artist. 

The most significant full stop (Part four)

This evening I searched through my notebooks to find the most insignificant full stop that I had ever written. The results were somewhat disappointing because all of the full stops that I’ve written have been insignificant, except for the occasions in which I’ve purposefully written a significant full stop. I wrote one at the end of my dissertation at the end of my postgraduate degree, and I did another one in my last A Level exam.

Every full stop has been insignificant, and as such significant only in their insignificance. Which made me free to choose any at random.

The one I chose came from my scribblings where I have been trying out lines and ideas for poems.

I have photographed this full stop with my iPad and I have magnified it several times, each time taking a screen shot. The results do not look as exciting as the electronically generated full stop, perhaps the lighting was all wrong. The full stop was written in ink by my Parker pen, the same one that I have used for writing every day since 1995.

The thing with full stops is that you never realise you’re writing them. They come easily and they are dotted on to the page with abandon and little thought. They pass like moments forgotten. 

I would like you to take part in an experiment, but I must warn you that it is very dangerous. I have come up with three words which will alter, or perhaps even ruin the rest of your day. If you are willing, able and un afraid of the consequences, then feel free to click on this link and see these three words for yourself.

The most annoying three words imaginable. – Robert Garnham https://robertdgarnham.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/the-most-annoying-three-words-imaginable/
I will then monitor the page where these words appear and see how many of you have been brave enough.