At which point the Rohypnol kicked in and she fell face forward into the soup tureen.

— Is she going to be okay? Joyce wondered.
— Should we help her? Gloria said. Or what? What does everyone else think?
— What time is it? asked Bob.
— Date rape time! cried Fred and Terry together, high-fiving each other wildly, as best they could.
— But I really do think she’s drowning, Joyce whispered. I mean, I really think she is.

But
then the doorbell rang. Sally staggered over to anwer it and gasped. It
was Johnny Rockstar! As he came grinning through the door everybody
shrieked, including the guys, and clumsily leaped up and rushed him,
colliding with each other as they did so and collapsing in a squirming,
tangled heap on the floor that sort of inevitably turned into an orgy.

So
pretty little Luane did drown after all, sadly. Also Johnny Rockstar
failed to survive; he was DOA at St. Vincent’s later that night with a
fork accidentally stuck through his throat. Somehow, to the amazement
of the attending physician, it had pinned his Adam’s apple to the back
of his windpipe like a plug. He was really interested in finding out
precisely how this had occurred, but unfortunately no one could
remember anything about the incident.

But apart from those two,
everyone else was okay in the end, although Gloria suffered permanent
brain damage and Joyce doesn’t talk much any more.

(from the minutes)

1

Outside the sun is sinking fast
in here the world turns upside down
eyes meet like oceans and lips touch
borne upwards in the falling dark
arms clasp and searching hands caress
and bodies move together gently
flowing as the feeling takes them
through the crests troughs and crescendos
of a music beyond measure
without limits never ending
detonating like a bomb
in a convulsive blinding flash
of white light softly going off
and both of them caught in the blast
engulfed illuminated melting
furiously calm & pure as dawn
wide open to whatever comes
a waking life a conscious dream
each moment bursting like a seed
sending out shoots
and all is well

2

deep rooted love grows like a tree
out of the rich red soil of lust
bearing the fruit of happiness
and then a wedding and a death
a chord struck on six strings at once
the sound swells and reverberates
above the hills beneath the sun
as birds erupt out of the tree tops
and the beating of their wings
bear her away a wine cup falls
and smashes on the flagstone floor
like spilled blood splashing in slow motion
and the world outside goes silent
and the people all around him
are like phantoms they’re transparent
he can put his hand right through them
and the air is growing cold
as summer turns to winter
in the shadow of a cloud
gone in a heartbeat
in the blinking of an eye

3

clouds pressing down the wind like ice
pine needles underfoot the cries
of wild birds circling overhead
grey everything is turning grey
like colour draining from a face
here in the place where hell begins
a cave door opening in a cliff
a tunnel mouth that closes fast
behind him as he steps inside
and starts the terrible descent
down fissures ever narrowing
walled in by hard unyielding stone
through claustrophobia and blindness
to the dead lands deep below
as if

. . .

(to be continued)

Lead feet are sad feet
dragging home
amazingly tired weariness
has worked its way into my bones
like something but I don’t know what
just standing upright
is hard work

I’m waiting for the heart attack
the trip to never coming back
like staring off a highrise cliff
onto the parking lot below
and thinking
is this all there is
and then

2

small seeds a book a thought a picture fleeting things
a droning voice that echoes through the years
towards the posture
of the gesture
of the act

a sliding scale a tilted balance
water pouring down a rock face
branches swaying in the breeze
leaves whispering tall grass
a rustling sigh

snake like a sword
drawn from its scabbard
flashing forth

3

like falling backwards through a chair
into a weightless state of freefall
drifting half-unconscious
flickering
dry and heavy desert landscapes
heat and pressure desolation
nerves on edge frustration tension
irritation conflict vengeance
claustrophobia no exit
help me fuck you
filthy dirty
crawling insects ants and roaches
going mental in the kitchen
drunk and angry wired and restless
everybody’s just so selfish
empty aimless isolated
feeling stupid and contagious
falling backwards through
the chair

4

thrust
parry
stab
slash
block
hack
ouch

etc.

Green memories of bends and reaches
rivers flowing through a daydream
in the light of an open fire
long winter nights deep autumn skies
salt in the air the sea near by
and clean clothes drying on the line
and fence posts on a distant ridge
clouds overhead rain blowing in
seen for the first time always known
never forgotten left for good

2

scattering loneliness like seed
across the peopled earth
from birth to birth
a thousand lives
each one more isolated
and turned inwards
than the last

blindfolded
stumbling in the dark
from room to room
through an empty house

or gazing down
out of the sky
on eagle wings
with eagle eyes
far seeing
imperturbable

or like a catfish
in a pond
swimming in circles

or just walking
down the road

3

among the cinders in the dawn
on fern damp paths through morning mist
onto Pohutukawa Beach
where seagulls glide

What if?
What if?

What if there was a completely fantastic fictional world that was dominated by huge allegorical monsters with roaring furnaces in their chests and TV sets for heads? It would be really weird, wouldn’t it? Because of course these furnaces would operate at incredibly high temperatures and have to be continuously stoked with huge quantities of fuel, so the monsters would be totally rapacious, hungry all the time.

What kind of fuel would they need? Living creatures, almost certainly — but allegorical living creatures. Ideas, emotions, memories, irritations, worries, daydreams, grudges, and the rest. The moment by moment contents of our interior lives, all of it, no matter how trivial or profound, would be their food.

Some monsters would live on fear, others on rage, lust, curiosity, ambition, mania, etc.

The story begins with an idea, or perhaps a memory of some kind, that suddenly realises that it’s going to be eaten. This idea is like a Hobbit. There is a shadow on the Shire . . .

Book I

Prologue

As the first volume of the trilogy opens, this idea (perhaps called Fred) would suddenly become self aware and realise his predicament and flee into the mountains and get lost. But he would not only be lost, he would be followed. Thanks to their all-seeing TV heads, which are linked in an evil worldwide broadcasting network, the Furnace Monsters are aware of every move he makes and keep sending out wicked messengers in hot pursuit. Terrifying complusions and delusions and despairs would dog his heels, dominate his thoughts, and haunt his dreams.

Each morning Fred would wake up determined to go back and turn himself in. He’d then have to spend the rest of the day battling his own instincts and trying to work out where he was. Then night would fall again and he’d go to sleep. It would be really exhausting and pretty monotonous.

This would go on for a while.

Chap. 1

In this chapter something happens or someone turns up (it might be a wizard or a talking bird or even a wicked messenger) to make Fred understand that his life so far has been a lie, and that he is in fact not an idea, but a memory. This is embarrassing and even shameful because he had always been raised to believe that ideas were special and memories were useless. They were stupid and unreliable and basically lazy. So it’s a crisis.

He goes off to think about it by himself, getting really depressed. He’s so confused. It’s like he doesn’t even know who he is any more.

But then it slowly dawns on him, in a half-hearted sort of way, that he’s always been stupid and unreliable and basically good for nothing himself. So that makes sense.

“So, I’m a memory, then?” he says out loud.

“Yes, it’s true. You are,” a voice from behind him says.

“Wha–?”

Fred spins around to see what the voice looks like, but it is disembodied.

Chap. 2

This conversation takes places place in a sunlit clearing in the green heart of the ancient forest of Broceliande, which is as vast as the ocean and more tangled, treacherous and deep, filled with old mysteries and primordial occult powers.

“Where are you?” demands Fred. “Show yourself.”

“I can’t. I’m invisible,” the voice explains.

“Oh, right. Are you a talking bird?”

“No, not really, but I’m wise and trustworthy and basically good. Also I have your best interests at heart.”

“Okay.”

And then they talk. It turns out that the voice is his conscience, which is great. They decide to be friends and travel together and have adventures.

Then it starts raining.

Chap. 3

While it’s raining, Fred and his conscience talk among themselves and more or less bring the reader up to speed on what’s going on — filling in the back story and setting up stuff that’ll happen later, kind of thing.

Also the rain should be described.

Chap. 4

. . . these

memories are vague at first
the world around them blank

lacking in detail
full of gaps
and missing bits
and holes

they’re more a feeling
than a thought

each wish a want, each need a care

a clear glass filled with empty air
a window left wide open to the wind

receptacles
that take the shape
of what is poured in

memories

blown like white
clouds

2

deep in the forest
in the dark . . .

the rain kept falling, kept falling
beating soft against the thick
leaves of the canopy high overhead
and dripping splashing pouring
down . . .

the air was filled
with misty moisture
and the murmuring
of water . . .

all night long . . .

3

both overhead and underfoot
from exile unto rendezvous
is was shall be forever now
and every death a promise kept
and every life a marriage vow
a journey into what must come
together and alone at once
on paths of pleasure
pledged to pain
from curiosity to calm
from agony to reverence
suspended high above the mists
and nothingness of the abyss

a long extended endless bridge
walked over ceaselessly from birth
until the hour of death has passed
from dawn till dusk a single day

a childhood morning green with hope
the light of dawn the scent of spring
high noon bright summer sweat and blood
experience and knowledge won
duty and love and suffering
embodied in a harvest song
echoing out across the hills
in the autumnal darkening
of sunset twilight and the chill
first winds of winter blowing in

from embryo to skeleton
and every step along the way
each person place and private thought
held in the memory and lost
found in the moment and passed on

( . . . this is the song of Orpheus
washed by the tears that Isis wept . . . )

immersed
in
perfect
headlessness

fled fluently forever flowing
down river round the bend and gone
dismembered and restored again

becoming no one in the end
only the travelling and the tread
of far off feet on vanished ways

like bright foam
on a breaking wave
like spray
flung in the air

Australia, as we understood it, was a mere 200 years old. Even Western Civilisation itself — the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome — only went back about two and a half or three thousand years.

The roots of human civilisation as a whole extended deeper into time, for perhaps another two or three, or at the most four thousand years. But once you got past the last Egyptian pyramids and Sumerian ziggurats, history soon turned into pre-history and evaporated, leaving only mythology and archeology, a few neolithic farmers, and the ruins of a couple of small towns. Then nothing at all basically, until the ice age and the caves.

I mean, true or false, this was the impression I picked up at school.

Anatomically modern humans first emerged around 100,000 years ago. However, thereafter there seems to have followed a period of around 60,000 years when the lifestyle of the modern humans changed little from that of their predecessors. It was not till around 40,000 years ago that the archaeological record reveals the emergence of technical and social advances which a modern human can understand as fundamentally like our own. This dramatic change is known as the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution. The revolution comprised new technologies, hunting techniques, human burials and an artistic tradition of astonishing competency.

www.newarchaeology.com

In evolutionary terms, these caves would have protected stone age humanity from woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers and dragons and other predators. They were not only extremely secure but also dry, at least to some extent, and really pretty comfortable. Unfortunately they would also have been incredibly dark and terrifyingly claustrophobic, especially if you were tripping.

Which is why early man made art.

It was a really interesting time. The tribes (nations, clans, bands) in those far off days were already highly developed in some respects, and keenly interested in both hunting and gathering as well as making tools. The division and organisation of labour (he’ll do this, she’ll do that, you’ll report to me, I’ll be over there, etc.)  had almost certainly taken place at some point on the trek up from Africa, no one’s sure how or why exactly.

In the long run, developing a real social structure for their society proved to be a good move, because it meant that no one had to think for themselves too much, not that they could. Intelligence was still quite low at this stage, and any systematic analysis or forward planning was either non-existent or so pathetic it would have been better not to have bothered. They were like children, really.

You might think that instinct would have told them what to do, but it didn’t. Or not in any useful way. Each hesitant step forward too often involved several startled steps back and/or sudden death. In fact, just keeping body and soul together was always hard work for our ancestors, even though there was food everywhere, on all sides — it quite literally grew on trees — and really they had nothing much else to do except to reach up occasionally and grab some. How difficult could that be?

But sadly, and this is still true today to some extent, most of their problems stemmed directly from poor decision making.

For example, originally, the males of the tribe (who probably looked a bit like bearded gorillas in loincloths, bearing spears and heavy clubs) and their whining, resentful, but easily dominated womenfolk would sleep in the daytime and go out looking for food at night, a fundamental error of judgment that nearly wiped them out.

Typically, when nocturnal scavenging proved to be less than viable (because of the darkness, needless to say, which hampered every effort) they all simply lost interest and got out the drums and danced the night away in a mindless, highly sexualised state of zombie hysteria. Which was great, it really was. But on the downside they were starving to death and beginning to eat their own young — an obvious evolutionary dead end; one which, if carried to extremes, might have led to extinction.

But it didn’t. Because after they eventually sobered up and sat down and thought about it for a while, our forbears decided to start looking for food in the daylight, and that was a lot better.

This went on for a couple of thousand years or so. Then one day a group of foragers found some mushrooms. These particular specimens had red caps with white speckles on them and looked really trippy, so they ate a handful and went mad.

The morning after was all high winds and freezing rain and snow and rock slides and volcanic debris and ash, but luckily, when all hope was lost, they suddenly remembered that they lived in a cave and went back there and hid.

Another couple of thousand years went by.

He seemed to think that punk had no real intellectual, political, or spiritual content. In response, acting on instinct, I went completely mental and banged my head against the wall and hissed, “Far queue!”  and furiously did up some heroin (smack aka horse) and stabbed him with a bread knife and kicked his head in. Ha ha ha.

That shut him up.

In the aftermath of the assualt I began to lecture his unconconscious body, illustrating my argument with a broad array of stilted, manic, more or less autistic gesturations. And I made some good points, too, and said many interesting things; most of which I can’t remember very clearly this morning, but I’ll do my best.

No, sorry, can’t. It’s all a blur.

Everything is floating in a weird and fluid state of not being connected to anything else. There is no ground, no sky, no sense of time. It’s beautiful . . . and you feel tired.

It’s all you ever wanted and it’s happening right now. It doesn’t make sense really, but that doesn’t mean it’s not. It’s coming at you from a blind spot, like a bird out of the sun.

It always happens when you’re looking somewhere else: distracted, drunk, obsessed, regretful, staring in the wrong direction. It takes place when you’re asleep.

Lost in a dream, consumed by wishes, in a weightless state of drift . . .

There is a roaring in your skull . . . softly subliminal . . . it hisses and it whines. It’s always there. A constant background whisper, like a fog that keeps on flickering

shifting in and out of focus
eating quietly at the edges

of what you can’t pay attention
to enough.