BOG OFF TO BOGNOR!

 lavatory wall prosaic

 

crazy how the few are plotting to

own the whole caboodle wars & all

while the rest are tryna save & feed

kinfolks or friends

 

who’d’ve thought it worthy that some

greedy rotten snides ensconced themselves

at the top with such impunity

summat’s not right

 

what we need’s a superhero who’ll

pull the chain that ends their smarmy rule

flush them all away & guarantee

freedom & peace

 

Jeez I’d give my yellow submarine

album cover signed by Lennon worth

thousands everyone’s got something let’s

set up a fund

 

now we know them Elgin Dust & Co

Sputin Tramps on Knotten Yahoo Jo

Bideshistime & that Australian clan

straight down the pan

 

 

 

heaven

 

everyone who’s gone

gets their very own

solar set to play

God with alone

 

as an X-Machine

you may intervene

stop & watch as life

comes into being

 

forward it reverse

speeded up or slowed

down the games you’ll play

pinkwash & go

 

politicians get

supernovas black

holes for snides & top

hatters let’s see

 

total galaxies

Magellanic clouds

thousand million stars

clustered on toast

 

 

 

ineffable

 

stacks of useless thought

drones awaiting sale

undelivered hate

mail for the cause

 

static protest march

silent cries to be

left alone & screeched

whisperings see

 

nothing but it all

totals like a hand

bomb inside a ball

ends in the stand

 

expert shot it’s owned

by the vicious crowd

held in triumph but

fails to explode

 

still the point it scores

legendary home

run or six who cares

victory to Rome

 

 

 

European psycho

 

talking extreme

mediocrity

achingly relaxed

who gives a snit

 

let them do their worst

all they’ll get from me

bald indifference vexed

posing as nix

 

while inside I boil

over like a milk

pudding pops its lid

burning the pan

 

Dora’s box is spung

from within the rage

reaches far & wide

deep as I glide

 

sweetly on my way

smiling left to right

donning nods or winks

sugar & spice

 

 

 

superhero

 

I shall not forget

the outstanding debt

lest I should regret

these are my terms

 

case of tête-à-tête

ain’t there been enough

ugliness in town

dragging us down

 

quit the past but no

bygones linger on

like a guilty child

feelings get low

 

nothing can explain

time will only heal

not reverse the pain

something remains

 

give my brother back

youse that took him I

don’t believe you’ve met

Dr McDeath

 

 

 

warsore

 

entertainment pours

treasure blood & brains

into digital

artforms while wars

 

carry on who cares

Biggles Sorts It Out

like a turkey flight

bombed from the word

 

let the blighters go

Exodus with full

compensation no

cattle trucks though

 

give those folks their home

lands or do a swop

stop invading get

back where you once

 

longed to be beneath

Jehrico its walls

tumbling down or Kiyv

ghettos on ice

 

 

 

der abschied von Shekelgrubber

 

who can tell the bell

tolls for no one but

stuff they leave behind

 

what remains is changed

having lost its hand

maid appearance wanes

 

gone intestate that

lawyers may dispute

how to share the loot

 

gold & silver plate

hoards of Süleyman

coins & heaven knows

 

stories told is all

right you are but looked

well enough their ghost

 

 

 

abject infinity

 

just because a typewiter’s

packed with faux intelligence

doesn’t make these monkeys smart

but is it art

 

fair discrimination fell

at the first extremity

robots won the human race

then came some apes

 

playing pin-ball homo-sap

veered out of context rolled

down a groove & out the back

door of the place

 

seen our planet Mate they cried

out across the ace of space

btw at least they found

God on the ap

 

everywhere between the stars

Milky Wayne & Beetle Juice

singing life had better kicked

off on a Mars

 

 

*

 

abstract art

like its pop

Cubism

sucks

people up

savours then

spits them out

whole

Jonah style

 

are they changed

on the way

no

cat can say

some agree

sculpture gets

stuck

in a rut

smack yer butt

Henry Moore

cor

 

 

 

another ab

 

laws abjuring snoot

passed The Commons strive

openly to ban

most of themselves

 

while The Lords in mock

deference vote to take

power back the crown

shall be the King’s

 

that’s the way of things

called democracy

want of better words

stymied the cause

 

shoulda been a Tom

Bowler at the crease

played the Powerball

joker takes all

 

still you gotta hand

someone else the buck

let the Poles decide

owt for a duck

 

 

 

further abs

 

birds abscond take

off whenever scared

by mistakes or fake

gunfire they’ve learned

 

humans it’s absurd

blow each other up

pretty ugly huh

AI’s the word

 

absent activists

hang around the camps

fire at night then kiss

under the lamps

 

aliens abort

D-day every year

let their lazy bums

languish in port

 

abseiling proscribed

bungee jumping too

only kicks allowed

larks in the loo 

wot no John?

Gaza Concerto

 

Reissued on CD, 12" Vinyl & 8-Track

arty facial nonsense

Annette Plerth’s

foreign nurse

ha ha ha

stole their purse

if the angle of incidents grows

wider than the eyes of startled does

pump the optics Joe

way to go

human kind’s

oxymoron

wormwood scone

anyone

Jesus wept to see such frowns

etched upon the brows of fools

camouflaged in greens & browns

Christ almighty not their muse

super glued

locks galore

hairy times

peace & war

half a pound of dynamite

half a hospital

that’s the way the money goes

pop the schools as well

God defrocked

twice they’re back

ha ha ha

get the sack

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click

Not to be confused with the Christian Punk - sic - band's album with similar name, "2 lefts don't make a right" is more paradox than oxymoron. If you hear a ringing in your ears, be a result - not the cause - of tinnitus. In reality, this month's downritefiction post is an attempt to cover what the latest chapbook has left out. Just tryna stay as occasional as the times permit...

another for the Gentiles

an eye for a tooth

a life for an eye

& snuff a dozen street Arabs

for every precious child

2 state solution

 

take the pile of them

plus the lot of us

shake & stir then add

strychnine to taste

pour the mixture down

umpteen holes & wait

seven million sun

days at the least

tip the contents out

roll & cut them like

gingerbread to half

bake should be soft

serve with buttermilk

somewhat salted kids

love to hate this treat

charge & repeat

or let’s start again

from a pinch of them

take a touch of us

serve with a cuss

vinyl solution

 

take a hundred men

dressed in PVC

women don’t apply

down to the sea

 

scour the beaches find

everybody’s dream

crock of retro you

get what I mean

 

keep it clean & sound

bring it back intact

boxed in Plexiglass

ultimate act

 

for the grand approach

make a long parade

snaking through the gates

houselights to fade

 

citizens kow-tow

none in disbelief

artificial rules

general relief

nuclear option

a plague on the Muslims & Jews to hell with the Christians damn the atheists Hindus Sikhs Buddhists agnostics trainspotters & Rosicrucians philosophers go hang alongside poets dentists submariners & Seventh Day Adventists death to politicians social workers spies & pet owners of every kind eradicate shop keepers liquidate teachers housewives lawyers & chiropractors do not resuscitate artists suicide bombers or opticians vegans & horse thieves commercial travellers stock brokers trapeze artists & the insane should be wiped out without mercy kill farmers their sons & daughters draughtspersons snides nice owl ladies grumpy grandads window cleaners squash players tramps & all members of royal families don’t forget the innocent guilty men & women of the street miners minders method actors rent boys or dog walkers drug fiends crush bus drivers & school janitors to death execute all the people whose views you love or hate anyone you’ve never met & anybody wearing jeans or leatherette coats bump off both your enemies & friends whack your whole extended family throw all pinks browns blacks yellows whites & coloured into a mass grave drown the rich in the blood of the poor choke senior citizens on youngsters’ guts barbecue beggars over the embers of the charitable chop up decent folk liars & fools & feed their remains to the orcs

never shoot!

Windy Cove

 A Visit to Windy Cove

Introduction

Regular readers will know our eschatological devotion to wind, and greet with a knowing groan news that the downwritefiction spent part of their vacation at its very epicentre. Just round the headland from Flat-U-Lent Point and neatly tucked into the arse end of Boffin Gulf lies the nut brown swathe of Windy Cove. Famous as the place where the first intact pfaert to cross the Atlantic Ocean came in to land, the cove now sports a modern Visitor Centre and a nearby Campsite/GB Caravan Club Park.

 

History

It was in the year 1882(1), two decades before Macaroni discovered The Algonquin, that a perfect pfaert was blown intact across the pond. To the splendour of a ticker-tape send off, and with the hoots of many transatlantic liners, the ill wind set off on its perilous course. It took the familiar trade route and, though the navigation technology of the day was crude, managed to avoid all that Nature threw in its way: icebergs, the Gulf Stream, fields of sargassum and a succession of anticyclones. Manufactured on the East Coast through a combination of Germanic know-how, Irish brawn and Anglican cunning, the pfaert remained intact - flaunting the laws of physics, cocking a snoot at a Newtonian Universe, and offending the sensibilities of Queen Victoria herself. That West-East should be its vector, and not the reverse, there was no mean feet in it succeeding both to elude Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise and embarrass the US Coast Guard at a time of rising Protectionism. The pfaert, for its own part, had quite another agenda: to rule the waves and – as the old saying goes – to waive the rules. This it did to some considerable triumph and not a little acclaim.

 

Specifications

The exact volume of the pfaert went unrecorded at the time of its launch. As to colour, density and humidity, surely the facts speak for themselves. Odour, of course, is a separate matter. A considerable amount of cheese and egg contributed to its make up. Then, as it made its way across the ocean, it is said to have absorbed trace quantities of ozone, Benzole and karaoke.

 

Parking

While eletric vehicles stay free of charge, horse-drawn carts, four-wheelers and phaetons pay and display. There is no change machine so be sure to have the right coins ready. The park is plagued by hordes of touts and pedlars, many of whom are clearly underage or on-the-run. Patrons are recommended to leave one of their party at the vehicle, armed with a shotgun. 99s with strawberry sauce dipped in ground nuts are available at the vans.

Visitor Centre

While the beach itself is not worth a candle, and swimming is prohibited (except for nude bathing by moonlight), the visitor centre is a snip, with entrance fees starting at £35. The hands-up experience is both a multi-media and sensory pot-pouri. Charting the progress of the pfaert - from lunch to landing - visitors are guided through a series of tableaux in which sound, smell, touch and even light are employed to provide an all-round, memorable experience. Not a second is wasted and there is little queuing (apart from at the Toilets), the whole show is over before you can say Jimmy Riddle - meaning no time for screaming kids to demand another 99. Moreover, the Gift Shop at the Exit will sop up any remaining funds you have, with genuine Banksy depictions of the pfaert in 20, 50 and 100ml bottles.

Temple

When it became known that Jeremiah Hodge - the retired ship’s carpenter who came across the pfaert as it came in from the sea - had inadvertently ignited it, the Royal Society of Pseudo-Zarathusians immediately pounced. Lighting his pipe with a smoker’s match (Vesta Swan), the pfaert – which was 87% methane – exploded in an odorles blue flame, blowing Hodge’s straw boater off and singeing his whiskers. Thereafter the Royal Society erected a small temple on the beach above high water mark. With separate entries for Ladies and Gents, plus a chamber for the ritual washing of babies, the Temple is open from 9am to 5pm. At other times, a key may be obtained from the Warden for a small charge.

Campsite

Do not under any circumstances attempt to camp, light fires, park caravans or sleep out in the camping area & caravan park. To do so will incur a fine of forty shillings. 

Never Say You Weren't Warned

---

(1) That is year 1882 of the Common Era; scholars of the Contrarian School assert the first intact pfaert made the crossing in year 1882 BCE.

Melinta - Dinosaur or Dreadnought?

Superficially, an unremarkable pebbled strand were it not for the beached Dreadnought or – given its age, hardly less likely – a dinosaur rock that juts straight into the blue wine-and-water Aegean at the crook of its western quarter. Closer examination of the bedrock and stones strewn across the narrow shoreline reveals clusters of sedimentary conglomerates with embedded pebbles and veins of plain or reddish quartz. Layers of high grade ignimbrite intrude everywhere across the region, and although it is known in Turkish as garlic stone (sarımsak taş) it has a lovely light pink colour. Various stages of greenschist (I’m guessing, from the olive green of its powdery precursor) through to the fully vulcanised harder-than-marble product – are common, but they far from dominate; the beach is a scrapyard of remnants from the massive volcanic action that disrupted Lesbos, and set it adrift from the Anatolian shores around 23 million years ago. Melinta - like Drota, further along the coast to the West - is an amateur geologist’s dream and nightmare rolled into one puzzling package.

Looking seaward, Sou’-Sou’-West, lie the Greek islands of Chios and (just visible during a clear sunset) Psara; while to our extreme left the dark hump of the Karaburun peninsula can be spied, along with a steady stream of cargo ships heading to and from the Turkish port of Izmir. The Dreadnought is broken up at an incredibly slow rate, slightly abetted by the goggled excrescence of human swimmers. However the rock was laid down and partially metamorphosised, the layers of it now lie perpendicular to sky and shore, where its armour plates are pried apart by wind and sea; but meantime a hardy species of olive bush manages to sprout here and there in the crevices.

Melinta was once home to a factory or warehouse, connected to the olive oil industry that dominated Lesbos a century ago. There is no chimney here, though, and its proximity to Plomari, the regional centre of soap exports to Odessa and Alexandria and made the locals rich enough to construct mansions. Here, all that is left are a few walls, the foundations of which at the shore end mostly eroded and undercut by the sea. It was probably a staging post for the hinterland, and served by coastal traffic (though there is no evidence of an old pier or jetty). But there remain a few historic beach houses, three stories high if you include their stone foundations.

Some are not so old, and accommodate restaurants, pensions or both; and there are tourists staying here, with many day visitors, so parking becomes something of a problem weekends. Beyond the row of seafront buildings adjacent to The Rock and stretching Eastwards along the shoreline, enterprising folk have constructed holiday homes, many quite large, though nothing high enough to cause much of an eyesore. As yet. On the other side, a handful of battered properties have fared less well against the raging sea.

The wrecks of inflatable boats and discarded lifejackets of refugees are found even here on the far side of Lesbos. Most of them land on the Northern shores that face Assos, but there have been so many that some have either overshot the sandy coves of Tsonia and Petra; or else they’ve launched from Dikili or the beaches of Karaburun.

The miniscule growth of Melinta, like other seaside settlements hereabouts, was inhibited by piracy until the mid-nineteenth century. Locals preferred to live high up in the safety of the surrounding hills, so towns and villages such as Megalochori (for Plomari), Akrasi (for Drota) and Palaiochori (for Melinta) are much more historic. Each is located on one or more streams that flow only in stormy weather, bringing much of the pebbles and sand down that make up the strands. Beyond Plomari at Agios Isidorus only this year a flash flood turned the concrete floor of its stream into the bed of a raging torrent that carried several parked cars out to sea, and flooded the basements of seaside pensions.

Stretching back through Ottoman, into Byzantine and ancient times, local fishers pulled up their simple boats, turned them over and buried them in the stones of the strands. They would carry their catches home in woven baskets. These would have been self-sufficient communities for centuries, until demand for olive oil soap brought them into a modern globalising world. The Drotas, Melintas and Plomaris of today no longer rely on the olive for their existence, and soap hasn’t been made hereabouts in half a century. Ouzo production, however, sourcing local spring water and herbs - is gradually modernising. Tourism, with the restoration and new building of holiday homes, dangles a new wave of prosperity in the eyes of locals and speculators. George Kakes, a local civil engineer, is talking about a coast road, snaking Westwards towards the seven kilometre sands of Vatera. We have been here before.

No Dinosaur!

New Summer Book Bitch

another pink un?

After almost a decade spent basking on the shelves, downwritefiction's Summer Book Bitch is back with six all new titles compulsory spooling on the Musk Implant Reader©. Plus extras… 

Also Rans in the Artificial Cheese Award:

Atsum Point

by

Chicken O’Hooligan

Another stunning topographic romp along the contours of cartographic suspense, this time taking the reader (sic) on perilous dives from their garden's end to the undergrowth of Simpleton’s Crotch. In the franchise that never stoops to Googleplex, one wonders just how long the bot can go on delivering geographic intelligence of this calibre. Digital text includes the option to Autoread with freak ribs, pop-up spoilers, and GoTo Cheese buttons. Complete with choice of seven weird and five nonsense endings, eleven Sex and Violence settings and an Ex Midlands vintage holiday coupon.

The Soxicologist

by

Snerpy Doodah MP

Further poisonous snacks from the stubby pencil of Constable Doodah, The Soxicologist is a three course novella with bald sexism, coy nudity and a wondrous digestive tract. Unsuitable for teenage environmental terrorists, featherweight politicians and blatant squares of all shape and size. Come and vomit with us under the bridge in the dark. Contains a free Palace of Westminster security pass.

Shot In The Foot

By

Ricco Shea

Not a very catholic book, written on the back seat of a London cab during two world wars, printed in North East and South West Looe, published by Albie Dammed, sold down the market in Nu d’Orleans, publicity by Predictable, cover photograph by Telly Kenesis, blurb by Slurdis Wurtz, sponsored by The British Crime Safety League, and taxed by the US Gov. Other than that, it’s a fairly standard foot-shooting tome which will appeal to most lovers of the genre.

Shutt of the Antarctic

by

Penguin Bucks

A sweltering heatwave typeset in Cobalt Crude, it relates the fable of Neville Shutt, an unassuming doorman from Dorchester, who is roped in by his nemesis/false friend Peter The Saint. Together they stagger across the dried up bed of the South Atlantic towards the Great Antarctic Plateau with little more than a few tins of pilchards and a sixpack of huskies. Will they ever reach the summit of their goal, or Go To Gaol without stopping for a Jimmy? Don’t read this book! It’s not a book. It’s the collected betting slips of a demented doorman on MDF. Gateway to the pearls of Mars. Exit straight into the jigger. Black hole of nearby Cluster Galaxy XXXIVa.

O Sausage Water

by

Klint Sadvocation

You won’t find Sausage Water on the Moon, or posted under Main Battle Tanks of WWII, nor caught sleeping on a bench in the Shoreditch Old DHSS Office. The Sausage Water is truly elusive, though only offensive to true Russian oilygarchs. Running through the usual suspects takes time, but tedium is avoided by a frequent guzzling of cocktails and always having herds of cows to milk. Nor can you claim this is a book about nothing without the risk of being sued by AN Author, which is part of its bleeding charm. No need to lie on a bed of nails or indeed to darn your smelly foot-sex. Intelligent, artificial, surreal, porridge with gravy, what more do you want on a Tuesday morning in the rain?

Disposable Housewives

by

Zantium Tcheaze

Augmented insanity minus the Pope’s official opinion on everything from the curse of winter tyres to debt celebration clocks. With gogo-stop-stop-go animations and a soundtrack by The Steelyard Boos, plus Pippa Plughole on flags and plaques, Disposable Housewives rocks but never rolls. For gods shaken not shared, chapter by chapter each episode slightly differs from the frames of a Moron’s Glamour Frieze: peeling wallpaper, screeching axles, and all the fun of falling off the planet. Comes with Green Dustbin Stamps.

Extra Extra Extras… 

Last Year’s Winner of the Artificial Cheese Award

A Safe Pair of Balls

by

Cowboy Jane

The Deadwood Stage it ain’t, tho’ no calamity there, for what constitutes the film parallel, two-tone text on canvas? Show not your ignorance of The Great Unknown by reeling in this old canal bicycle with algae & testimonies of other summers wasted on the beach. Ho hum, so you’ve been here/there/everywhere before. So what? Haven’t we all. No? Read it again to understand less, fool. But this time, try the hardback. 

And in throwbacks:

The Canton Pizzas

of

Zerox Quid

Published here for the first time in a single two-page volume, seven and a half recipes for pure water-chestnut-fed buffalo crap.

The Worst Land

by

TS Idiot

Connecticut or Maine is not the point. Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, who gives a peeking duck? Stick it up your sweat lodge, Babe. All the fun of the unfair to penguins brigade. And what’s more, there IS no Waste with this one; when you’re through, just throw it away. 

Forthcoming Titles:

Sir Jimmy Riddle

is life by

P Sorff

From Ray to Ryan Gosling

A survey of Celebrity by

A Nonimus

Finger’s Cave

self-help (manual) by

Feelicks Meddlesome

and…

The Silly Isles

or Genealogy v. Geology

by your very own Zonk Pifflesquate 

Not AI, then?