n.n benn is fictional and autistic. this is their diary. new poetry and philosophical musings every tues, thurs and sat direct to your inbox. and while you are here, check out my videos on youtube and spoken word poetry on spotify, apple music etc (search for the love epochal)
our hour our sense our self in each case you can choose to cooperate or cheat
i wasn’t thinking of any particular meeting or person, just the idea of how sometimes characters can go from sort of fictional, like a friend of a friend, and then you are introduced and you feel like you already know them a bit. and maybe they even know something about you…
at the time of writing, i’m just back from a weekend of cycling with my club. we had glorious weather for a weekend in argyll, scotland. we cycled 220km with 3000m of elevation. i ate so many squashies and cereal bars. i’m looking forward to returning to my regular diet.
the roads were great, although a bit busy with cars at some points. devoted readers of the blog will know that i dislike cars. there was one particularly bonkers point when we were almost mowed down by a fire engine that i can only assume had been stolen. then a sports utility van thing that almost crashed head on with another car while overtaking. breathtaking stupidity really.
[post script] i have now been back from the holiday for two weeks, and the experience was dampened quite significantly when i learned that one of my club mates sadly died suddenly shortly after the trip. he was older, and had a heart transplant, so i suppose he had probably done his memento mori and made peace with mortality. but death never fails to shock. i didn’t know him well but he seemed like a good guy. rest in peace, s. d. (a different s. d.)
in funereal nomenclature and dress but i did have six toasts today, all of them doublers (lentil, tuna rocket; salmon shallot; ched spicy)
i met my old friend s.d. for a few beers, and was reminded of his old homestead webpage. it was very funny and claimed to pertain to ‘subnonsense,’ a posited form of nonsense which i still find funny. and i guess i’m giving an honest appraisal of my work in these lines… as a poet, fundamentally, my building blocks are puns and emotional turmoil.
the next day i had many and varied sourdough toasts.
i haven’t made a sourdough loaf in a couple of weeks. i’ve been out of routine. travelling a lot. started a new job. i won’t have a chance to make another loaf until… not that long before this blog is published. by when it will have been maybe 3 or 4 weeks. my poor starter. i shall have to feed it a couple of times before i leave. or give up on the whole routine.
i have been thinking about it. quitting. it’s a pain in the arse. but it slows me down. it means planning for a whole day at home. and its always a thrill seeing what comes out the oven. every loaf a unique little masterpiece. the sight of my labour, mixed with the grain from the land, a little salt from the sea, a process that connects me personally to my ancestors, a process that dates back to maybe 5000 or 6000 BCE.
hmm. i feel the weight of history upon my shoulders now. i guess i’ll feed my starter.
i schedule noxious imbibition and obnoxious noise projection with colleagues, on a rager, dipsomaniacal
i was thinking about stars. what do they symbolise? parts of empires. 50 stars for the 50 states of america. or the stars of the european flag, representing the 12 founding members of the european union. or the 27 states/districts/stars of brazil. i don’t know what the australian stars mean but whatever it is, i mean, we are in empire territory, aren’t we?
and boo a ghost. haha. it’s meant to be boo a goose. but an old friend’s colleague used to say ‘x would be scared to boo a ghost,’ which i found hilarious as its an altogether different prospect. it would be a flimsy character who wouldn’t have the matter about them to boo a goose. an encounter with a spectral being would likely put one so firmly on the backfoot that any booing would be bizarrely foolhardy.
space tunnel violinist, what did we do to you? reflect on convalescence’s end, my reaction improved
i’d just finished a period of convalescence. a period of autistic burnout. had processed some things, felt a bit better about them, had some regrets, but by and large i was starting to feel a bit better after a rough stretch.
meanwhile, my girlfriend was off running one of her scandinavian marathons. fortunately this activity doesn’t involve me. i love to run but 42 km seems like too much of a good thing. i ran 10km yesterday and spent a few hours working on a song and i’m absolutely beat this morning. we all have different energy i suppose.
i am perhaps the space tunnel’s biggest fan. it is a tunnel (through space) that connects the scottish events campus to the exhibition centre railway station. not sure why they didn’t rename the railway station when they renamed the exhibition centre 🤷♂️ anyway, not sure what the violist wanted revenge for, but he set about it mercilessly.
this is the last part of part one! i will be dissecting it in the blog over the month. i’m not going to post every day though. this six months of contect has really taken me more like 18 months of work, so i’m slowing down a little.
the poem continues of course, but from july i will be posting less frequently while i work on new music, and on my first novella ‘comin’ up: a neurodivergent memoir’ which will be published later this year.
chaos vikings marchin’ under summer’s radiation space tunnel violinist, what did we do to you? reflect on convalescence’s end, my reaction improved stars are parts of empires, feart to boo a ghost i schedule noxious imbibition and obnoxious noise projection with colleagues, on a rager, dipsomaniacal the bread, my sour domain, hers an egg on top perfection is a conspicuous imperfection.. pun-ridden dogger-elly sub-nonsense in ifunereal nomenclature and dress but i did have six toasts today, all of them doublers (lentil, tuna rocket; salmon shallot; ched spicy) you meet someone you know from gossip our hour our sense our self in each case you can choose to cooperate or cheat and hybrid work means shivering alone by a lockfast window on a sunny day my favourite track, the album’s last round the oval, and pound the quad on the verge of an irretrievable memory, a texture, a vague sense tangled shoe, cockapoo, over you, road rash tattoo honestly what are the odds? the prophecy came first much too soon, then again a bit too late we all rely on the good souls who forgive us.
have you tried the toblerone, insolent infant? it’s cheap if you can afford a lot of it i have a theory identic twins in tandem are set at random on their paths different, but the same
all through the night, we have no past, we won’t reach back dilatory breathing, with the inmates chewing fat i always laugh when i chop onions, ever since my pet cat killed himself liberty’s light will lead us there, libraries gave us power elongate the environ of the emblem of they who shall be emancipated pishhead magnetism combines us, their yolk won’t define us (con)serve – not conscripted infantry but torpid flabby midgetry superiors drink-sodden day-to-day erudite popinjays oh god this ship is sinking fast, just hope we make the buddha last if everyone had to pay market rent on their home forever the market would reach an equilibrium that would be better for everyone except the rentier class, who belong in jail, and may well end up there were there lots of you? well that’s a posse honestly i’m just trying to live the most wasted, safe life antediluvian nipponese amble celebrants and another two bunnies the next poem will be called the gilet years sugar rush stroll, the last of my 30s, then back to the wall more nippon, this time kitchen, with an ambassadorial element i’m 40 tomorrow and honestly everything hurts, throbs, stings or is otherwise stiff champagne dog run sling factory tour bonnie umbrella honestly right now i feel ok about myself, grateful for what ive been given and have achieved in my four decades so far maybe i’m ready to start reading novels again found the partick co-op for a just poetic society if things are going to change anyway, they may as well change for the better ditched blade draped bed and became bin overladen something about ikea bed linen i watch a boring football match in communion with a centimillion europeans all good souls forgive each other
have you tried the toblerone, insolent infant? it’s cheap if you can afford a lot of it i have a theory identic twins in tandem are set at random on their paths different, but the same
i was reading the periodic table by primo levi recently. primo was a jewish italian chemist, and this book tells the story of his experiences during the second world war, living under fascism, and ultimately becoming part of the resistance and ending up in auschwitz.
we didn’t mind the british bombs, he said, they were allies against fascism. but while the italians believed that mussolini would fall, they thought that the germans and the japanese were invincible. and that the americans, too, would prove invincible. war would continue for twenty years perhaps more, bloody and interminable, remote stalemate, ‘back and forth on the steps to the ukraine… would never come to an end.’
and to some extent, this has indeed come to pass. not twenty or thirty years of war. eighty and counting.
it was a year ago that i wrote this. the inflation rate may be lower now, but the gap between what things cost and what we feel like they should cost seems to have been made permanent. its hard not to feel anxious about the state of the economy. so much uncertainty. war. tariffs. irrational, illogical people in positions of power.
i don’t believe in having goals. not at this stage in my life. i want to live a life i enjoy every single day. it’s about the process. repeating the process. tweaking the process. getting better at living each day.
i exercise nearly every day. i cycle, run, lift weights, climb and hike. it took a while to get into the habit though. i think i was about 22 when i started to get on top of it. what really helped me was making it part of my identity. i identify as a cyclist. to maintain that identity, i need to ride my bike.
i also have a treat every day. a lot of treats actually. sweets. coffee. play melodica. write a blogpost. work on a poem.
the first time i read the word materiel was in a christopher hitchens book, probably the one about kissenger, agent orange, the vietnam war and all that vile evil stuff. i thought it was a typo. it was only when i encountered it for a third time i actually looked it up and learned, for the billionth time, that there is much more that i do not know than there is that i know.
fun fact: in a million years, even if all my banal writings are somehow preserved, only very specialist historians would be able to understand any of it due to the shift in meaning of language over time. i may as well be writing in hieroglyphics. and even if language stayed the same, frames of reference change. in a million years, nobody will be living in a world inhabited by the characters of the 21st century. even liz truss will be forgotten! hopefully the good creatures of earth will still have lettuce though.
the love epochal. n.n. benn 