A word by the author

This is the opening extract from my new book, which is still under construction. It is called The Church of Plenty. It is a comedy/drama set in northern England, about a poet/preacher/drug dealer at a ‘New Age’ church who gets into a tussle with a young aspiring actor who wants to get away from his home town and forge his own career. The young man saves the life of the preacher’s drunken friend, but the man somehow believes that he was assaulted and robbed, rather than saved.

1. Flocking unbelievable

Tony Vickers sized up his flock with big bright eyes that suggested love or violence. The fact that no one was prepared to take a chance to find out which, was evidence enough of Tony’s capacity for rage. His eyes were whirling lava pits, molten white and angry, callous, brooding, savage, attractive and ripe to change the world. When he spoke, it was as if some beautiful antidote had seeped from his moist red mouth to counteract the brutal poison spitting from his eyes. For a joyous moment, the flock was transfixed to every smallest swishy movement of the eyelashes of their God, Tony, on the stage at The Church of Plenty. Seventy three percent of them believed he was a God in Jeans -modern, fresh and down here among us, doing his thing directly, cutting out the Middle man, so to speak. Tony raised his hands, one to each side of his head, slightly above and in front of him. He curled his finger-ends inwards and grinned a wide white smile, as if he was poised to draw down every ounce of gravity into the ends of his fingers. He imagined they were fleshy lightning conductors, designed to pull the energies of the universe into that room, there and then, for the good use of humanity and for his own aching need to feel relevant and alive. He jerked the hands downwards and formed them into fists. He grinned aggressively and jolted the fists lower. He nodded. The flock was spellbound. He was ready to begin. “Life is hard, but not as hard as it could be. Life is soft, but not so soft that you can roll it onto its belly and tickle it to Holy Hell. Life is keen, but it is not overly enthusiastic. Life will get you, but don’t let that stop you from chasing it down the road with a big red carving knife you bought especially for the occasion of creating your own living space, free from the interference of airwaves barking with dog-tired messages of fuck you very much. Life is flatulent and alarming, but the stink of fresh air and oblivion is more intoxicating than a million hundred fake invitations to the party you can never gatecrash. Life is live and sweaty, but it will lick itself clean. Life is sane but testing, and you may stagger through a deep green forest thick with echoing chortles of animals in the distance, whose winter songs are better than all the compilation albums they created to keep you amused from now until the end of whenever you want to call it quits. Life is verse and self-importance, because if you don’t matter, why would anything? Life is guilty survival in flawed and golden mornings. There is no other life but this. Observe and be killed; participate and be damned. Life is desperate for you to make it count; it hates you for inactivity and it may choose to reward you for absolutely zero. If you could choose another life, where would it be and what would you do with it? Would you make it better than this life here? I am sure you would, and you are sure you won’t. Do not sit on the fence that is never mended. Perfection is broken. Machines must fail. Escalators need rest too. And nothing matters and everything counts. You hate me for saying it and I don’t know why I’m saying it. Dare. Do. Die. Totality is all that counts. Individual words have no meaning outside the sentence where they live. They can kill me as many times as they want. I will laugh and die, but always rise again. We must surf right through these kingdoms we can never own. Hang ten in the face of Lord high waves. Cut back through the pretentious rolling water. If you really ought to, be the author of your own destruction. Go down swinging, go down singing. Life is minging, but it is not a sentence to be served, just a sentence to be written. It is a binded book full of white blank pages. Dip into your inkwell – make your life a big bestseller, before you fade to yellow.”

2. Candy Floss

The family man’s face was contorted with agony and hatred. He had never hated anyone in his life, and he gave the impression that he was appalled by his own weakness in succumbing to the emotion. No matter how fleeting it might be, it was real and he had felt it. He hated that vicar. He hated him more than all the worst regimes in history who have hated the world and its weary, happy people. The family man’s wife stroked his thick grey locks and shared his pain. “How could he? I mean, how does this happen, in this day and age?” he quietly screamed. His wife rubbed the back of his neck and shook her head. “It happened because it is this day and age. Remember what Lynn said the other week?” “About what?” “She said that people always talk about the modern world, about progress, about how new and special everything is, but they don’t realize that the world is getting older at the same time. Isn’t that a paradox or something? What’s so modern about ageing?” “What’s that got to do with the Vicar calling my mum Ethel Parkinson instead of Emma Parkinson? How the Hell does a recently deceased woman end up being sent to eternity by some guy who can’t even get her name right?” “He made a mistake,” she said, soothingly. “A bad one, I’ll admit. I suppose there’s no excuse. But he’s old too.” The family man backed away from his wife. “He’s a fucking professional isn’t he? If he’s too old for the job then he shouldn’t be doing it. And who do you complain to about this sort of thing? Do I write a letter to God or something?…. Excuse me Big Chief, but your middle men are bloody useless. Maybe you ought to be working a bit harder on the nuts and bolts of your organization down here, but I guess you’re up there, so it doesn’t matter does it?” His wife realized he was inconsolable. She sighed and rubbed her face awkwardly. Some moments afford no bridge link of emotion between the closest of people; there are moments of utter loneliness that no special relationship can soothe. The realization of this made her feel sad for both of them – as individuals, unable to connect across the wide gulf streams of life, even if it was only temporary. She gazed at the new funeral party, jostling with the leftover mourners from their party, who had refused to be rushed on and out, just because there was no breathing space in the schedule. She could feel the tension from thirty metres away. The vicar stood aloof. He wrung his hands, smiling awkwardly. He could no more control the rhythm and tempo of society than a drunken shepherd can guide a flock of chickens home to roost. He was a middle man without a firm middle, all sagged and weak in the face of Time’s hard progress – as the mourners collided with each other like candy floss punters maneuvering near a seaside Rollercoaster ride. There was a larger process at work guided by Death’s uncomfortable hand. Deep down, everyone wanted to slip away back to their cosy castles, far from the dreaded headstones. In death there is no organization, only chaos masquerading as utter calm. Nobody could summon the strength to complain. And when the day was dark again and new babies screamed under the rising sun, nobody would think about complaining – they would only shrug, smile and do their best to keep on living.

3. Timing of the Lord

Tim Jordan looked good for a mourner. In the midst of death, he was life. He was five resurrections back-to-back, with a scorching guitar solo behind every one. All the girls noticed it; that gift of cool. And in the midst of collective grief, the chemicals of living attraction blazed around that small chapel, like uncontrollable molecules from a manic science experiment; anarchic blobs of love passion, invisible but tangible. Two sisters whispered to each other and smiled at Tim. He was blessed. But his head was bowed. His face was sadder than a street portrait of a failed life that came and went anonymously through the happy throng of humanity. He did not have a clue how ‘to do’ grief. All he could do was feel the loss. The vicar stepped up to the plate to swing his Biblical bat. He could sense another home run for his Lord and master – every new death was a fantastic recruitment opportunity. God did not need to advertise, he only had to relieve the customers of one of their own and they would soon come flocking. This was a honey day for the Lord, and the vicar knew it. Just a shame he never knew… “Derek Jordan. Our dearly departed friend.” “I think you mean Dennis Jordan,” an angry voice shouted. “Excuse me, yes, Dennis, please forgive me.” A double lightning strike. A forked light pattern flashed through his mind’s eye, intensely bright yellow, blinding migraine streaks of gold oblivion; a hurricane brewed in the shadows of his eyes and sucked a blow storm through the back of his eyeballs; he could see the wind carrying off people, houses, animals, into the distance – cows and sheep upended, rotating through a black cloud funnel. He sighed and sagged and puffed for breath. He stepped back from the plate and wiped his brow. The entire congregation swirled about him; their faces twisted and blurred, like funhouse freaks in convex mirrors spinning through a hypnotic wheel corridor. The lightning streaked again as the tornado tore up the grey fabric from the corridors of his brain – exploding squares of carpet ghosting down his neural highways, past the high pylons that had powered his life thus far. Now they cascaded in a deafening metallic pile-up. The neurons fizzed and popped. The vicar clutched his head. His heart skipped and slowed, sped up again and halted. He gave a whimsical look and sagged to the floor. Here was Death’s ringmaster, reduced to a circus clown. As the crowd rushed forward to help the nearly departed vicar, Tim Jordan sat and prayed for something. Only he did not know what it was. He was praying for a prayer. The poor vicar had not deserved his fate. Two faux pas was not tantamount to an eternal red card from the field of play; that was the last thought that struck him, just before his last breath entered his head.

screams of her blonde summary.

Cathedral

blonde curtains

wear feminine folds

dyed by open window’s

categorical blonde light. 

Fleur-de-lys

brown, caged in blonde,

heavy-torn wallpaper.  Rarity

in the farthest corner,

red rocking chair

holds the L of the sitting,

blond-haired woman.  Such

the contrast, her blond

elongated strands of necessary flair,

dangling in braided esoteric

conversation, lying beneath

screams of canary’s scolding

famine.

Where those barbaric ways and civilization,
As I knew them have sunk?
Is it true , Lief, found Vineland
At the fifty-sixth parallel,
And my “enlightenment” will come?

Wearing, like Polo, I must venture out!
Waving new ideas and the wares to improve mine…
Navigation from this point forward!
O’ Prince Henry would be proud!

Cabotage around in a Cape of Good Hope
And discover a New World!… Columbus!
Cortez may invade me, but, here I am
Already in Saint Augustine!

Converting me to Catholicism isn’t an issue,
Besides, my heart is in good shape…
Although, the taxation is still high!

Where is New Amsterdam?
– This Dutch wants to know!
I’ll inhale Mayflower like a Pilgrim,
Accepting gladly, the adventure,
But I know… I know… The Sugar Act has to go!

Thank God the Red coats were vanquished,
The Intolerable Acts were declared unconstitutional,
I continue… but the Declaration of Rights
And Grievances never helped anyone!

Paine has common sense… and my pen praises
The Zinger Trial and Ben… So, I write!
They had their Tom to indite their Declaration!
I have a Tom, on MySpace,(*) to carry mine…
Not to mention, Matt on Authorsden! (**)

No battles in my Bunker Hill, and, this bitter winter
forges over, newer valleys, yet I’m facing
another Shay’s Rebellion… The coinage system at work…
Asking, “How much do I weigh?”
No!… “How much do I owe?”
A Three-Fifths Compromise is at hand,
Walla! I’m figuring into a checks and balance system!
Oh!… and Obama is my President!

(*) – MySpace is an online community where you can share your photos, journals, poetry and any other interests with a growing network of mutual friends! www.MySpace.com

(**) – Matt: – Matthew Miller is the president and founder of AuthorsDen.com. “Where authors and readers come together…”

Copyright 2009 Kimmy Van Kooten

The building of faith is done
        in mustard domes.
The colour of faith is gold.

The shape of my faith
        lacks hard edges.

The smell of faith is incense.
        And choked,

I’m reminded that old truths

trump hip young orthodoxy.

(C) Rishi Dastidar

death came

so quickly

so elegantly

so gentle and quiet

no one would have known

if it weren’t for the corpse

hanging in the bedroom

l’intento sgarbato di ripetute istanze a mordere

Guardavo così le bolle ricolme d’estraneo timore

nel dileguarsi degli anni

Mi dicevi amore cantando bugie

Mi dicevi parole senza sangue o mani

Detesto infangare le luci ma

Le ombre non si spengono più

Nell’alto cielo s’accoppiano ora i mostri,

le sacrileghe nenie dall’eco sperduto

Adesso non dici

Adesso non sai se temere

Adesso ripulisci le stanze

Sono domande sterili le mie

Ammassi d’ingiustizie ingenue

che arroventano il futuro

Digiunami ancora

Perdonami ancora

Dimentica la nostalgia

Zitto

Zitto

Zitto

Difenditi

Mi si aprono le ossa se non posso salvarti

No discrimination in style, format and content!

I’ve been blessed with virtue
Patience always hungry
I’ve been blessed with hatred
So alive in my sum
I’ve been blessed with love
All things I do abhor
I’ve been blessed with time
And now it’s time to go

You want me
You repulse me
My beaten heart it beats
You hate me
You kill me
But I am still on my feet

After all this waiting done
My sentence it still serves
Why are you so far removed
I am more than you deserve

I’ve been blessed with armorments
So proudly I defend
I’ve been blessed with incompetence
So loudly I disdain
I’ve been blessed with malice
My seething sould it burns
I’ve been blessed with understanding
You will never learn

You attract
I refract
And so you cannot reach
I enstill
You? You will
And so? You cannot reach

After all this waiting done
My sentence it still serves
Why are you so far removed
I am more than you deserve

Five seventeen

No need for tears so many years

Reeling in rhyme in mind joy time

Drove tunnel home big rig droned

Mothers day now always for others

Matriarch strolls upon misted plane

Lavender essence her temporal hue

Begin final journey of infinite gain

River of life released on spirits cue

Aboriginal child walks her soul home

How can you be here where I am now

Astonished to know she was not alone

Took all of my years for you to see

Remember how many times we disagreed

Never quit wanting you to understand me

Have you been here before, way to many

Time is short now mom we must be going

Yesterdays moments opened to pains

Mother and child on ephemeral plane

Review of shared lifetime tears turning

To laughter understanding and healing

Love between mother and daughter

Reclaimed beyond time and space

Stubborn child of set in ways mother

Ecstatic trance reaches state of grace

Onward the journey of two satiated hearts

In awe lay before us heavens infinite arts

Seven stairs of light in the distance appear

Destination of a loved one drawing near

Up top the landing many ancestors awaited

“We’ll meet you at the gate” Grampa GAK’s

booming voice resonated, heard once again

My grand her fathers spirit long anticipated

Childhoods only voice of hope rang true

Still toning aloud the trance did shatter

Back in the saddle of rocking chair blue

What two hearts healed couldn’t let go

Oh no the angels knew only one at this time

Will make it through it’s known well enough

Many times beyond the veil you have seen

No one sneaks in till life’s deemed complete

Now every shallow breath seemed the last

Ohming could not return the journey plane

Touch of her soul signature voice remained

She knew what she wanted the child did too

Out of the room two legs gave chase up the

Winding white staircase to the side of little

Sisters bed, “it’s time… she wants you” was all

Need be said, the honor of moments handed

Return to the outdoors to fiddle with cleaning

A life long pursuit had finally found meaning

“She’s gone“, not long came the decree, Sis’s

Final plea, “Gramma Grampa come get your baby”

Kindred moments many a family have shared

Eight stood round the matriarchs empty shell

Her body was washed with cherished rose oil

Each went their way Guitar played till morning

Yet a part of the journey wasn’t finished for me

Sis said “you can see the stars tonight“… strange

In this place of city lights searched for a patch of

Unlit sky, would the stars dance for me this night

Rising high like a comet shooting star flew

Across heavenly sky souls signature grew

Sound of journey voice harmonically drew

Angels allowed new dance shared by few

As night broke into day, on only grandsons

Third birthday, how can you make a child of

Three remember how much someone loved him

How much longer she lived for time with grandkids

Kindle the memories instead of the pain

One in the belly now carries maiden name

Granted sometime you’ll see her in dreams

Echoes her blanket of love real as it seems

Onto the story about two bolts of light

Runs in the family or perhaps just insight

GAK’s green thumb gift of touching hearts

Everyone’s special, he made friendly an art

Loud the noise came disturbing my senses

“Ma” I screamed long before telephone rings

You’re not leaving me here behind this time

Give me the keys I’m driving, no overriding

Better yet no objections, over the limit we sped

To Grandmothers hospital bed slight heart attach

Taking no chances with precious message to pass

As gratitude for life changing gift need be sent

Eloquently he spoke over won pinochle hand

Change a command of course for daughters

He’d noticed the not too well hidden bruises

Handshake vegetative state final encounter

Gramma gramma please can you do me a flavor

No chance for thank you before he passed over

When it is your time to go, hopefully much later

Promise to tell GAK thanks to him life matters

Months on end roamed the city streets dazed

Motorcycle courier death defying deliveries

Only one to treat me special grieving miseries

I just need to know opened hands were raised

Gloomy and overcast day stoic statuesque gaze

Silver tipped leather head to heals frozen haze

Outward all movement stayed liken marble made

Currents and tides brewing inside emotional ocean

“Did you make it through, tell what I said” soul voice

Sang song of pleas emerald building on Hope Street

Imagine life’s coinky dink without a blink sunshine

Suddenly blazed clouds parted instantaneous rays

Like a bullet, Lights golden warmth took heart

“Your welcome” GAK”S voice crackled a start

His term of endearment soul signatures spark

Hit its mark Flooding humbled joy to the core

Just when you think it’s over, writing’s on the wall

Bona en fides mortis; Faith in good death a seed

Language master theologian deciphered a dream

Paid attention denial thinking past bedside deed

As chemo was denied dollar signs in doctors eyes

Like starlight wife, husband choose home instead

It took several days to reach near coma state

from all directions the family to gather came

Morning of day upon winding staircase

spirit of wife he did see, to that he agreed

Later asked “Can you see the angels Dad”

Question answered as brilliant smile burst

Ecstatic eyes open for the first time in days

“Yes” he said in long drawn out glad breath

non-denominational hospice chaplain stood

Beside him one dropped chin fell to the floor

“So who needs faith when you can see angels”

As open mind tossed the chaplain a question

Few words so profound around her mind wound

She knew now how to feel quickening presence

Twice in one day he was heard to confirm

through the veil through a door only he

could see to startle some and other please

Last gift was to hang on for arrival of Sis

Homeward bound now all family around

He had learned most lessons he came for

Though some times like all he did fumble

Death is best honored if life of love able

On any new day songs of angels play

As in the choirs while directing he led

Clear tenor a perfect pitched passion

He sang music composed with his pen

Matters of heart do play major parts

Every life just one note in a symphony

Without a doubt all make the journey

For Better or worse choice is destiny

As with wits and words of poetry heard

Just tidbits of hitchhikers experience

For now all my relations future and past

Veins flow open rivers of consciousness

So, who needs faith when you can see angels

Grandparents are bolts of light Their daughter

A shooting star A father who finally saw angels

Their child has seen who they are, We all are….

We all are…..We all are …

(C) 2009, angelsavant

high atop your aerie your eyes wander through the sky
you see a sliver of hope when a shooting star goes by
i don’t know why you are wishing
you have what you find you are missing
can you tell me where you are going
has your patience grown a little thin
are your cascading thoughts quickly slowing
showing you the glowing deep within

can you look into yourself to seek the answers
trace the elaborate moves of the lord of dancers
to find the peaceful kingdom of the few
in the golden hue of truth inside of you
can you tell me what life is showing
can you close your eyes to finally begin
going with the flowing known as knowing
growing in the glowing deep within

He murdered the whole world when he told a lie,
“God is dead, refuse the light in the sky.”
His chaos soul exploits words to conceal
the overman himself, devil’s spaded deal.
“Did you hear?” the angels cry.

The entire world is burning, dying.
Take a stroll through the asylum.
Everything holds still to guess.
Puffing, pausing, and thinking less.
Hail to the propaganda King.

A woman must not like to like you.
The simple truth, a double lie too.
Wash your hands, religious man.
Eternal sham, I know your plan,
the hierarchy of value.

Book intrepreted into power not truth-true;
Hook etched like a myth in the senses-youth-you.
A “dancing” God is bored with my poem-end.
Oh, and the truth is in a pen.
I like the color blue.

[ fios a fenecer,
fêmea que começa a envelhecer]

e tem folha,
ora:

[acordar cedo
agora]
rasgo o recado,
que
acaba o mês dos fracassos,
dos acasos,
dos afagos no travesseiro abandonado.
só aos ratos,
aos trapos,
aos farrapos:
sim, é Abril.
sem Amor ,
diz a porta que tranca a casa

:

abriu, abril.

(C) gilson figueiredo

poeta brasileiro, da bahia: aqui de salvador, 24 anos e louco pela palavra poética.

And the Monacled Leader of the snuff- grinding wags
Took a shot at the whiskey and the father of the bride
Ran out of papers and peppermint fags
Threw the new-wed within…dumped her husband outside
The bride she took umbrage ran off with the sentry
Who curled up and died before he made entry

The question begs (for he constantly lied)
Why he did not count passed his eggs before they were fried
(Nor did he mount his last legs before they were tied)
Fell at the last hurdle at the whim of a Scouse
Lord Shoehorn blew murder then quietly cried
He had a full belly, and now a full house,
Part landed gentry, and three -quarters louse

Now the Gin House stands empty in the bones of the wood
Where the grandfather clock bleeds mahogany blood
Tap-dancing on quicksand with her boots hell for leather
(Which she swapped with a corpse for a sprig of dead heather)

An impertinent fleabag with the whip of an eye-lash
Curls the wing of an egg in a bog of lime -jelly
Disguising herself in eel pie & cold mash
With a ring that she stole from the nuns of New Delhi

How our eyes burnt as the red dust of Mars
Picked off wild midgets on the river of death
Where we looted yet lost all our treasure and scars
Sitting perfectly still but quite out of breath

Fair flee the fancy of our mystic escape
For our lunatic peers in a parry of stars
Demand eggs and brandy from the dumb waiter and ape
Picking at clues from the hen and the grape

(C) Jupiter John

I never lost my skin
love & touch electric   noiseless static
                shiver not a death
  never lost my sense of where I end against th’air
, my clothes, my couch, my bed
                               or where another’s hand begins
         to force itself in me

         or other parts enacted
         theft  theft  theft  enraptus
                                can never mean desire
which you brought back to me
with gentle fingernails

(C) EK Switaj

a bizarre air hung in the bazaar
we blinked our eyes and there was the car
when the smog got too much for us to bear
there was something about the middle of nowhere
suddenly all hell broke loose one day
i bet they let their heads get inthe way

we spread out reaching for the sky
gave the impossible a try
broke out of our little cocoon
pretty soon we were hanging on the moon
cyberspace is where the children play
i bet they let their heads get in the way

we went way past the point of no return
there’s so much moore we know we need to learn
you can’t judge a book by its lover
but you can judge a crook by its cover
just believe half of what they say
i bet they let their heads get in the way

(C) Jerry Thrunk

stumbling into lovers circle
heart melting burnt purple

asphyxiated all
in milky warm curves
wobbling and crawl
drugged with peppermint fatigue
pleading nymphos chagrin

love you for need you

with vengeance
impotent fury
chop up and mince
vicious love crush
mangle frazzle
loveshowing
gosh.

(C) Suria Kassimi

This blog is a new initiative. Not a journal, not a magazine, just a place where good writing can be assembled. Style doesn’t matter, form doesn’t matter … as long as the contributions are good. Language even doesn’t matter, but I would limit it to English, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish and German. A world of possibilities, let’s see where this goes. Do not hesitate to send me an email (slaapslaapslaap@hotmail.com) with your work. A blog where you get to be appreciated for your writing, and who knows who will read ? Now let’s get started!