streamed-consciousness

That one song. That one fucking song.

Plug in, zone out and feel. Lament, mostly, but its something. The clocks ticked, the moments became transient and now they are well and truly dead. Everything before has changed to survive through the present and into the future, but we remember what it used to resemble. How the dust and scratches have primed it for its new purpose, its new stance. Even inanimate they explode under my touch with images and sound and become life. They stand their ground, stuck, still and let me see through them, let me see the past and relive it all once more. Its a gravestone, its got an epitaph that manifests through me and only I can perceive its potent memories, but with a faded luster. A strange filter that adds noise and scratches act like bandages over the tears. And when they're too far gone, too decrepit or forgotten for that second they'll collapse into the sea of unconsciousness, where they'll dissolve like foam and dissipate into fragments of nothingness.

(The song that inspired this passage was The Horrors - Still Life)

less doing, more nothing.

So I'm breaking my vow of trying to write about my influences this week to write something a little more relevant at the moment. I've always found that whenever I announce 'I'll do x/y/x' that I'm less likely to achieve what I set out to do, a thought that has been consuming me over summer.

When I started University I made some great friends early on, some of whom I'm living with this year. We went out dressed as cartoon characters, decked our livers with shots of absinthe, had quiet movie nights where we all snuggled up or cigarette stained conversations out the front. In retrospect I had a cracking freshers and I don't regret any of it the last minute nights out or in. But looking back is important to look forward and I've managed to discover one consistency:

Procrastination.

It gets us all, its been getting me all week, and I've found its possibly one of the worst problems I had, and still have, as a student. Its that nudge at the back of my head that says 'Hey, wouldn't that assignment go well with a vodka shot?' or 'Oh go look at Tumblr, come on, you'll be five minutes tops!' and eventually ends into a gravitation towards decadence. The work piles up, the panicking starts to give way to frustration and the end point seems so far, so transient it doesn't seem worth it. So again, the only natural thing isn't to do anything about it, but to do the exact opposite

This didn't help that my moods were already reaching incredible lows during my first semester which caused me to drink excessively, become impulsive with money and end up finding getting out of bed and going to lectures an impossibility. And it was then that it began to seep into my own life, passionately corroding any of my remaining willpower. The worst thing is, its happening right now: even trying to write this bloody blog post is requiring more of my attention then I'd like to think. 

As to how it come around? I'm not entirely sure.The funny thing was I'd never been this bad before; although I naturally plan then write last minute in college I'd been punctual, hard-working & rarely neglected my projects. Distinctions across the board gave me the equivalent of AAA and I was so chuffed because I earned it. I worked my fucking arse off to get to University and even though I got a 2:1 this year, I look back at all the half-arsed paragraphs of waffle and the nondescript words and obscure references I popped in when I was drunk and just cringe.

Really Josh? Really?

So if theres e thing I'm doing this year to prepare myself? Keep my goals to myself in my (yet-to-be purchased Paperchase) notebook. Keeping them under lock-and-key so that everytime I feel down, low or wondering why the hell I should be reading an obscure poem by some obscure poet, reminding myself of what I can be, what I was and how easy it is to forge my own future with my own hands.

INFLUENCES PT 1 - Junji Ito

I've been meaning to do this for a while, actually. I put things off a lot (this blog is literally bursting at the seams with nothing but procrastination) but at 3AM, even though its technically Tuesday, its still Monday to me and I'll go with that. I was tired writing this so it may also seem a bit jumbled or weird or shit, either way, I'll be posting another tomorrow (Tuesday... or Wednesday, it depends) on another influence of mine.

So anyways, I first discovered Junji Ito through Tumblr - I think I stumbled across a few panels from his manga Uzumaki and became so fascinated with what I was seeing. A horrific series of portent images, each significantly more disgusting then the last. In fact, I'm very sure it was this one here:

Nice, isn't it? 

So I looked him up on google images. A plethora of similar images cropped up. I shut the tab down and began hunting online for the manga that this originated from. And what I managed to find was something that was truly, great, and also terrifying.

Uzumaki (meaning spiral in Japanese) tells the story of Kirie Goshima, a high school student who begins to notice the town become obsessed with spirals after the death of her boyfriends father. Cue a series of strange happenings, weird deaths and a descent into obsession that brings the 3 volume manga to a rather terrifying conclusion. Not because there is a super gory panel filled with blood and guts, but because of the message. The spiral is entrancing, circular, but also infinite. Its impossible to take your eyes away and once you start, you slowly lose grip. I remember a quote by Nietzsche which says "Don't fight with monsters lest ye become a monster... Remember that when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you". The overriding theme of obsession, and also the finality of fate and the unending chaos that you are doomed to repeat becomes even more unsettling then the content of the images, but the synthesis of words and pictures is just fantastic. Ito knows how to write and he can manifest his characters really well on paper (especially since most manga is black/white too). I don't want to reveal anything other then that though, so I won't go into anymore detail. Just read and be astonished.

Perhaps what I was so surprised, and impressed by was how raw, less camp and animated the characters were compared to the conventional manga style with the huge eyes, eccentric personalities and exaggerated plots. I find most shounen-ai and romantic manga to be mostly pretty crap (and they also attract some of the most obnoxious, strange people I have encountered, period.), but finding this really revived my interest in Manga and graphic novels, something that had waned since I started college.

So not only did Ito create a pretty elaborate piece of work with Uzumaki, but he also collected all the average and mundane things we encounter and turned them into figures of malevolent evil with the sole purpose of terrorising and destroying mankind with madness. And for any writer, I've discovered, being able to make your audience shaken after they read your work is a very powerful feeling.

Recommendations/Further Reading:

• Gyo (sharks that can walk on land)
• Uzumaki (evil spirals)
• Tomie (dangerous and seductive woman who terrorises mankind with her beauty)

Sonnets

I created a triptych of sonnets for my Poetry class, all tied by love but with a much darker theme. The focus of them is to present the melancholic, frustrating and often world weary side instead of comparing people to plants and flowers. I think experimenting with theme is interesting, especially with the sonnet that has become synonymous with a fixed person as a subject and instead playing around with them first.

Maybe eventually I'll write a happy sonnet?


I) I Cannot Sleep (I Will Not Dream For Me)

I cannot sleep, I will not dream for me
Nightmares come and go; existence dithers
betwixt the chaos lurking in my dreams,
Our bed is ice; I’m the one who shivers.

The covers cold as if a winter’s night,
as if by spellwork knifed me of my love,
bereft of you, till scattered morning light
has fractured you and I to push and shove.

the empty days are sodden and betrayed
by you, by I, by silent moans of him
but night will come as soon as dawn will fade
the mo(u/rn)ing comes, I’m frac t u red from with(in).

I cannot sleep, I will not dream for you,
the only rest, I seek in catacombs.

II) Supernova

I love to love but fall upon my face,
A thing with lips, a thing they dread to kiss.
I smile right back, the wrong one sits in space
With me; I’d rather be a star and miss
The breach; to burn up in to nothingness.

Its pretty though; that from so far away
The beauty of its death becomes addressed,
From me, not him, it’s not what he foresees:
A night of passion to an awkward morn,
A smoke to laugh at opportunists fall,
His once full eyes are ash and laced with scorn,
My mind is dead; I’m gazing at the walls.

The bed,
the door,
the walk, 
the shame, 
the cry,
I’d rather walk away, I’d rather die.

III) ~A Moth To His Flame~

A heart that beats and thumps slowly; enthralled
by moths with wings of dark eyes to depress,
and surely with a torch he will debauch
and steal a monsters grin so he’ll impress.

the flames and smoke that lick his face surround
the moth on both sides so it cannot fly,
and when its burned to cinders he will frown
a nihilistic glare to scorch the sky.

He brings himself outside to breathe the air,
he coughs for its impurities are all.
But with his heart shaped glasses he’ll prepare
a portrait of damnation they’ll adore.

And when they’re tired and fed up with his smile
they’ll sink away in shadows from the child.

Hunger

At 3AM I rose from bed and tried to tip-toe across the croaky stairs. I gathered some snacks (Roses chocolate that my friend Amy bought) and crept back up. It took me a minute to fully realise why I got up in the first place and then I think 'oh boy...' and my hands begin to act on instinct.

Have you ever read a book that has felt like your nicotine, that warm feeling that returns, that place it brings you to whether bright, dark, brilliant or malevolent? When you turn the pages and forget the numbers and the text is rolling off the page into your imagination, manifesting itself into the shapes its describing? I ask because it feels like everytime this happens its been a long time for this epic moment to be rediscovered. Once you finish a book, trilogy, series - whatever, for me it feels like this feeling is never going to be reproduced. Well, in essence thats pretty true since each story leaves its own distinct mark, I guess. But that pageturner, the book you want to finish so bad but never want to escape from, that feeling of a writer using you as a harp and plucking your brain like a professional. Its fucking amazing, isn't it? Well, it seems I've finally found it again.

The Hunger Games is something my friends avidly tried to introduce me to. I'd heard it mentioned a few times before but I usually like for me to go to the book. I feel some kind of intrusion when a book is slammed in my face and I'm forced to read it. But after the berating died down, I went to the University library and picked up the first book along with Dear Fatty by Dawn French & The Importance of Being Earnest & Other Plays by Oscar Wilde (for Salome). 

I dumped the books in a pile next to my bed and left them there for most of the day. I usually find it nigh impossible to read during the day due to being easily distracted by any person in my vicinity. So before bed I pick it up, read a few pages and drift off to sleep. The next day, I think 'I'll read a chapter'. And by the time I've uttered those words its all kicked off and I noticed I've read around 100 pages in one sitting.

I've managed this feat before as well; The Otori Trilogy by Lian Hearn (seriously guys, absolutely fantastic) & the critically acclaimed Harry Potter series by Rowling have lured me in and left me dazed and confused when I snapped back to reality.

But one feat tonight was when I gasped loudly. I won't say why or when, I don't want to spoil it, but I held my hand over my mouth and read, and read, and read. I shouted out 'No! No!', (my eyes twitching frantically) and that 'Yes! Fuck you!' part happened too (well, in my head. The neighbours would NOT appreciate that at this hour.).

That feeling just got me up at 3:00AM after I wanted to fall asleep. Its a powerful feeling - knowing that people can be absorbed in your tales. That you can spin something so real and powerful is incredible, but also incredibly frightening. I forgot how much I loved that feeling. And for now, I've got it for that bit longer.

I'm hoping it lasts past tomorrow. I guess that's optimistic.

a wake / a sleep

In the morning
                                                the chimes tremble,
curtains yawn.
                                                You lay dead
arms cold
                                                eyes frantic under your lids.
I trace your pupil
                                                across your dark brow:
rough cheeks, birthmark
                                                and a lip that is still
dulled.
                                                I have stirred.
I am jealous
                                                of the dreams ensnaring you
from me
                                                dividing / us = apart
and I wait.
                                                You surface
like a diver
                                                from icy water
slipping your hands, 
                                                slapping your arms 
on cracks of ice.
                                                You breathe heavily
and I sense it again
                                                rhythms, patterns
a/sleep                 
                                                a/wake 
with me,
                                                forever, 
with me.

New Pieces

I've been a terrible, terrible blogger. I've pretty much flirted with blogspot but never actually managed to post anything of any creative value in the past while. Since I've moved over to England (a month now!) I've been searching for jobs, drinking, writing my short story/novella, been reunited with some of my old housemates and peers (oh, and drinking). Its been great, but the intention of my blog was to showcase up new and upcoming pieces that I wanted to share with everyone and currently, that has been pretty much unrealised. So I guess this blog is the start!

I've been working on experimental writing pieces since I started university through poetry and prose and as a writer, I thought I'd share these first. When we start out we emulate the things that influence us or writers that we are envious of, which is what I originally did, but thought I'd experiment with the layout of words and how they affect the way we perceive a piece.

So today I'll post my first piece, which is called 'Bad Dreams':




    b a d       c
           r        r
           e       y
           a r e  p
      a l m o s t (o o)   t
           s        i           h
                   ’c a (u s e)       
                                y o u r           s
                                           s         l
                                           m - i l e
                                         t o        e
                                           t o      p
                                           h
                                       m e
                                           r 

If you have any feedback, feel free to comment! :)