this is an almost exact quote from success (1978), by martin amis. a spiv serves terry the biggest whisky he has ever seen heard of or read about. explains that everything he owns fell off the back of a truck. i can’t actually find any evidence of this quote online. and i haven’t bothered checking my copy. chat gpt came up short.
can you verify my quote from memory? if anyone can give me a page number, i will write a variation in their owner and gift the copyright. like a blogspot picasso.
and if you are a fan of the amis literary family you will be delighted to know that martin’s father appears later in this very stanza.
from snowy summits are mountained limbs of venomous frogspawn here is to the life pudendal blessedly unaffected by format rigidity. going home, i see the most expensive chocolate bar i’ve ever seen, heard of or read about and in a fog of lousy vibes await an operative positive.
i eek out my whole being in the dance from blue to green a witching hour meltdown throws her halo from my bed post an irrepressible exhibit from the sex museum the smell of our first kiss flutters by, a primal sense datum
i turn my snout at regret—the danger made it meaningful while my teenaged self-destruction echoes on (and on) a storm steals my ride so we climb pint eat and breeze (and on, and on) it’s better to be generous to the best of your means (and on, and on) (and on and on and on and on and on)
an intractable issue that we must address, and i guess the time is nowish how can you not trust me after all we have been through? is this the end for me and you? no and today is so much better than yesterday infinitely, nice things are nicer than nasty ones so i push through the pain in warm air for a buzz later savour the flavour of copper coins on dry tongue screw a shelf on, climb the wall, nacho un [] upable then a day indoors with the bug and drive a lurgy day in bed with that sunk feeling but the incessant mind plays the hits as usual. and the bin’s full / again i rely on a well meaning soul and forgive myself.
ineluctable loggerheads with events diaristic i wrestle you onto a future plane style glistens on surf with the setting sun and we act like we what we do is demonstrably normative but life as it is now only exists as it does now and the future and the past are a million moral universes
laser quest pivot to armpit sweat and nervous stutters give a dude a fish and you’ll win favour and patronage teach him angling and your monopoly will be lost forever
you advise your charge by bringing her advice you license your obsession by granting it licence “i was sat” means to sit, you were sitting badia brand tears in the box kitchen i was sleeping when the rascal slipped in on a bonnie mission you give notice, it’s official, the last issue i’m doing my homework so you can take me with you but the poison in the fang must be expunged or the course will be hellenic, terminal, explosive let’s not let bearable be the enemy of good if you don’t keep a diary, today is a good day to start
we borderline roll with the blows and try to process you can’t control your body, but we hope we can live with it repeat my mantra: i’m working so i don’t have to try so hard jump through the hoop, dont look, and stoop under the loop are two bunnies a good omen? or was it just a dusky lamb? i scuttle home sick in the night, not ready to be seen like this here and an astral month ends, mess everywhere, a solemn verdict awaited please god let all the good souls revel in forgiveness
i have always hated cars. noisy. smelly. wasteful. ugly litter on the streets. horrible signage in hideous colours. potholes. smelly garages and petrol stations. aggressive drivers. speeding. trying to kill me on my bike. polluting the planet. and they keep getting bigger. complicated to drive as well now they don’t seem to have keys. get in the car and press buttons and levers at random until it turns on. most of the inside of the car is a computer screen. seems safe.
it’s the end of the month! so there will be a new release tomorrow – april is here, the time is now…ish
manic street preachers was the first band i saw live and will always low key love them. what’s not to like about welsh weird glam rock marxists. men in dresses talking about dialectical materialism. would recommend. so as a little tribute i put some manicsy sounding left-wing angst into the poem.
i don’t know how often you touch your genitalia after fingering hot chilli peppers, but really one time should be enough. so why does it keep happening to me?
2024 was a bit topsy turvy for me. firmly a year of transition. i was most of the way through a sort of period of reflection and rebirth. psychologically unmoored as i examined and reinvented myself. i found myself a bit stranded from time to time. doubting the process. and just when i needed it, i’d get a sense of that feeling of rightness in the world. that its all for a reason. that life gets better with understanding. that sometimes you have to hurt to heal.
have you been through a period of transition in adulthood?
our attachment to reality is not as strong as we believe it is. we live in the permanent now. we can’t really trust out memories. they could be fake. we make plans for a future that we assume will happen, but based on what? all there ultimately is are the sensations we feel and the stories we tell ourselves about them. but, as a practical matter, it is helpful to just believe reality is as you see it. otherwise we’d never be able to brush our teeth and drink our coffee in the morning.
do you believe in reality? do you trust the sun to rise again tomorrow?
i have alexithymia. basically i spent most of my early life feeling desperately anxious without really knowing it. just learned to ignore the signals my body sends. i often don’t eat until late in the day. i would probably die of thirst if it wasn’t for the fact i need caffeine to motivate me to do anything in the morning. but eventually the stress breaks through in a way even i notice and i enter burn out. i was getting close to that point when i wrote this line.
have you ever suffered from burn out? are you burned out right now?
this did happen but it wasn’t actually traumatic. i’m not entirely sure if F was really mum’s BEST friend. but a friend of long standing anyway. anyway, F just collected me from primary school and took me swimming. i think i had fun. but it did spell the end of that friendship for my mum. and was probably a symptom in the unwinding of F’s marriage.
i’m not good at swimming. i don’t think i could have swam without arm bands when this happened. i’m still crap at swimming. i hate cold water.
can you convince me to join the cult of ice cold water?
the love epochal. n.n. benn 