FINLAY


She unplugged the phone to sever another level of communication, to further isolate herself from any situation that might increase the likelihood of a conflict. Ever since Elizabeth's accident the tension between their families and eachother had grow nearly to breaking point. The realization that now things were different, Elizabeth had lost a physical part of herself. For Miss Finlay this became like a force field that she could not go beyond. An emotional barrier that would not permit her to feel the other woman's pain. This had been the hallmark of their relationship.
Two years ago Miss Finlay had told her parents that she and Elizabeth were lovers.
"Look darling you're very young you've got your whole life ahead of you".
Her mother turned away sobbing into her hands.
He enclosed his wife in the crook of his arm, her face looked as if it was burrowing into his chest or else it was somehow being sucked in, absorbed by a greater power and authority.
"You're trying to destroy us"

She stands in the garden a green hose pipe lays stretched and uncoiled across the lawn. The colours soothe her, the yellows and greens of the tomatoes. Some resting red and swollen on the loamy earth drawing in the last rays of the evening. The leaves of the corn seem to visibly relax themselves and hang like tired arms.
The fanned out leaves of dusty purple cabbages, on which slugs have chewed intricate lace-work, are frozen in the scattered light. They resemble huge marzipan roses. The stillness here is comforting, it is not like the eerie calm of a factory that has ceased to function where the machines stand idle with a silence that is sinister and demanding.
It is the tranquility of things growing. Here there is a connectedness, a harmony that effects her self purpose. When she works in the garden the rhythm of the day changes. The forced acceleration of the city becomes intolerable. She knows her father has probably tried to call her by now. She resists the urge to plug-in the phone.

ELIZABETH


Betty is going to be fine Mr and Mrs Walters, all she needs is a good nights sleep

She is underneath the house playing with her dolls. Her mother's voice flys away
off the back step. It has been this way for a long time, the close distance.

Near yet so far so good god in heaven name that tune

That's a funny way of saying grace she thought looking first at her father, then her mother.
Her father nodded in approval and they all began their meal. Betty's father stabbed out his words.

The cockrels ill again

Why don't you take it to the vet suggested her mother


The rusted gate bends it's iron bones and creaks in sympathy
as if it knows of the images sent to haunt a childhood sleep.
The fevered heat of bronchial nights, a infant sickness that thickens
the air. Sweat wetted pillow and sheets.
The human dogs pace outside her windows.


Betty is 26, her mother says she is addicted to self sabotage.
Since the age of nineteen she has not kept a job more than six months.
Welfare classified her unemployable.
She can't handle responsibility her father says

THE HOSPITAL



A state of inertia has been reached, where the living appear to be dead. That'’s why there is
a fence around the hospital, to keep them out. A woman (on the inside) is walking in the orchard she is agitated as if she has misplaced something of importance. She picks up pieces of paper
examines them then lets them drop. You are glad there is a fence there, because you have an
unquenchable desire to be nursed. You turn and walk away aware that a feeling of uneasiness has crept in on the wind. It stops you from moving, compels your body to turn, to resist would mean tearing yourself in two. With fixed eyes you stare at the hospital, scrutinizing the rows of windows. As your eyes adjust to the mass of shadow at the back of one of the rooms, you can make out thin strips of light, brilliant white rods that spiral into the air like charmed snakes attaching themselves to some invisible framework. As more of them curl upwards the outline of a body is revealed.


A skin that preserves and mummify's, must this skin always be fused with linen with resins of blood and sawdust. We shall have to reclaim our bodies and minds from the canopic jars of modern medicine, for it has robbed us of the skill of self healing. In hospitals you are born in isolation "“I don'’t know these reanimated corpses, they are not real people they are getting paid to do a job, they are in a theatre"”
More women are choosing to have home births, turning to mid-wives and learning plant medicine.

The zombie hands can never break the glass, no matter how hard they try they are trapped because they came here of their own free will Pounding on the windows only causes the stitches to burst open and leak with clear
liquid They plead, cry for help, swear that they are no longer sick, a cure has been found and they are better now Then they smile their cock-eyed smiles and their brains come sliding down their noses their guts tumble out
slipping away from their grasps like lithe jerking eels They laugh and sing and dance with each other, swirling round holding on so tight that their fingers rupture one another‚’s flesh Occasionally one of them will slip and fall amongst the pools of slime that have accumulated on the floor. The others laugh and dance faster and wilder causing more wounds to reopen and weep with frustration. The hospital in the diffused light of evening takes on the shape of a brooding monument
'‘LEST WE FORGET THOSE WHO WERE DISSECTED'’
The woman in the orchard picks up a piece of paper and the sleeping weight
of a great emptiness folds itself around her.

It's thinly spread across the day, a shower and a coffee or a conversation on the phone.
Poison infiltrates the simplicity of a home, where understanding takes it's toll. Dissatisfaction
creeps across the floor sprinkles powder before the foot-steps, on books and VCR's.
Denies the events of past years, undermines friendships. A weak passion that can't be maintained,
it comes in the middle of the night and leaves a cold space.

BROPHY

Often as he walked about the city, the rhythm of his steps would draw thoughts to the surface.
The time when his brother had shot a Collared-dove. They were standing in the front garden
to the left of the smaller of the two weeping willows. The roots of which were always dislodging
the sewage pipes. His brother aiming up at an Elm tree in the field across the road. The soft
flat puff of the air-gun and a light grey triangle tumbles out of the branches.
They stand silent for a moment, before his brother's friend who was older than them and had supplied
the new rifle with the telescopic sights - elects to "finish it off". When they reach the dove it is still alive
this is some what of a shock to them. Maybe they had expected the addition of the telescopic sight to have
performed the deed with such accuracy that one pellet would have been enough to bring instant or even
painless death. The older boy bends its flapping wings together, this pushes the birds chest out in an
exaggerated fashion. He holds the wings down with his boot. Then loads and fires five pellets, there is a
horrific muffled slap as they puncture the flesh stretched taut. A few purple-nibbed feathers are mixed
amongst the cow's-shit churned up by their boots. He felt in the pit of his stomach that it wasn't a fun
game anymore, and was sure his brother felt the same way, although they never talked about it.

THE PROFESSOR



With a hiss of rain the Professor entered the old brick library through the dirty glass
doors, made his way over to the computers opened his bag took out his glasses case
removed the glasses and placed them in their suited position. He typed with a brisk
sharpness, watching the screen intently, a delicate hand looped a stray hair behind
his ear, Jade light tinted his face.

THE PROFESSOR AS A YOUNG MAN

Every month while attending university his family sent him a healthy sum of money.
The Professor as he was then couldn't stomach the campus social life. He had maybe
at most three friends, if you were to stretch the term friends to its broadest edges.
As a result most of the allowance went unspent.

The day of 'The Project' had arrived. A lot of people sleep rough in the city, his friends
didn't seem to notice. He had been waiting for the double Christmas cheque, now he
gathered up the big wad of money in his fist and hurriedly left his apartment.
For the next two hours he scanned the cavities of the city and by chance he eventually
found her at a small cafe on the westside. He heard behind him those unmistakable
heels, four inches of black patent leather that rattled inside. Her legs were long, bony,
mottled with patches of bruises, recent scabs and past scars. She began working the
tables at the far end, gradually moving towards him, asking first for money then cigarettes
or coffee. Most people didn't give to her it seemed a waste of money she looked to far gone
beyond help. He lowered his eyes pretending to read a book, she moved in his direction
smoking the only cigarette she'd been given. She stood beside his table and began to tell
her story. He raised his head than threw up his arms in recognition, smiling widely holding
out his hand and saying "Joyce this is a surprise won't you join me for coffee"
The woman tentatively shook his hand a thin smile creased her lips. She constantly
tapped the cigarette with her finger. She sat down drank the coffee and smoked the
cigarettes that were offered. Said- "Fine" "Ok" "Yes" "No" and "Alright"
It went that way for the rest of the night, except at one point they were at a
bar, by now the Professor was drunk, Joyce was very drunk and she started talking
as if they really had known eachother.
"You remember when we were kids, skinny dipping, the prairie sky like an unblinking eye
you said watching down on us?"
He replied that of coarse he remembered, would never forget it, even went as far as to
say that it was one of the most beautiful moments of his life. After saying this he excused
himself, shakily dismounted the barstool side winded his way through the dancers and
vomited in the toilet.
He continued to spend his family's money in this way for the next three years. In that time
not one of the people he chose ever let on that they knew he wasn't really their friend.
The Professor passed with honors, he no longer performs random acts of charity.

THE HOSPITAL

Two hours of non-stop rain, a solace from the heat and closeness of the night. City rain is greasy,it varnishes the roads and pavements with an oily film. He took off his jacket, put it in a black canvas shoulder bag. Water soaked though the shirt, ran off his hair and down his back. Bad moods flowed out into the sea, always hungry, always reclaiming. This man will slip as he's walking because his shoes are worn. He may swear out loud in the street, curse the synthetic culture, the life stylists and art careerists. He may regain his balance momentarily, then go crashing to the ground. The business people huddled under the dripping awnings of jewelry shops and estate agents are furtively anxious and openly hostile. Are they concerned that he is drunk, mad, is going a place a cold knife to their throats and whisper "could you spare a little change for something to eat today"? Their fear will make them generous! Contamination by touch is their greatest fear. There is no sun-light in the financial district, there are shadows from tall glass buildings. The gigantic architecture of an exclusive world blots out the sun, prevents us from feeling warmth and sensation. On the main streets the pace is hot and nasty, the feeling is different, peoples faces gleam like wax. There are grey patches between the thick and stunted buildings, between the wholesale stationeries and the chartered accountants. When a country's population is outnumbered by rats, then perhaps a small victory is won. The path-way that cuts across a segment of 'waste' ground drops steeply, you could easily loose your footing muddy up the elbow of your one decent coat. The path ends, he stings his hands on the nettles, stands and stares at the beautiful unkempt lawns of the old hospital. The windows are silent and watchful. (Just think about those business people men and women in spacious restaurant's, working out in fully equipped health clubs, in airplanes over the pacific, sipping Hennessey, warming the ink in gold Parker pens signing cheques at the poolside discotheque casino revolving golf coarse) The hospital is his church. Boarded windows are bandaged eyes, this is where he comes for guidance, while scrumping apples and visualizing the interior wing by wing, window by window. Images projected behind the shutters. In the children's ward the nurses are flustered, a child has managed to get her hands on a pair of scissors giving half the ward haircuts that are as fierce as they are strange. Visiting hour is in 45 minutes. It is decided that the children will be told to wear cotton night-caps. The doctors for their part will convince the parents that " this is part of the most up to date development in modern medicine" As resident patriarchs they loath the idea of this base deception and hint with cold humour that the nurses will be asked to "fulfill certain needs" If they should refuse they run the risk of loosing their jobs which would lead to a life on the streets, starvation, madness, drugs and prostitution,because that's all freedom has to offer. Doctors are good manipulators of fear and fear is more precise that a surgeons scalpel. Hospitals smell of constant sanitation, a lot of time is spent scrubbing and soaping until it smells clean. Dirt is not our problem, dirt is what makes us flesh and blood, dirt is what heals our sight, dirt is what cleans us, unites us. WE ARE DIRT! A dirty man and a dirty woman enter the hospital, the doors slam behind them like prison bars. Their daughter (who is not older enough to be in the advanced stages of dirtiness) is dying. They want her to get well, they pray at night kneeling at her bedside holding eachother and crying. Life is sometimes a slow turning on the rack. Six days from now the child will die. After death all is imagination, fantasy, and faith. To grieve in isolation is painful. Sunday will never be bath night again.

A star of many colours over fields of unlimited concrete
hangs like a drag queens dress claiming its own space
in the window.
I'm growing horns. I wear the lost crucifix to ward off the pains
of illness. Everything is cold and still
the quivering lips of the clay head are cracking to life.
And suddenly its all a bunch of horse-shit, this not being afraid.


The sounds we hear in our daily lives
are unstructured and come to us as random intakes
There is a music of solitude
and a music of intimacy

Touching warm ash
between the fingers
kissing every stray hair
fragrance and gesture

snuff out the candles together
your hand fits with mine
jigsaw fingers link
pulsing warm like a mother

It was the winter of strikes, couldn't pass the sweet shop without staring.
The fist brought down hard on the table, sympathetic hands laid on his shoulders
and one realizes "to be a man" is quite another matter.

Underneath the court yard in a dungeon,in a palace ruled by a tortured emperor,
lay a Tiger cub whose mother was killed by the Archbishop's hunting party
yesterday morning. I thought then that it was wrong but I was only the cooks
son, so for three quarters of my life I was invisible. The curse of this being
I was privy to the most debased and loathsome of human affairs, which weaved
the cradle in which our young ones now suckle.
My mother was a whore, I say this with no shame or as a blemish upon her.
My father was a ghost, brave and violent ghost. I promised through my tears
that I would chase down his dreams and tell them what they missed.
But I never once cried out his name when my dreams were being butchered.

There is no movement to join, there is however the frequent and occasional basis, the engagement
of 'the heart', the becoming. Tear the patches off your hoodies, abort textural strategies. Clean out
your living space, objects of association- these are no good in the underground. The success of
direct action relies on the appropriate configuration of components at any given time. Evil as it is
most often committed comes of the given life, it takes not only its motivation, but its form from
the existing circumstances. The logic of dominant ideas presents evil as terror that occurs without a historical
condition, but we who have struggled to maintain our sanity know this to be wrong.
The pain relieving messiahs are here to administer to the stricken, rotten and fallen, who will fill my ears with
whiskey, pouring in tales of untruthful friends, stolen property and unintelligible important messages.
They are here to put a kind bullet through the bone plated skulls of distressed Buffalo spirits.

As we grow older we discover that what at the time seemed to us the absorbing interests and preoccupations which we had taken up and thrown over, were in reality appetites or passions that had swept over us and passed on, until at last we come to see that our life has no more continuity than a pool in the rocks which the tide fills with foam and flotsam and then empties. Nothing remains in the end but the sediment which this flux deposits; ambergris valuable only to those who know how to use it.
The Unquite Grave- Palinurus