waffle, piffle, wiffle

Where have those blue eyes come from?

As you can see, I have a new toy. I hasten to add I am not referring to my son. I am doing a smattering of graphic design. I only wish I had a similar programme to smooth out the creases wrinkling up my life.

The dark queen is brandishing and, indeed, wielding all of her metaphorical instruments of torture. I am simply not built for this kind of meek subjugation. I am too thin-skinned. I am an over-ripe tomato.

I can't talk yet, but from my vantage point on the supermarket trolley, all I can see is the decline of  capitalistic excess and Western decadence

Once every three days I find myself in a supermarket. Nothing strange about that. Everybody I see is a zombie though. The process of buying things en masse seems to be like painting your brain with nail varnish. The woman at the cold meats counter has a nice smile which contradicts me.

The view from the hotel where I currently give one of my classes. 

The city on the horizon is Coruña

Work is lodestone. This is good. I've been teaching for 22 years now and I am, at least, competent.  Teaching a language is a bit easier than teaching history or zoology. You only have to speak to your students to find out if your classes have been any good.

Back to the countryside. This is the answer to everything. Except hay fever.

Conceivably, if I manage to get my house back, I could probably live on very little income indeed. A lot of neighbours grow practically all their own food. I have a well. A bicycle and a highly charged personality to generate electricity. And, hallucinogenic flowers. 

Morning glory is a common name^[where?] for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the familyConvolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics is in flux. Morning glory species belong to many genera,

 This picture was taken by me. After consuming the plant itself, it might look something like this:

Nature's LSD

Of course, all consumption of drugs, whether they be, coffee, alcohol, or heroin must be some some kind of escape from the human condition. Then again, if you are a romantic poet or a Tantric Buddhist, they help you to embrace it.

I remember taking magic mushrooms when I was about 19. I'm not sure if it's possible to overdose on fungi but, if so, I must have been pretty close. Going on to Darwen moors and picking thousands and then microwaving them in batches of 50 to produce a kind of biscuit that looked like a pot noodle but tasted like a particularly sweaty sock after being dug up from a mass grave.

We went to a night club whose name escapes me. There might of been about 6 of us. Two of us experimenting with the magic biscuits and four people staring curiously and vigilantly on. I ate one 50 mushroom slab, waited about 5 minutes and nothing happened. Under such circumstances it seemed only logical to eat another one straight away. I remember standing on a disco dance floor with the place relatively empty, contorted in fits of laughter. I laughed so hard it was physically painful. Tears streamed down my face and it was a Herculean effort just to catch my breath. Everybody seemed to be wearing brightly coloured grease paint ready for a carnival. Noses were extravagantly long and pointy and eyebrows and eyelashes were gold or silver. A few people were completely naked.

The lasting sensation I have, even after all this time, is that everything I saw or heard or felt was irrefutably real. Overwhelmed by my senses, I stared at the floor precisely where Craig Nicholson's shoes were located. He was sitting next to me at the time and wearing them. They were blue "Kickers" with white laces and were all the rage. They turned into two enormous butterflies and flew away. I could pass my hands through solid objects and, once I was finally in bed, I was able to paint great works of art on the ceiling just with my imagination. Mind expanding. I wouldn't do it again though. Life is psychedelic and scary enough already.

Climbing Framed

I digress. Here is today's poem:

Risk

I love you first and last

You are a different caste,

Beyond my ken, my reckoning.

You are the zest, the loveliest

Of messengers of God.

And I can only kneel

And steal a glance

Perchance to see

How you pierce me.