Henry and Sex

Henry the Bruiser, with muscles on his elbows, took to anal penetration like a kipper to water, grateful but late; he feared the social side and always felt a longing, whatever the dildo, a scarcely definable longing that led him dimensionally speaking through the gamut, the whole catalogue of mortally crafted penetrative devices, even the novelty items. No length nor girth nor knobble, no jazzy composition of vibrations could bring him any comfort, any certitude. With heavy heart but an almost admirable single-mindedness, Henry resolved to craft himself the ultimate phallic companion with diesel-powered vibrations; he used the finest, most rarefied latex, a mould scaled up from the finest from Shergar’s bloodline, and he spent some seven years building and perfecting this most glorious erection. When the scaffolding came down it stood, in all its meticulous detail, at ninety-seven feet in height to the inch and a good twelve feet in diameter at its thickest point. When he swallowed it whole he could never have said where it touched him, but it most certainly felt like Heaven.

Dick Knockers, Sex Detective. Chapter 1.

Dick thoughtfully packed his trunk. Every assignment presented unique challenges and this case was no different. Predictably he would need clothes. But what sort he wondered. He checked the BBC five day forecast and packed some woolly sweaters. Glasgow was particularly cold this week.

Dick slammed his door and swooped his coat on his way out. He'd spent a good hour in the shop test driving coats to ensure the perfect swoop. Finally he had settled for an ex-navy great coat. He liked the epilettes.

The train journey gave him the opportunity to put his mind in order. He thought back to the can of lager, the sofa in his living room and the FA cup final and the phone call that made him miss the winner.

The Chimneys of Orthodox Churches

The Chimneys of Orthodox Churches
March Larch & Birch over me
In production lines
its crooks with Salts of the Earth
& clogs its pews with incense or slate.

Dynamo spat out Virgins with Children with Halos
Make a stark, (old) contrast with me,
Especially when they're dimly lit.
Unfolding my arm at my elbow I could brush one.

But I wouldn't: I'm choking on inscence
At the part where the 2/4 thumps.
And you weren't round that corner I pictured
Only concrete. on grey. on ground.

I wonder which tomb they'll think suits me,
I wonder what song they'll all sing
As I'm coughed out of Orthodox Chimneys
With Beeswax cloying my wings?

I Hope My Darling's Phone's OK

I really miss that boy. I wish he loved me. There’s nothing I can do though, I’ve already sent him a message today. Maybe I can just call him and not say anything and hang up. But he’ll know it’s me, it comes up on the phone. Damn mobiles. It’s ok, I’ll just:
He picks up “Hello?”
I wait one and a half speech turns. I say “Hello?” I say “Hello?”
“Hi Nora? Hello?”
which I overlap with “Hello? Steven? Can you hear me?”
“Hello yes. Can you hear me?”
“Hello?” I say. I hang up and he looks at his phone as if it’s gone odd. His voice is beautiful.

Empire Burlesque

Writ drunk.

I’ve long admired at least some of the songs on Empire Burlesque in the same manner as I’ve admired anything else by Bob; “I’ll Remember You” and “Dark Eyes” have always struck me in particular. My trouble with the album as a whole was always the production; “Never Be the Same Again” was a major offender, having once driven me, while listening on headphones, into the very depths of The Fear, necessitating a two hour walk into The Field.

Time, and my switching of principal mind-altering substance to wine, have conspired to take the edge off my unwillingness to so much as countenance what my demons still call ‘80s production. Truth, though, as I see it, is that an awful lot of it’s awful shite, but that tends to be when coupled with poor musicianship and/or a lack of imagination, roots and, for want of a better word for there is no better word, soul.

Soul is the key word here; soul in the broad sense of the realness of intent and performance, and soul in the sense of the musical idiom that goes by that name. This is nothing wholly new to Dylan, his two albums with Jerry Wexler being cases in point, but it was Empire Burlesque where he immersed himself fully in secular soul waters, writing songs with the vocabulary of Smokey Robinson and Holland-Dozier-Holland. “Emotionally Yours”, covered memorably by The O’Jays is perhaps the best example of this, along with “I’ll Remember You”, but I urge you to listen to “Trust Yourself” and The Staple Singers’ “Respect Yourself” in the same sitting; the production on the former is perhaps not wholly sympathetic to the intended feel, but there can be no doubting the nod to the latter, albeit in a concoction that is one part empowerment to twenty-seven parts bitter cynicism.

There is on the album a bona fide stab at stadium rock in the form of “When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky” (a fine song a rendition of which with the E. Street Band I would more often than not prefer to hear), and a handful more fairly straight rockers (the best of which is “Seeing the Real You At Last”, a song that it didn’t take me too long to appreciate, and that I’ve dug fully since the Fleadh Festival of 2004), and then of course there’s the acoustic “Dark Eyes”. The overall feel, though, and not only in the overtly soul-inflected numbers, is of Soul Music, that finest of pop forms. A return to Muscle Shoals with Jerry Wexler and his people, and a shade or two of the glorious, dirty, dense, frantic sound of Street Legal (pop’s most underrated album if I’m the judge) might very well have improved Empire Burlesque; that said, it’s a solid album devoid of bad songs and with plenty of truly grand ones.

Further Notes writ immediately afterwards:

N.B. Revise to make reference to “Seeing the Real You At Last” [I did that]

Also the abhorrent album cover… It’s Ian McLagan’s shirt, but that doesn’t explain the jacket or the graphic design; God couldn’t explain the jacket or the graphic design.

Five minutes after completing this mini-essay, I feel compelled to refute the suggestion that Empire Burlesque was Bob’s first full immersion in soul, even secular soul – Street Legal surely trumps that – Changing of the Guards, Baby Stop Crying, True Love… I think the argument still carries water, but needs refining – clarification regarding song (specifically lyric) structure… E.Y. and I.R.Y less ‘wordy’, though still very much Bob… though even that’s spurious… I’m talking shite, frankly, though I stand by most of it – it’s a fine album, sure, but probably the main reason I wrote about Empire Burlesque rather than Street Legal is the complexity of my feelings regarding the latter, a truly great album the importance of which to myself I can’t currently express…

But listen to Empire… it’s tasty…

Please, fellow Bobcats, I know what I wanted to say here but tied myself up in knots – mercy! If you can fill in any gaps in my thoughts, don’t hesitate to do so – you may know my mind better than I do. In fact, I’m sure that you do.

Who KNOWS how to look at their own name objectively!?! (a boast)

Who knows how to look at their own name objectively!?!
Well I do. More than a couple of weeks ago Ian and I were in my bar quite drunk when somehow (I would have prompted it, you know what I’m like) Ian said “Emily Pear!” and I finally saw how ridiculous my surname really is and it sounded like the newest thing I had ever heard.

Jack said there's too much fiction on here and not enough..well....non-fiction

About a minute ago I was lying on my bed thinking about what to write down, with my face turned away from my cat, who had his front feet on my hip. I knew it was my cat there but suddenly he started to touch my right hand in a way that felt so much like a giant bumblebee that for a moment I was convinced and frightened like a nightmare.

Frank and Fish

Old Frank the fisherman was always brimming over with his tales of aquatic heroism. There was the time he wrestled an octopus that had hold of some damsel or another. Then there was the time he clobbered a hammer-head shark. Usually I’d just nod and smile, but there was one evening I felt a touch mischievous.

“Frank,” I said, “What I want to know is, have you ever been involved in a battle of any sort with a Great White?”

Frank looked startled, “Oh, Heavens!” he said, fingers twitching nervously at his pint, “Sure, I’d have more sense than that!”

“I see,” said I, “Well, I suppose it’s a different mettle of fish.”

Old Frank was crestfallen.

Dead Grass

Fitz was to gardening what a pathologist is to the healthcare professions. Susan was unquaveringly enthusiastic, though fickle as to the object of her attentions. She was young. It was late spring and the last of the healthy young birds were fledging. Some eggs lay cold, useless and abandoned. The flowers near the house were flourishing to varying degrees, but the lawn was dead. Susan’s family made the necessary calls, and Fitz duly arrived. His reputation, an estimable one, preceded him, and not undeservedly so.

There was little he could do, he said, given how late it was in the season, but he instructed them well for the next year. He looked at Susan, a little wistfully. She was pretty. He accepted payment graciously and headed home, his working day being over.

Susan is old now, and Fitz is dead.

Bitter words

Johan sighed. "Remember Spain?"

"Ah yes," replied Matilda from his lap "the beach".

"I was drowning and you didn't even know I was in the water".

"I was looking at the sun loungers".

A Paragraph

And I tried to hide the cracks in our marriage; spraying air freshener to cover the lazy smell of marijuana that lingered in the air of our living room. It was clear to us both that our love had none of the complacency of our eager first love. We had 3 years of marriage behind us and we both knew they had been too hard.

Thunder

Thunder rumbles gratefully
The deluge begins
A grey sky pours itself out
Hoping to be blue come morning.

Thicket 39

RATS

Thicket 39

GRAVY 2003

Founded by Dr Herschel Rat in 1142, Rats has for generations crafted scintillating and award-winning gravies. The Thicket gravies “tick all the boxes”, if you will, when it comes to Dr Rat’s philosophy of selecting the very best grapes from premium gravy regions. Remember – if you can still see come dawn, it isn’t really gravy. Now is it?

Toadstools are used to guarantee freshness.

Gravy Style: a three-bodied, unbalanced gravy with crab and thistle aromas, and a tubercular aftertaste.

Enjoy With: raw meat dishes and great caution.

Serve at body temperature.

The Boatman: Part Three of Three

With a full mind to throwing herself body and soul into the river that would be her grave, the young woman flew into a bitter despair and flung her pouch, tearing its strap, at the silt of the shore. It burst open, spilling all that was in it; coins were hurled into the reeds, others hit dry ground and rolled; gems and jewels, gold and silver lay scattered all around. Her poems fluttered in the slightest of breezes and her sketches of Spain grew blotched with the damp. Her attention was nowhere, but Jones looked keenly at this conflagration of beads and personal effects. His gaze was drawn immediately to near the very centre of the spread.

Had she been looking in this instant, she would not perhaps have understood its meaning, but the crisp, clear, solar gleam of the apple could not have escaped her notice. Indeed, when she did turn in the midst of her pain, she froze, despite herself, in a scarcely witting wonder. She had picked that apple, or an apple from the usual tree, and placed it with her bread and cheese as had become habitual; it was lunch. She made no sound nor moved for long enough to find her mind empty of thought when next she knew where she was.

“I believe you asked for passage?” said the boatman.

She said nothing.

“If your hunger can resist that particular portion of your meal,” and there was no need for him to gesture towards the apple, nor did he, “Then I shall allay your… worries, and take you aboard.”

She still said nothing, but turned to look at him, eyes wide and open.

“It won’t be a direct trip,” he warned, “As that payment would be too great for a simple river-crossing. But the return journey will be assured, should you wish for it. And yes, you can reach the other side, though I can’t guarantee a precise timeframe; there’ll be plentiful wine where we’ll be going, and so you shall certainly have the means to pay. It’s a feast, see?” he intoned what was almost a request.

She assented wordlessly, moving towards the boat. She grasped the apple, the light of which made even the copper coins shine in constellations. Everything else she left, without a thought to picking it up.

“And please,” said the boatman, “Call me Jones.”

Beat (abridged)

This is a heart…
It’s got this beat… as you can see it consists of four main compartments and this beat… to the left of it we can find an executed sprawl of vessels arriving and departing about it.
It moves frequently, periodically and when it doesn’t we’ll be atoned. (Otherwise, we’ll presume that it’s still got that beat.)
It doesn’t look anything like those hearts you see in shops, the shape cakes are made into, the ones Saint Valentine coos over. They parade as hearts though, ‘coz that’s what they are: Symbols of cardiac muscle in cardiac sac. But more importantly, for the card industry, symbols of Love.
When this age old association began, between one organ and our most analysed emotion, is unclear though I suspect it was the Romans. I’m sure many will disagree, but an organ in both appearance and function is far from romantic and, kinda, bereft of passion- imagine a bloody, bloody heart with a filthy beat being tied with a bow and given to you. Perhaps with a kiss and an apology or left secretly on your doorstep or in some cases backing up an impromptu proposal.
Maybe, pre anatomy the heart really did harbour love and hate, it probably did look like the ones fluffy bears hold but that isn’t what made me ask the question.
I feel Love in my Guts, some skin, these achin’ bones and, now and then, the back of my head. But in the heart? Not that I know of. Even if it were all in the heart, the consumer version lacks the only bit of the heart that could keep ardour & fervour. It doesn’t have that beat.