Wild weekend with Reginald Hardcourt

At the moment I am only semi-conscious, so forgive me, Reader, if I am only semi-coherent. My torrid love affair with the green faerie continues... I am captive to her charms.

Reginald and I jetted to London for a wild weekend in the magnificent city, the omphalos of Industrialization. I dressed as Oscar Wilde and Reginald, as Beau Brummell. We washed our boots in champagne and began the ritual of dripping sugared water into that most potent of potables, Absinthe (the mere word gives me goose pimples). The faerie danced and Reginald chanted the bard's most otherworldly lines,

Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

With the last line Reginald playfully grabbed his crotch.

He then transitioned into his latest from "cacophonous caccaw" (he later informed me that what seemed like a wild mess of bird noises was in fact a highly-structured amalgamation of Greek, Latin, and Ebonics) and pricked his finger, adding three drops of his own "baboon blood" to each glass. He then leaned close and whispered hellishly in my ear:

And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

Then began the phantasmagoria... and when I came to I was walking along railroad tracks with Reginald, my hair ruffled, my pants soiled. We walked along a narrow bridge while rain clouds gathered; it seemed as though we were crossing over the river Styx into Hades. I mentioned this to Reginald. He said he had a confession to make.

"What is it, Reg?" said I. "You can tell me anything for I am as sinister as they come; just don't confess you are clean because that is a lie."

He spoke not but instead removed his shoe to reveal what looked like a cloven foot.

"My God Reg.. are you... he?"

"No Nigey Wigey... A mere minion."

We spoke no more but continued along the bridge. Then the clouds burst. There was thunder and lightning. We turned around for fear.

"We'll save Hell for another day," said Reg.

"Isn't that like the faerie?" said I. "How she shows us our destiny, but won't let us touch it."

"Yes Nigel. She is a most magnificent tease."

Helga's Duty

Helga:
"He wakes...
He sleeps...
And in between he swims in sewers
and vomits yesterday's poison
where no one will ever know."

The Duke:
"Here I kneel
in gagging prayer.
The toilet reflects me--
Narcissus amongst bacteria and pubes--
Helga calls this colour "an off-white"...
but to me it's Dorian Gray.

Helga:
"Dear master are you quite alright?"

The Duke:
"Oh Helga turn your eyes--
I'll give you diamonds not to tell
of the mess you're paid to clean,
of the things you're forced to see...

"of the ratman
in the tailored suit
puking out his shitty heart."

The guilt of a lost weekend

My dearest Myoki, like Lucifer, I have fallen.

No, to compare myself to Lucifer is unfair, for he was an angel, once. Not so with me. Even as a child I was a devil. My interest in the black arts started early and I often wrestled stray dogs to death. By the time I was a teenager I drank daily and wrote scathing sestinas and sonnets about my parents and teachers. I was not exactly what you would call a lovable tyke.

An old Aesthete "friend" (an aesthete's love of all things artful and false prevents real friendship you see) unexpectedly stopped by the estate on Friday. He held a gun to my head and read me his poetry. There was fire in his eyes--he was full of spleen and absinthe. His poetry was a mad jumble of words and bird noises; he said he is writing a book entitled "cacophonous cacaw." He told me to drink the Green Faerie or he would fire the revolver. So I drank.

Myoki, I haven't meditated for three days. I am full of guilt. I feel a horrid imbalance in my humours. My attachment to absinthe is strong, Myoki. I have poured it all down the toilet, now... But the ceremony was not without a sinister toast.

I would confess to you, Myoki, but I fear I would take pleasure in telling you my escapades and fall even further into the dark pit of my mind.

All that is left for me is death, Myoki. I am not a good man like you are. Do you remember when we drank that bottle of cheap scotch? You remained eloquent while I harassed the maid.

It is raining. I have not seen the sun all day. I am fearing the clarity of a sobre sleep.

On meditation as an alternative to opium, part 3

Let's jump right into the action.

Like a devil with a day-pass to heaven, I burst through the door of what I thought was my favourite opium den and bellowed to all:

"Aesthetes and Deadbeats, lend me your ear: Your prodigal son has returned--more prodigal than ever! Now fill my heart, with Laudenam and Beauty!"

I then saw the most belle dame existing in the corner. But, no, she was more than that... Much more... In strange alternations she was a nymph exhaling pixie dust and a cobra hissing hypnotic sound. Needless to say I was drawn to both her forms and wanted to understand her strange and changing shape with all my senses. I disrobed and approached, unsure whether to creep or pounce. She seemed frightened... so thus I crept. Mesmerized and wild, like Frankenstein's monster upon his moment of conception, I was full of electricity. More than life or death, I wanted to know this protean maid.

I crept and sang to her a melody,

"My girl, have I, a mortal modern, stumbled
Upon the hallowed ground of Xanadu?
Have I, a mortal modern, found a place
Where we can live in song and trance, and you
Will dance, and I shall capture your motion with words?"

Now it must be said that this was truly a cracking entrance and entirely off-the-cuff, as they say. But its brilliance was overshadowed by its lack of propriety. You see, this belle dame was no milk-white nymph but rather a cashier at the Tesco down the street doing her daily yoga practice. She had been striking the pose of the cobra before I burst in. I had killed her Zen. And yet, peculiarly, she did not appear mad.

A voice spoke from behind me:

"Friend. Hello. I have been expecting you."

I was nonplussed.

"Please, friend," said the voice. "Let me help to clear your mind and cure your soul. My name is Myoki."

"Nigel," I said. "Nigel Tewksbury... Opium Fiend... "

"Welcome Nigel." We shook hands. My hands were clammy; his, warm.

Thus it came to be. But that is all for now. More in coming days, my friends. Myoki is cooking dinner and I am famished.

Unfocussed musings

I cannot write of opium tonight. It is draining to tell one's whole story over the course of a week. A young girl I met on the Internet told me that blogging was very therapeutic. I cannot say I feel the same. For me it is draining and I have developed a craving for opium. In many ways I had forgotten how I had killed beauty until I rehashed the details of my horrific dream. Alas, let us speak of things mundane (though this will only kill Her more).

First of all, perhaps you, dear reader, have noticed my orthography is not typically British. Well, I am a bit rebellious in terms of spelling. I half-prefer the American spellings of Webster but will never wholly identify myself with that obese but good-enough-in-theory nation. So I pick and choose between the British and American spellings. I believe it is similar to the Canadian orthography, though this is pure coincidence (a hockey-skate has never graced my foot and I am too much of a nudist to be from somewhere so cold). So that is that.

Well, look at me, a bibliophile at a loss for words. I shall floss then slumber. Hopefully soon I will be back in form. I worry sometimes I have lost "it." Drat!

Helga! Fetch me my dental equipment and make me my bed! Come lie with me if you wish.

On meditation as an alternative to opium, part 2

So, to pithily (and, perhaps, fairly--I realize I am a bit of a Polonius at times) sum up my previous web log entry: Opium is a fantastic stuff, but it causes constipation of the most serious kind. Thus, after several medical appointments, a stern warning from my doctor, and severe worrying on my part over developing a hideously distended abdomen, I swore to quit. Now, any fool can swear any thing, and if you knew the type of chap I hung around at the time, you would place me at the top of this pile of fools because opium was as natural and essential to us Aesthetes as water: By quitting opium, I was quitting a lifestyle; I was forfeiting my soul; and, worst of all, I was divorcing my goddess-wife Beauty.

You see, when it comes to Beauty, I had only ever felt her curves and listened to her melodies while under the influence; so, by quitting the narcotic, I was murdering my ethereal bride. Often, while in withdrawal, I would dream she was in bed beside me, pale as a wraith, dressed in a see-through nightie, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth. But I was too intoxicated to call an ambulance and thus she died; and, in my state of utter indolence, I continued sleeping with a blissfully stupid smile on my face while a goddess's body rotted beside me.

You may say it's just a dream but I say you're just awake. As I see it, dreams are not a false reality; rather, they are an alternate reality in which truth is symbolic rather than factual. But I will spare you my esoteric ramblings for now and, as they say, "get on with it."

So on with it shall I get... To put a heavy matter lightly, withdrawal is hell, and I am only human. After three days of life in hell, I left the flat where I was recovering and succumbed to the thought of the opium den in the predawn hours. I was like a fiend on the loose, practically frothing at the mouth. But here occurs a most miraculous thing. In the brief period of my recovery, the opium den had been "found-out" by the bobbies (or "policemen," for my North-American friends) and promptly shut-down like my Dell Inspiron when it receives the latest software updates. And, you ponder, what would replace this magical place?

A yoga studio, of all things... More tomorrow. Adieu.

On meditation as an alternative to opium, part 1

I remember my first visit to an opium den. I felt as though I had stumbled upon some sort of vestibule between life and death. It was like an ancient catacombs, but instead of horrific skeletons reminding one of the posthumous worms that eat our worldly flesh, there were dreamers in sweet repose, breathing deeply, as though inhaling the soul of the blessed goddess Beauty herself. And Beauty's handmaidens were in abundance, here, in this den of holy fools, with oriental rugs and ornamental pipes aplenty. The proprietor smiled warmly as I entered, as though welcoming me to paradise. Instantly I felt at ease before I even took my first puff. But afterwards... well, one cannot remember bliss, let alone find the words to describe it.

And so it begun. I thought I had drunk the milk of paradise. Aestheticism-as-a-Woman moaned in my ear and I swore to marry her come dawning. And I did... I did... I smoked more while awing wide-eyed at the sunrise. But the honeyed moon of the first night and morning would not stay forever sweet. The moon is--after all--a rock, with craters and all. The marriage went sour.

Opium, you see, has the effect that it makes one agonizingly constipated. And the more constipated I became, the more I craved the drug; eventually, opium became less an escape into beauty than it was a relief from the pangs of strained defecation. Ask any chemist and he will tell you that it is no accident that opium and immodium share a suffix.

Oh how silly of me... I shall mention here to my North American readers that a "chemist" here in England is what you would call a "pharmacist." Inevitably you ask, what do we call chemists? Well... personally, I don't, because they are such a bore :)

Damnit my flow has been disrupted! I shall hopefully recover the thread tomorrow and speak to you of my recent attempts at meditation. The dogs want to be let out and the servants are god-knows-where.

Adieu fare reader—mon semblable,—mon frère!

Loose (though lucid) ramblings

Today was full of twists and turns. I had planned to catch a lighthearted comedy (entitled "Knocked Up," a satirical look at unplanned pregnancy, I gather) but all went awry when I saw the magnificence of the day atop the beauty of the ocean. What type of man would I be to spend dusk in a theatre, surrounded by idiots crunching popped corn kernals, when I could lie serenely on the beach and watch the stars reveal themselves with more cinematic splendor than a Hollywood film with a multi-umptillion dollar budget? No thanks, chap, I'll take the stars of destiny over the stars of Hollywood any day of the eternally recurring week.

I do regret not seeing Reginald--the only man in this world I have ever considered a "friend"--but I trust our bond transcends a silly movie. Dear Reginald, I know you read these words... Please don't be hurt by my inconsiderate absence. You know I'm a bastard and for some reason don't hold it against me. I wish it were not so but alas... You are the better man. Please stop by the estate and perhaps if you are game we shall try some fencing. Or some nude wrestling, if you prefer (a sport destined--like all great things--to be misunderstood by the masses. But truly there is nothing more primal than wrestling in the nude beside a burning hearth).

A few lines I scribbled on the beach,

Cluttered is my mind;
my memory's an attic, full of spiders
and rat droppings. But I shall refrain
from calling the exterminator to "clean it up"
because the darkness is a part of me
and the phone, beyond my lazy reach.

Mere scribblings, really...

On drunkenness

When sober I am bored; when drunk I am maniacal. Truly I am unsure which is the more desirable state. I confess that there have been moments when I have made the difficult link between sobriety and happiness, but in those moments I have been inevitably high on some other, more unassuming drug, such as "love" or "success." The effects of such drugs wore off long ago... But alcohol still gives me that buzz, and boredom... well, boredom is at the bottom of everything, isn't it? It is like some mastermind, a sinister "Wizard of Oz" if you will, terrified to show his pathetic pallor. But I've seen him in a dream. He handed me a bottle of Absinthe and said, "This shall heal your spleen."

The hell it will!

What a fool I was to accept my enemy and his false antidote! I was face to face with Mephistopheles and didn't realize it--who knew the devil was so mundane? And yet if that antidote be false, is there one that be true? That is the question that has led me on this dark, twisty voyage of the night; this journey through the ocean of mundanity. One peaceful morning I was convinced that the true antidote is Beauty, but I believe it was Wilde who said, "Beauty is best accompanied with a glass of wine."

It is a cruel fate... My only consolation is that I am a drunkard-slash-aesthete, not merely a drunk.

Reclusivity calls. I answer, though grudgingly

Why am I a recluse?

Because the world is full of tacky shit. And I cannot stand the tacky shit. I loathe it with all I've got. Today for an adventure I stepped outside the walls of my estate to see what I've been missing, but instantly my senses were harassed by a mess of perversions, by flashing lights and bloated idiots ravenously gorging themselves on chemical foods likely spat on by a teenager. I honestly could not tell if I was experiencing a migraine or reality. Please God, let it be a migraine so it will disappear with a pill or some deep breathing.

When I came home (after a horrible trip to a "Kentucky Fried Chicken") I took some diazepam and drifted into a couched state of detached reflection, a state I know too well. (It shall be the death of me, but it is also my sinister soul's salvation). As always I thought of beauty and how it exists here, in my estate, like an owl in a tree. Beyond the tree, if the owl exists at all, it is as a killer searching for easy prey. As am I; as is beauty.

All of us are hungry for flesh but only some return to the wisdom of the tree.

Ah! I can think of beauty all day and often do! But at the moment the diazepam has turned my muscles into jelly and I am ready to dream... I shall write on beauty another time, if I--a dilettante at best, a lonely retard at worst--am up to the lofty task.

It is hot. I shall sleep in the nude.

On leprechauns and other hiddenfolk

About a month ago I visited Ireland on business. I have a tendency to drink on ceremonious occasions and find Absinthe has a way of burning an image into memory such that the image takes on a life of its own, popping into dreams and taking on a symbolic value and finding its own little couch in the cabin of the personal unconscious. Such was my mood upon pulling into the Irish harbour, and I drank the shit straight and felt as though I had instantly crossed some kind of threshold between reality and imagination (though I sometimes think we use these words in a rather backwards way--do you, Everyman, have the nerve to call my dreams a lie? But I digress...)

You would think in such a state of mad lucidity I would see leprechauns everywhere, but instead all I saw was a lifeless city, dull and grey. "Damnit!" I exclaimed to the stranger beside me (a woman wearing a most peculiar wicker hat). "I hoped to see munchkins! My dreams are shattered! Oh cursed, cursed woe!"

Perhaps she and her horrid hat were imagined, as when I turned to see her reaction, she had disappeared. Drunk, alone, and wailing on the prow of a ship, I have never felt so existential. Undergraduates dream of existentialism, but if they ever truly felt it, they would piss themselves and cry.

Though my shadow often walks beside me, reminding me of death, I never see any leprechauns. Which begs the question: Are they real? Well, everything I feel tells me they certainly are, and there are certainly many famous intelligentsia who have encountered the bratty little buggers on more than one occasion. Yeats, for example, documented the hiddenfolk like Mendel did his peas. But of course the key to the munchkins is their utter shrewdness--they only reveal themselves when they are expected to be hidden; they torture the skeptics, not the believers, and I, sadly, am a believer.

Oh to will disbelief and see a leprechaun! My only consolation is how they frequent my dreams. I suppose that is something, though we shall never high-five or embrace.

From my personal depths, a noise emerges

Just bought a Dell (something called an "Inspiron"). This is my first posting.

I gaze out upon my 600 acres and think to myself, "This landscape--so historically, monetarily, and botanically rich--is, in actuality, quite worthless."

As is my life. My land, trodden by the feet of druids and vikings, is dead under my kingship. I question my validity and worth as a poet-priest. I am more Vortigern than Arthur, more Coleridge (that opium fiend!) than Wordsworth; and yet I am less than a Vortigern and Coleridge (two zeroes) combined. Nigel Tewksbury is undefined. History shall forget me like children forget long division.

To hell with calculators. To hell with technology. Call me King of the Luddites and drown me in wine! I shall pretend it is the blood of a caveman. But, no, wine is wholly unsatisfying--for tonight I feel otherworldly and only the Green Faery will do. Absinthe, you ravish me; I am your most devout servant; your bottle is a holy relic and your liquid substance is the only true part of me. It is my soul!

Buried beneath noise, conscience--that aged, dying rat--whispers in my drunken dream:

"Nigey Wigey what is that you say? Absinthe is your soul? Awake now, or you shall piss your soul into your silk pyjamas."

I stumble to the toilet with a bulldozer brain. I wretch dryly--more! more!--and my greatest desire is to vomit it all out and to be pure again but with rotten teeth, eaten away by the acidic bile... Oh this is why a king must hide in his castle... The vomit comes--a spewing success. In utter humility and smallness I send for my servant to mop up the mess. I awake him from peaceful slumber.

"Dear slave," I ask. "Dost thou hate thine life?"

"No sir."

I weep and break into human noises. The king has been crushed; the social pyramid, abolished. In my dreams I am tormented by the riddle of the Sphinx. I solve it easily but upon awakening the confusion remains. I am half in love with it.

In the morning I ask my servant to order me a computer. Today I was welcomed to cyper space. I find it cold and empty--in other words, true.