In his Council Flat in Salford...

Are you sad we missed it? We didn't miss it. This is it.

Young romantic love on the 365 from Rashidiya. Kylie and Jason, two beautiful Filipino teens, joyously handsome whenwilltheybefamous in eighties ripped jeans, lush black hair and floppy flicks, dare to share the K-Pop sparkle of young love with their eyes and hands, scatter fairy dust, as they descend the stairs. 

The Beatles knew it. Not sex and drugs and rock and roll, but I wanna hold your hand, as two teen girls walk by hand in hand, nonchalantly look over and flash warm, conspiratorial smiles. We warm ourselves on those smiles, says Mr Dowd, comfortably seated astride an old orange box in the alley behind Charlie's Bar. My mother said to me, Elwood, in this life, you have to be either oh so smart or oh so pleasant. I recommend pleasant.

Pressed white sleeves like neatly folded handkerchiefs, the priest's hands washed in a silver bowl, lascivious sips of blood red wine from a silver chalice, pure white Body of Christ, Do this in memory of me. Blind, vulnerable tongue points submit to public spectacle, as brides present snow white necks and bloody canines flash behind dowdy gabardine. Like Bernini's ecstasy of Saint Teresa transcends translucent in marble bouche bée, as the panther leaps joyous from the rational cage. Ecstasy on a grassy bank, watching our souls conjoin in aire. Dare to get naked with an angel on the hospital lawn, or frozen stiff in the surf on a west coast beach at midnight

O runs naked blades and witnesses red and yellow neon brutally affront the infinitely gentle, time and time, and time again. 

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Rides through Big Nothing's ripped backsides, weary they're still going through things we got over years ago.  

Recall how the grotesque gothic archer lurches forwards and the shopping centre opens and Princess Alexandra, back-combed blonde, posh and flawless, devastates in lemon sherbet. Grammar school boys released from Physics, herded onto waiting buses, line the road and wave their little flags.

And later that day, openmouthed, O rides the escalator, heaves school boy leather briefcase to buy a Beatles blue knitted tie, and slick and slender, black, red and white and excruciatingly tight autographed Georgie Best boots, and check out the sequinned, flame-haired crazy World of David Bowie.

He's on a loop. He's on a loop. Everyday hurts on the radio, as a young man across the street tenderly kisses her soft offered mouth, touches her small blonde pea-pod powdered cheek with his, and holding her close, feels her warm body through smooth grey serge on cold boogie nights.

How do you avoid going through all these things twice? Nietzsche's eternal return. 

You can't, old man, of course you can't, says O once more to no-one in his council flat in Salford.

Tony Curtis in Twin-set and Pearls ...

Tony Curtis in twin-set and pearls appears like the shop owner and spins O towards puckish Vinny, who loves the Beatles and writes teenage fan letters to Audrey Hepburn; keen to form a band, but can't play
[ ... ]

Remember Dickie Bird and the Sparrows, and summer with Monica, and a wispy-bearded hippie man with a faraway fairytale voice in curly-toed sandals and zig-zag knitted cap and bells plays Mongolian flutes at the Queen Elizabeth Hall; it's cold and black and Tuesday on Winter Hill, and O strides all scholarly above a tiny twinkling town, wrapped in dad's old black, white and gold; and Michael teeters in black and white patent leather winkle pickers and raging electric blue much-too-tight mail-order mod-suit, as we wind our way past squadrons of scooters bedecked with Flash Gordon mirrors and fish-tail parkas to a moorland tent, big plastic beers in small hands, and three tiny, silver men make new waves from old souls [ ... ]

Long summer afternoons with Vinny, the grammar school boys wholly in awe of the older brother's postman pals; boozy afternoons of cribbage with the pampered proletariat on Crab Lane [ ... ]

And going round to Mark's on Sunday afternoon to dutifully kiss Jacqui's cousin, the pale too young Irish girl with curly wire wool hair and out there accent, he realises she can't kiss; proud that he can, after illicit lessons with posh, dark, and dangerously sexy Anna, devastating in lemon sherbet [ ... ]

What happened, what happened ...

What happened, what happened? Vincent blinks. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. In the Big Nothing [ ... ]

The twisted fist in O's gut is pulling him down and in, sucked in flat; Pet Shop Boys pointed heads, reversed birth dunce, and click and whirr, and coils backwards contortionist, like a roll of celluloid film, vanishing clean over the edge; wet face flashes black and white, slides down the metal chute to the bone splintering, hulking embrace of giant Moloch hands [ ... ]

There's no way back. No you can't, of course you can't, old man; no way back to slender, skipping Troy and Marina's gigantic eyes; Oh Joe in the motorway cafe, the weep weep cradle song and the little girl lost; wide open to a sense of wonder, cheery smiles from a naked, nervous Willy and his wife, swinging in a cheery tree, to a yellow stripe on soldier blues and thick red blood runs down prison bars, as he strides beside redbrick mills; and hand in hand with his guardian angel on a mystery trip to see the mean, filthy Lowry chimneys from the green hills of a New Jerusalem [ ... ]

And in the end, grimly gathered round the final, suckling O of an old man's life, a Sillitoe Salford schoolmaster, fragrant pipe and pea-whistle pockets, steals seal silent down the wide open O, and lives a shadow show, exchanging soot-black Rosamund streets and gaswork ginnels for the bright, white light of the Big Nothing; hushed whispered litanies on hard wooden benches, tight lips puckered closed O to taste tart, tiny metal feet, white grey pungent plumes, dancing hologram ghost cones, and the metal rattle of the censer, for the nimble hot coals ballet points to cold marble Sunnah ablutions and closeted synchronised bending in pious manly rows, as clean, white feet enjoy the flock shock of thick, warm carpet [ ... ]

The Money God yawns, scratches, and stretches like a slack, sloppy cat, proudly smooths his paid-for Buddha belly, and smiles down benignly on fools who told his end would usher in a new beginning. You are mine now, Tina, he chuckles, and imperceptibly swells a little round the Pilsbury dough boy middle, and makes a slightly deeper dip in the soft cushions on which he reclines [ ... ]

And glancing down, O sees the big, white bird thrash and flounder in the dirt, and looking up, he sees the noose, and shivers [ ... ]

Reflecting on his reflection, O ..

Reflecting on his reflection in the glass, O was a little troubled by his growing resemblance to Barry Gibb; progress, perhaps, from the Turin Shroud; certainly, a change in tone, and a slightly better outlook; but the fact remained: he was getting older; old man, look at my life: I'm a lot like you are; sooo much more than twenty four, lumbering, crabby Neil, and so much more for you too; so much more for you [ ... ] Time taps and beckons from the wings; time now to join the Elders, trapped in time and in space; in the fire's cheerless glow, another flaxen poll, muses on the old, worn out, forgotten themes, doomed to simply stayin' alive, more Branson than Bronson, in yesterday's Levis; or brooding on the bus - and remember, only losers take the bus - jealous of the narrow waist, the flat stomach, and the sinewy strength of the young man's arm in front; and the possibilities; you'll meet a stranger some night; and it makes me sad        [ ... ] like the vegetarian cafe where he would sit and listen to the rattle of the pots and the prattle of the Eloi; looking at the bright eyes, the bright lives he hadn't won ; listen to Tony, fabulous - let's 'ave a look at what you would've won [ ... ] David gone, and no hand to hold; Niamh off somewhere, afraid to return; fearful of the pitchforks and the burning, and the sawn-off shocks of cold calculation; he is alone, and so much less than wonderful; so much less than wonderful; unbearably so [ ... ] sore thumb surgeon among butchers threads delicate needle pricks against the big, stupid din of the bacon slicer, as giant blades rotate, and legs give way, slide sideways, as cows collapse under dumb electric prods, wielded by slavering, foaming giant steel trotters; dawbed fraud, and fears the falling fat pig fists on his poor head; fumbling unfamiliar tools, botches bumbling fool, like Baudelaire's bird stumbles on deck; cramped, damp, tattered streaks of grey, where once proud pinions rose pure white, and banked on cool Olympian streams [ ... ] Oh sea-girl sister, sleek seafarer, with stately brow, stands forward at the darting prow; my faerie queen, let's dream sweet, blissful dreams of the slim, white hand of the king's only daughter, of the elvish harps of the western lands, of the wild hunt, and the thumping chase over heavy going, hedges and briars, when we thought we heard the tiny horses laugh [ ... ]

O returns to noise and loco-motion ...

O heaves himself out little by little, on cold, bald, chicken-skin elbows; beady bat-like, horribly crawls from the two o'clock hole of the cellophane rotary dial of a giant Bakelite telephone; like Jerry Mouse reluctantly reappears from the black hole in the skirting board; gulp, he's been pursued by Tom for more than 50 years; sniffs whiskers all wrinkly, grey and weary; breathlessly fearful, and longs for the chase to terminate in savagery, and finally, torn to pieces; whilst cruel metal owls clatter tooled up, sharpened claws and spitting lead from dead tree boles, rat-tat-tat red hot pellets, and lay waste the forest; like the incompetents blinking behind ono-specs, Ginsberg good looks no longer de rigueur, those who saw her standing there, moles emerging from four thousand holes, furrowed faces for you to slap, nicotine knuckles for you to rap, O returns to noise and loco-motion; remembers winter kept us warm, and sealed his eyes and ears with wax; oh, Mum, I can't do my exams blocked up like this: course you can, Malcolm; flap and crack of flags and sodden slacks and a storm-tormented, disused wartime airfield, as black tarmac buckles and Kraken tree-roots rip it up and whip red tendons, and soft, pink muscle strips down to dry, white bones, and skeletal feet keep right on running; and gawp as black tongues loll from gaping holes and gurgle on the gallows; or follow shoals of shark-nosed spitfires splutter overhead;  almost lulled for a moment by the music of the flowers, as a poor girl drowns again and again and again in a drab, brackish bath, for the hordes of dribbling, whiskery fools with soft, wet mouths and smooth boyish hands [...]

Watch tousle-headed Tommy bounce like Tigger ...

It occurs to O one day that half an O - one spirit of a two spirit human - is not a lack; it’s a smile … not a silly, toothy Half-a-Sixpence, but a happy smile; see tousle-headed Tommy bounce like Tigger; corkscrews and scissors his licorice legs, and winkle-pickers dangerous as jousting knights […]

O remembers Pakistani Dave down his local; back from the bar, crabs to place four pints of pale, thin yellow beer on the beaten-bronze bottle-top table; slides in beside Dirty Pat, the Professor and Tranny Sandra; heads and hair together all confidential, they giggle bubbles, and misty brown and white horses swirl in their beer over high-kicking storm-troupers singing ‘Springtime for Hitler’; lightening surprised by his own eureka, Dave blurts what about ‘Hospice: the Musical’; and they’re rasperrying bums together on shiny plastic seats, they’re flailing arms and legs and rubbing foreheads laughing; they laugh and laugh and laugh […]

O remembers how the three am rifle slid from Woody’s glistening temple; cartoon jagged flash and boom, and a clattering wild escape onto the rain-polished New York sidewalks; finds wild orchestral jazz in black and white subterranean Ruritania; Beano foam on too many clinking beer pots in big ham fists, and an improbable row of helmets played like a xylophone by a wild-eyed, demonic Groucho; and the fat lady in the shimmering fish-dress sings …  and it's still not over […]

Another day. O wakes regretful: he dreamed he woke to a tennis racquet lying beside him on a summer lawn; and resplendent in white, Freddie Mercury casually asks him for a game; and they spend the whole time trying to fix the net […]

Returning disconsolately to his rough browns and reds rustic picnic blanket, O throws himself down, and, all Ray Milland in Oxford bags and sleeveless cricket sweater, leans casually on an elbow, picks up a laid-aside volume: some light summer reading, carelessly packed between sun-cream and socks; strokes his chin; hmm: My Life in Trousers by Grayson Bagpipes; absently turns a page; shh ... click; Random House, usual acknowledgements, he muses, unevenly screwing up his eyes, winking back at the sun; and as Ray and Elwood stroll in slacks, crackle and fade, he can’t help himself; suddenly, he is laughing; and he laughs and laughs, and laughs and laughs; and he remembers My wife’s so mean, she just organized a cheese OR wine party; and Community service for man accused of licking Terence Stamp; and late news, just in: Oxford man charged with damage to renowned Library … Grievous Bodleian Harm ; O laughs and laughs and laughs, and laughs and laughs and laughs […]

No longer limber on a roof-top, no Olympic-blond Adonis ...

No longer limber on a roof-top, no Olympic-blond Adonis in gym shorts; no peaceful release, no ‘time to die’ (nor any happy returns); but a glistening, cobwebby fool deep and crisp in the corner of a basement on Christmas Eve, unnoticed as muffled herds go caroling by overhead; white-face painted wooden smile and ruddy toffee-apple cheeks of the broke-backed, inarticulate boy; sideshow geek between the caravans attracts glossies in a spooky scarecrow wind, becomes animate paper-boy horror of the Scooby Doo abandoned fairground; last echo of the old wisdom, Cat cries in the alley, lies sodden in boxes, trodden underfoot like Autumn leaves […]

Too old, too tired, too slack to die in costume like Meredith: white-face Tiger Lily stunner’s ringlets and romantic backstroke; lounging in the attic, loose-limbed in lacy sleeves, the rakish swashbuckler’s last swish of the rapier, last Z in the blood and sand; O waits and hopes fade in the white room at twilight, and wishes amongst the dishes and the swashing of the washing, and wonders for years and years and years what else can you show me? […]

And the red rock asks no questions; tells no lies; like media isn’t anything, like the pointlessness of space; this vacuous confection, this tasteless meringue: desert sand-box malls are living-dead with the sound of awful families and these big, superannuated babies in big, white Lovejoy shirts and big, pink blue remembered shorts like long, slow screws against the wall, like dogs all eighteen to thirty drunk and disorderly in the office car-park; absurd ranks of Lofties whispering grass in Benny Hill jam-jar specs and Rusty Trawler dyed-blond number ones; camp charades with lah di dah gunners tinkling the ivories – fine pair of shoulders there, show ‘em off, show ‘em off; stride the malls stupid on Sangria, looking for Diana on Spanish beaches […]

Oh, so overwhelmed by fuck-off contempt as quick, slick metal-box huge white cocks weave the dusty Vegas highways; flash and jostle, endanger life and limb; stamp like wooden trouser-men, slaughter beautiful sons and daughters for no reason; or hot from surfing the family dunes, because they can; because they can; these awful people with nothing to do; useless tontos ride the range, and look for kicks like white trash outback scum [...]

Uh, oh; the big nothings ride in from the Big Nothing; and here come the glass-eyed, pink-faced zombie barbies, arms fulla shopping and heads fulla nothing […]

Time was O turned his critical lens inwards and burned up on re-entry; now the lens turns outwards, and his inwards are dumb and numb with nothing […]

Is it really you; really me?

Your emerald green, your favourite velvet gown ...

‘Your emerald green, your favourite velvet gown: how grave the small, white frills around your neck; how grown-up, Niamh, the eldest daughter; sea-girl wreathed with leaves red and brown; so delicate-fair, so sensible, responsible; so sad; those rosy lips, flushed cheek, and far-away eyes I know. But is it really you? Is it you, my lovely sister? Here again once more in time, you find yourself absently posed with handfuls of autumn leaves; is it really you; really me?’  […]

O is lost again, coming and going between here and there, between the ebb-tide and the seaweed strand; between today and tomorrow; crackles and fades between stations; between rooms filled with perfumes, sees the sisters four across a polished floor, gathered around the gathering of leaves; choreographed, shape the passing time; here and now, in a corner of the gallery, withdraw the purple rags of time.

Always the centre of attention, her sad brown eyes release white-dove sighs; and like his - and like His, arms outstretched, body arched, nailed in pain - are raised to the heavens; his arms folded now, a sideways polaroid, proud in paisley; charcoal trace of fossil swirls from ancient forests, bracken and sea-deep anemones; deep, deep, they lie too deep for tears; thirteen year old boy strains to hold himself, hold his breath and keep from drowning; and mumbles: ‘sometimes I think the world’s going mad, sometimes I think it’s just me being clever; sometimes I think it’s only my clothes that are holding me together’ […]

Once more she finds herself somewhere near the border of tears; hears the white waves hoarse whisper and remembers the Dharma, and the Dao; and the Da da, and a Darling golden ear-ring, and a wicked pirate’s grin, and the child’s first Da da the smiling father proudly misunderstands; and glimpses the way back through the door in the wall to the garden and the beautiful lady, who calmly sits and reads, palms still open ivory in her lap; through weeping steel guitars that bend and sway like warm bodies; and in the garden beneath the winding stair, the blonde boys quarrel on the cobbles; and the white face crumbles to reveal full lips and liquid black eyes; and caterpillar lashes flutter into brilliant fishes […]