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1

My dadcracked up in the armywent to live in the lakes.Never saw him.All he left was a manuscript on torture techniquesand a translation of the Koran.

My mother put a contracton my head while I was underage. A family one full of aims and expenditurewhich I fought nail and tooth,

dragging my name through the mudof this town, I demolished its claims,stripping myself down to the unvarnished truth.

Afterwards I moved down to London.

At first they took me for a pleb from the provincesbut within six weeks my status had changed beyond measureand I became something of a cause célèbre.

Those arseholes at the Arts Centreadored me; I was a handsome little twat.Just ask Verlane, the poor sucker.I saw his dick twitchthe first time we metI knew I had him by the balls.

2

So he cameinto my efficient, callous, effortless arms.Arms which only struck and foragedwithout describing tender circlesor any thought of giving alms.

Verlane thought he’d capturedyouth when I consentedto his overtures; imaginedI’d consider his heart carefullyinstead of picking at it like a side dish.

He even swore he’d publishmy poems himself if it took his dole money to do it.

But if the man was stupidthen his wife was worse.When he brought me homeand said,‘Before you stands a genius,he’ll be staying in the spare room.’Matilda held her tonguelike a slice of offered meatand replied, ‘Of course.’

So I dragged him round clubland every night for weeksuntil Friday and Saturdaywere no longer the weekend,just a pair of liars. And with sucha catch on his arm he was rightly pleased.I lured Verlane out of himselfand turned him on to Eswhile love gave him clearance to joyously offend.

3

Matilda realizedthat things were completely fucked up.She went to stay with her parents.

Life had never adhered to her plan.

When she got pregnant she’d hopedthe baby would prove her personal messiah,strip Verlane of his evil bent.

But Verlane copedadmirably with this B-movie plotin which a rentof goodness is exposed in the sire;

instead he swamped their bedwith bumf from Marie Stopeson the topic of ventilation,adding his own assortment of lies.But Matilda made a stockadeof her womb and defended its clotto the hilt; her belly miserable, a sparkle in her eyes.

4

I went back up Northfor a while. Verlane got one of thosejobs for idiots, commission only.After his one day seminar –anticipating a grand a week – he hit the road.

He didn't get very farwith his cold calling.In fact it took hima month to make a pony,and that was money owedto McManus and the Greek.

Meanwhile I couldn't think to write.Even the giro forms confounded me.If you swallow heaven each night what on earth is left?

'God's gone so get this down you.'She gestured to a tablet, a yellowcontract, resting quietly in her palm.

'Do it and don't look back.'

i did and in ecstasy was wrapt,flapping like a pierced cockerel.The seed burst in my fallowmind and it blazed with lobesof fruit, ropes of tobacco,shards of clementine.

120 beats were tailored into a minuteand the dance floor was joined in spasmodic communion.

i saw pleasures unexistingkissed strangers,i was hooded a brother and a sister.i chewed on my jawsand laughed at nothinguntil dawn arrived.

5

I came back down to Londonwith my oeuvre completeand continued where I’d left off with Verlane.He left his wife againand we got a place together on Howland St.

There we found ourselves clueless,that was our discovery;

it was a place to flout ourbattle cry without a call to arms,

insured against recoveryby the tight narcotic trusswhose ebullient hungerstrangled all our qualms.

It was the story of Troyborne out of powder,a pantomimeperformed in care,

and so we drawled and shriekedin our panicked intermezzo

where a palpitationwas the only opinionwhich dared to contradictthe fact we’d live forever.

6

We came of agein party games with all the lights switched off,allowing one to canoodle with treacheryand refine one’s thoughtless hunches with a leverageof cruel eroticism.

It was nothing but a springboard for suntanned lechery and a showcase for those equine hauncheswhich the rough trade had createdin the sweat-box of ‘La Motta’s Gym’.

In our case pride camebefore the fall, during the fall,and after it.

Even when we’d reachedthe end of the roadwe didn’t place a veilof blame on our own ruined faces,

for it was boredomthat made slags of us all.It impeached our talents,turning our thoughtful headsuntil they lay bogged downin the governance of disgraces. There was also a timeI soaked cigarette buttsin a glass of beer for two days.

The vellum wrappings peeled offand the butts floated there like yellow buds.Then I made him eat them:seven toxic canapés.

7

The harsh equivocationof the tremenssingled out our nervesfor its indecisive punishment.

Our bodies gibbered in return.

The only way to make amendswas to cadge the dregsfrom last night’s binge. Those blesseddrops shored up our defencefor the coming day like magical hors d’oeuvres

while me and Verlanepottered around the kitchen,scrimping on our syllables,slowly finding our legs.

You couldn’t move in our flat for my lover’s empty threats.Then finally he loaded one:locking the door, Verlane pulled out a gun,inferring that my life was complete.

He holds the pistol pointing at me.It's like a breeze block he is vainlytrying to throw into the pond of fatewhere it will only splash and recedeinto larger and larger schemesuntil there is nothing left. I look at his face, and I can tell that he knows this,

but still he continues to wave the gun aroundlike a limp baton and drink from his bottle of Vodka. “This is not simply for you and me, Arthur;this is for the world at large.”That was the heart of his dementia:his overwhelming concern for the moment’s residueand how his estate would be managedwhen he was in absentia with a sick note from death.

Could he scrape the world’s homagefrom the barrel of a gun?

It had happened before: loads oflovers had sealed their consecrationwith the blood from a tryst.But Verlane hadn’t the bottle to take my last breath, never mind his own,and all the bullet did was skim my wrist.

8

After his releaseI saw Verlane once more.Just a drink for old time’s sakeand a chance for him to demonstrate his new-found piety.It was all very promising to begin with…

“Everything is diminished in the wakeof Christ’s love, Arthur, even hate…”

“Not least the responsibilitywhich you’ve buried in your Lord’s embrace.”

I would have been happy to continuethis way all night – scoring points –

but he’d started on tequila,and after four tryinghours of lime and salt and cant his summumbonum was sorting out a dealerand a tube of lubricantto anoint my derrière.I was his ens realissimumso he said; not God.His love for me was undying.

Then he gambled on my crotchand I punched him in the head.

9

Bored with all this shitI joined a catamaran,took part in shady runs from Spainto the South coast.

I would make more money than mostpeople can dream ofthen I would quit.At least that was the plan.

I wanted to be knownby my wallet, by my bank account.I desired to be a manof few words, of cyphered yays and naysto anyone on the basis of collateralor currency, be they Russian laundrymen,Mexican hombres or Neo Nazis.

At the end of the daywe’re all Swiss naturals.

I brought myself downto the lowest denominationlike so many businessmenuntil my only joy wasthe grubby pirouette of figures.

On my way homethe dusk still closedthe sun propped the fields up the leaves continued to riot at shin-height;

the snow brought mayhemand the fog had different calibres,but I no longer invested in poetry or prose.Instead I used a modemand followed Wall Stthroughout the night.

10

And then there’s Love.

Love is powerful, a secretionone concocts and shoots astray.It either whinges in the testesor suffers a completionfrom which you walk away.

That sweet sweet walk.

Back there in the nightI watched repeats of mythin the purple sky. Diaphanous claws,Gods who'd laughed their cocks off whilstlooking down, their bellies miserable, a sparkle in their eyes. I have eaten the blue evening air,tasting it so keenly that my tongue was lacerated,my taste buds circumcised.

I have ripped up the cautionsfor fast living into confettithen thrown this mutilated canonof sobriety to the windin what amounts to a brilliant flutter.

People marvelled at the risksI took canvassing on behalf of the forbidden.These same people had a policyfor the future which struck meas laughable. The small print was hiddenin their dream of control; a womb-like

trance of optimism emerging into fact, ending in expulsion.

I took chancesbecause of impatience:whether to live or dieI wasn’t sure.

The two desiresseemed married,

and if they weremy life was tailor madeto fit their ceremonyas I owned a madnesswhich was haute couture.

11

Dead men of 92 and 93are regular in my dreams(Desire's bitter sweet abbreviation).These dead men come to medragging themselves out of the Thamesor the toilets at Euston Stationor the shot down gallery.They are cleansed of accusation, pretty and aimless, terribly patient... ...While the singers in drag exemplifycolour, and the gristle of genderis strapped away in the diva'spanties, and the white dove's briberymakes us love one anotherwith a love that isn't love's;

the savages danceand sing through the joyof not being themselvesfor the weekend's entirety.

Their neurons peaklike stars in their primeor an idee fixé which isdestined to crumble.

That's what we did on a Saturday night:we danced on our graves;how prematurely, who could tell?

We trawled the country in search of ravesin fields as far as Aberdeen and Camberwell,tanked up with enchantment.

Inside the brain –a choir of serotoninsponsored by Bacchus,a dissonant offshootsinging no praises but its ownelectrifying root.

The world is enough to be withinwhen we’re sufficiently activated,and not coming down, dry-mouthed,pulse-aware, and demotedfrom the choir of serotonin.

This choir of serotoninmakes capital from our surprise,paves a rapture – 'Something for the Weekend' –and keeps us hanging on,

a hunger in our bellies, a sparkle in our eyes.

12

Time – the biggest loan shark –pressed its filthy thumb belowour eyes leaving a smudgedtattoo, purplish brown, in the debited hollow.

Time – the biggest loan shark –who breathes in step with us alland refuses any payment.

Time – the evil loan shark –which produces an addled receiptof what is owed and outstandingby intimidating our memorieswith its silent empty locution,until forgetting becomes a starkrelief from our memories.

13

As I lay there dyingI felt like Orpheus outran by his past.All the boys and girls I’d ever kissedlined up around my bedsidein a strange parade, arranged by fever.Its aim – to collar Eurydice –

explains why half my guests had long since died.

My life was a warped pagination.My story was 'The Islands of the Blest'where I lived the life of a strange prisoner.I kept God away with my imaginationand left my senses to their own behest.

I touched on Fame,when for a timethe gods go down on youor suck you offbefore spitting out the pips.

'To know Oneself':I treated my egolike a child's toy:

an army vehiclesold as indestructible.As with every boythe fact that somebodyhad said it was sowas like a red flag to a bull.

So I battered this thingfrom adolescence into adulthoodusing every ployat my disposal:

extemporizing my tantruminto a machéof words and blood

until there was nothing left to knowI never knewthrough the shades of my dérèglement .

14

Paralysis enchanted the right sideof my body with an arresting tale –of how it was better to stay put.

My body argued to no availand my right arm cameto rest upon the piss-chilled linenin petrified calm. Only my heart

continued with its praxis.This decimated hiveswilled the blood uponits final run like a knackered mailcoach owned by Thurn und Taxison the verge of its ultimate P45.

My sisterIsabelle perched at the footof my bed until the end,sometimes joined by her friend,the priest. They tried to mendmy blasphemy and disbeliefwith a book of Pascal’s betting tips.

I was like a goosehammered to the earthand fattened with the griefof certainty:that once we’re cannonedfrom the womb at a woman’sinsistence we must eventually

landin a narrow berthor be shredded by heat.

“Have you nothing to say?”asked my sister.

She waited for something grand.To see me prayto see me bearmy soul for God’s scrutiny.

I spat out my tubesand I told her,

‘J’irai sous la terre,et toi tu marchera dans le soleil.’

These things were the truth.

The truth is not enough.

I made a meal of this fact.