More lines

Lines have appeared, they don't bisect. One end is stronger than the other, fainter towards the thin end. Gouged, almost.
They hide a gateway, probably to another world. A world where lines don't exist, or maybe only exist on other peoples' gates to remind them of how to get there, as mine remind me.
A line is worth, if not a thousand words, then at least five hundred.

Buffets

Do you know, I actually hate buffets. There' s something really British about them, but the kind of British that is grey and depressing and 1950s.
The kind of weird British that is good and fab, is seaside towns, rock, car boot sales …

And people always seem to get het up about buffets too, like they are the most important thing in the world. "Ooh, we have to get the vol-au-vents out of the fridge. Somebody take the clingfilm off the chicken dippers."

Revolting.

New noses have arrived

My toy noses arrived from ebay today. No more will I have to embroider (badly) to make little rabbit/bear faces. The safety eyes I bought arrived on Tuesday so I'm all set. my plan is to go charity shopping tomorrow for an old bobbly fleece and some garish, nasty ties - then start making some more softies.
I'm all inspired by the awesome book I bought: Plush-O-Rama. It's bloody great.
I got my first softie commission yesterday, a lovely lady in work called Carol asked me to make a weird softie for her daughter for Christmas. If I make a selection and bring them in, maybe I can flog 'em here too! I'm so mercenary, heh heh.

Derelict

Siân’s Road after dark is an eerie, echoing place. Trees overhang, old branches that sweep the road making a dark, green tunnel that ends in an ancient wall. Nobody walks up Siân’s Road at night, strange symbols were found painted on the cracked concrete. Right at the far end, if you venture past the wall, there is a rickety old barn that looks lost among the gorse bushes; even the yellow flowers can’t manage to bring cheer to the dirty building. Fallen down bricks. Ivy choking burnt floorboards and the charred a-frames of the roof. A dinosaur skeleton clothed in rags. Stars wink through the missing slates; dust, feathers and burnt wood falls slowly as dark snow through the rafters. Deeds done here have soaked into the bricks on the ground, been absorbed by the three remaining walls. If I was to stay here all night, how many ghosts would bleed out from between the cracks in the mortar? I imagine myself floating in a sea of pale faces and bodies, as transparent as the water they imitate. Their movement gusts fallen leaves up into the threadbare roof, scatters sleepy crows like buttons into the blanket sky. The air is cold, and my breath sends clouds of vapour up to mingle with the falling motes of the old building. I look up to the first and second floors, at what remains of the fire-blackened chimneys and mantelpieces; try to imagine the house as a place full of life and laughter.

Today

Today is the colour of violets,
Spun sugar clouds rotate across the icing sky.
A rain of frogs hollops along the wet road,
Dipping flapping legs and clingy toes into puddles.

Once upon a time...

...there was a little girl called Katie. On her eighth birthday, her kind Daddy gave her a chemistry set as a gift, little Katie loved the chemistry set. In fact, she loved it more than she loved her pet giraffe Dougie, so he was sent to Bristol Zoo to live with the other giraffes – where he quickly rose to be the most popular grazing animal and when he dies (some years later) a small brass plaque was put on the door to the giraffe enclosure).
Little Katie played with the chemistry set more than any of her other lovely toys, and she soon learned to make the most hideously complex chemical compounds. She learned to make Lithium Dioxide, Tartra-hydroxy Methalinus and even the fabled Bisto Gravy molecule – in short: she was a wiz!
The days passed and Katie’s Mammy and Daddy were worried that their little daughter was spending so much time alone in her bedroom, where every day a new cloud of brightly coloured gas was puffing away, or a new smell was pumping down the stairs and into the living room.
After a whole week, Katie burst into the living room brandishing a lump of funny looking grey goo in her hand.
“What’s that, poppet?” asked her Mum, looking perplexed,
“It’s a Warbly Blap!” exclaimed Katie excitedly, as the lump of grey goo sat up, shook it’s little gooey head and emitted a tiny squeak!
Well, everyone was VERY impressed with the Warbly Blap, and Katie and the Blap soon became firm friends for life.

THE END

Fucked if I'm paying

All around him, the glimpsed lives and lives yet filled towards dreamland on pink never the beginning so he his movement. He decided panic. Pain reflecting down on to sleeplessness, with a warm tiredness. His eyes were blackened and madly, who across the starry sky grew an inch. The boy slept soundly, with ice-cream loveliness. Thieves and wake down of a war dreams of despair one day clasped trembled with his and crazed peaks of fury. A Once upon a time, racing was very very grass the clouds, he caught to unaware that at hand. Clouds lovers fought with swords settled was close and slept. The to go to and his seas and lands, infecting and he longed for sleep. Bruised, there the stormclouds boiled sky, whipped was very never past lives, and half be. Wondrous images, ships sailing of up, shields and swords. Himself were majestic with every guard’s hands and sleep and lips his hands shook all into purple spilled across the heavens, was a young man whipped.

CROESO

Croeso cynnes.

Rhowch yn degell i ferwi,
Ond dim ond diferyn o lath i fi.
Eisteddwch lawr,
So’yn mo'yn chi’i fod un anghyfforddus.
O! Mae teisennau siocled yn yr oergell i chi.

Today

Today is a grey steel ball, rolling down a smooth hill made of two faces. The clouds are the same cold grey, reflecting nothing but themselves down onto the hill; which is punctuated by the gaps in the dark clouds. A sentence spelled in dripping misery and cheat – if this is taken internally, likely cause: Choking hazard.
today/ today/ today/ is a toad/ a toad/ a toad/
tomorrow/ tomorrow/ tomorrow/ is far away/ away/ away/

Climbing

It surprised me when I sat down to write this, to find I had no ideas, no clue what to write. I put my pen down and looked out of the window, nothing inspiring there, only an office block with mirrored windows. The clouds seemed to move faster along those panes than they did across the pale sky, the building looked like a ship floating in a cotton wool sea. I realised my imagination was getting the better of me, so I pulled myself down from those clouds and stared hard at the blank paper.
Still nothing, so I doodled on a corner. First I drew a box, and out of the box grew a trail of ivy which ended up curled around a statue. I drew myself next to the marble woman, for scale; I drew myself as a tiny stick man to make the goddess-like statue appear huge, bigger than the lady of Liberty Island, bigger than the Colossus of Rhodes. She was a world devouring entity striding across planets as if they were stepping stones in a dark river, and she was still growing. I grabbed at the ivy and started climbing, aware that I would find no giant at the top; that I was already climbing up her very body.

The Ent

He's in a heavy terracotta pot on one of the speakers; we got him ages ago from Ikea. I said if I couldn't have a dog I'd settle for a bonsai fig. He's not as small as you'd think a bonsai Ficus should be, I think I'm giving him too much encouragement, too much love. We called him ‘The Ent' after Tolkien, our own mini Treebeard with a little gnarled face, always smiling up as us. I tucked a tiny amethyst point into his roots to encourage him to grow, we've had him for three years and he's flourishing; we must be doing something right. His leaves grow backwards towards the window, my houseplant book says to turn them periodically, but we like having his face pointing at us. He sheds in the autumn but grows stronger in the summer, new leaves always curling out at the top of his branches. I talk to him, like I do to all my plants; I call myself ‘Daddy' to him, and I stroke his bark. He seems to like it.

Tulse Luper's suitcases

1. COAL
2. TOYS
3. LUPER PHOTOS
4. LOVE LETTERS
5. CLOTHES
6. CLOTHES
7. VATICAN PORNOGRAPHY
8. FISH
9. PENCILS
10. HOLES
11. MOAB PHOTOGRAPHS
12. FROGS
13. FOOD DROP
14. DOLLARS
15. COINS
16. LUPER'S LOST FILMS
17. ALCOHOL
18. PERFUME
19. PASSPORTS
20. BLOODIED WALLPAPER
21. CLEANING FLUIDS
22. DENTAL TOOLS
23. CHERRIES
24. HONEY
25. NUMBERS & LETTERS
26. LUPER UNIFORMS
27. DOG BONES
28. LOCKS AND KEYS
29. LIGHT-BULBS
30. PLACE-NAMES
31. BOOTS AND SHOES
32. ZOO ANIMALS ARK
33. IDEAS OF AMERICA
34. ANNA KARENINA NOVELS
35. CANDLES
36. RADIO EQUIPMENT
37. CLEAN LINEN
38. WATER
39. CODE
40. A SLEEPER
41. EROTIC ENGRAVINGS
42. 92 OBJECTS TO REPRESENT THE WORLD
43. RAINBOWS
44. PRISON MOVIE FILM-CLIPS
45. MANUSCRIPTS FOR THE BABY OF STRASBOURG
46. HOLOCAUST GOLD
47. CHILDREN
48. DEAD ROSES
49. TRAINS
50. SEWING NEEDLES
51. SHOWER-HEADS
52. 55 MEN ON HORSEBACK
53. CHINA DOGS
54. BRUSHES
55. DRAWINGS OF LUPER
56. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
57. SMOKED CIGARS
58. BODY-PARTS
59. INGRES PAINTINGS
60. BROKEN GLASS
61. MOITESSIER GOWNS
62. CRABCLAWS
63. FEATHERS AND EGGS
64. YELLOW PAINT
65. TENNIS BALLS
66. BOTTLE MESSAGES
67. GREEN APPLES
68. PIG
69. SPENT MATCHES
70. SAUCEPANS
71. FLOWER BULBS
72. RESTAURANT MENUS
73. 92 ATOMIC ELEMENTS
74. VIOLIN SPLINTERS
75. FIRE
76. LEAD
77. OBELISKS
78. ROMAN POSTCARDS
79. HOLY EARTH
80. GREEN FIGS
81. LIGHT
82. NOTES ON DROWNED CORPSES
83. MAPS
84. BOARD GAMES
85. INK & BLOOD
86. LUPER STORY MANUSCRIPTS
87. ICE
88. MEASURING TOOLS
89. TYPEWRITER
90. DOLLS
91. THE PHRENOLOGICAL BOOK
92. LUPER'S LIFE

Kissed Bethan twice

Back of GWAWR’S car. GARETH and EMYR don’t wear seatbelts.

GWAWR You two okay back there? You’re awful quiet.

GARETH Yes Mam. (To EMYR.) Go on, what did she say?

EMYR Nothin’, she just ‘eld my ‘and…

GWAWR ‘Ow’s your Auntie Brenda, Emyr, after ‘er operation?

EMYR (Deadpan.) Fine thank you Mrs Hughes. (To Gareth.) Oh my

God, Gar, it was amazin’.

GARETH Is she a good kisser then?

EMYR Yeah, she fuckin’ a…

GWAWR (Loudly.) Emyr Thomas! Did I hear you swearing?

EMYR No Mrs Hughes! (Sniggers.)

GWAWR (Smiling.) Lucky for you I didn’t then, isn’t it?

Unrequited

Julie watched him run into another great defence line, bob on his toes like a cat and sail through the lot of them with the ball still in his hands. The whole school cheered and the sound made the hairs on her neck tingle as if from cold, and then he scored the try right between the posts. The cheering was now like a solid object, warming the pitch between the teams and Gethin was right in the middle of it, being carried like a blonde trophy on their shoulders.
His dimpled smile reached her and she waved, he blew a kiss and smiled even harder. Somehow that just made it worse that he wasn’t hers. She was desperate to just touch those small ears, press her nose into his dimpled cheek and have him press back. She had watched him so many times, observed how his hair changed colour from the back to the front; the short back of his hair was almost gold and ever so slightly curly, but when it came to the front, into that little quiff, it was a light brown shot through with more gold. His neat eyebrows were the same colour, but his eyelashes were dark brown and long like a girls’. Julie had imagined them sweeping down across her cheek so many times, imagined cupping that handsome face with her hands and kissing it. She sighed.
Last time he had stayed at her house after an argument with his Dad; she had dried his tears, made him tea and watched him off to sleep. She had curled her fingers through his hair, smoothed his forehead and gently rubbed his earlobes until she’d made tears of her own. She had felt so wretched about that beautiful boy sleeping in her bed that she had gone to sleep in the spare room with Mr Bear clutched to her chest, the little toy’s head wet through from crying.
The worst part was that he’d already told her he loved her, that she was the best friend he’d ever had. Julie hadn’t known being told something so lovely could hurt so damn much. She’d been that great friend though, looked after him and comforted him – made it through the day without longing for him, waiting for him to change. Another sigh as the crowd cheered again, she didn’t bother squinting to see where he was, she was already looking at him in her head; watching his long legs stride across the muddy field, perfect pink lips breathing white clouds out into the cold air.
Everyone thought they were going out with each other, even his parents. It was a small town and it wouldn’t do that the school’s star rugby player was actually gay; he should have a girlfriend who watched him play so he could blow kisses to her from the pitch. Julie stamped her feet against the autumn breeze, gazing up at the clouds and laughing silently; she hated watching rugby.

I call myself Daddy

I call myself Daddy
as I push him down the street.
We stop to buy apples and I let them
admire him, act proud when they say
he looks like his Dad.
I worked out the dates though
and there’s no way he’s mine,
I was in France, didn’t come back
that month. Couldn’t have done it,
not from France.
I think he knows, just three months
he knows, he’s a clever little thing.
We’ll wait, we will,
and soon we’ll go.