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IF you yodel before noon, do the Angels in Heaven hear you ?
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This is true story about longevity, chance encounters, and things gravitational. I was in a local pub a couple of weeks ago, Tuesday evening as I recall, standing at the bar waiting to purchase another pint of murky Thatcher's traditional draft cider. It looks like something you might dredge from a polluted stream, or volcanic vent but tastes wonderful and sulphurous.
On a bar stool just a little way away from where I stood waiting, mug in hand, sat a young chap starring intently at the micro writing on the back label of a German beer bottle. Feeling rather jolly after my first pint, I remarked that he would go blind doing that . I nearly added something more but thought better of it .He said, he could read it and would I like to know what it said, and I said I'd rather not know because my sight was already bad enough thank you very much . Then to mine and everybody else's astonishment in the bar, a large black and white Panda with one eye crashed through the ceiling and landed right on top of the earnest young man, killing the poor bugger outright, and scattering the contents of a myriad broken vitamin bottles and a carton of thousand year old chinese eggs, he had secreted about his person all over the floor. Somebody said he was an Alienist from New York on a fishing Holiday, but nobody was really sure. The panda having seemingly sustained no injuries in the fall, was out the pub door in the wink of an eye. An old lady chased after it but quickly returned to say it had entered the cardboard coffin shop next door and disappeared.
from 'the broken novel' Ian Miller © 2008 all rights reserved
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NOISE!
Fast access
Red Bull blues
Taking the calls
under a ketchup sky
NOISE!
No funds
No withdrawals
No credit
NOISE!
but its wrong
and there’s no one to tell
NOISE!
choose a number and press star zero
NOISE!
then WAIT—
hold
don’t move
don’t laugh
don’t cry
don’t die.
Your call will be answered shortly
NOISE!
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Conversation with a Lady dog walker / snippet/ jan 08 Preston Park
It is always interesting to find out what people do. I some times decide to be something else, when people ask me what I do.
Last week a woman asked me what I did, and I said I was a 'Dentist'. I've never been a' Dentist' before.
She started telling me all about her teeth problems, and about keeping them white, and I told her she could have an special implant (a new invention from the USA ) that worked on a principle not unlike self watering gardens, and the flushing systems in public toilets. At preprogrammed times of the day, little jets of blue cleaning fluid would wash over each individual tooth through a micro pipe system killing plaque and bad breath in one foul flush . She was really interested and asked me where my practice was.
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When ever the rain eased off, and that was not often, Mr Dockety would emerge from his basement next door with an armful of brightly painted paper birds and tie them to the iron railings that fronted our house.
Here, they would flap and strain in the wind, like the clipped captives from a lost Avery, but only ever for a moment, a fleeting, floating, moment.
The rain saw to that.
Once wetted, the fugitive colours splotched, then drained from their bodies, in bright rivulet , until only a ghostly stain and the faint pencil work remained to mark their former glory.
Soon after this, they curled up in soggy surrender, and dropped spent, to the splotched ground below
Mr Dockety gave me a painted paper bird to keep for my very own and I’ve still have it.
I keep it with the beer can the ‘wondrous thing ’
I remember when Mr Dockety died. I was eight years old, going on nine. Errol came around to see mum, who was sick again and told us a street trader had found the old man dead in the square. It appeared he had collapsed and died whilst placing paper birds on the fountain.
I really missed his smell.
What upset me the most was the fact that they left him lying there under an old blanket for the dogs and rats surrounded by his paper birds.
If I’d known------------------------------
suzie pellet / fragment ian miller © 2000
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18:49 tues 27th May 08: it rained in the garden |
“ I saw a dead blackbird lying in a dried puddle of black ink on the pavement near the entrance to the Kunstmuseum in Rotterdam” |
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Brian Sibley said he found a hound like this in his bedroom and asked me if i knew how to get rid of it
I said : I played an old Spice Girls track and that seemed to work.
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Feed the mind, starve the devil. Hey that's good |
Be very careful of Dwarves. In my experience they are easily confused for mere circus midgets. It was probably a circus midget that advised you to turn gold into lead instead of the other way around!
Paul Lizotte
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 6:54 am
Subject: Re: did you or?
Yes He just sent me the info. As I told him : Having to pick up the tabs for Hannibal and his elephants : I told him invading Italy was a bad idea, I'm somewhat rudderless and adrift in the fiscal sense, so a trip to the US despite the obvious opportunities in going is a little problematic at the moment. If however I crack the the arcane secret of turning pure gold into lead my presence is assured. Wish me luck I've just been given a unicorns hoof which is guaranteed to work. The dwarf said so.
I shot a crippled subjunctive in the dark wood today . I screamed solipsism! as I pulled the trigger , then realized it was -?
W. G. Sebald wrote:
'In the obsessive attempt to find reason for the animation of life, a world of images is divided into its anatomical components. This is the operation of speech operating successfully.
Thus the sound of speech strives to 'express' subjective and objective happening the 'inner' and 'outer' world: but what of this it can contain is not life or the fullness of existence but only a dead abbreviation of it.
Ian
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An adverb is : a small South African mammal that lives on the slopes of Table Mountain
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Someone once told me, that ducks had very sharp teeth in their bills, and could tear the flesh from your bones very easily, and that a swan could break your arm with one beat of its wing if you upset it.
Ever since then I have always been a little bit frightened of ducks and swans.
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Alright !
what’s the score—?
Sound- bite emotions
Tailored talk
Cut it short.
Time's money.
Win a Dream.
FREE!
HOOKED!
HYPE!
ALRIGHT! |
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THE ORCHARD
OURS! OURS! SWEET EFFLUENCE , SWEETS BAGS OF SCUM, TO THE ORCHARD YOU MUST COME
TO THE ORCHARD OF DELIGHT AND PLUCK THE FRUITS WE NUTURE THERE, UPON THE SAPLINGS OF DESPAIR
AND HAVING SPOILED WITH FETTERED BREATH,GORGE UPON THE WELL HUNG FLESH
BUT FIRST! BRING US THE FLOTSAM WHORE, GRAB HER OFF THE SHINGLE SHORE,
AND WE WILL OFFER SO MUCH MORE
Shingle Dance: The feculents song
Ian miller © 2008
30th Sept.18:00
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Tophet or Topheth (Hebrew:???? ha-t?pheth) is believed to be a location in Jerusalem, in the Valley of Hinnom, where the Canaanites sacrificed children to the god Moloch by burning them alive. After the practice of child sacrifice was outlawed by King Josiah, the valley became a refuse site where animal carcasses, waste and the bodies of criminals were dumped, with fires permanently burning to keep disease at bay. Tophet became a synonym for hell.
I went to Tophet when I was six with my mother on a package holiday deal organized by 'Watch Tower' magazine. My first real holiday away. Brian Sibley told me all about the the history of this resort over a coffee in Chiswick last week.
They had to buy me a pair dark glasses because the glare and fizzle of the flames hurt my eyes. The frames where a cherry red colour, not a favourite colour of mine even now.
toffee apple?
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When the men in pink coats who lock me up at night, bastard's! that they are, read your notes, they locked me up in the cupboard early without my tea.
Do you know: That the pink they wear, creeps out of the weave in the late afternoon, smells of damp, and travels freely through the ethers. Nightmare candy (some call it ), and eats its way out through your skin when it rains . I have an amulet from Pivot the Unyielding, an acolyte of St Dunstan late of Pons Aelius, the Leper house on the Trent, so I'm safe;
but really missed my tea.
In short I am indisposed.
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conversation with Fred Gambino:
You have got to get a handle on all this hate stuff. Those chaps in Pink can smell fear and resentment a tube station away. Before you know it, you'll be locked up in a dark cupboard at night just like me. ' up a coat hanger without a candle' as they say.
Stay calm and think of Edale.
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Nov 6th 10:15 1998.
Concept: Joharis Window.
Window on the World,
divided into four parts / quadrants.
1— The part which is known to yourself and others.
2—The part that is perceived by others,
but hidden from yourself.
3— The part that is hidden from others,
but known to yourself.
4— The part hidden from yourself,
and from others.
1– I am a tree.
2– Why do they look at me like that?
3– I am a dog.
4– Does anybody know?.
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W. G. Sebald wrote:
'In the obsessive attempt to find reason for the animation of life, a world of images is divided into its anatomical components. this is the operation of speech operating successfully.
Thus the sound of speech strives to 'express' subjective and objective happening the 'inner' and 'outer' world: but what of this it can contain is not life or the fullness of existence but only a dead abbreviation of it.
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| Despite the warmth of the Sun the chill of the Ash tree stayed with me and try as I might I could not rid my thoughts of the old man and his sorry plight. |
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I shot a crippled subjunctive in the dark wood today . I screamed solipsism! as I pulled the trigger , then realized it was -? |
Is that GOD on a cloud, or just a lone swimmer?
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An adverb is a small South African mammal that lives on the slopes of table mountain ( so called by sailors ) - ( I think )
........ What about: present participles and present perfect then, not to mention pluperfect.?
( i love that word, reminds me of singing whales )
I want you toot! write out a thousand times on lined paper: An adverb is a word that modifies a verb an adjective, another adverb
( filthy little ?) a proposition ( only those who abandon the slopes for the street lamps ) a phrase, a clause ( not be confused with claw ) or sentence etc etc.
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Grey trees,
blushed with blue,
Sit unsure
on the furrows of a charcoal curve.
Pitt black lines,
Measured angles,
All sagging with damp,
Support this improbability.
When the winds come!
When the winds come!
The measured angle will fail,
The fibres will snap.
See where the crows nest now,
Not here.
They know the trees will fall,
Down into the hollow,
Where the cows come to drink.
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Northwich 1965
Janis Parker poured Grave Water over my head,
on the way to the station.
A jam jar full of stagnant flower water.
A misty slime tinged mucus,
that stank something chronic.
I can’t remember,
all these years on,
what I did to provoke this foul Baptism,
but it must have been something really bad.
Janis laughed her knickers off all the way to Knutsford
The Broken Nove l Ian Miller © 2008 allrights reserved
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The Broken Novel /fragment Ian Miller © 2008 alll rights reserved
ARE YOU SICK OF LIFE MR THOMAS?
Brown Snout, Foxwelp, Sheeps Nose, Black and Balls Bitter Sweet.
Cider fair.
TA RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
OR is it Conium Maculatum?
A tincture of Hemlock and oblivion that you require.
OR! OR! just, maybe, perhaps, an edifying cup of Hypericum Foratum
A gobbit of St John, sanity, wort and all?
IS IT! ’ MR THOMAS! or is there something MORE ?”
The two sisters pirouetted and flapped their arms as if trying to fly and I knocked over the coal bucket in my ungainly haste to stand.
I turned to confront the unknown speaker but there was nobody there, and Look as I might I could not locate
him anywhere in the gloom and congestion of the large room. Grabbing up one of the candles I moved towards a large oak cupboard
and congestion of furniture to my right, thinking this is where the speaker might be hiding
but before I had taken more than a couple of steps I was bought up short by the restraining hand of Clara
tightly gripping my arm, shaking her head and mouthing a silent no.
I was really surprised that such a small and slightly built person as she could exert so much pressure
and stop me in my tracks so easily. If I thought to argue the grip of Amy on my other arm settled it.
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Suzie Pellet Ian miller © 1997 snippet
Mum : She was sick a lot, but pretended everything was alright. I remember; she sang the same song over and over again and if she didn’t do that she hummed it. She said it was a comfort, and reminded her of my dear dead Father and happier days
For the record, I write it down, as I remember it:
Cherry Ripe
Cherry Ripe
Ripe I cry
Full and Fair ones
Come and buy.
If so be you ask me where
they d grow I answer there
Where my julias lips do smile
There’s the land on Cherry Isle
There plantations fully show
All the year where Cherries grow
Cherry ripe
Cherry Ripe
Ripe I cry
Full and fair ones
Come and buy.
It sort of got stuck in my head and I sing it a lot myself now.
I remember her night coughs, and the bloodstained towels. She said it was nothing, just a spot Inca Sunshine, and I was not to worry myself.
When I was nine, it was a Tuesday, drizzling like always, I got bitten real bad by a Baboon from the Zoo. It jumped out of the shadows at me ,just around the corner from where I lived. Somebody, said it was a dog with a twisted spine; but in the darkness nobody could be sure..
It chewed up my right hand so bad, that they had to cut it off. Errol, my Mum’s friend wrapped it up pretty good and gave me powders for the pain
When it healed over, he did a neat fish tattoo around my wrist and up around my arm. It hid the chew marks a treat.
It rained for ever, and we were always wet.
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“ I saw a dead blackbird lying in a dried puddle of black ink on the pavement near the entrance to the Kunstmuseum in Rotterdam”
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The broken novel ian Miller © 2005
1:30 Tuesday 002-
It was raining again. Five o’clock in the morning and raining again.
Storm driven, rat black rodent water, rushing in off the sea with a wild colliding hiss, tearing at old mortar and slates, looking for a way in to winkies room. It was five o’clock in the morning and getting personal.
Everything bad that had ever happened to Winkie had happened at five o’clock in the morning, and that was a fact. This rodent rain was the prelude to something bad, absolutely no question of it. He could already hear it fidgeting at the cracked glass in the sash window.
Sleep was his only aegis but now he was awake and waiting. It was personal. The distressed image of Squallthought running up his garden path, trailing coloured wires and hugging what looked like a car batttery the previous evening suddenly sprung to mind. Yes it was personal now, in more ways than one but for now he had to just keep still and hope for the best.
It had been raining and gusting for five days and the flooding was extensive. The Pig Iron Bridge was closed and he could not reach the stake out at Mr Brown’s house. He’d phoned Mr James to apologise and they had agreed that the Dwarve would have to rough it on his own until the bridge was reopened. Winkie wondered whether the dog suit the dwarf was wearing was waterproof.
He pulled at a lump of congealed amber sap which had stuck to one of his wing feathers whilst perched in the cedar tree overlooking Mr Brown’s front lawn. The Dwarf had said Mr Brown was real dangerous and Winkie had laughed sick to choking at the absurdity of tthe Dwarf’s statement . When it came to dangerous the Dwarf was A1 rat arsed crazy and but for the patronage and protection of Mr James, the powers that be, would have locked him up years ago. That said, The Dwarf had always been a good friend to Winkie and that counted for a lot in his book.
The rain was getting in. It spread in a dark swollen stain across the ceiling then crept down the wall behind his bed.
Winkie groaned and looked at the clock. It was five fifteen .
“ Holy Shit!”
Ever so slowly, his eyes fixed warily on the movng stain, he reached behind him with his right hand to the nearby coffee table, and deftly sorted through the heaped and festering tinfoil of a long abandoned take-away. Gobbits of congealed food and cardboard slipped from the table as his soiled hand re-emerged gripping a large grease stained economy sized orange aerosol of Blightright oven cleaner
It was an rogue brand long ago banned from sale but Winkie was lucky. He had six cases of the fearsome stuff under his bed.
When you aimed and pressed the nozzle a thin jet of piss yellow liquid shot out in a twelve foot arch, searig most everything it touched upon. With practise Winkie had learnt to control the emiissions from the cans and could range his squirts from six to fifteen feet. He estimated he was about eight feet from the wall.
Winkie waited. The head of the iron bedstead started to flickerer with a pale ghostly light. He remembered something the Dwarf had told him about a thing called St Elmo’s Fire and the picture he’d shown him in a book of an old sailing ships storm tossed, with its masts all a flicker and glowing with white fire but this was a second floor bedsit .
The stain rippled and vibrated violently, the light crackled, hissed, then ballooned out into the room pushing the bedstead before it. Winkie jumped back instinctively, over the back of the old padded chair near the window but not before pressing the nozzle of the can hard down and bathing the bulge in caustic fluid. Nothing happened.The bulge kept expanding, pushing the bed before it. The bed collided with the heavy old chair and pushed it back towards the wall trapping the crouching Winkie behind it . Push as he might, the pressure was irresistable. No question about it, the game was up, he was one flat seriously fucked up dead crow but then it happened. The bulge burst with a ferile screach, gagging stench and clamour of what Winkie could only describe later as the myriad beat of hooves .
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The Broken Diary
As I walked on towards the hatbox ladies house pondering on the dwarves parting observation about bird spittle, I inadvertently collided with a diminutive oriental lady, who suddenly appeared in great haste from a basement stairwell at number 21 the Terrace like a rabbit from a hat. She was four feet tall, if that, and dressed in a soft sage green coat and a close fitting felt hat of the same colour.After a brief flurry and profuse apologies, on both sides, she handed me a green card smiled and hurried away. I turned to say someting further but she had disappeared. Obviously a woman’s perogative in these parts I determined, after my experience earlier in the day, and mouthed a quiet “Thank you”. I looked at the folded card in the receeding light. It was sage green like her clothes and on the front sported the black silhouette of a crow , wings spread in flight. It could have been something larger, a hawk perhaps but I decided on crow, opened it up. and read the following missive:
Excuse this unusual approach.
ARE YOU at a crossroads in your YOUR Life?
Are you undervalued?
Over stressed
confused?
WE CAN HELP
ring:
Ring where , ring Who?
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He knew the space he occupied, offended the others sitting around the room.
He was a stranger here and they made that very apparent.
Nothing obvious perhaps, but he could tell.
He proffered his apologies and said the train left for Glasgow within the hour and it was vital that he be on it.
The white skinned, blue veined spinster mumbled her disappointment , but said she understood.
He left without acknowledging her companions and felt some manner of victory in the dismissal.
Outside the building he breathed deeply and shouted “Shit!”
He shook himself like a wet dog and set out for the seafront.
the broken novel ian miller © 2008
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pine 2
verb [ intrans. ]
suffer a mental and physical decline, esp. because of a broken heart : she thinks I am pining away from love.
• ( pine for) miss and long for the return of : I was pining for my boyfriend.
ORIGIN Old English p?nian [(cause to) suffer,] of Germanic origin; related to Dutch pijnen, German peinen ‘experience pain,’ also to obsolete pine [punishment] ; ultimately based on Latin poena ‘punishment.’
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Beneath the Earth,
The molten rock,
Deeper still.
Lives the maker of crows beaks
and the fingers of ragged men.
Sometimes, when the day is old.
He comes up from his place of work,
To take the air.
Few engage him,
But those that do,
Speak well of him.
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insouciance |in?so?s??ns; ?a n so??syä n s|
noun
casual lack of concern; indifference : an impression of boyish insouciance.
DERIVATIVES
insouciant adjective
insouciantly adverb
ORIGIN late 18th cent.: French, from insouciant, from in- ‘not’ + souciant ‘worrying’ (present participle of soucier). |
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Whally Range / Manchester1957:
Luftwaffe Ace
Savouring the packet of Mcvites digestive biscuits.
But better still—
My black plastic real flying leather zip up jacket,
with the mock fur condor flock collar,
and the blue winged insignia over the left breast. pocket
With—
Matching black plastic real leather flying helmet.
Luftwaffe Ace:
“RHUUUUURRRRRRR—owwwwwwwwwww”-
DA! DA! DA! DA! DA! DA!—RHUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRR
TAT! TaT! TAT!
It was difficult landing my Me-109 near the the parade of shops,
But I managed OK. after a couple of passes
I had my instructions.
Avoid the Englanders,
Especially Paddy Paine.
It was imperative I get home without losing or breaking a single biscuit
That mean 't flying low, hugging the ground around the electricity sub-station,
then through the neighbours Rose beds and over the fence.
Everybody likes a digestive with their tea,
so they would be trying very hard to shoot me down.
Don’t be long my mother had shouted as I dropped out of the clouds
DON’T BE LONG!
Didn’t she realize this was War—
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