The High Court was in session. The case of ‘Arthur v. the Crown, the Sovereign State and all Residents Thereof’ was progressing through another day of legal sumo-wrestling. The charge against the accused Mr Rory Arthur was that he deliberately and with malicious aforethought conspired to overthrow the state in a wanton and reckless act of misguided revolutionary intent. The fact of the matter was, however, that the case had been seen in session for close to 2 years, with the actual specifics of the charge against him constantly evolving and shifting with the slow ambling of tectonic plates making it actually impossible to notice with naked eyes.
In fact as Rory sat in the gold-gilded dock and stared blankly out into the packed spectator’s gallery, he could barely even recall the initial charge that he was handed or even the fine details of what relevance it had to him. Poor Rory had only gone down the road to buy the Sunday papers from the local newsagent when riot police and squad cars seemed to dissolve into reality like a harsh mirage; arresting everyone in the shop, including old Mr Khan the owner, who broke down into hysterical wailing and weeping as black-uniformed officers like state sentinels dragged him by his flailing limbs out to the van. Rory wondered what significance he had to the whole thing anyway and even if anyone here knew of Mr Khan or what precise charge he was being tried on.
His defence lawyer was certainly of no use to him since he spent the whole time either unconscious or otherwise completely drunk; dribbling and slavering all over the bench. He would occasionally cry out “Objection!” at some seemingly random point in the prosecutor’s year-long sprawling account of case details, precedents and legal history, before then slumping back in his seat, robes and wig dishevelled and dirty. Rory tried to swing his heavy head away from the packed auditorium to tune in to what the tall wiry prosecutor with a long hooked nose and spectacles was actually saying.
“...referral to subsection 3.9 category A20 of the Terms and Conditions for Management of Work, Trade and Commerce, I would like to draw your attention to Exhibit 9371 which justifies the sine qua non as entirely of jurisdictional merit...”
He would direct this monotonous and never-ending diatribe of stiff legalese to the twelve jury members – all suitably horrified individuals, gasping and whispering behind hands in all the apparently correct places at which to register such disgust. Men and women with identical stress-fractured faces, huge bruised bags of flesh swinging under their eyes and lines gorged into their brows; mere parasites to the media who fed them forkfuls of half-baked information and facts by the day.
“...and this does in fact refer to the Environment of Information and Deception Legislature...”, he could imagine the prosecutor having sex with his wife in the same rigid-upper lipped manner at which he addressed his spiel to the courthouse; sifting through vast ledgers of archive papers and files. “...strictly in accordance with the actus reus that is under scrutiny as seen in the case precedent...”, the team of court clerks furious in their scribbling down of every word, each finished page being thrust aside to join the mountain of papers slowly disintegrating to dust under the wooden desks.
The Master of the Rolls was a repulsive fat mollusc of a man, sweating profusely in his legal gowns as he sat on the bench below the judge. He was supposedly keeping an eye over the proceedings but did nothing more than sigh heavily and clock-watch for his hourly hampers of steaming pies and other baked goods to be delivered to the courtroom. He would devour them all in minutes, without even noticing the delicious aromas provoking the famished audience into a football-crowd delirium. For the rest of the time he would flick through pornographic magazines discreetly concealed within a dusty volume, his multitude of rosy chins shimmering as his eyes did feast upon such glorious fantasies of the flesh.
And so this did continue on and on, a prolonged carnival of boredom punctuated by intermittent nightfall. Until one day, totally out of the blue, the prosecutor’s last witness was carted out of the court, his summing up complete, and the defence was left to awkwardly stammer through an ill-prepared closing speech that seemed to have been devised on random scraps of paper and cigarette packets as the drunkard propped himself up on the table to slur his way to a nonsensical conclusion. The jury took barely minutes to deliberate their verdict before returning. Perhaps filled with such a desperate desire to escape their own sentence and rejoin the rest of society, to pick up the threads of their own lives. Children that had now finished school, or had maybe even died without their noticing and spouses to be reigned-in who had long since strayed away from home.
As guilty was called out the courtroom went wild – the crowd whooping and hollering as if their team had scored a winning goal, hugging and jubilation danced in the air. It was so infectious that even old Rory Arthur was grinning along. The judge, his face frozen into a sour gargoyle mask of wrinkles beneath his long flea-bitten wig, battered his gavel against his bench for the first time during the whole trial – for never had there been such mayhem erupt – and tapped snuff into his nose as he did habitually throughout each day.
“The court of the land has rested on a verdict. Will the defendant please stand.” All eyes navigated their way to the defendant as if just remembering that there was one present, as Mr Arthur stood passive and vacant in the dock.
“Mr Archer, it is this court’s decision that you are to be found guilty of the highest order of treason and mischievousness and therefore I can only suggest one suitable sentence. It is for your callous and reckless aforethought and malicious intention to meet wicked ends that you shall be taken down and away from this place to a particularly foul prison steeped in degradation where you shall spend an eternity being sodomised by delinquents and dope fiends. For a man of such principles and unjust pride, the shame of having each and every orifice ritually plundered and your soul pillaged for such depraved pleasures will be a fair punishment and in my opinion is entirely justified. Take him down!”
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Art Galleries of Life & Death
Slaughter the child that vile pest
That does cause such confusion and strife
String up the bloody carcass as meat posing on a hook
For flaccid intellectuals to perversely ponder
Through the art galleries of life and death.
Watch as ghastly bores of bohemian pretension
Bend and cower around a lonely penis standing
Erect upon a plinth, a monument of pleasure
Sharpened to an orgasmic halt.
Listen to them spew soliloquies of dribble
As if Shakespeare were sat upon their shoulder
Passing words and imagery through the eye
Of a needle into a vein standing proud.
See them seething with a most delightful deviance
Of such that lures a boy to a misty moor
To sit for eternity in a museum, a waxwork dummy,
An effigy of ecstatic evil that provokes howls of protest
- “This is so steeped in depravity, I love it!”
- “You heinous fiend, you will hang upon my wall!”
And oh how they laugh and applaud
This great cabaret of deceit
As I wonder how I am supposed to feel
And kill myself on pure impulse
A moment of glorious inspiration like a
Snow blind flash before the eyes
Or whispering into my own bloodied ear.
Oh God have mercy, I meant no true measure of harm
Merely contributing
To culture in my own baneful way
Lacerations of vast brushstrokes
As I beat the vile pest upon the canvas
I’m afraid you simply didn’t get the joke.
That does cause such confusion and strife
String up the bloody carcass as meat posing on a hook
For flaccid intellectuals to perversely ponder
Through the art galleries of life and death.
Watch as ghastly bores of bohemian pretension
Bend and cower around a lonely penis standing
Erect upon a plinth, a monument of pleasure
Sharpened to an orgasmic halt.
Listen to them spew soliloquies of dribble
As if Shakespeare were sat upon their shoulder
Passing words and imagery through the eye
Of a needle into a vein standing proud.
See them seething with a most delightful deviance
Of such that lures a boy to a misty moor
To sit for eternity in a museum, a waxwork dummy,
An effigy of ecstatic evil that provokes howls of protest
- “This is so steeped in depravity, I love it!”
- “You heinous fiend, you will hang upon my wall!”
And oh how they laugh and applaud
This great cabaret of deceit
As I wonder how I am supposed to feel
And kill myself on pure impulse
A moment of glorious inspiration like a
Snow blind flash before the eyes
Or whispering into my own bloodied ear.
Oh God have mercy, I meant no true measure of harm
Merely contributing
To culture in my own baneful way
Lacerations of vast brushstrokes
As I beat the vile pest upon the canvas
I’m afraid you simply didn’t get the joke.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
The More You Erase Me, The More I Appear
And I’ve placed a bet on my team to win, 6 to 1 for a victory that could see me flush for the first time. “If there’s one team that’ll bring it home it’s United” I say to myself out loud as the people at the bus stop text into phones with such ferocity that their fingers may amputate themselves, and a man thrusts his way through a newspaper with such concentrated fervour – he is cold and downtrodden in his corduroy coat, he has the aroma of home cooking dancing around his nose – well, he has got her trained well after all. Not for a second does he appreciate me interrupting him with enquiries after the time; his gaze falls down his nose onto me in an avalanche of disdain.
“Get lost you heathen. You vagabond!” I stumble back from his harsh words that tear through my fragile shroud but I won’t let such a vile and repugnant individual discolour the sunshine of my mood. Even though these other people are now turning heads with a tumour strain, their robotic fingers paused over the keypads of efflorescent phones. I kick up a bit of a stink then,
accusing all and sundry of conspiracy to grave prejudice and try to express how they shall repent when stood in the dock. My elevated words cause many to count the specks on their shoes, never before have the structural details of the kerb held such a profane allure as when a stranger does start to holler and yell with such provocative theatre. One woman begins searching inside her handbag, inflated with a Prada grandeur, as if undergoing particularly taxing open-bag surgery, or searching for her children – or someone else’s for that matter. You never can tell these days – women get as much perverse shits and giggles from the fiddling with little ones. Only the other day one such sexual deviant was tracked down to a dishevelled bedsit whereupon the braying mob did stamp and growl with knives between teeth and flaming torches thrust aloft.
I’m shooting bullets with my eyes at her now, refusing to move away as she continues to thrash around her bag, almost trying to climb inside it so that a shield will be cast between us. “Move along you fiend” pipes up another man stood leisurely and aloof against a lamppost as if cemented there in a frozen faggot pose. All these fags, touting for cocks on every street corner as if hailing a cab. He appears shocked when I round on him, showering him with vitriol in the most litigious way, but he only really begins to get distressed when I start stroking and petting his arm in a truly provocative manner as one would a wounded animal, albeit with a sly grin kept hidden from view. Despite me haranguing this poor young queer dressed like a drainpipe, those around us have shrunk into stone, their faces shrivelled away into their fat rubbery necks – they seek no trouble here.
Blowing kisses and spreading illegible words of wisdom I stride forth from the party as the people begin to rave and dance with relief as the 63 bus lumbers into the stop. On and on I strike out along, fall against benches warning against ‘Wet Paint’, pause to stare in at a gourmet slop house where rotund beasts spoon haute offal into their open-mouth orifices; the food being rendered cold within an instant from the frosty atmosphere that hangs between each and every
one of them. All cannot wait to get the fuck out and vomit boasts over their friends about how delectable the whole experience was. Step on the cracks and have a heart attack my old man used to stay as I heeded his warning to scale the railings, nostalgia biting like bile as I recall my little hand in his big man-hand that he would turn to his trade and raise to make mother quiet. Graceful young things all flowered and ripe skip along on their way, socks high and skirts hitched, pretty plaits of hair. But I walk on by - they are but children I tell myself with frozen water sympathy. And the drooling mob do perch like vultures upon every set of traffic lights after all.
And I’m almost home, just one more city, one more lifetime to go. I pass an old crone squatting in a doorway, the very epitome of scum, an unhealthy residue that stains the street with limpet resilience. Her damp pillow of cardboard reads ‘Please’ and that is all, as she reaches up to me, clawing at my tail with her scabbed hands full of banknotes, just simply crying ‘Please’. I hold her gaze for a second but turn and flee with her rotting features a spume on my mind, that leaves me wondering for a long long time...were the odds I was given sufficient??
“Get lost you heathen. You vagabond!” I stumble back from his harsh words that tear through my fragile shroud but I won’t let such a vile and repugnant individual discolour the sunshine of my mood. Even though these other people are now turning heads with a tumour strain, their robotic fingers paused over the keypads of efflorescent phones. I kick up a bit of a stink then,
accusing all and sundry of conspiracy to grave prejudice and try to express how they shall repent when stood in the dock. My elevated words cause many to count the specks on their shoes, never before have the structural details of the kerb held such a profane allure as when a stranger does start to holler and yell with such provocative theatre. One woman begins searching inside her handbag, inflated with a Prada grandeur, as if undergoing particularly taxing open-bag surgery, or searching for her children – or someone else’s for that matter. You never can tell these days – women get as much perverse shits and giggles from the fiddling with little ones. Only the other day one such sexual deviant was tracked down to a dishevelled bedsit whereupon the braying mob did stamp and growl with knives between teeth and flaming torches thrust aloft.
I’m shooting bullets with my eyes at her now, refusing to move away as she continues to thrash around her bag, almost trying to climb inside it so that a shield will be cast between us. “Move along you fiend” pipes up another man stood leisurely and aloof against a lamppost as if cemented there in a frozen faggot pose. All these fags, touting for cocks on every street corner as if hailing a cab. He appears shocked when I round on him, showering him with vitriol in the most litigious way, but he only really begins to get distressed when I start stroking and petting his arm in a truly provocative manner as one would a wounded animal, albeit with a sly grin kept hidden from view. Despite me haranguing this poor young queer dressed like a drainpipe, those around us have shrunk into stone, their faces shrivelled away into their fat rubbery necks – they seek no trouble here.
Blowing kisses and spreading illegible words of wisdom I stride forth from the party as the people begin to rave and dance with relief as the 63 bus lumbers into the stop. On and on I strike out along, fall against benches warning against ‘Wet Paint’, pause to stare in at a gourmet slop house where rotund beasts spoon haute offal into their open-mouth orifices; the food being rendered cold within an instant from the frosty atmosphere that hangs between each and every
one of them. All cannot wait to get the fuck out and vomit boasts over their friends about how delectable the whole experience was. Step on the cracks and have a heart attack my old man used to stay as I heeded his warning to scale the railings, nostalgia biting like bile as I recall my little hand in his big man-hand that he would turn to his trade and raise to make mother quiet. Graceful young things all flowered and ripe skip along on their way, socks high and skirts hitched, pretty plaits of hair. But I walk on by - they are but children I tell myself with frozen water sympathy. And the drooling mob do perch like vultures upon every set of traffic lights after all.
And I’m almost home, just one more city, one more lifetime to go. I pass an old crone squatting in a doorway, the very epitome of scum, an unhealthy residue that stains the street with limpet resilience. Her damp pillow of cardboard reads ‘Please’ and that is all, as she reaches up to me, clawing at my tail with her scabbed hands full of banknotes, just simply crying ‘Please’. I hold her gaze for a second but turn and flee with her rotting features a spume on my mind, that leaves me wondering for a long long time...were the odds I was given sufficient??
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