From Xenophon

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ A scene:
The floor now, all our hands, the cups -- all clean.

With garland blooms one servant crowns our heads;
The other passes perfume dish of myrrh.

With mixing bowl, the jar sits, wine honey-sweet
As its aroma, blossoms, in our midst.

Frankincense also scents the room, and see:
Springwater for the wine, fresh, pure and cold,

Sits close with cheese and honey; bread is gold;
And, on the altar, central, a bouquet.

Future Nostalgia

Thirty one days in Alef, Daleth,
Zayin, Yod and Mem,
Thirty one days in Ayin too
And Qof and Tav. And then?
All of the rest have thirty days,
But one year every five
There's three more days
For us all to play
Cause the leapfest has arrived!

(Trad.)

The Lucifer Cantos

With The Cosmic Dead:

Songs for the Devil and Death

A little good news in the shape of a Sekrit Projekt that can now be revealed, cause the contract's all signed and sent off: yes, after the bang-up job that Erzebet Yellowboy did with the limited editions of Sonnets for Orpheus and The Lucifer Cantos, I couldn't resist -- hell, I jumped at the chance -- when we started talking about the possibility of doing a full poetry collection as a trade edition.

So, yes, the schedule is as yet provisional, but early next year we're looking to offer a trade edition paperback, at the moment titled Songs for the Devil and Death. This'll bring together Sonnets for Orpheus and The Lucifer Cantos with pretty much all the stuff previously made available on the blog -- Heraclitus, Still Lives, The Fiddler and the Dogs -- with a good bit more besides. Like, a few sonnet sequences you haven't seen up here, but may have heard me perform live if yer in the Glasgow area, (yes, those sonnets, the filthy ones,) and my most recent long poem, "Wake," which is... pretty raw, I'd have to say.

Anyway, watch this space for further news. I'm really stoked to have an edition in the pipeline that's not just for the collector's market. As gorgeous as those hand-made limited editions are, I'm well chuffed at getting the work more widely available.

As you were.

Sonnets for Orpheus Audio Downloads

I'm doing a bit of tweaking of the blog template, thought I'd collate the links to these live readings so they don't take up so much space on the sidebar.

• Sonnets For Orpheus 01


• Sonnets For Orpheus 02


• Sonnets For Orpheus 03


• Sonnets For Orpheus 04


• Sonnets For Orpheus 05


• Sonnets For Orpheus 06


• Sonnets For Orpheus 07


• Sonnets For Orpheus 08


• Sonnets For Orpheus 09


• Sonnets For Orpheus 10


• Sonnets For Orpheus 11


• Sonnets For Orpheus 12

As you were.

Flions And Meep

I was round visiting my nephew, Jack, the other day (although actually, Jack isn't officially my 'nephew', but then I have no idea what a cousin's daughter's son is officially called, so fuck it, 'nephew' is good enough for me.), and I decided I really ought to put my writerly skills to some worthy use. And so, pen in hand, I started scribbling and came up with this rough draft. Now all I need is a couple of years practice to regain my adolescent art skills in order to do the illustrations.

You know, I dunno if it'd ever be publication quality, but something twisted in me really likes the idea of being a bitter, blasphemous booze'n'butts boy - no, not those kinda butts; I mean fags, ya filthy-minded fuckin - oh, wait a minute - that's ambiguous too, innit... ah, fuck it. Whatever. Where was I? Yes - of being a foul-mouthed absinthe fiend with a piece of big-eyelashed, candy-striped whimsy like this under his belt. Heh. So, anyway... presenting...

Flions And Meep

Snuggle up, boys and girls,
Cosy under your quilts
And I'll give you a secret to keep
Do you know what's outside,
Going bump in the night?
Let me tell you of Flions and Meep.

By the light of the moon
Like a silver balloon,
The Meep come out to play.
With a warm woolly fleece,
They think cheese is a feast.
Part mouse and part sheep are they.

Then the Rhiger comes charging,
A scary and large thing
With sharp teeth and claws and a horn!
Part tiger, part rhino,
I'm sure you and I know
Why Meep and them don't get along.

But the Rabbull's just funny,
Half bull and half bunny,
With horns and big ears that go flop.
But when it sees red
It’ll lower its head
And go boingedy boingedy BOP!

And then there's the Dat!
It’s part dog and part cat,
So it chases itself round and round.
It’ll run up a tree
And then down again - see? -
To bark at itself from the ground.

Now a smidgen of pigeon
And squirrel makes a Squidgeon,
And that's what they are, it appears.
With wings and a beak,
Bushy tail and a squeak,
All squidged in with wee fluffy ears.

The Giraphelants’ necks
Are as long as their legs
And their trunks go right down to the grass.
They’re like houses on stilts.
See them stagger and tilt,
As the herd of them go stomping past.

And look, what’s more!
See the Flions that roar
As they sweep, swoop and soar through the air.
What? Up in the sky?
A lion that flies?
I’ve never seen that before!

When the sun starts to rise
Though, they’re terribly shy
So they hide in the light of day.
But if you go to sleep
Then the Flions and Meep
Can come out in the moonlight and play.

Kouroi

More poetry. Bwah hah hah hah.

What can I say? Thing is, I'm working on Vol 4 of the Book Of All Hours now, the second and final volume of Part 2: Ink. Since the thematic structure of the whole thing is based on seasons and times of day, Vol 4 is basically Spring/Dawn. It's the time of morning hard-ons, of verdant greenery, when thoughts of young men turn to lust, the time of lush green vines and veins, of fairies dancing in the dew, fucking among the foxgloves, of... ahem.

Anyhoo, as something of a method writer I feel it's my artistic duty to "get into the mind-set" of what I'm writing about, is what I'm trying to say. Scotland in January isn't exactly the optimum location for doing this, I admit, but I'm doing my best. So apart from working on the novel, I've also spent the last week or so in a frenzy of generation, sprouts of novel ideas pushing up through the soil of my filthy mind. I just finished off a saucy/sick little story that investigates the sexual subtext of a certain classic children's novel. I may have to burn down Great Ormond Street Hospital before it can be published (Damn you, J.M. Barrie, with yer special Act Of Parliament!) but I had to write it.

Thing is, being in this febrile mindset, over the Christmas period I got to thinking about just how many heroes of myth were basically gay as a yellow duster, from Gilgamesh with his little furry fuckbuddy Enkidu onwards. I mean look at Achilles: boyfriend Patroclus gets killed, so Achilles slaughters Hector and drags his body round the gates of Troy ten times. Now that's what I call a hissy fit. You killed my boyfriend! You brute! You brute!

Anyway, the result was this:

Kouroi

I

Among narcissi, hyacinths and cypress trees
Pan teaches shepherd Daphnis how a pipe can please.
Here, let me show you... Lips purse, blow a tender breeze,
A touch of tasting breath, a gentle tease.

Eyes closed, Daphnis is blind as Thamyris who kissed
That flower of a boy doomed to Apollo's deadly disc.
His fingers, like Poseidon’s gaze on Pelops, trace the curve of white, so smooth -
A shoulder. On his foreskin he can feel the slip of tongue, the nip of tooth.

II

Now Dionysus minces by, parading girly-boys, hermaphrodites, Achilles in a dress,
An arm around Acoetes or Ampelus, round Laonis or Prosymnus, and a whisper, yes.
Apollo’s flirty eye follows Amyclas and Iapis, goes from Tymnius to Paros - my oh my -
There’s Potneius, Carneius, Phrobas - why, its Branchus, Troilus and Zacynthus - ai ai ai.

The demi-god Heracles shared some lovers with these wine
And sun gods, fucked Adonis and sweet Hymen,
But had Nestor and Abderus, Corythus and Haemon to himself,
Dryops, Eurystheus, Telamon... and God knows how many else.

Along with Chonus and Nireus, which proud Argonauts gave great Herakles peace?
With Elacatus and Polyphemus, was Jason naked on his golden fleece?
Did Euphemos, Admetus, Iphitos and Hylas snuggle to the lion’s skin?
Did Stychius get sticky, Philoctetes icky, or Iolaus, or sweet young Phrynx?

And high up in the sky, Zeus has his eagle-eye on Ganymede, planning abduction
Fuck, it seems like Hades is the only god not set on some young lad’s seduction.
Ah, but then... it was in his domain that Orpheus said, Never again!
Vowing from then to lose his head only for love of men.

III

So, more than lovers, less than brothers, maybe something deeper and more close
Glints in the armour of Achilles strapped to Patroklus, or in the clothes
Of Jonathon as David wears them, lifts a sleeve, a scent of sweat, up to his nose.
More than lovers; more than brothers? Or, like Castor and Pollux, both?

Perhaps its all just poets’ dreams from Horace and Catullus
Down to Whitman, Allan Ginsberg, William Burroughs.
Is it just the appetence of an Omar Khayyam, the leer of an Abu Nuwas,
Less Alexander and Hephaestion, more Rimbaud lusting after Verlaine’s ass?

Images Of Vellum And Ink

A Book Of Darkness

A Book Of Patches

- A book of hours, I said. Or a book of names. Nobody knows.

- Bullshit, said Joey. You’re making it up.

- Shut up, said Jack. I'm listening to this.

He slid the G’n’T across the table to me, handed Joey his Guinness and sat down in his own seat with his Ouzo, sniffed it with a wrinkle-nosed grin.

- Go on, he said.

A Book Of Fragments

A Book Of Gravings

- The Book Of All Hours, my father had said. Your grandfather went looking for it, but he never found it. He couldn’t find it; it’s a myth, a pipe-dream. It doesn’t exist.

A Book Of Names

A Book Of Angels

The Book of All Hours, the Benedictines called it, in the Middle Ages, believing it to be the Deus’s own version of some grand duke’s book of hours – those hour-by-hour and day-by-day, week-by-week and month-by-month tomes of ceremony and meditation...

A Book Of Secrets

A Book Of Cant

... inked by monks in lamplight, drawn in brilliant colours on vellum, pale but rich in tone, not bleached pure white but yellowed, brown, the colour of skin, of earth, of wood, old bone, of things that were all once alive.

A Book Of Surfaces

A Book Of Maps

Princes and kings would commission these books and they’d take years of hunched backs and cramped hands and fading eyesight to produce by hand.

A Book Of Images

A Book Of Reflections

It was said by the Benedictines that God himself commissioned such a tome from the one angel allowed to step beyond the veil and see his face and listen to his words, and write them down.

A Book Of Theories

A Book Of Changes

There was a Jewish scholar, Isaac ben Joshua, in Moorish Spain who said that the Book drove everyone who saw it crazy.

A Book Of Scraps

A Book Of Light

He referenced an Islamic source, a story saying that all but one solitary page were blank, and on that page there was only a single simple sentence, an equation which captured the very essence of existence.

A Book Of Shapes

A Book Of Sigils

This, he said, was why all those who’d ever looked upon the book had gone insane, unable to comprehend, unable to accept, the meaning of life laid out in a few words of mathematical purity.

A Book Of Signs

A Book Of Stories

A Book Of Languages

After what happened to Thomas, I remember thinking that I knew what that sentence was.

A Book Of Silences

The Book Of All Hours

Heraclitus

I'm becoming more and more aware of this blog becoming more and more sporadic with the passing weeks. And what with trying to finish the second novel, do the revisions on the first, have a social life, and sleep every once in a while... I've decided to start throwing in a few stop-gap entries here and there to tide any audience I might have over. To that end, I thought I'd post up my Scots verse translation / arrangement of the existing fragments of Heraclitus.

Yeah, that's right. Verse. As in poetry. What? Ye got a fuckin problem with that?

Anyhoo, here goes:

Heraclitus

I
It wid be wise tae listen
No ti me but tae ma Word's division,
Showing each accordin tae its kind,
Things us they ur. Maist pay no mind
Tae who they find things us they ur;
They make nae sense u thur sensations,
Simply follyin their ain beliefs.
It isnae right tae act and speak like men asleep.
E'en the posset - curdled milk wi beer or
Wine an spice - ull separate unstirred.
It wid be wise tae listen,
No ti me but tae ma Word.
*
All things ur wan we should admit -
Wan an the same,
The straight an crooked path uf carding wheel,
Wan an the same,
The up an doon ways uf a hill.
In the circumference ae a circle
The beginning an the end ur shared.
*
This Word is true forever,
But is unnerstood as little when
First heard as if heard never.
E'en though a' thit occurs
Is in accordance wi this Word,
Men, unaware u whit they dae
Awake, forgetting whit they dae
In sleep, act like this is a new
Sense tae them, hauldin court on all
The words an deeds that ah set forth
An bringing witnesses uf nae repute
Oot in support ae points that they dispute.
*
The eyes make better witnesses than ears,
But eyes an ears ur baith false witnesses
Tae men wi souls that dinnae know thur tongue.
The fools hear like the deif, no
Knowin who tae listen, dumb:
Absent when present, the accusin axiom.
Let us no guess about the greatest things;
Dogs bark at whit they dinnae know.
*
II
Men that love wisdom must know much indeed.
If knowing much could teach, though, unnerstaunin, then
Pythagoras and Hesiod,
Hecataeus and Xenophanes
All should huv kent.
Hesiod's teacher u maist men -
So sure he knew so much ur they -
Who didnae know that night and day
Ur one. Pythagoras, son u Mnesarchus,
Wi the scientific inquiry he practiced,
Surpassed a' other men, and then,
Selecting oot u whit was penned,
Claimed fur his wisdom only such,
This knowledge u this much. Prince u pretence!
*
An' Homer? Homer should be ripped
Fae a' the lists an whipped like Archilochus.
C'z he wis wrang in sayin, Would
That war might disappear from gods and men!
He didnae see that he was prayin
Fur the universe's end.
C'z if his prayer wur heard,
A' things wid cease ti be.
War is the faither and the king ae a',
Makin the gods, the men, the slaves, the free.
*
We huv tae know that war is shared
And conflict justice, that a' things
Come intae life and die through strife.
Men dinnae realise noo just who
Whit is in conflict actually is consensus,
In a harmony uf opposites, uf tensions,
Like the bow, the lyre.
Although its work is death, the biós ae the bow
Is bíos, life. Men wouldnae know
The name u Justice if it wisnae so.
*
In Priene, said Bias, son
Uf Teutamus, u mair account
Than a' the rest, Most men are bad.
But wan is worth ten thousand ti
Me, ah say, if he be the best.
Still, the physicians cut an burn
An stab, an rack the sick, demand
A fee fur it they don't deserve.
It is a weariness to work
Fur the same masters, work an serve.
*
III
The mysteries men practice ur profane.
If it wur no fur Dionysus that they march,
They wid be acting wi'oot shame,
Singin this hymn tae phallus. Hades is the same
As Dionysus in whose honour they gaw wild an rave.
Night-walkers. Magi, Bacchii, Lenai - these
Initiates a' defiled, they try in vain
Ti purify themselves, bathin in blood,
As, efter steppin doon intae the sewer,
They thought tae wash thur feet in mud.
*
An, knowing no the nature uf
A hero or a god they pray -
If any marked 'm doing this, they'd say
He's lost his heid - tae icons! - as if one
Should talk tae a man's hoose: Rise and become
The wakeful watchers u the quick and deid!
The fool's heart flutters at each word,
Wisdom unknown beciz they lack belief.
The maist renowned u them kens but conceits,
And thinks them sound. Yet this is true:
A' these false witnesses
An architects u lies,
These Justice shall outdo.
*
Hang these Ephesians, every adult man
And lea' the city ti the beardless child!
Fur Hermodorus, the best man
U them, wi' these words, they've exiled:
We will have no-one best among us;
If there's any so, let him go
Elsewhere, be so among others.
Whit thought or wisdom dae they own?
They folly poets, take the mob
As mentor. Naw, they dinnae know
That thur ur many bad, few good.
Only the best u them would choose
Wan thing above a' thit they could,
Tae be immortal among mortals, feted;
Maist u them, meanwhile, like beasts ur sated.
*
Although ah know it's difficult
When we relax ower a drink,
It's best tae hide ur folly. Though
Ur sodden souls ur jolly, blind,
The drunk trips on his sodden soul;
Led by a beardless boy, he strolls
Whuriver. Wiser wits ur dry.
We must extinguish ur debauchery,
Mair so thun ony hoose oan fire.
It isnae good to get a' that we'd like;
But it is hard tae wrestle wi yer heart's desire.
To purchase whit it prizes, it pays wi yer psyche.
*
IV
Wisdom is a solitary thing,
That will and will not be ca'ed Zeus.
Unlike the way u the divine,
The way u man, child tae the god -
As child's way tae a man - lacks truth.
Compared tae the divine,
The wisest man is jist an ape,
Jist as an ape u beauty
Is grotesque beside mankind.
Men say this thing is wrang and that thing right.
Ti the divine a' things are right and gid and just.
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
*
Ah huv sought fur mahsel; ye willnae find,
Whichever way, the limits u the mind,
The measure uf it is so wide.
Uf a' whose discourse ah huv heard, though, there's
No one comes claise tae unnerstaunin this:
That Wisdom stauns apart fae a', aside,
A solitary thing. The thunderbolt u lightning guides
The courses uf a' things, but ah am yet ti hear:
It is tae know the thought bae which
A' things, through everything, ur steered.
*
They things that cin be seen an heard
An learned as wisdom are ma prize,
Then; seekin gold, we dig up earth,
An find only a little - nothin
If ye don't expect tae be surprised,
C'z it is hard. Man's nature is his fate -
Tae be sought oot an difficult.
Nature loves tae hide. It scatters
And it gathers, rests by changin;
It advances an retires.
*
Each day jist like each other,
We baith step and dinnae step
Intae the self-same river;
Ur and urnae;
An the sun is new each day.
We cannae step twice intae the same river;
Fur the waters flow fresh over and they flow forever.
*
V
Wi bitter vetches fur thur food,
The oxen ur content; the ass
Wid raither huv its straw than gold;
Pigs wallow in thur excrement,
Delightin in the mire, as fowls
In barnyard dust. The water, pure an foul -
The sea: Fish drink it an they thrive;
Men cannae drink it an survive.
*
Disease is the reason gid health pleases;
Evil makes the gid the better, best.
Wealth is defined by want, while - as
A' beasts, wi blows are driven ti pasture -
Whit we find in weariness is rest.
It is the contrary that gies us gain;
Gid and evil ur wan an the same.
So the divine is day an night,
Winter an summer, peace an war,
Glut an hunger - cold things become warm;
The arid is made damp. A' thit is hot
Cools down. A' thit is wet dries up.
Things as they ur, ur hail and no hail in duality,
United an divided in dissent an harmony.
*
The wan is made up uf a' things,
An a' things issue fae the wan.
It takes this form or that, as fire,
Spiced with incense, takes its names
Accordin to the scents uf each perfume.
And if a' things tae smoke wur turned,
The nostrils u souls sniffin in
The underworld would still discern
It fae the fumes: The carcass
Should be dumped as animal shit.
Mortals immortal, immortals mortal;
Each wan lives the other's death, deid in their life.
C'z, tae a soul, death is fluidity,
As death tae flux is tae become firm form.
But fluid force comes from firm form,
And from the fluid, soul is born.
*
This world, which is the same fur a',
Nae single god or man has made;
But it wis then, and shall forever be
As noo, the fire of eternity.
Ignitin here, there burnin oot,
Fire lives the death uf air, and air
The death u fire. Fire changes first
Tae flux - the sea, half uf it form,
Half storm, flux lives the death u form,
Form that u flux. Liquid fluidity,
The sea dissolves, measures as much
Again as once, before it wis the earth.
A' things, like goods for gold or gold
For goods, are an exchange for fire,
And fire fur a' things. Want and surplus,
Fire judges and condemns all in its progress.
*
VI
The wakin have wan world they share;
The sleepin turn aside, each into their
Ain world in the night. Dead and alive,
Then, fur thur sel's, they spark a light.
The sleepin man, whose vision is
Extinguished, fae the dead ignites
As he thit wakes lights up fae those
Asleep. Just as in slumber a'
We sense is sleep, a' that we sense
When we're awake is death. But those asleep
Are also workers in the world's events.
It is the same thing in us, this that's quick or deid.
Awakened or asleep, the old or young;
The first shift an become the last.
The last shift an become the first, in turn.
*
Thales predicts - as seasons bring a' things,
Each thirty years a generation - an eclipse.
The constellation u the Bear
Delimits dawn an dusk, an, there,
Facin the Bear, shining an bright,
Ye see the boundary u Zeus?
Though wi nae sun it wid be night -
Though a' the other stars try as they might -
The sun'll never dauner oot u bounds,
For if he did he wid be found
Oot by the virgin hounds u Justice,
The Erinyes. It is law.
How can ye hide fae that which never sets?
*
It is law, also, tae obey the laws u one.
C'z a' our human laws a' come
Fae this wan law uf the divine,
Prevailin as it will, a' things
Sufficin fur, wi much tae spare.
The people's law must be defended, though,
Like city wa's. We must haud fast,
Speakers u wisdom, tae these things we share,
As cities haud fast tae thur law, and wi mair care.
As gods an men honour all those who're slain
In battle, greater deaths win greater gain.
So we must follow whit we share.
Yet many live, although ma Word is shared,
As if thur wisdom wus just their's and,
Fae the common, universal, constant
Touch u wisdom, they stay distant.
*
The lord who rules the oracle
At Delphi shows his meanin by a sign,
No declarin or disguisin:
There await men when they die things
That they don't desire or dream of.
Newborn, we a' wish tae live an meet our dooms -
Or rather rest - lea'ing ur ain newborn
Behind tae meet thur dooms in turn.
The Sibyl wi her raving lips,
Though, utters her words stripped uf
A' gaudy decorative noise,
Nae mirth or perfume; wi her voice,
She reaches - a' due tae the god within -
She reaches through a thoosan years...
Time is a wean, playin draughts,
The power ae a king in a wean's grasp.

Kouroi

I

Among narcissi, hyacinths and cypress trees
Pan teaches shepherd Daphnis how a pipe can please.
Here, let me show you... Lips purse, blow a tender breeze,
A touch of tasting breath, a gentle tease.

Eyes closed, Daphnis is blind as Thamyris who kissed
That flower of a boy doomed to Apollo's deadly disc.
His fingers, like Poseidon’s gaze on Pelops, trace the curve of white, so smooth
- A shoulder. On his foreskin he can feel the slip of tongue, the nip of tooth.

II

Now Dionysus minces by, parading girly-boys, hermaphrodites, Achilles in a dress,
An arm around Acoetes or Ampelus, round Laonis or Prosymnus, and a whisper, yes.
Apollo’s flirty eye follows Amyclas and Iapis, goes from Tymnius to Paros - my oh my -
There’s Potneius, Carneius, Phrobas - why, its Branchus, Troilus and Zacynthus - ai ai ai.

The demi-god Heracles shared some lovers with these wine
And sun gods, fucked Adonis and sweet Hymen,
But had Nestor and Abderus, Corythus and Haemon to himself,
Dryops, Eurystheus, Telamon... and God knows how many else.

Along with Chonus and Nireus, which proud Argonauts gave great Herakles peace?
With Elacatus and Polyphemus, was Jason naked on his golden fleece?
Did Euphemos, Admetus, Iphitos and Hylas snuggle to the lion’s skin?
Did Stychius get sticky, Philoctetes icky, or Iolaus, or sweet young Phrynx?

And high up in the sky, Zeus has his eagle-eye on Ganymede, planning abduction
Fuck, it seems like Hades is the only god not set on some young lad’s seduction.
Ah, but then... it was in his domain that Orpheus said, Never again!
Vowing from then to lose his head only for love of men.

III

So, more than lovers, less than brothers, maybe something deeper and more close
Glints in the armour of Achilles strapped to Patroklus, or in the clothes
Of Jonathon as David wears them, lifts a sleeve, a scent of sweat, up to his nose.
More than lovers; more than brothers? Or, like Castor and Pollux, both?

Perhaps it's all just poets’ dreams from Horace and Catullus
Down to Whitman, Allan Ginsberg, William Burroughs.
Is it just the appetence of an Omar Khayyam, the leer of an Abu Nuwas,
Less Alexander and Hephaestion, more Rimbaud lusting after Verlaine’s ass?