''----Lets fly, [Abe Hendrik says]. And be in love. And drink tea. And write suras and
psalters until our minds go dry.''
                                                                               Paul Lonely, Suicide Dictionary

I am in a Jar

I am in a jar
steeped in vinegar
wearing my new bra

my flesh is starting to become tender
my eyes sore

As I sit
Pickling
I think about climbing out

I place the hereditary gherkins
one on top of the other and climb out

I hate the life inside my jar
trapped by pickling vegetables

pickled vegetables
jamming me into my jam jar
********************************************************************************************


Crazy kid counting starfish on the sea bed
As I sit
my legs folded high on to my chest
paralysing frustration engulfs my entirity
as a small child i rock
forwards and back again
forwards and back

rationality has long since past this place of uncertainty
and passion holds my wings, as nature clips them brutally
my soul beats to the rhthym of teardrops
falling upon the whiteness of my cheeks

what stories can a shipwreck tell, while lying at the bottom of an ocean?
a place where laughter is replaced by the density of water
and fine art with ruin and decay

until she rises, her beauty will not be known
but in the darkness
she rocks gently on a passing current
until the day she is found for all to admire

For what you are about to receive. May you be truly grateful! Disclaimer: this little ficticious ditty may cause offense to those with weak dispositions & the belief that Motherly love is always beautiful. :) 

 

Chapter 12

Motherly Love

Pedro was an only child and while he was the apple of his mother's eye, he was the thorn in his father's side. His arrival had turned a somewhat happy marriage into a pear shaped threesome, two males grappling over the same breasts. Ellaline took to these new demands commendably. She enjoyed the battle for affection between her husband and son and passively played piggy-in-middle by wet nursing them both alternately. 
          Breast milk is a miracle drink. Its colour rich, its texture thick and creamy similar to the stuff produced by Jersey cows, before turning watery like the type you soak your cornflakes in. Her new enormous breasts were heavy and heaving, so she was quite glad to have two males around to help her empty them daily. With the constant transition between the relentless sucking from the soft lips of her baby followed by the unshaven mouth of her husband, her nipples were becoming red, sore and troublesome. These parts of her body that had once provided her with much pleasure were now providing her with there fare share of pain, and it wasn't long before the demands on this new weary mother had pushed her over the edge.

            Maternal instincts usually kick in with immediate effect after the birth of a newborn, but although Ellaline thought that the little male that she held in her arms was beautiful looking, she failed to choreograph her actions to keep up with his ever increasing needs.  He was never kept waiting for things for long, and as long as she had been caressed enough by her husband Ronnie, she would get along just fine, spending the day engaging herself in baby massage and bath times, homemade rice pudding making and other motherly like duties that make life flow in the right direction. Best of all Ella, as her friends called her, used to like kissing her baby. She would let him feed on her sore breasts then lift him into the air and say in a low and crazy voice something that sounded like, ‘whose a beauty boy then? Yes!' Pedro would kick his arms and legs simultaneously and coo like a baby in a nappy advert before being drawn back towards his mothers face and showered with a billion kisses. She loved kissing her baby the most and faint traces could be found all over baby Pedro from head to toe, the imprint of rouge kisses like two parallel lines from her thin adult lips.

            It was only when Pedro started school that the rouge kisses started to become a problem. His shorts and PE shirt would be covered in little red marks that wouldn't come out in the wash. The tops of his thighs would have pink smudges on them that he couldn't quite work out, but most of all refused to think about, because he knew they were symbols of his mothers love and as far as motherly love goes he thought, well there's nothing wrong with that. Pedro promised himself that he would keep an eye on the legs and body parts of his friends, look out for traces left behind from their mother's lips, but he never spotted any. He knew his mother's affection was somewhat a bit much, but he enjoyed the attention and she was a pretty woman, and he knew that by the time he was old enough to date, the extra attention she'd given him would make him an expert kisser and enable him to get all the best looking girlfriends. It took him a while to get the hang of synchronising their tongue movements, but with plenty of practice guaranteed on a daily basis he knew he'd soon have it mastered.

            As years drifted by, Pedro's father Ronnie began to get his nose further and further pushed out when it came to receiving physical attention off his long limbed wife. His large hands that had once held her tight and been allowed to stroll casually in any direction of her body, were left scratching his balding head and resting against his chin. He took to stirring into mirrors to analyse his looks and ponder where he had been going wrong. He was an incredibly good looking man, and together he and Ella had looked a real picture. 1920's charmers, shiny shoes and drop waist dresses, accessorised with cigarette holders and wavy hair, and flat caps.

            Instead of jumping on her husbands lap like a playful cat, Ella began to hardly notice the days that Ronnie walked back through the door. As the saying goes, two's company three's a crowd, and with Ella getting all of her physical needs met by her growing son, her marriage had become redundant, unlike the majority of people in the area. Ronnie found himself walking around town like a crab out of water, one way then another stopping at the end of every block of buildings to cool down brewing emotions with the aid of darkened beer. Several years earlier he'd caught venereal disease through his nights off spent drinking and entertaining prostitutes when stationed overseas in the army, and by shear misfortune he had seemed to reap every symptom imaginable. He had a polka dot penis, a permanent aching in his anus and would pass out with pain every time he needed a piss. Ella had lived through this before and she was glad that she had traded him in for a younger model. She made no secret in the fact that she was affectionate to her muscular son Pedro, and thought it was her prerogative to conduct herself in any way that she wished. If Pedro had have complained Romily's grandma might have found herself behind bars, but it was a mutual attraction, she was everything he had ever wanted, and he had no problem with their unspoken arrangement apart from a slight irritation that come with the trail of lipstick he permanently had running down the length of his legs.

            Behind closed doors, Pedro serviced this deranged woman of over twenty years his senior without complaint. He licked the rice pudding that she smeared across her chest. They would walk around their home in Price Street, before the Germans reduced it to ashes, in their underwear, doing all the things that ordinary lovers would do. Ella would stare into Pedro's eyes, she would trace his features before tracing her own, and likewise, he would stare back and recognise himself, and because they were both mutually vain, this act of face tracing would become a fulfilling pastime. They were both narcissistic and it was this combination of intense self love and love for the other that kept things going and unquestioned.
           Pedro had been a surrogate husband since birth; he had never really had time to play like his young counterparts. He was always on duty. Ella liked to be bathed, she liked to be wined and dined in the confines of her own kitchen, and she would actually prepare the food before role playing that the two of them were in a restaurant sharing an intimate moment. Pedro would be propped up on his chair with the aid of cushions and dressed in one of his father's shirts and ties, with his sleeves rolled up so they didn't drag in his dinner, and she would tickle him between his legs with her narrow foot underneath the table.

            At first Pedro had enjoyed the tickles and kisses she showered all over his body, but he did find it slightly odd when she touched him in the places that he used to go to the toilet. At first she would just wash him in the bath, then over wash him paying particular attention to his already gleaming genitals. Then she'd dry him all over and then re-dry his bottom and his face, his penis and his arms. She liked to go over his entire body inch by inch, and apart from an occasional refusal to comply due to hunger or desire to play with his train set, he would allow his mother to use him in whatever way she saw fit to console herself. He actually felt quite sorry for her. 

           As he became older and his body began to change, Pedro started to become self conscious during their time together. He began to fancy girls in his class and any natural signs as such that came as part and parcel of adolescence were quickly put a stop to by his ageing neurotic mother. She began to piss him off, and their relationship began to get frail and strained, but as that was a comparably normal characteristic of most marriages, Pedro and Ella didn't think they were doing too badly. What seemed to annoy Pedro the most was her fluctuation between a traditional moaning mother and a lover-wife. No sooner had they finished their love making before she'd be telling him to get on with his homework, and these twists and turns were beginning to fry his head and send him insane. By the time he'd reached his eighteenth birthday he'd been to places that his friends could only dream of and the stress of these journeys was making him drink heavily.

           
           His mother liked to be made love to in the same position like clock work at the same time everyday, and although he'd gone along with her demands for the majority of his childhood years without a pause for air, her demands were starting to mess with his newly found schedule. He was an ordinary boy living in an atmosphere of extraordinary circumstances, and in the rare moments that she was out getting her hair done or shopping, he would drink from his absent fathers drinks cabinet and think about cutting his throat. He wished he'd had a father to guide him, but the only transaction that came his way from Ronnie was a random smack in the mouth for no reason. Ronnie was a frustrated man with physical symptoms from VD that left him ravaged and irritable. He was a mysterious person who would fill the front room of their home with tinned goods and other desirables and could be found propped up at his local boozer with rolls of money in his pockets. Pedro knew his father was up to no good, but the only thing that they had in common was a biological sequence in the same gene pool, so he could hardly ask for a fiver towards his own supply of booze, and this lack of direction and absence of money was giving him ideas about joining the army.

The day Pedro went to the docks to make enquiries about getting away he bumped into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Apart from a bit of a hangover, which was normal for him, the thought of getting away from his mother and beginning a career of some sort was making him feel elated. He loved his mother as a mother, and somewhat like a lover too, but she was irritating him more than she was satisfying his needs and this was propelling his eyes into the direction of other women. As his mother was blonde, he was keeping his eyes peeled for something different, he wanted somebody that was opposite to her, he wanted someone with a bit of girth, not fat, but not thin, someone with dark hair that was shiny and exotic looking.

            Sinter was loving working in the factory; it had given her a new lease of life. Being out of the house and swapping her role as a quasi-mother for the factory floor was making her feel happier than she'd remembered ever being. She felt carefree, she had a laugh with all the other boat gluers and to top it off she was given a pay packet at the end of each month. Work was easy. Because she'd been a waitress, a nurse maid, a cook, a cleaner, a confidant, a counsellor and every other type of role that is tightly packed into the terrain of looking after children, she had found her new job quite relaxing. With the extra relaxation, her frowning face had begun to soften; she began to smell of glue and of industry instead of sick and dirty dishwater. Pedro watched her riding her bicycle home as he sat at the docks.
           Two albatrosses hovered above him, and he was mesmerised by them as they kissed each other in the air. He watched as they managed to maintain their flight in one spot and afterwards, how they sat together, each grooming the other. They were simple and monogamous, and although he knew he'd always have a unique relationship with his mother, he wanted a chance to love another, to try something new and normal, to create something solid. Sinter's hair was waving in the wind and unbeknown to her like a dog on a leash, she was cycling at several paces in front of her future owner.

            Pedro returned home from the docks with a stride to his step. The day had been an utter success. He had secured himself a place on the army reserve list for a ship destined to leave Birkenhead later that year and he'd laid his eyes on the sort of woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He sat back on his chair; he had the house to himself so he downed a few whiskies from his father's well stocked drinks cabinet and put his hand down his trousers, and moved to the rhythm of spinning bicycle wheels and shiny brown hair. This was normal behaviour for men of his age, but because he'd been involved in a physical relationship for as long as he could remember with his mother, it had been something that he had been brought up neither to do nor to think about. He went into the bathroom and washed his face, but everything he tried to use to wash away his guilty behaviour smelt of his mother. The smell of soap emanating from his own skin felt like his mother was all over him. Alternate smells of rosebud and lavender, began to make his blood boil. Every direction he turned the smell of scent was there as a reminder of his duties, but he'd had enough, he just wanted to be a son. He loved the woman, but she was beginning to look old, and he was sick to death of her predictability, of the way she kissed him all over and the way her lipstick was so hard to wash off, particularly when it was caught amid the hair that covered his thighs. She'd become a nuisance, but like clockwork he was destined to be inside her before she'd even cooked his dinner, moving like an automaton while inhaling the smell of artificial flowers.

            Pedro started to spend less time at home and more time hanging around the docks in view of the boat factory. The sight of Sinter was the highlight of his day and the more he thought about her the more he felt normal and stable and able to deal with himself. The more he fell for the brunette on the bike, the more he felt wrong tending to his mother at around 6pm each evening. Ella could feel that her demands were becoming a bit of an inconvenience, but she still felt that her demands should be met by her teenage son. After all, she'd created him. But times were changing, the more she wanted the less she got, and what she did get would be late at night in a grudging manner, depending upon whether Pedro was conscious enough to undo his trousers when he returned home late from the pub.
           He began to get more and more legless, so his friends would have to carry him through his front door. He hoped that his inability to move would put his mother off, but the unfamiliar smell of glue and industry that was all over his neck and sweater gave her the evidence that somewhere out there was competition. She was a childish woman, an outrageous joker who did little more than mop floors, smoke cigarettes and prop up the bar in The Stork public house, which was a stones throw away from where they lived.

            One evening, when Pedro had finally come to; he was on top of his mother with his buttocks filling the palms of her greedy hands. She squealed like a pig in shit and sent shivers and shudders down her young son's spine. Ella was desperate and she knew that Ronnie would soon be arriving back home, so she embraced her reluctant son for longer than usual. She wanted to punish the two men that were causing her so much dissatisfaction and pain, and held Pedro tight to her breast, despite hearing a key turning in the front door. Ronnie had known it all along, but to see his own son with his pants around his ankles and to see those naked breasts once again, breasts that he had once cherished so much, sent him into electric shock. His fists hit the roof, they slid across the fireplace, wiping out possessions that had been collected over many years in one fell swoop, before he tenderised his way through the flesh of Pedro, the traitor, the sick and twisted son who had violated the very core of his fathers being.

            Ronnie reached into his pocket and pulled out a role of notes, flung his hand backwards and trebucheted the bundle fast and furiously at his deranged wife's head. And like a scrubber in a cheap hooker joint, she picked up the money and told the two men to get away from her and never to return.

Carving up the traditional Sunday lunch of la musica on the kosmic dancefloor:

Starting slowly.

Kruder & Dorfmeister - trans fatty acid

Kruder & Dormeister - Eastwest

Mark Rae - Medicine. kraak & smaak remix

Kraak & Smaak - squeeze me

Kraak & Smaak - one of these days

Bent - Always

Groove Armada - inside my mind

In homage to the extremely profound art of simplifying.

Simplicity

Once

God was a rain drop

A mouth full of honey

Stolen from the hands & hives of productive bees

But the diamond was ripped from my chest

One evening when I wasn't looking

And replaced by the smell of earth

An uninvited guest

All is borrowed

The paradox of a charity shop ashtray

The rubble of war

Stained carpets

Ice-skating on velour

I cannot cook

I blame Krishna for my combinations and laziness

It was he that taught me the depressing art of the samosa

Dry and bland

So as not to distract onlookers from his colorful pantomime within

A spectacle that could make even a Peacock blush

Deities gave birth to comets of my bullshit

And kept me sitting in the perimeters of this fence

This cold defense

But there is no rewind nor is there regret

Just speckles of grayness and postmodern subjugation

Brown clothing and concrete

Faint memories of days

Drunk on the relentlessness of discontent

Lungs have collapsed before my very own eyes

And it is me who has missed the last rites of the dying at the dead of night

And my beloved who took my place

Unfamiliar hospital priests

Shuffling down corridors laced with pity

Filling hearts with gods remedy for the unknown

Journey that doth await him

This is a modern day retreat

A pilgrimage & vacation from the soul

Beating it with a stick

Trying to make it better

All Remedies failing

A net of wonder hangs over me

In it is gold

Nothing is what I strived for

Delusion was like soft perfumed soap & steaming water

On a cold mountain morning at the foot of Sagarmatha

The biggest luxury I have ever known

But they are tears of joy that fall out of the eyes of simplicity

Shedding until I reach point Z E R O !