Overheard from the street, whilst lying in bed at 1 O'Clock in the afternoon on a Sunday.

Man 1: [Shouting]Russell.

Man 2: *something I did not hear because of traffic, but imagine was acknowledgement of the man*

Man 1: Did you hear *could not hear properly, again due to traffic* had another baby?

Man 2: Fantastic! Boy or Girl?

Man 1: Girl.

The End.

Dream Excerpt 6

Take ketamine. Swim in the ocean but the ocean is just a really huge swimming pool. Try to light a cigarette underwater. My dad laughs at me.

Dream Excerpt 5

I see M.C. outside the museum. He has an afro. His beard is another afro. I say 'Hey' but he doesn't recognise me. I am Batman.

Dream Excerpt 4

Creepy Steve follows me into Boots. I stand looking at the sandwiches. He sits behind a shelf of feminine hygiene products staring at me. 

Dream Excerpt 3

Meet Yoko Ono at a party. Tell her I don't like her music. She is offended. I tell her that I also do not care for her art. She is angry.

Dream Excerpt 2

Go to toilet, the men's room is a gentleman's club. The seating is urinals placed directly next to each other in order to create booths. Go to piss. Realise it is seats. Sit down instead. Ask where I can piss. Start to piss whilst everyone stares at me. 

Dream Excerpt

Flying back from the Co-op, swooping around. There's a fucking bear in the woods. He's wearing a jaunty little cap. He stole the hat from some man that he just ate. I swoop down and steal his hat. It's a really fucking cool hat. It's blue. The bear shouts at me as I fly away. He starts to weep.

Karl Wrote a Thing That I Liked, Here It Is

This guest post was brought to you by Karl Finch, who currently has no internet address on account of his cyber-vagrancy. He asked me to use that as an intro. Karl is currently writing things. He has previously written other things - Confessions of a Tofu Addict. This is a thing.

A Turkish Poem - By Karl Finch

Urp gwop gwop gwop
Hurk hurk
Dwr plup plup
Drhr uwop

Buwa tuk tuk tuk
Guk guk
Urt brip brip
Mrrh gok

1066

Ten Sixty Six was some next level shit
Normandy represent
Holla

I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN 4 DAYS

Mister Java crawls,
from the crack,
meanders through.

Nooks and crannies. 

Massaging his beans. 

Squeezing sensuality. 

Oozing the tar we all crave. 

He whispers to me in the night.

Listerine

I lie face down in my sofa.


I am listening to Radio 4.


I am thirsty.


I get up and quaff Listerine.


I smoke a cigarette.


I smoke a menthol cigarette because I want my mouth to stay minty fresh and I don't want to have to drink more Listerine after the cigarette because I drank all the Listerine and I don't want to go to the shop to buy more Listerine.

Lock Him Up and Throw Away the Key

I'm running out of clothes because I am lazy and cannot be bothered washing my clothes. I am now wearing the clothes I do not like wearing. The boxers I am wearing are uncomfortable. My dick is a prisoner in the tight cotton.

Breakdown of Frank Black's Oeuvre

70% self loathing, 15% misanthropy, 10% misogyny, 5% satire.

Starchy Elbows

It's too arduous to even bother going to see the doctor about 'feeling down' for however fucking long it's been, instead you just stumble through your daily fucking routine choking down cigarettes like there's no tomorrow, mainly because you hope that there won't be a tomorrow and you stare at your reflection for what seems like an eternity, you're getting older and your brow is furrowed, you see the wrinkles already forming you don't know if your clothes are clean anymore and you certainly don't notice the smell of nicotine on anything anymore.

You are awash in the slight yellow tint of tobacco.

If you make it out the house you get something that could be loosely referred to as food, in an attempt to assimilate some nutrients in your system, just to keep chugging along, on your way back you get distracted and go to the off-license and end up taking a cheap bottle of wine home.

There are no painkillers left so you try to overdose on homeopathy instead.

This Has Been In My Draft Folder For Months and I Only Just Looked At It Again, I Think I That I Was Pretty Drunk When I Wrote It

You are a vacuum. You are not even a vacuum, you are a Dyson. You are bagless. You have no bag. You wish you had a bag.
You don't know if you want to kill yourself anymore. You want your kidneys to fail, your liver to crumble and your lungs to wither.

Untitled

SHOWER SHIT SHAVE POP LIKE 20 FUCKING PAINKILLERS DRINK IN THE PARK POLIS COME AT YOU PUNCH THE CUNT SPEW IN HIS FUCKING HAT STEAL HIS TRUNCHEON AND SODOMISE HIM WITH IT GO TO THE CLUB GET ALL THEM FLY HONEYS GO HOME AND WEEP IN THE DARKNESS AND CONSIDER HANGING YOURSELF PRAY TO THE ALMIGHTY BEG FOR FORGIVENESS TAKE MORE PAINKILLERS AND DRIFT INTO OBLIVION

Puzzlefucker

You shout at me;
Stop forcing it,
It clearly doesn't fit.
I'll make it fit.

Note Regarding Previous Poem

Those numbers are now one higher.

List of Profanities in the Currently Published Work of Frank Black

12 fucks.
5 shits.
4 cunts.

I'm Sorry That I Was a Heartless Cunt, I'm Sorry That I Upset You But I Was Just Really Fucking Drunk

I cut my arm into wafer thin slices for you to devour. 
Your insatiable hunger. 

No Fat Birds

That familiar stirring in your loins,
Gams on parade.

More Than Me

Pale and emaciated 
Matted hair and restless 
Greying gums and toothless tremors

Husk

Guzzling oil slick coffee
Melting into the carpet
Engulfed by the abyss

Slumming it With the Proletariat in Poundland

The moment I enter the store, the burly black security guard is eyeballing me. I look rough, so that's understandable, but unsettling nonetheless. It doesn't help that I'm wearing a huge motherfucker of a jacket, pockets deeper than something really fucking deep.
I meander to the canned drinks, some queer looking kid in a red hoodie passes me, eye contact all the fucking way. Acne scars riddle his face. I stand in front of the canned drinks and stare for a while, absorbed into the decision making process. 
This is the biggest decision of your life.
I pick an Irn-Bru, a Dr. Pepper and a Vimto. My hand lingers over the Vimto for a while. 
Yeah, that's the good shit.
As I begin to walk to the tills, the security guard is scoping me out, I line up. The guy stands in front of the kid, and lifts up his his hoodie. It reveals a packet of fizzy strawberry laces.
Shit man, strawberry laces are real fucking good.
The kid stands there a while, unsure what to do. After the buzzer being rung for assistance, and the police being mentioned the kid tries to run. 
The burly fucker tackles.
Kid crumples. 
Kid goes down like a wet fucking flannel.
I walk out the store and open my Irn-Bru.
Yeah, that's the good shit.

Nostalgia

You talk about Safeway and Kwik-Save for like 15 minutes and you miss that shit so much and it pains you every time you walk into a Morrisons, it just hurts you so much you want to lie down in the aisle weeping and screaming until the security guard escorts you out the building.

My Veins Are Completely Fucked So I Have to Inject My Dick and Because of This I Can No Longer Get Erections

In a public bathroom, two men sit in adjacent stalls, shooting up.

MAN 1: I had a phobia of birthday cakes when I was younger.
MAN 2: I fear that I'm incapable of love, that I'm going to die alone and nobody even notices me.
MAN 1: I love skag.
MAN 2: I love you.
FIN

David Lynch Lives Inside My Lungs

I buy a copy of The Big Issue from a junky and take four steps away, turn around and look him dead in the eyes, looking into the abyss, just a void of pain and suffering.
I sling him a thumbs up. 
A shit-eating grin covers his wrinkled face.

PhD in Deliciousness

I watched an advert for Dr Pepper,
I bought Dr Pepper,
I felt used,
I was a consumer whore,
I felt as if Dr Pepper raped me and left me as a husk of my former self,
A mere shell,
I sat in the shower weeping,
It was my fault, 
I was asking for it,
I am a slut,
I stare in the mirror and I don't even recognise the man staring back at me anymore.

3 O'Clock

A steady stream of piss running down the wall,
Pooling at my feet,
Meandering south.

Untitled

I project my anger onto others.

Untitled

I might pretend that I'm Sylvia Plath.

Untitled

I want to wither away.

Confessions of a Tofu Addict by Karl Finch

Karl Finch makes me angry, he should make his own damn blog.


One day I’ll move to America and live in Portland, Oregon. I’ll become a serial killer of hipsters. I’ll then strangle them with a piano wire I bought in a thrift shop as they check Pitchfork one night. When I’ve finished, I’ll dress their emaciated vegan corpses in normal clothes then trade in their record collection for CDs, just to disgust their ghosts.

I’ll dress like them so as to blend in. They’ll never find me that way. Then, years later, I’ll realise I’ve become so much like them, that the only people who pay attention to hipsters are hipsters. Realising this, I’ll write my life story in haikus written in colloquial Flemish, hand-bind 113 copies on soy paper, and then sell them at the local coffee shop.

Snugglefucker

I want you to jump into my cardigan,
and we would snuggle all day long,


and then I would strangle you.

Untitled

im wearing looser boxers than usual and it feels like im wearing nothing at all

Unititled

i feel like damien hirst put me in a vat of formaldehyde

Untitled

I feel like I'm trapped inside an episode of Top Gear and I'm Richard Hammond and I'm in a rocket car and I'm about to crash.

Untitled

I want to crawl into a cunt and go to sleep.

A Day In the Life of Mr. Cameron

I sit at the table wearing a shirt and tie, leaving my bare arse touching the coarse fabric of the chair. Sloshing Organic Semi-Skimmed Waitrose milk over my muesli.
Reading The Guardian.
I rub my greasy cock and balls up against the screen of the television, whilst watching BBC News 24.
I piss out of the window.

I open the closet and let my slave out; he wears a Margaret Thatcher mask.

I bugger him on the patio.

Braque's My Homeboy

I am breathing now, through a miasma of loathing and self indulgence, my mind and body being fueled only by the two Tennents I ingested earlier. These propel me to new heights. I am an author. I am the man. I am the self-proclaimed King of Procrastination. I impress the laymen with my consumed and regurgitated knowledge of the cubist movement and their penchant for text based art.

Fear me. 

SuperCook

Arthur Herbert let out an explosive guffaw, the reverberations causing ripples to appear all over his corpulent mass. With William Pink by his side his face changed into a smirk, a small twinkle appearing in his eyes. He stared into Pink's very soul, before uttering something that all the contestants feared.

"Cooking, does not get tougher than this."

Several contestants had already been sent home. Brief flashes of those lost souls along with every dish they had created now appeared in Herbert's mind. Archaic lamentations. He still awaited the perfect dish. Pink, however, is tired. He merely wants the series to be over, he wants to move on. He no longer cared about the food.

The challenge of the day had the contestants create a dessert to seduce the judges palate.

The contestants slaved away. The judges patrolled the room.

"It looks like there is a lot of big flavours in the room today" muttered Pink, under the contractual obligation to mention the size of the flavours in every episode. 

Time was running out. The contestants were flustered. Sweating.

The first few dishes were acceptable. A myriad of favourable comments emanated from the judges.

The final contestant entered the judge's lair. He trembled with fear.

Presented with a croquembouche Herbert was flabbergasted. With the utmost precision and delicate handling, he manoeuvred his fork gently towards the seductive pastry.

Tiny beads of perspiration accumulated upon his naked brow.

He whimpered longingly as he brought the delectable treat to his gaping maw.

Overcome with delight Herbert began to gorge upon the offering. Casting his fork to one side. His shirt, tightly buttoned, began to strain under the new load being crammed down his gullet. Until finally the structural integrity of the cloth was breached; his naked flesh burst into view.

His feeble mind could only conjure a solitary thought.

The ganache is divine.

Carelessly forcing ever more of the dessert downwards, he paid little attention to the fearful, disgusted gazes of Pink and the meek contestant. It was as if the contestant were staring into the abyss. He descended into a Lovecraftian spiral of insanity; left an empty husk of aman.

The corners of Herbert's mouth were flecked with chocolate, meandering towards his chin, whilst cream landed on his chest. Now in a frothing frenzy he threw the plate across the room. He began to roll around in the remains of the croquembouche. Gyrating into the pastry.

Writhing.

Camera still rolling.

Herbert was eventually appeased.

Glesga

When I see people dressed in vibrant fluorescent hoodies I want to rip their fucking face off and scream into the muscular remains as their eyes fervently dart around and screams of anguish and pain echo around the streets of Glasgow. I rub their blood into my flesh and then fuck their girlfriends whilst wearing their face. 

I Really Fucking Loathe Frank

Wallowing in self-pity,

Misanthropy,

Misogyny,

Drinking warm Stella.

Monochrome Matter

I am drawn to a childlike state.

Absorbing the vibrancy.

The Coldest Stare

In a state of disrepair, I solemnly downed my 400mg Ibuprofen, 500mg Co-Codamol. No alcohol. Fully functioning human being amongst the idiotic masses. The supporting act was dire. I concede that I was feeling extremely unwell, the fervent bass rattling my empty stomach, causing waves of grim pain to pass through me. Struggling to heed reality, my accompanying party soon gave up trying to converse with me or associate with me. When the main act came on I was engulfed by fools and soon separated from my associates, standing alone. Amongst the writhing and undulating sea of foul cretins. Isolated. A youngster carrying a lager, clearly intoxicated, being more partial to a sip of WKD to while away the weekend bumped into me repeatedly whilst attempting to close in nearer to the stage. "Sorry mate," he slurred, leaning in closer to make himself heard "sorry, mate." Two vapid harlots began gyrating in front of me, firm buttocks, exquisite legs encapsulated within muted black tights. In my fragmented mind, I was livid at this blatant disregard of all that is deferential. Saxophone; bass; cowbell; theramin. An unmitigated urge to fuck.

It's the Polis

Hide the body.

Successful Fella

I took some painkillers; 
had a kip; 
went to the pub; 
kicked a homeless man's head in with my steel-toe-capped boots until he was no longer breathing and coated in his blood lying in a miasma of piss and shit.


I then went to the shops and bought a can of Irn-Bru.

Hollow

Fucking.

Succinct Critique of the Overarching Themes of the Literary Works of Frank Black

"[Frank Black] hates life and everyone in it."

Helix Aspersa

Frank stands in front of a mirror.

FRANK: I'm Francis Bacon. I am spontaneous, strong, visceral. I am Francis Fucking Bacon. I am not a useless husk. I am not Frank. I am a layered masterpiece of repressed angst. I am flesh and blood,  sinew and soul. I am not a worthless, waste of valuable resources. I am not a rabbit. I am a handsome, sphere of compressed rage. My liver is withered. My lungs are withered. My heart is withered. My intestines are gargantuan and run amok with moments past. I am livid. I am an abattoir frothing and bubbling. I am post-modern. I am the rotund harbinger of slow, mental decline. I am the gentle beast; I am David Murray's Let the Music Take you. 

[Pause]

I am Helix aspersa.

Marmite

Frank went into the kitchen.
Frank placed two slices of whole grain bread into the toaster.
Frank put a thin layer of butter on the toast.
Frank slathered Marmite on the toast.
Frank wasn't hungry, but he ate the toast anyway.


Frank is empty inside.

Weeping on Toast

It wakes me,
Superimposed thoughts,
Scattered.

3 Pieces by Sam Birrell

Sam Birrell is an author for our generation; a visionary; a human.
You can find his work here: Body in the Bathtub

Play

Curtains open, centre stage stands a man, he is wearing skinny jeans, a messenger bag and has funky hair, he walks to centre front. Looks out to the auditorium.

Man: (with passion) IL N'Y A AUCUN AVENIR POUR NOUS

Man walks back to centre stage. He takes a beer from his messenger back. He sits down, he retrieves a bottle opener from his pocket. He removes the bottle cap and proceeds to drink.

Curtains close.

Poem

The streets of Chicago are lonely

at night when the homeless are gone

and not screaming a sound for

us to hear their madness

they just want to be

loved like we are

but they are

not loved

no.

Prose

Looking out of his balcony, a ledge really, onto rue de l'abbaye. A string of Vespa scooters took up half the small street. He tossed his cigarette out, landing next to a tourist. The tourist looks up, he smiles, winks, and puts his thumb up and shouts “YEAH!”. He walks back into the apartment and she asks why he did that stupid American colloquialism. He shrugs and sits down on the sofa and puts his feet on the coffee table, knocking over a bottle of wine that spreads over the newspaper and Kafka short that neither he nor she remembers buying. She rushes to clean it up, he changes channel. He flicks through several channels, nothing. He gets up and heads to the kitchen area. He takes a beer from the fridge and heads back to the sofa. He puts his feet back on the coffee table she just cleaned. She exits the apartment. She does not take her phone.

Turmoil

I feel 

nervous at the prospect

of having people hear;

my words;

deliberating over their meaning.

I feel 

angry 

that my work achieves nothing;

that my work is futile;

that I am stuck in a forlorn cycle of mediocrity.

Verbal

Speech should be punishable by death,

Everybody should blog instead,

And that way nobody would care. 

Britpop

Two young men sit on a concrete step. 

GEOFF: I should get my haircut.

FRANK: Yeah.

GEOFF: Do you think I should get a haircut?

FRANK: Yes.

GEOFF: I just don't know.

[Pause]

I don't know if I should try and get that young Alex James thing going on.

FRANK: I like Blur.

GEOFF: Yeah, I fucking love Blur.

FRANK: I don't like Alex James.

GEOFF: Fuck you.

FRANK: He's smug.

GEOFF: He makes cheese. I want to make cheese.

[Pause]

He's living the dream. 

FRANK: In my dreams I am a real human being and I am finally capable of love. I finally can have a deep relationship with someone that has emotions involved. Generally there will be a lot of emotions. I feel like a robot. Maybe I am a robot. I want to know what it's like to feel things. I want to be able to look a lass in the eye and feel more than just aroused.

[Pause]

I feel dead inside.