lies-to-children from the dominant hand

          my nan used to say

          that when you're brushing your teeth

          the best way to keep them healthy

          is to treat each one as an individual

i wanted to learn to brush my teeth
with my left
so i could offset the bias
of my right
always scrubbing in its usual way
i wanted to redress the balance

so i decided to brush with my left
half the time
i'd had this idea for years
and occasionally i'd actually do it
maybe once a week

after about 5 years
i realised one night staring in the mirror
brushing my teeth with my less dominant hand
badly
high at 4am
i realised i couldn't do it 

aiming for 50/50
i realised that to redress the balance i would have to give full power to 

the other 

for a while
while it built up strength
then maybe i could start bringing the right back in

i didn't want the four corners of my mouth to get lost in neglect
i didn't want my teeth to rot and decay

          my nan also used to say
          don't trust people whose eyes
          are too close together

          she chatted a fair amount of crap did our nan

Nim Chimpsky's longest sentence

"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you"

- Nim Chimpsky

(second chimpanzee to learn American Sign Language)

Hatfield, 5:46

my chest was heavy
it felt like the floating ribs had fallen in
caved
the coronary disease setting, closing
in on my choking central muscle
as cells turn to foam turn to sclerotic clot

but this time it wasn't the world weighing down
it was just me
my slouch, my posture, my stance
i'd been working for someone else
someone i had imagined
someone who doesn't even exist
i hadn't blasted my favourite music in months

i got up out of my chair and stretched
just coz

i'm so glad i realised before it was too late

Extend

turn
the heating
on open
all doors lie
on the floor
like a star
fish in a wide space
on a huge plane and
extend
as wide as
possible

turn the heating on open all doors lie on the floor like a star fish in a wide space on a huge plane and extend as wide as possible

break

one day you might just break
from the weight of it all
when you realise you're trapped
and it's too late for you

to go back and change

perhaps in the cul-de-sac of middle age
as the grinding axe comes to bear,
palpably, on the nape of the neck

rendering you mindless

"i could say the same about you"

no, I say
I've already been broken
I broke myself
and did it on my own terms
I've already been to that secure, awful boundary
rock bottom
where the edge is clear
where the limit reassures
I have orientated myself
from that end of the spectrum
so that now I can grow
thigmotrophically
knowing my direction
I have known myself through exhaustion,
overstimulation and deprivation,
yielding the freedom of knowing
the height from which we can fall
a spiritual vaccination
against the slings and arrows
and the hidden persuaders

ode to the 24h ASDA in Hatfield, UK

supermarket navel into which we stare;
    epicentre of our grubby oasis;
        guiding star in the void;
            ultraviolet crack
                into which,
                    we,        
                        the flesh confetti,
                            fall
and accumulate
    like lint;
        collective sediment of dessicated dreams.
            soon to be mined
                a pneumatic drill to the head

Terror Management Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

2 basic but cardinal narratives prevent people from challenging the machinery of their exploitation:

1. "the world is incomprehensibly complex and you will never understand it"
2. "the world is unimaginably terrifying and the ruling class are the only group who can properly protect you"

you can conjure up something more dramatic, maybe by invoking the nuances of mortality salience, as described by Becker in his "denial of death", but it basically comes down to those two pillars of propaganda that are beaten into us with the dominant culture's apparatus of control: words, stories, suggestion and sway etc


hearts, minds and genitals
on the bloody altar of capitalism
in the name of security
that ethereal signifier of protection from
    an abstract threat
    the Other
    terror itself
    unpredictable change
    the illusory bogeyman
    a ghost story
    a lie
    the falling sky

in the quarries of big data
in which the behavioural residues amass
    every consumer choice
    every pornographic preference
    every portal entered
    every electric decision
    every logic gate passed
    every choice of words
    every like
    every click
    every view
    every search

is mined, processed, and woven together into
    a tapestry of impulse and intention
    a profile of cognition and choice
    a frottage of identity
    a fingerprint of your mind and soul

fed into the neural net
    in the clouds
    in the sky
    in the all-seeing eye
so the machine can learn

on this altar
the sanctity of the self is sacrificed
    except it's not sacrificed,
    as that would imply some level of complicity.
    no, it is murdered
stabbed in the back of the back
right where it's hard to see
by the Bernays disciples
who can afford anonymity
and grin at the glistening jewel
of our Pavlovian drool

and it's a one way mirror they're looking through

believe me

there's a valve on the direction in which the information flows

so they know everything about you

while you know nothing about them

these orchestrators of data extraction

these people who have names and addresses

these people

you're too busy trying to put food on the table

to follow

and calmly ask
"excuse me sir, what the devil do you think you're doing?"

    everything bends towards a black hole

    even light is bent

    and distorted

    eventually you'll be stretched beyond all recognition

    you'll be scrambled

    spaghettified

    and turned into bits

don't even get close

or you'll get sucked in

City Scars

some art begs you to understand the artist's private pain.

carved
into the wood and plastic flesh of municipal infrastructure
the bus stops and benches
school desks and timetables
self harm writ large and small

rush among an urban tapestry of self inflicted wounds
from the self immolation of burnt out bins
fresh with the scent of cathartic arson
to the indelible pigment of scrawled graffiti
ink poured into a concrete skin
churning blunt hurt into
sleeves of ornate pain and wisdom

violent acts are rarely witnessed in the flesh
whether stubbing a cigarette on a perspex chest
running a key over an enamel thigh
or a pen tip pushed deep into an acrylic arm
but we witness the marks
fossils of captured pain 
screaming their silent evidence

never belittle the bravery required to ask someone
to share your suffering
never belittle the bravery required to call out
your name into that enormous night

into the tarmac we cry

the lies we chose to live inside

we are always wrapped up in the stories we have been told
those that have been repeated
until it becomes as familiar as a friend
we absorb them just by looking at images

like a gas
the US leaked
in through the TV
ultra mind control
remote
even people who never set foot there
but it occupies a space in one's mind
a virtual space
a lie
it's all lies
even the true bits

an image came up
an aerial view
and i thought, it's new york
that's manhattan

i think i even know the districts
i know it better than my home town
i've never been there but
that must be brooklyn off to the east
and queens up north
photo must be post-9/11
there's the empire state
there's the center of the universe

maybe the world is flat after all
how do you know anything?
and who the fuck are you anyway?

Questions to a future self, 2019

When the animals have been dragged
to final extinction,

will we retire them as mascots
of our prolific advertising,
or
will they linger,
as avatars
of species annihilated?

The elephant, tiger,
rhinoceros and leopard;
those familiar figures
of Kipling’s youth;
prevalent now only as simulacra.

Will we continue to play,
in the shadow of extinction?

Will we dance on graves,
with the ghosts of the toothed and clawed?