SEEDPOETRY

Produced by JASON PILLEY

Featuring contributions from
ANEES AHMAD
SAMANTHA ANDERSON
FIONA CLAPPERTON
AUDREY LANE COCKETT
JENNY PSOPHIA ELLEST
GARY GET
LISA LUXX
JACK PASCOE
OKTAWIA PETRONELLA
PALOMA PLAHAY
TOM SINCLAIR
AMY NEILSON SMITH
JILLIAN WINTER
MU*020
Published by
MERCURIUS UNLIMITED
Printed by
BONE STREET INK
August 2016
All pieces their creators
Contact:
[email protected]

1. HOLY TRINITY CHURCH

The green man is ringing, is shining: cross the road, cut diagonally across from a Premier newsagent
to The Old Walnut Tree pub, it was always The White Horse but it also always had a bit of a
reputation, theyve revamped the place to try to appeal to a more old walnut tree kind of clientele.
Past the pub: road to my left, Southchurch Boulevard, a dual-carriageway with a grass stretch in its
middle, grass and scattered trees and bins. To my right are old houses then the church: through its gate,
along the overgrown path, past the Norman door with a little gargoyle-face over it plus flashing securitysystem. The path: round to the back of Holy Trinity Church. The graveyard: its bigger than you think.
But at its far end theres a strip of just grass, no graves, and more trees, bushes and a bench, and
under that bench, buried in a hole in the soil amid the dewy green grass and euphorbia plants, is a
cardboard box and in the box is a jar, folded into that jar is a piece of A4 paper and on the paper is this:
THERE YOU ARE
Anees Ahmad
If you had a friend that spoke to you the same way you spoke to yourself, would they still be your friend?
If you gave everything for a person shifted them to the focal point of your existence,
To the point where every breath spent not singing their praises felt as wasted as a desk fan in a hurricane,
When every moment not basking in their aura might as well have been spent in an unstaffed waiting room,
When their approval meant more to you than breathing,
The world reflected in their eyes held more spiritual experience than every church, mosque and synagogue on
the planet, and the sound of their laughter could replace dreaming,
When you had moulded them into the central pillar to hold together everything that ever meant anything
And that pillar crumbled under that weight to leave you grasping and gasping and blaming and shaming,
Applying denial to clamber and scramble together pieces that probably never fit together in the first place is
that really their fault?
I have spent the last twenty-four years shooting for the stars in a stare-off with my shoelaces,
Because of course Im not special, and maybe this time I can feel bad enough to fill another soul with joy;
After all Rome wasnt built in a day but the Berlin Wall was
But today today I feel alright
So for today, fuck modesty,
Today, I am a goddamn champion and so are you, because you have been through it all
You have been through heartbreak and loss and you are still standing
You have been through fear and self-doubt, anxiety, pity parties and every sickening shade of I-hate-myself
and you are still fucking standing
You have been through love and joy and happiness in all its disguises and you are still standing
You have been battered, beaten, broken, banished, betrayed
You have been told to sit still, watch and learn, stand up for yourself and speak your mind
You have been told to follow your dreams on evenings and weekends, and that practice makes perfect but
nobody likes a tryhard
You have been told to man up and be more ladylike
To think big, challenge everything, grab some buds and believe in better,
To get some nuts and dare to dream because impossible is nothing; and for everything else, theres Mastercard.
But the world does not need that. The world does not need more half-hearted doctors and lawyers
The world does not need more political correspondents, hedge-fund analysts, tax advisors and junior
marketing executives
The world does not need another glorified Oasis tribute-band, Wonga-funded Channel U video or rapper-witha-conscience and brand new thesaurus
The world does not need another marriage of convenience, friendship by proximity or staying together for the
kids
And it certainly does not need another child born of obligation and raised by expectation
The world is crying out for people who will live, love, dance, rant, build, destroy and rebuild with every ounce
of passion in their being
The world needs people who know that a second of vulnerability takes more courage than any brave face you
could ever pull
That true connection is not measured in bars, and that compassion just for some is compassion for none
The world needs people whose eyes will spark and tongues will set ablaze the powder-powered, cider-soaked
dregs of 5am at a house party when asked what they do for a living.
And if you can find that in one of the above, then power to you. But if not
Then that roof will only hide the stars, those clothes will only hide those scars,
That nought-to-sixty only gets you so far
Because wherever you go, there you are.

2. THE END
Death aint much.
Robert Anton Wilson on his deathbed.
Realistically, this probably isnt The End: Ive enjoyed the SEEDPOETRY project, I reckon
planting poems will remain a hobby. But, for now, the last page of SEEDPOETRY is slotting into
place. This is the last time:

2.1: POETRY
There are four Magical Weapons, theyre not really weapons. The Magical Elements that arent
elements, thats Magic for you. Four of them, here in my room:
The Wand: black words on white paper.
The Cup: because the Wand by itself is fragile, unstable, vulnerable. The Cup is a watertight
glass jar: the paper is placed inside it.
The Coin: a cardboard cube, I pen dice-dots onto its sides then put the jar in this box and then
shut the box.
The Sword: hardly Excalibur:

A humid night, 3am: I leave my house carrying a maroon bag with Thank You! printed on it,
in the bag is that cardboard box, in the box that glass jar, in the jar that paper, these words:

FREE RANGE
Samantha Anderson
An open field with fresh, untouched grass
A warm cloudless sky
The sibilant sound of leaves from a fatherly tree
Its welcoming shade is an embrace of cool strong branches
An unnatural, imposing, windowless structure
Erupted from the ground like a fungus
A shed surrounded by mud and shit
Staggering, a bird escapes
Through a tiny dark hatch
She is free!
From the heavy piss stench that hurts to breathe
And from rotting corpses of relatives
Shes still young theres still time
But fat, so fat her legs cant hold her
Theres the tip of a worm poking out of the mud
But unobtainable without her beak
Lost to a hot blade held by the governor
The same man eyes the surrounding field,
What a waste of space.

2.2: SEED
Cross the road: over from a newsagent to the top of Lifstan Way. On the other side of it from me
theres The Old Walnut Tree pub, on this side theres Southchurch Library. Lifstan Way slopes
down towards a railway-bridge and beyond that is Southchurch Park then the seafront but, before the
bridge, between the library and the railway-line, theres a smaller park: a few swings, a slide, a
climbing-frame, some grass. I dont know this parks name, has it even got a name? Maybe I should
give it a name: I call this place Electric Eden Park, no-one playing here will ever know!
3am: past the swings and slide, onto the grass. The road and pavement are deserted at this time
but there are houses overlooking the park, a few lit windows, I feel overly self-conscious. Never
mind. Dig.
On my knees with my trowel I do, I make a hole, I rip up grass and pile up mud. The cardboard
box is 9cm x 9cm x 9cm, I dig a hole just big enough for Samanthas poem and its container to
disappear into and then, that done, I dirty my hands clawing the mud back more-or-less where it was,
around the box and over it.

Now, in all this grass theres a slight patch of brown, a small square altar
The fifth of four Magical Weapons: the Spirit: a pack of seeds I bought from a garden-centre.
Zinnia seeds; on 16/1/16 NASA announced that zinnia was the first flower grown off of the Earth,
grown on the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted a picture of it:

On top of the buried box I throw a couple of zinnia seeds, a few others around it; there are
more left in the packet, as I leave Ill scatter them across the rest of Electric Eden Park and up the
sides of Lifstan Way. Whirlygig Improved Mixture: I asked the internet and it told me that
whirlygig is a toy that spins round.
I wont return to water my plants, but its been raining and this is England itll soon be
raining again. They should come up in all different colours although of course maybe they wont:
maybe the soil is poor, maybe there wont be enough rainfall or sunlight, maybe Southend Council
will send troops to pave over this park and build a petrol-station instead, maybe the plants will begin
to grow then get picked off by a frost later in the year or eaten by insects or kicked to oblivion by
teenagers. But anyway these flowers, the potential of these flowers, only exist because of the poem:
even if all the seeds amount to is lunch for some slugs, thats still more than most poetry ever
achieves

3. THE FUTURE OF MAGIC

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable, and when you move, fall like a lightning-bolt.
Sun Tzu, The Art Of War.

Early in the summer of 2016, the Cthulhuesque squid-thing that is Jenny Rollright slithered towards
me and said her publishing company Mercurius Unlimited was looking to bring out some
pamphlets, new poetry, upcoming ideas; she asked if I had anything that might fit.
Actually yeah, I do. I told her about my day in Priory Park and the plan itd given me, to
plant my and my friends poems along with seeds. Flowerpower poetry. Groundbreaking, innit.
Sounds good. Go for it.
Of course, I added, youll have to send me one too. And she did:

ENOUGHS NOT ENOUGH

Jenny Enny Rollright
Mescalita faces, faces in the trees!
Mescalita movements, sparkling in the leaves!
Mescalita moments, seared into my skin!
Mescalita voices tell me everything!
Mescalita faces, grinning in the grass!
Mescalita puking in the underpass!
Fingers are prayers to the great god of Textures!
Dogwalkers smile awkwardly as they walk by;
Dogs growl nervously and only I know why.
Dogs bark; I dont know whats got into him!
Oh they can always tell when youre on something,
I slur, I sway, they frown, I let them pass:
Folk look funny when youre fondling the grass.
Mescalita faces, turning in the trees.
Abruptly now: what are the odds of me?!
Mescalita movements, gurgling through the leaves.
AD on calendars spells Altered Destiny!
Mescalita hours, seared into my skin.
These are a few of my favourite things!
The insects are trying to teach us to buzz!

Down Lifstan Way: past the park, under the bridge: but before the seafront turn right towards town.
After a while reach the Kursaal Estate, where I grew up: 20 Outing Close. These houses all look so
small now. Outside my old home is a little path and a little road and between them a little patch of
shrubs, grass, a couple of trees which once ascended to magic faraway places and perhaps still do,
anyway one night Jennys poem in a jar in a dice-dotted box gets stashed here, Im terrified someone
might see me, I know it wouldnt matter in the slightest if anyone did. Over the submerged verses I
spill seeds, impatiens a.k.a. jewelweed a.k.a. busy lizzie. I slosh the contents of my water-bottle over
the earth then cycle home.

Before I began SEEDPOETRY Id never really grown or planted much. Some

cress when I was at school; lots of magic-mushrooms until psilocybin-spores were
criminalised; that was pretty much it. I didnt know where to start with this, but
Fiona Clapperton of the Southend In Transition community-group (check out
www.southendintransition.org.uk) offered lots of help with the basics how to
plant?!? where to plant?!? and gave me a list of the seeds Id be best off using in
mid- to late-summer.

In fact, Fionas poem a suitable one to bury and plant fruit on top of, as she says
was the first of all these poems to be hidden. After a poetry-event she put on at her
allotment towards the north end of Hamstel Road, she gave me a few strawberryrunners
Head back along Hamstel Road, head south and come to a Premier newsagent and
the crossroads. A right turn onto Southchurch Road takes you towards town. Or go
straight on, down Lifstan Way, with the library to your right and then the railwaybridge over you then the seafront. Or turn left: Southchurch Boulevard, houses all
along the left side of it while on the right theres The Old Walnut Tree pub then
more houses then Holy Trinity Church with its graveyard; but in the middle of the
road theres a strip of grass, long and wide, with trees, benches and bins scattered here
and there and, now, this poem, with above it and around it half a dozen strawberrystolons in the soil

GONE
Fiona Clapperton
I have spent the best years of my life trying to fix you.
The hole in your soul you fill up with alcohol.
I gave you my gift of joy, you eroded it away with acid words.
And fists.
The words hurt more.
I mourn for the boy with fire in his eyes.
I mourn for the shared laughter and the dreams.
You packed up your bitterness and worldly goods and moved on, to greener grass.
But the truth is,
You are long gone.

Close your eyes and with your fingers apply mild pressure to your eyelids: after a
couple of minutes youll see what Audrey Lane Cockett really looks like.
Along Hamstel Road, come to the crossroads: turn right onto Southchurch Road
towards town then go left at Queensway roundabout and reach Warrior Square.
This used to be a swimming-pool but they closed it, now its just a patch of grass.
Because the square is right next to the High Street itll not stay as grass for long,
eventually theyll turn the place into either flats or a car-park: but whatever gets
built here, let Audreys poem and picture haunt it! theyre embedded at one
corner, by Whitegate Road and Queensway, lemon-balm seeds covering them and
covering all the rest of Warrior Square. Bees love the flowers, says the text on
the back of the packet

SUN DRESSED SKIN

Audrey Lane Cockett
Sun dressed skin
She wears wild blue flax behind one ear
As if it grew there
As if all she wants is to breathe, fresh air
As if all she wants is to watch the river endlessly relinquish and replenish itself
Squinting, she walks to the lazy backwaters edge
Knotted rope still wrapped around fraying branch
Whispering tales of backflips to whomever listens
She leaves her clothes in a haphazard pile by the jack pine
Shedding any pretence of brave she wades in, hesitant
Taking refuge in the warm pockets
Of lingering laughter
Submerge
Last nights clothes smell of dancing and Djarums
Sweat and sweet smoke
On her morning shortcut home
She carefully peels a dead bird from the street
And places it beneath a sapling
Touching only the flight feathers at dawn
Her body is tenderly knotted around nighttimes empty promises
Eventually
Sun slats through her weary blinds
Meanwhile
The fallen blue flax caresses riverbank in petal pieces
Eventually
She sleeps
Meanwhile
A warbler sings morning from the jack pine
chip chip chip too too weet weet
Eventually
Summer peels off her shoulders.
Meanwhile
It begins to rain

silver and
the finest plate
hold an undiscovered taste
Id served you before

upon a simple grain of sand

I make my own lasting demand
to hold back the shore

when the stone cant defend and time

saw its
end

it seems only seasons can

pass these walls
hours turn to years like a blossom in a vast field turns to the sun
silver and
the finest plate
hold an undiscovered taste
Id served you before
upon a simple grain of sand
I make my own lasting demand to
hold back the shore
Jillian Winter was there at the inception of the
SEEDPOETRY project (see Chapter IV, PRIORY
PARK), and when I asked her to send me words/pictures she
sent this. Turn off Hamstel Road near the allotments, turn
down Newington Avenue and reach Bournes Green Park
where this is buried with some Rudbeckia fulgida a.k.a.
Rudbeckia goldsturm, goldsturm = a golden storm
when the stone cant defend and time
saw
its end it
seems only seasons
can pass these walls
hours turn to years like
a blossom in a vast field turns to the sun

IM DYING TO WRITE THIS

Tom Sinclair
There are little victories
So imperceivable
So inconceivable
That you doubt they actually happened
But they are there
Somewhere in the stories you tell
Out of the imaginary books filled with memories of your family
Stories which defined you
In the weave of Lincolnshire
I was born in the same hospital as Margaret Thatcher
I imagine she stared into my crib and wanted to smother me
I imagine she saw the glint in my eye which said
I hate you and everything you stand for, and even though I am barely more than
a foetus I will come for you and all your kind. I will chase you away with wellconstructed sentences.
Its like Hemingway said
Writing is easy
All youve got to do is bleed one letter at a time
You have to die in back alleys
Break sweat in menial jobs
Live with and without insanity
Before you can really write
And even then its a gamble
But every breath is a gamble
I smoke other peoples cigarettes
All my best lines are stolen
Great men invent, geniuses steal
Thats stolen
One day the words will stop
Ill stare at blank paper, blankly
Ill have nothing else to write about
All the words will have haemorrhaged out of me
I swear they come through me
I swear
Sometimes I just want to swear
When youre a child everyone hangs off your first word
When youre an adult everyone just wants you to shut up
And the government just wants you to pay your taxes
And your family just wants you to have enough money to pay for your own funeral
There was something about how she smoked
It told you death was on the menu
Ill probably be known as that poet who talked about other poets
One day Ill write their stories down
The stories of all the poets I loved and knew
Ill write down their sagas and the dramas
The myths and dreams
Ill be known as the poet
Who wrote about other poets
ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS
And quiet envy
Ive not yet decided if we are the best of people
Or the worst of them

MOUSEMAN
Gary Get
Unexplained damage appeared in the kitchen
In the cupboard he found biscuits with little bits missing
The first sighting was a flash of grey
Unexpected movement at the end of the day.
Then one time he saw it sitting bold as brass
Looking at some pasta in a jar of glass
And he realised that night
It was love at first sight.
But this could be no normal love
No, one mouse is not enough
And when a partner mouse appeared
He screamed and danced and cheered.
But mice will be mice and these mice were no different
Before long they delivered little presents
And now hes happy, they satisfy his needs,
He only ventures out to top up on the cheese.
Oh yes, hes the mouseman
It started with just one
He loved his furry friend
But now hes overrun.
This and Tom Satan Sinclairs poem opposite are now

spouting begonias at opposite ends of Belfairs Wood.

`

You know sometimes you turn left but left stays where it is and you turn all the way
through it, through to some screwy new dimension, neither left nor right but a whole
other side, the outside
Thats where Lisa Luxx lives.

LOST PHONE
Lisa Luxx
An unwashed denim pocket sighs:
J Brands slacked jaw, catching flies.
While the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding dont ring,
Holla of the unseen
Remain high and dry.
My jeans and I feel empty.
Like Ive unscrewed a peg leg
And everything from the hem to the knee thread
Is going to waste.
Inadequate eyeballs roll loose,
As cat calls from a flexing reality
Validly dashes our silence.
Crisp networks flick like fingertips
On a Spanish guitar
Polyphonic scars break open.
Titanium toasted soldiers march out
Chanting:
I
I am
I am where?
I am where I
I am where I am
I am where I am, right?
I am where I am right now.

Straight on at the crossroads, down Lifstan Way: Southchurch Library then a park to your right,
The Old Walnut Tree then a road to your left, at the base of its road-sign is Lisas poem plus
some poppy seeds. But the packet of these I bought contained approx 21,000 seeds! fortunately
a few roads lead off from Apollo Drive, theres Zeus Road and Hera Close, Athena Close, Eros
Avenue with plots of grass dotted around. Let twenty-one thousand red poppies bloom!

BY THE WAY, WERE SICK

Jenny Psophia Ellest
Every time the doorbell rings
Somewhere the worst has come to the worst
!
But its only the postman
Bringing parcels of nothing.
Have I failed or was I defeated?
*
Over and over:
defeated?
*
and over
Jenny Ellest sez: I go most weeks to the LuvMatrix poetry-night in Braintree, theres a
microphone set up in a bar and anyone who wants to stand and perform their poems can. Every
week I intend to read some of mine but every week I get too scared. I wrote this about that:

OHPOET!
Jenny Psophia Ellest
On my third beer I think of the Nazis
Strolling into Amsterdam and I know
Why they call it Dutch courage: tonight Ill
Be showing my stage-fright that old white flag.
Fourth beer: if there are two empty seats in
A packed pub theyll be the seats next to me.
Always early; these nights always start late;
Sorry: take me off the open-mic list, please.
Fourth beer: hold it: tonight Im here to watch,
To listen, you open into the mic:
Ive never met you and youre telling me
Everything I need to know about you.
Poetry glows: three and a half minutes,
You are you, its enough that you are you.
Three and a half minutes plus the applause,
You butterfly loudly in all this light.
The stage is no stage but it raises you
Up over an old town with a Zero
Tolerance approach to things like us.
Youre exactly the right size. Glow for me.

*
My road and its neighbours have lots of alleyways twisting between them. A few years ago the
Council stuck locked metal gates at the entrances to every one of those alleys, supposedly to stop
crime but theres virtually no crime in this area, so either it was a sensible precautionary act to
ensure things remain safe or else it was another instance of minor politicians making the world
ever more caged and inaccessible. Prison-chic. Either way, the steel bars of these dark barriers are
quite wide apart: so one soggy night I reached through a gate halfway down Richmond Street to
dig another little hole for another little jar with Jennys poems inside. Also through the gate and
over it I chucked dozens of accumulated cannabis seeds, I cant imagine theyll grow but
throwing stoned poetry in glass houses fuck it, why not? Dreamtime time!

The vibrations of Jennys words power the spaceship

This haiku is now in Thorpe Bay Gardens overlooking the sea.

LUANG PRABANG HAIKU (a.k.a. EXPLORER)

Jenny Appleseed
Off the bus pre-dawn,
My first day in this country:
I am made of gods.

IN MEMORIAM
Bridget R.

Bridget died on the railway tracks

Bridget drowned in the sea
Bridget got her heart shot out
Bridget isnt me.

Bridget dropped from a hot-air balloon

Bridget got caught in a war
Bridget got roped to an old oak tree
Bridget starved on the floor.

Bridget breathed in poison gases

Bridgets not even history
Bridget was trampled, trampled
Bridget isnt me.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER, 2015

Christophopher Pulse
First they ignore you,
Then they ignore you,
Then they ignore you,
Then you die.

Connecting Southchurch Boulevard and Steyning Avenue is a little path lined on both
sides with grass: there I sowed love-in-a-mist a.k.a. devil-in-a-bush and this poem.
Itd be a weird one for someone to find, its a bit negative?! But: the medium is the
message. They wouldnt find these words; theyd find these words in a jar in a box in
the ground, surely itd suggest not a moody Monday but a cleansing rite, a banishing?

BRAT MAGIC WON!

In the British Museum theres a Secret Room and inside the Secret
Room is a Secret Door leading to a Secret Corridor descending to a
Secret Subterranean Chamber in which theres a Secret TreasureChest, in the Secret Treasure-Chest waits Jack Pascoe!
Up a bit from Priory Park is Roots Hall, Southend Uniteds
football-stadium. You could climb into this place and get on the
pitch easily, once: I bet its not so easy now. Much as Id love to
cover their field with flowers Im not going to even try. But on the
main road outside the stadium are some flats and outside the flats is
a little lawn, in the grass are Jacks haiku plus some rare (and
deadly, according to The Daily Mail) corn-cockle seeds. The
cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition

FIVE HAIKU
Jack Pascoe
The Potato Eaters
Eating potatoes
Under a tiny oil lamp.
We all tell stories.

Head Of A Skeleton

Spanish Dancer

I saw a mans skull

Biting on a cigarette
That burned at the tip.

Alone, on her toes,

Surrounded by olive trees.
She raises her arms.

The Bedroom

The White Orchard

Rows of pear blossom
Growing from glistening marsh
Next to the main path.

My bed is too big

For my cosy, sea-blue room.
The paintings, crooked.

If I should die, think only this of me:

There is some part of the grass verge on Vaughan Avenue that is forever Poetry.

EVERY. BLOODY. TIME.

It takes a while but, eventually,
The automatic-doors open for me:
I step through them, exit the clinic,
Breathe in fresh air and start feeling sick.
Every raindrop drops with an acid burn;
Id come to pick up my test-results, to learn
Whether or not I had a headache;
Whether or not I had a toothache;
Whether or not I had a stomach-ache;
And had I survived that gypsys curse;
And were things going to get worse or even worse;
But all Doc Slither could tell me was
He wanted to be paid in dollars.
I walk down towards the road: a passing cop
Blows a kiss as I stand at the bus-stop.
A bus approaches: its the 24,668,573:
The driver looks like hes going to be sick when he sees me,
And I dont think the bus will stop but it does, not too far away.
I step creakingly up onto it: Sorry, I say,
Ive got no change.
I give him a ten-pound note, and in exchange
He pens, onto a scrap of paper which he then hands me,
Thick black letters: C U N T.
I take a seat, everyones doing awful things with their fingers;
The fat man next to me stinks of old eggs, the smell wont not linger,
And behind me sweaty-spitting beer-blobs sing their football-songs again:
So I take out from my bag some paper and a pen
And the poem I write stings worse than wasps on a lost-love morning;
The poem I write is as funny as the things Id do if I were king;
The poem I write changes the world into its pyjamas;
The poem I write seduces off yer pyjamas and melts yer armour
And caresses new life into born-again neurons;
The poem I write reminds you which side youre on;
A jungle poetry, poetry to make the sky sing!
A poetry that DING!
We reach Pigsnort Avenue, the bus skids and stops:
I swear everyone starts laughing as I step off.
Averting my eyes awkwardly as the bus goes
Its passengers pressing their arses against the windows
I edge home: cautiously,
In case the neighbours have set more traps for me.
And then like a fart at a wedding it hits:
The realisation: theres nothing in my bag, nothing in my pockets.
My poem: my epic: my magnum opus:
I left it on the bus.

INVOCATION OF SOME WORDS

Martin Atchet
STATEMENT OF INTENT: Jason asked me to do him a page for something called SEEDPOETRY.
I said yes but I dont know what to write, I want something to write, Im going to ask a god I dont
believe in to give me something to write.
SIGIL: These words are a spell. You have accepted our terms and conditions.
To charge the spell I will harness the power of absurdity, first I create this little picture:

Then I print out a hundred copies of that image on the photocopier at the place where I work,
not all in one go, a dozen here and a dozen there, one hundred of them.
DRIFT: Naming no names, I know a guy who drives a lorry: five days a week, first thing in the
morning, he brings stacks of local newspaper The Southend Echo to supermarkets. Its not the
hardest thing in the world to convince him to misplace a pile: one hundred editions of todays news
(Headline: 2 HURT IN STREET BRAWL) are mine now.
Into each paper not jammed inside the pages but placed loosely within the folded front-cover,
so itll fall out the instant anyone picks the newspaper up I slip one of my photocopies: Wank on
this and all your dreams will come true. The plan is, Ill go out later with these papers in a bag, Ill
go for a walk, Ill determine the route by following any appealing signs and synchronicities or by
flipping a coin or rolling dice every time I come to a turning. Any house that looks even vaguely
interesting, any letterbox coloured with the slightest tint of the numinous, will receive todays news
INVOCATION: By now naturally youre thinking of Mercury. Postman of the gods, fleet-footed
patron of righteous thieves and trickybastard writers, the Truth-god who only ever lies, Mercury
who leads magicians in circles to themselves, Mercury the totality of all Communication, the Holy
Spirit with his glad tidings, Existence knowing itself, Mercury! If this paperboy is heading out on
his delivery-round, he wants Mercury with him.
You dont know how absurd things can get until youve recruited a Roman deity to be your
imaginary-friend. First I swallow a lump of hash to get these synapses sparkling, connecting new
connections. Then I do my homework: Victorian occult group The Hermetic Order Of The Golden
Dawn produced several relevant works, including Liber 64 (All-Light! All-Power! The speaker
silently departs) and Liber 777 which tells me the metaphor that is Mercury is best suggested
to the nostrils by storax, I burn some, a thick scent of metallic roses then I move onto the Mercury
Rising tract from contemporary occult group The Moon & Serpent Theatre Of Marvels. (The
bridge behind us aint there anymore!) I fill my mind with Mercury, Mercury who is Hermes! who
is Thoth! Legba! Metron! Nabu! Divine Scribe: who is these words, the pen and then the keyboard
writing them then the transmission of light that enchants the air to bring them to your eyes.
Im ready to leave: to drift, to follow every clue, Mercury will send me clues. Ive got my
newspapers but theyre just props, Im looking for the play. Signs and synchronicities: in the act of
performing this silly task I should end up with adventures to recount, epiphanies to share. I step onto
the street, streets made splendorous by the gods eyes Im viewing them through, and
But Jason only offered me one page, I dont have the space to relate what happened next, to say
whether or not I got my Words.
But thats the thing with magic: it doesnt actually matter if it works or not, just the doing of it
is magic enough.

TWO POEMS
Amy Neilson Smith
Head Fuck
Clutching a cellophane-wrapped cucumber,
Co-op, veg aisle, you squeeze into my consciousness;
gripped fingers tighten, youre hard to put down.
Several steps later, I bend down to a tomato box,
cup one in each hand, firm yet ready; your name
throbs, transcends into a waxwork of you.
By the time I reach the melons, youre alive,
present: walking with me, talking with me,
fucking me, gently, against banana shelves,
amidst ripe raspberries, blackberry-stained
bottoms bare on squeaky lino, strawberries
squished between toes, cracked Hass avocado
smeared like cream onto sweat-laden limbs.

Straight
Just because
the pieces
fit together,
doesnt mean
it makes
a pretty
picture.

The north end of Hamstel Road meets Eastern

Avenue and on Eastern Avenue theres a
supermarket, the obvious place to stick Amys
poems was there so I did. But instead of
seeds I tried something different, I got some
young salvia plants, three different varieties
Flowerchild, Mystic Spires, Joy and
planted them by the car-park, heres one:

CORONATION STREET
Off the train
Off the road
Onto the platform,
Into the station,
Kundalini Street Station.
Kundalini Street Station.
Along a corridor
Through the barriers
To the escalator:
To the escalator:
I ascend,
I descend,
Silver wall to my left,
Silver wall to my left,
With adverts set in it: heres one,
With adverts set in it: heres one,
A picture of a snake nibbling its tail,
A picture of a circle made by a snake,
The snake seems to spin but really this wheel stays still while everything else turns.
Outside the circle are all the things
Outside the snake are all the things
You never could have been:
You never could have been:
The king of France;
The queen of Mars;
A sumo-wrestler;
A basketball champ;
The first man to set foot on Madagascar;
The first woman to give birth on Pluto;
Ah but inside the sphere
Ah but inside the serpent
Is everything else, all your potential.
Is everything you might have been.
Ascending, another ad:
Descending, another ad:
A picture of a spot-lit puppet,
A picture of a smiling puppet,
SHAKE SOMETHING
SNAKE SOMETHING
FREE!
Strings rise from each of the toys limbs
Strings dangle down to the toys limbs
To the puppets hand held over its head:
From its own hand held above its head:
It lifts itself up.
It makes itself dance.
The puppet is made of
The puppet is
Everything you have chosen to become
Everything you have been made to be
In your whole life.
In your ongoing life.
What comes of all our going?
What comes of all our coming?
Another:
Advert:
The worlds a red courtroom and I am a
The worlds a red target and there is an
Judge.
Arrow.
A hammer down on this life!
Hunt worlds! Hunt yourself!
Judge the planet!
Aim for you!
NOT GUILTY
The soundtrack is the sound
Of a god going to war.
This is the point of the point.
This is the point of the point.
Be everything you can.
You can be everything.
Advert:
Advert:
Conspiracy pour lhomme femme.
Conspiracy pour l femme homme.
Conspiracy means to breathe together.
Conspiracy means to breathe together.
Life is a breathing-together against Death.
Life is a breathing-together against Death.
The escalator seems to slow.
Time starts to smudge.
Heart this:
Heart
All the all-dimensional heart
Even the lights are a little orgasm
All your favourite songs
Reality is its own reward
Heart
The
Red engines of
Red engines of
Vigour.
Generosity.
This picture set in the silver wall shows
This picture set in the silver wall shows
People you like, they
People you dislike, they
are you are me are you are me are you are me are you are me are you are me are you are

Another:
Think of a letter! Think of it right now!

Another:
& make a word only an angel can read!
Y

I am what questions everything.

Words are what?
Gap the mind.
Power commands and communicates information.
Another!
Special offer!
A head for sale!
Inside this head is the heads idea of
Itself, another head.
Inside this other head is another head,
Is another head,
Another head and
Somewhere in all that
Is the place thoughts go
When youre thinking them.
Again!
I am a
Everything. There is
Attention
Up your spine, up your
I:

Everything questions what am I?

What are words?
It knows this:
Information communicates and commands power.
More!
Special on a
Brainwave sail.
Inside the head is this heads idea of
Itself, another head.
Inside this other head is another head,
Is another head,
Another head and
Somewhere in all this
Is the place thoughts go
When youre not thinking them.
GO!
Turning too!
There is a
snake
inside
Me. I am
Energy
Up your spine, up your
Everything:
rises:
falls:
rises:
rises!
falls!
falls:
rises:

Stars form and thrive and shrink and die!

Cells form and thrive and shrink and die!
Form
Thrive
Thrive
Shrink
Shrink
Die
Die
Form
Form
Thrive
This spasm through time;
The electric fact of us:
The Truth is I dont know.
The body opera:
Snakes are made of ladders!
Snakes are made of letters!
Look up:
Look down:
On the escalator going
On the escalator coming
Down
Up
Someone tears their eyes from the ads
Someone tears their eyes from the ads
And looks over,
And looks over,
Looks right:
Looks right:
Two pairs of eyes see each other and,
Two pairs of eyes see each other and,
Embarrassed,
Embarrassed,
Reflexively look away.
Reflexively look away.
But then look back bravely and see each other
And smile
And smile and

Paloma Plahay a.k.a. ******* ***** a.k.a. [NAME REDACTED] a.k.a. Bo udicca Collins likes to
stare at the clouds. And the clouds like to stare back.

Turn left at the crossroads: along Southchurch Boulevard, past The Old Walnut Tree pub and the
houses and past Holy Trinity Church too. Ahead are a couple of schools, Southend High then
Futures College which used to be Thorpe Bay School but it had various problems so they changed
its name, its still got problems. Before the schools, off Southchurch Boulevard, is Pilgrims Close
which dwindles into a footpath down to the railway-tracks and over them. On the right of this path is
the graveyard then a housing-estate, roads named after Greek gods; on the left are bushes and,
behind a fence, Southend Highs fields. And Palomas picture and some bright orange marigolds

Off Southchurch Boulevard is Pilgrims Close which dwindles into a footpath down to the railwaytracks and over them out onto Woodgrange Close: carry on and theres Southchurch Park.
Oktawia Petronella lives in a dreary little city called London but she popped to Southend to serenade
this willow tree in that park as I dug a hole between its roots and stuck her song in it, then filled the
hole back up with soil then strew forget-me-not seeds all around the edges of Southchurch Park.

THE SEX-LIFE OF SPECIAL AGENT K

Out of the house: close the door quietly behind me, I dont want to wake up the neighbours. Ive got
a big rucksack slung over my shoulders but most of the gear is stashed in place. I step onto South
Street and walk: the night is just what I wanted, warm dry streetlight-lit and clouded; a fox looks up
from the bin-bag its been chewing and legs it down an alley. Theres a row of drawn curtains to my
left: at no. 46 I creep through the gate and edge the garden-gnome another half-centimetre away
from the door. And keep walking: there are parked cars to my right, a few nights ago half of them
had their registration-plates swapped around but theyre mostly back in their proper places now. Past
white A4 papers taped to lampposts, blank except for the one word MISSING at the top; I come to
the corner, the end of South Street although words on a sign say instead that its Fuckme Avenue, the
original got cut down wrapped up and mailed FREEPOST to the Customer Services of some old
bank. More parked cars and snoozing houses along Werewolf Lane: past a white van thats been
bubblewrapped; past no. 68 whose occupants just got letters from Strunk & White Solicitors
informing them their names would have to be changed. An acne of little green toy-soldiers has broke
out on the postbox, as heres yer Church Of St. Someone-Or-Other: where its window was is instead
a sign saying FREE COCO-POPS, INQUIRE WITHIN, and some car on Exclamation-Mark Street
ended up with a stained-glass windscreen. Knights Templar Holy Grail Gnostic Mystery clues are
buried around here, Hermetic riddles to holy relics, to the authentic bones of the first person who
ever said Christ on a bike. Past flamboyantly transvestite trees, up Inbred Avenue: one time I
chloroformed this snoozing tabby-cat and gave it a pink Mohican. Past the St. This Sucks schoolsign over the school-fence, black rails with dangling banners telling you what shops you get
vouchers from but someones scissored out the supermarket-logos and scrawled The Medicine Is
Killing You in black over their banners. Past the newsagent, a chain of adverts over its doorway,
The Sun The Sun The Sunk The Sun The Sunk The Sunk and in the window, on little cards,
exorcists advertise their services, tutors wanna learn ya gibbergibber languages, and there are magicbeans for sale, and entrail-readings and pederasty lessons and lots of phone-numbers. Past eyes
painted on the pavement: I get to the end of Inbred Avenue where theres a sign, in a red-edged
white circle a red line is dashed through a black octagon. Here the road goes left or right but on the
other side is a garage, Shell garage with bushes behind it. One day I wanna see all the policehorses get free and gallop down this road. Over it, when the traffic-light turns blue or at one of these
new zebra-crossings that keep springing up, anyway there arent any cars; I get to the garage. One
day I wanna see a big inflatable Batman dangling noosed from this roof. I slip across the forecourt,
spit on the petrol-pumps and disappear in the bushes.

Hard mud under my feet. There are distant lights on distant roads, in the daytime I could see the
airport from here and golf-courses around it; occasionally the golfers holes will somehow fill
themselves with cement. Or dog-shit. Now though all I sees just the crops on both sides of me, this
gold-in-the-darkness barley reaching up almost to my shoulders as I step along one of two parallel
lines left by a tractor, along to the centre of the field. Out of the rucksack comes a steel stick: the
hard mud under me isnt that hard as I force this post down into it, down in the furrow left by a fat
tyre. And it stands there strong: around its top is a slightly rusted hoop, a ring to which I attach the
end of a chunky surveyors tape-measure, yellow tape spools out as I carry that on along the track,
metre after metre emerging from my steel post. A plane descends noisily overhead but theres
nothing to see here. Thirty metres: the surveyors-tape reaches its limit and stops and theres still all
this barley everywhere, thin stems up to brittle tips, the weight of those pointed tops stoops the
plants, they point downwards and sway in a slight breeze. And stashed among them, concealed
within the clustered trembling cereal-grain is this plank of wood, its a metre-and-a-half from left to
right, with a rope through holes in both ends. I retrieve my plank and set it in place, looking out at
ninety degrees from the tractor-lines. With the rope in one hand, as the other holds the tape-measure
straight, my right foot steps down on the wooden board pressing down and sliding forwards as my
left foot steps forwards, off the tractored track into the field, through the dense crops brushing my
face and dying under my feet as I force the plank into and over them, the stalks are brought low and
flattened as I push onwards, keeping the tape tight as thirty metres from me it loops slowly around a
slightly rusted hoop, the yellow measure from there to here skims the soft spiked tops of the plants,
they bend for it then spring back into place; the barley under me doesnt spring back into place. I
plough forwards, facing away from the airport, onwards; run rabbit run. Ahead of me eventually are
those tractor-lines, that path, this path, Im sixty metres down from where I started. And carry on,
into the rustling and crunching breaking crops and on and round, facing the airport, and heres those
tractor-lines again, back where I started: I drop the board and the tape-measure, I breathe deep and
stretch, Im aching Im sweating but its not over yet. I return along the track and unfix the tapemeasure from the metal ring but attach it back onto the metal post, then walk again and again grip
the rope and step again with the gear into the field: theres this new flattened path under me as I go
but now my surveyors-tape doesnt loop round the ring but instead wraps around the pole: as I hold
it straight, not pulling not letting it slack, a yellow thirty-metre radius becomes a twenty-nine-and-ahalf metre radius, I glide off that last path and make another new one through the plants, again
forcing forwards, sliding and pushing and occasionally having to kick the board over the barley, a
twenty-five metre radius, further and further from my circles edge as the tape wraps round and
round the central post drawing me round and round closer to it, Im facing the airport then facing
away from the airport, back to the track and over it and into the crops and round again, twenty
metres, ten metres, the airport then not the airport, the track, five metres of dwindling yellow, the
airport, the crops, and here are those tractor-lines with my stick spiked in this mud: no metres: the
tapes all back in the tape-measure and theres only hard soil under the plank under my feet. I pack
the tape and the dug-up steel post into my rucksack, the wooden board too, it pokes awkwardly out
of the top, it looks conspicuous, but if anyone asks Ive got my cover-story worked out, Ive got
reasons ready. I head back towards the garage

I like to psychically serenade bastards and careerists with this poem:

THE MASK WILL SLIP

Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?
Can you hear me saying these words silently?

Down on the seafront, pointing sternly at Kent, is Queen Victoria: her posh flowerbeds got my
flowers bedding in it now, my cosmos seedlings and snapdragons, phlox and rainbow chard and
rocket, mint and thyme plus assorted wildflowers, plus apple pips and lavender, penstemon and
random leftover seeds and anything else I could find, let them smother each other and struggle
and mostly die, let them crack open the concrete and break stone Victoria!

GARUDA!
a story adapted from the Mahabharata

MU*003.14159
by JASON PILLEY
(PART 2 co-written with SUTHARSHINI SEBASTIANPILLAI)
for MERCURIUS UNLIMITED

1
GARUDA!
Golden-man firebird-man man-bird demon-eyed animal angel,
Electricity-eyed awfulstorm angel, hideouslove god, horror-angel god
I am
Garuda.
Apocalypse-fierce, unashamed and carnivore:
I am Good because it is harder and nobler to be Good than it is to be
Snide or mean or weak or nothing, I am
Everything: the motive flame, enkindling all points of Existence.
I am the builder carrying out the Grand Architects grand design;
I am the hands the Sculptors shape shapes with;
I am the pen the gods write with: shiningpure strive-flight artisan fire,
Pervasive spiritfire, the blood-and-sweat mechanics of manifestation;
Out of my eagle beak comes all sound at once
I am
Garuda.
Seminal sky-ranger, thought-fast, above storms:
I wear the crown of the King, its too heavy for Him.
I am the equals in every equation;
I am the hurtling of Times arrow, the Life-force forcing forward;
I am the Magicians wand, spellcasting sunlight in infinite directions;
The beating of my hurricane wings propels each moment into the next
I am
Garuda.
Head of the resplendent procession:
A candle-guide through the dark, a golden boat-ride over the Abyss.
Every change is a combustion of chemistries and everythings always changing.
I am precisely as warm as the universe
I am
Garuda.
Who scatters the stars in their different paths?
Who carries the light from the sun to your eyes?
Who steers the moon and whirls the world round?
Whos this looking out through your eyes?
Who breathes in every cell in every body?
Who pulls the atoms into their places?
Who devours Lifes devourers to fuel Life?
Garuda!

Someone is dying.

2
MOTHER, giver, keeper:
Girl, woman, witch,
Flowers:
I am the earth on which you bleed;
I am the blood you bleed;
I am you bleeding;
I am Life,
I am
Hurt.
(Son, save me!)
I am
Joyous:
Bleed deep deep into me,
Lover:
Till your New Moon crescents,
Mother:
I name you,
Nurturer:
I see before you do. You,
Deep in
Me.
Wolves teeth and waterfalls. You,
From
Me:
Yoni, divinity, fruit-bearer
Foetus and labour and lullabies and screaming rows
My face in the throbs and twists of the Sacred Tree
The hive with the hivemind
Timeless,
Vulnerable:
Deep into me, I am deep into
You, I am
Dying:
My crystal soul is smashed;
My tough heart is torn;
My voice was stolen;
My infinite arms are in shackles:
And everything that should be living is failing,
And all our hopes end in miscarriage and sickness
And rot,
And where there used to be a future
Son, save me:
There is an antidote to this Poison.

3
Amrita!
The Ambrosia.
Heavens nectar.
Amrita!
The Elixir of Life.
Holy water.
Amrita!
Grail-juice.
The quintessence.
Amrita!
Soma.
The milk of Potential.
Amrita!
The Cup that cannot be drained.
The Health of the gods.
Amrita!
Sweet foam of Times ocean.
Metamedicine.
Amrita!

4
BRAHMA:
Thus determines the great Lord of all things:
She will die, there is nothing you can do.
GARUDA:
Ill smother your Light with my darkness-wings;
Fates one more locked door for me to break through:
Give me the Amrita.
VISHNU:
I, the Architect, the First and the Last,
Must inform you: the Elixirs all gone.
GARUDA:
After your future; instead of your past!
Theres still some Nectar beyond the Beyond:
Give me the Amrita.
SHAKTI:
Suffering ends only one way: give in!
Lifes but a butterfly dreaming: wake up!
GARUDA:
Lifes harsh-soft cryptic song sounds so: I win!
Queen Luck needs an eagle to lift her Cup:
Give me the Amrita.
SHIVA:
Sexdeath voidgod I hurt to hurt you I
Kill every instant with a poison kiss.
GARUDA:
That black hole in which all suns surely die
Is womb not tomb: impregnate the Abyss!
Give me the Amrita.
INDRA:
The world starts and ends where I start and end.
O foe, O slave: you failed our Mother.
GARUDA:
Ive built a better world than yours, my friend:
Your weather wont work! Your arms fight each other!
Give me the Amrita.
HANUMAN:
Mountains you cant climb even in your mind
Are naught to me: stronger than anything!
GARUDA:
When an immovable object defies
An unstoppable force: one of us wins.
Give me the Amrita.
KRISHNA:
Why cry? Why make a fuss? All things must pass!
Dance! Dance more! Lets lose ourselves in Beauty!

GARUDA:
Forget how to move, forget how to laugh;
Squabble, fear: if you obstruct my Duty.
Give me the Amrita.
LAKSHMI:
Stabbed hearts, storms and tears, withered wishfruit trees:
Life has to hurt. Im sorry: a door shuts.
GARUDA:
Wounds that cannot be healed are healed by these
Operations. Death tries its hardest, but:
Give me the Amrita.
GANESH:
Your beginnings are finished, your ink dries!
The race has been lost, you ran out of time!
GARUDA:
Out of time I run, into Myth I fly;
Your weapons wilt: the Medicine is mine.
Give me the Amrita.
KALI:
Maggots feast, choirs scream, my heart is dead.
Even our universe ends; go away.
GARUDA:
Time and space might well perish but instead
Ill build other dimensions: a new day!
Give me the Amrita.
VISHNU:
Here: the Amrita! Drink it yourself! No?
The healing Juice: heres enough for you both.

I tumble into the Abyss

And fly through it, up, out: listen,
Hear blank-eyed serpents hiss and flick,
Whirl-round dark scythes whistle and thud;
See drowning-pits, fire-traps: useless
Against this pregnant cry of push.
Existence we purify. Drink!
Bliss prevails: Death itself must die.

In 2012, starting on January 1st and ending on December 31st, I met once a week every week with
a kid who was ten when we started, eleven when we finished: this was volunteer-work with the
local Youth Offending services, a programme called AMIGOS A Mentoring Initiative
Giving Opportunities & Support. Over the course of our year we visited the pier and the
planetarium, we painted and played football and invented games and one time he threw stones at
me, we visited neighbouring towns and argued over food and played chess, I took him to the
library, hed never been before but he loved the place, we made it a regular haunt, reading
graphic-novels on blue couches.
One time as suggested by a brilliant witch I met at Jawdance poetry-night we headed
to a dreary roundabout down Fossetts Way carrying flowers wed bought in town, we
transplanted them into the soil on the roundabout. The kid really enjoyed this, doubly so when I
told him what we were doing wasnt strictly legal. Gangster gardeners! Flowerpower vigilantes!

SONNYS STILL BREAKING BONES

Twats coming nervous round these corners
These streets arent your streets
Sonnys alive and youre dead!
Sonnys alive and youre dead.
Got machinegun swagger got the latest shoes
Live off fizz and have nightmares about planes
Scour the gutters for sharp things
Thats not fair thats not fair
Sonnys alive and youre dead.
Jump on a car, jump on a car
Too alive for you
Dance on a car, dance
Sonnys a dancer when no-ones watching
Steal a ball kick a ball against a wall
Kick a ball against a wall
Kick a ball against some old fucks wall
Sonnys alive and youre dead.
Climb up scaffolding climb up walls
Jump down walls
Set fire to some bushes
Kick kick kick streetlights till the light goes out
Kick the wimp kid but only in a joke way
Run run run run gimme a hero gimme a villain
Run run run run
Sonnys alive and youre dead.
Cute queens in plastic
Pretend they know what cunt means
Aspire to a suntan
Pretend we know what drugs means
Sonny struts and spits
Bitch! he smiles
And runs runs runs runs
And dad says: Shoplifted beer tastes best!
And mum says shut it.
Sonnys alive and youre dead.

The roundabout: the flowers we planted in

2012 are long gone, so heres a new one for
Fossetts Way

EXCERPTS FROM THE MIND GANGS MANIFESTO/RANSOM-NOTE

Jason Pilley & Stephanie Dogfoot
We want the 21st Century to start!
We want new words, new worlds, we want an Art
No-one can understand! All roads lead to us!
Were the Mind Gang and were exactly as dangerous
as we pretend we are.
Every! Fucker! Is A! Star!
We want this year to be a holiday!
We want all the landlords and work to go away!
Employments the disease: no more fucking jobs!
No more headmasters, debt, jealous gods
Or cars; we want a helicopter! We want everyone to have a helicopter!
We want mouths to make noises no mouths made before!
We want more! More! More! More!!
We want a new number between eighty-one and eighty-two!
We want a better class of future to come true!
Fire fireworks at fascists! A new day a new King!
We want strangers to send letters that change everything!
We want words that cant be spelt! Words for senses we havent sensed yet!
We want the police in pink! We want you to forget
Er
We want the Queens face on fivers to stick her old tongue out!
We want koala-bears on tube-trains so well have something to fucking talk about!
We want shiny memorials embedded in all streets:
This is where you and future friends might well meet!
We want the head of your hurt on a plate!
We want calendars to come up with some whole new date!
We want our politicians to be naked at all times:
If youve got nothing to fear then theres NOTHING to hide.
We want a festival you dont have to travel to!
We want twenty million tons of voodoo!
We want these words to be hidden on every shop shelf!
We want to be music and dance to ourself!
We want to want to win we want to win we want to WIN!
We want to want to want to want and not! stop! wanting!

NEVERENDING
Joy DeGuerre
The Candidate is led into a room. The room(1) contains a smiling sun, an erect cock, the word
BABALON, gibberish hieroglyphics, a well, a goats head, an eye in a triangle, a rosy cross, a shh!, a
baby riding a crocodile, pouting labia in a lotus, a flame, a baby sucking a tit, hippie incense. Also an
indeterminate number of people: members of the Lodge, each one is dressed in a funky Op Art blackand-white robe, hooded. The Candidate smells and hears and feels this but sees none of it, the Candidate
is blindfolded.
A voice announces: Let it be known that there exists, unsuspected by the great crowd, an ancient
Order whose object is the spiritual evolution of humanity by means of conquering falsehood and fear.
This Order has existed from the most remote times and has manifested its activity secretly and openly in
the world under different names and in various forms: it has caused social and political revolutions, it
has been the rock of salvation in times of danger and misfortune, it has always upheld the banner of
freedom against every form of tyranny.
To this Order belongs every wise man and wise woman: because you are all One in purpose, you
walk united under the guidance of the singular light of truth. Into this Sacred Society no man, no woman
may be admitted unless they enter it themselves by virtue of their inner illumination; nor may any man
or woman be expelled unless they expel themselves by becoming unfaithful to their principles,
neglecting to tend the Garden of Existence.
You already know this.
Other voices join in, the robed and hooded figures: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the
Law!
Do what thou wilt, contradicts another, is the whole of the Law.
More: Love is the Law! Love under Will! The King is dead! Long live the King!
One of them approaches the Candidate, rests a hand on hir shoulder and speaks into hir unseeing
face: You are to be devoted, this night, to the Mystery; you must first prove your worthiness. Tell us,
how did you prepare to be consecrated a Magician?
The Candidate answers: I obtained the four powers of the Sphinx.
Which are?
To know, to will, to dare, and
Silence: the hooded souls weigh the silence and judge it to be acceptable. The questioning
continues: Do you pledge your might as a Magician that you shall steadily persevere through the
ceremony of Devotion?
I do.
Today, if you survive the four Ordeals, you will be taught a word, a Magic Word. Do you swear,
under pain of death, to conceal and never reveal this Word?
No.
Good. The questioning continues: Tell us, what rites do we that are Magicians celebrate in this
Secret Place?
I dont know.
The Lodge-members applaud hir admission of ignorance, the first among virtues. Then they tell
hir: We are met to commemorate the death of Mansur al-Hallaj, an initiate of our Order who had come
into full comprehension of his nature: he announced one day, in a Baghdad market-place(2), I am the
Truth! For that he spent eleven years in prison before being executed; they cut him to pieces and he
smiled the whole time, I am the Truth!
The Candidate exclaims: If you meet Muhammad on the road, kill him!
The Lodge-members pick up stones and stone the Candidate to death, SHe is dead and in hir place
is Mansur al-Hallaj, close to death himself, the Baghdad mob hacks at his legs with knives but he
responds: I used to walk the Earth with these legs but now theres just one step to Heaven, cut that if
you can! and al-Hallaj too must die but:
Where is his body? The Lodge-members, gathered by the well, divide themselves into four
groups, each proceeds to a cardinal point of the compass.

The first of four groups journeys to the west and quotes Proclus, God is a spiral force, and gets
arrested for heresy; Nasrudeen offers the authorities a deal(3): Postpone the execution one year, he
implores the Caliph, and I will teach your horse to fly. Intrigued by this, the Caliph agrees.
One day thereafter, a fellow inmate asks Nasrudeen if he really thought he could escape death by
this manoeuvre.
Why not? responds Nasrudeen who has turned into Timothy Leary, writing The Spin Of The
Person behind bars: A lot can happen in a year. There might be a revolution and a new government.
There might be a foreign invasion and wed all be living under a new ruler. Then again, the present
Caliph might die of natural causes, or somebody in the palace might poison him. As you know, it is
traditional for a new Caliph to pardon all condemned criminals awaiting execution when he takes the
throne. Besides that, during the year my captors will have many opportunities for carelessness and I will
always be looking for a chance to escape. And, Leary concludes, if all else fails, maybe I can teach the
damned horse to fly!
SPIN! The second of four groups heads east, and Rumi, dancing in slow circles, reflects: From
al-Hallaj I learnt to hunt lions, but I became something hungrier than a lion. Rumi, who has turned into
George Gurdjieff, founds the Whirling Dervishes, they spin as they say: Its easy to teach a horse to fly.
All I need is a sharp sword, a strong arm: and if I tell you my horse can fly youd better believe my
horse can fly. The question is, what do you do next? Some bow down before that horse, waiting for the
blessed day when they too will get to see it in its levitations; others seek to work in the stables that they
might acquire their own sharp sword to wield; others write verses celebrating the horse and the water it
drinks and the grass it walks on and the women who ride it; others go further, some go too far: WE
ARE ALL HIS HORSE, WE CAN ALL FLY!
SPIN! The third of four groups wanders north and, wondering, Why is there war? they war, the
Cross against the Crescent, brothers slay brothers over who their Dad-God likes best. But not all the men
fight: in Jerusalem the Templars receive from Saladin a Word, he tells them: If you know and
understand this Word you will indeed say: Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy
victory? not merely with triumph but with contempt, such as may have been felt by a faithful knight
who, dressed in the armour of his monarch, was slain in mistake for him. A smiling Jacques de Molay
burns to death: Anyone who ever laughs in the face of murderous authority is an echo of me, I am an
echo of you; the jokes vary but the laughter is the same.
SPIN! The fourth of four groups finds themselves being initiated by Hassan-i Sabbah into the
Assassins(4): the Lodge-members are dosed with hashish and showered with sex, solemnly-slowly they
speak: I have found God and, tapping their heads, He is here! Hassan-i Sabbah is now Aleister
Crowley, in the room in the Lodge with the rest of the Holy Order, still in their robes but having failed
to find al-Hallajs body; Crowley intones: Roll Away The Stone. The star, adds Kenneth Grant, is
Sirius, and Muhammad receives his revelations, the Quran chapter 53, verses 43-49: He it is who
makes joy and sadness; He it is who gives death and life; He creates the male and the female; He
enriches and contents; He is the Lord of Sirius.
Al-Hallaj, giggling, dies.
The Candidate! SHe has been stabbed to death, stoned to death, burnt at the stake, drowned down
a well, SHe cant stop laughing as hir brothers and sisters in the Lodge lift hir up out of that well, they
whisper a Word into hir ear: a Magic Word: our Word that is no words that is some words that is one
word that is all words. What does WoMan want?! grins Leary.
The Candidate, drenched, no longer blindfolded, shouts out: I AM THE TRUTH AND THERE
IS NOTHING UNDER MY CLOTHES THAT IS NOT GOD!
(1) This scenario comes from The Secret Rituals Of The O.T.O. ed. Francis King, 1973. The room full of holy images
before whose glory the powers of darkness tremble every day is described on p.143. The Let it be known speech is
quoted on p.6, its the opening of Theodore Reusss initial O.T.O. manifesto. From Do what thou wilt onwards is the
Third Degree O.T.O. ritual, p.57-70.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj
(3) Sufi parable quoted in Ten Good Reasons To Get Out Of Bed In The Morning in The Illuminati Papers, Robert
Anton Wilson, 1980.
(4) From Chapter 4 of Prometheus Rising, Robert Anton Wilson, 1983.

I have no idea what this plant is, but a couple appeared in my garden a few
years back and they rapidly spread to take the whole thing over

Turn right at the crossroads, along Southchurch Road towards town, right again at
Queensway roundabout and then up Victoria Avenue. After the large dark Southend
Council building, but before the slight slope that leads down past the football-stadium to
Priory Park, theres grass on one side of the road. You know the rest.

VICTORY
Gaia Yesx
So anyway, to cut a long story short: we won.

The green insurgency, imbuing Everything with poetry! Back along Victoria Avenue, my brain-cells
are sprouting new ideas, push forwards is the only rule: what next? Perhaps a SEED OUR
SOUTHEND project, I could get more seeds, collect them from plants, from fruit and veg, or buy
them from garden-centres or get some sent to me for free from www.growwilduk.com, I could put
two or three in a paper sachet in an envelope with a note, brief instructions, then post dozens or
hundreds or thousands of these envelopes through random letterboxes! Along Southchurch Road,
remembering Ive got to finish SEEDPOETRY first, theres still Samanthas FREE RANGE
poem to do: tomorrow Ill plant that, slot that page into place. The crossroads: Im tempted to return
to some of the sites Ive seeded and check if anythings growing, I could take photos but no. Now
is a time for question-marks. Turn onto Hamstel Road, turn and turn again then Im home.

4. THE BEGINNING: PRIORY PARK

SEEDPOETRY began with an acid-trip. I woke up one day feeling an urge to smell flowers on
LSD: so, early in the afternoon early in summer, Jillian and Dan received a message from me, Am
in Priory Park. Come down if youre free. They did; I dont know if they knew I was tripping but
they probably figured it out.
The weather was boiling hot and blue-skied then the sky filled with clouds dancing their fractal
dances then it was sunny again then the clouds were back and black and it rained like a motherfucker
then it was sunny again We sat on the grass in the Secret Garden, by the fountain with its stone
lions head, Jill showed us prints of some of her pictures. Lets bury one! we did, dirtying our
fingers we dug a hole in a flowerbed and into that we placed, folded-up, this:

THE INVENTION OF HOPE by Jillian Winter

We refilled the hole then lay on our backs, our three heads touching, looking at the clouds
except our eyes were closed, we said: Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
An eternity or two later we opened our eyes, and as we did a lightning-bolt cracked open the
sky.
Everything ppppppixelates. The om before the storm, muttered Dan, as we gathered our stuff
and dashed to shelter from the next round of rain, and then decided that, actually, fuck shelter, wed
get wet
*

After Priory Park closed we hung out for a bit then I caught the last bus home: on my computer I
loaded up nine separate Youtube windows and had Beethovens symphonies all playing at once,
lying in my bed checking out the writing on the walls and the squiggles on the ceiling, thinking
pseudo-intellectual thoughts like: Maybe there is an order to pi but its hidden because pi isnt a
line of digits its a loop of them, the numbers spiral round and interact with each other.
And Jillians picture, buried in the soil. I kept thinking about that.
I found myself standing, reaching for my shelves, I grabbed a random book, opened to a
random page. And tore that page out. As it happened the book was Lin Haos brilliant translation
of/commentary on the I Ching (pub. Born To War Press, 2005). I actually studied with Lin Hao in
Taipei as part of the Vajra Practice group but thats another story and shall be told another time. This
was the page:

Somewhere in my house I found a little cardboard box, I dont know what it had been used for,
its surfaces were all blank but not for long: onto one of its sides I penned the word COMING, onto
another UP and then WITH and NEW then VOICES, on the final side I drew a comma; I
stuck the Book Of Mutations page in the box and decided that tomorrow Id return to the park and
plant this too.
Or maybe I could go somewhere else, do my secret gardening elsewhere? And maybe I could
send messages asking people if theyd like me to do the same for stuff theyd created? And
A few days after the acid-trip, Jenny Rollright told me she was interested in publishing a
poetry-pamphlet, she asked did I have any ideas for one? Actually yeah, I do.

We want the sun to surprise us! The Mind Gang

War and gardening. Winston Churchill

These weapons are programmed with DNA which will explode into life
in the right conditions. Richard Reynolds, On Guerrilla Gardening.
D!I!G! T!H!I!S! The next lesson was a parable about a great castle that was separated from shore
by a swamp. Pilgrims, searchers, warriors seeking the castle disappeared into the marsh, because
each rock they stepped on sank from view. The Hero and Heroine sat on the bank and watched.
Then He rose and held a hand out to Her. He whispered: The trick is simple. Leap from rock to
rock more swiftly than they sink. Have courage and keep moving. Timothy Leary, Starseed.

BECAUSE
POETRY
In combat it becomes manifest. Jacob Boehme, The Signature Of All Things.

The real blossoming may happen within. David Tracey, Guerrilla Gardening.