and i sat down, my buttocks making contact with the curb. i felt the cool dampness creep up through the copper, through the cotton, and settle into my sacrum. felt much better. Who would win a fight, Varesse or Xenakis? two men struggling on the dusty ground. Xenakis is bound, held by Varesse, face pushed into the pink dust. drool. Suddenly Varesse let's go, clutches at his chest, enters a preprogrammed myocardial infarction module; i can't escape the module, i can't escape the module, he can't escape the module, "He can't escape the module." Xenakis is screaming. In the hospital, he is placed on a firm sterile table. it's clean bright metal, black firm synthetic material. "it's fitting". a cardiac monitor is attached, a crisp pure tone mimics the heart beat; "heart rate dropping", automatic blood pressure cup is fitted on his left arm, "it's dropping" central line is placed in his groin. Arterial line is placed in his wrist, he is almost adorned appropriately for death. Two more i.v. stands are wheeled into his room, of a bright matching metal to his bed. the tubes are connected, they are piggy backed, branched to allow the mix of fluids to enter his body. the temperature monitor makes a quiet vibrating low pitched tone, the arterial line's soft bleep, the bright metal, the hiss of the cuff, the pure tone, the synthetic material, LED lights refracting through clear tubing.  "i always wished i was a folk singer." whispers Xenakis, and his spirit joins the tone, the materials, the pure synthetic movement, the gloss reality, the hogs hope.

Silken Expertise

So what I did was, I got the hell off the bloody beach is what I did. I don't know Florcus from flounder [the fish], and I'm not about to get caught up in some other joker's art project if you know what I mean. I took to the streets of city our fair city, city of perpetual night, city of lost souls, the rotten brutal city, city with a small college and a jazz band, and i started to hoof. met with a man to talk about a dog for a few cold minutes beneath a sodium light, had a smoke and felt much relaxed thereafter. hit the seven-eleven for peanuts and coffee. i had nothing to do now and felt a backlog of neurotic energy. stumbled into the cop lights of parking lot and that's when the smoke kicked in fuzzy. 'aa-ahh' had to get away from the lights one forearm over my eyes. so strange the city would be broadcasting a concert programme of Varese... reaching into my overcoat pocket, feeling for the iPod volume. no - better leave it louder. only way this twisted scene can make sense. i stepped into the darkness of a neighborhood and let it swallow me.

following the walkaway to the curb
a cloud upon my soul sent to disturb
led me to a house of ill repute
seeking comfort in the company
of seven silken maidens
posessed of expertise upon the flute.

O nite of sumptuous banquets of flesh, 'aa-ahh' feeling for the iPod volume, neurotic energy kicked in fuzzy and getting caught up in some joker's small college with a jazz band. got the hell off the beach for a few cold minutes let it swallow me, seeking comfort in the company of the rotten brutal city reaching into my overcoat pocket, talk to police lights about a twisted dog. i stepped into the peanuts and coffee programme beneath a sodium light. i stumbled and relaxed thereafter -- better leave it louder, keep one forearm over my eyes. So what I did was had a smoke, broadcasting Varese.

Each tooth was carved with a different character. Florcus didn't recognize the language.
'Wonderful', he murmured. 'Is that driftwood, bleached by the sun?'

'It is.', said the man. He leaned back in his chair and opened the window behind him. The wind blew out the curtain, rain drove them back and he closed it again.

'I went with Love down to the distant Sea
And there Love said to me
'Close your eyes and taste my sweet salt tears
That glisten, they were shed for ye.'
I opened my eyes and the sky was grey and the sea Black
I was up to my chest in the black sea. The foam was around my chest
My skin screamed with the cold but I could not feel it.
Crabs scuttled up the shore and gulls wheeled overhead
Hundreds of years passed and I saw my feet grow white, mottled and skeletal.
I washed up on the beach and rolled my eyes in their empty sockets.
Small children played with my phalanges and used them for sport.
The sun bleached my bones and they grew pitted and brittle.
On the last day, I felt a warmth I had not felt in years
I compelled myself to turn my head; Love was standing there
His neoclassical profile silhouetted against the flaming sun.
'It is Time', said he and pointed upwards. The skies were streaming out
And Angels filled every corner of the aerial aspect.
I turned back to Love and he beckoned to me. 'You must Ride forth.'
At once I knew what I must do. A pale horse stood, steaming and wild.
My knee bent and creaked. Sand fell to the ground
As I stood up, taller than I had been in life.
The horse quivered and flecks in his grey eyes steeled me
Against what was to come.
The music of the angels above soared and trembled, fell and rose.
I tightened the reins in, the leather strained agains his fury
I ran my brittle hand along the steel blade left for my purpose,
released the reins and let him go.'

A strange glow appeared in his eyes. 'It was foretold that my first stop would be to meet a Mr. Florcus. Would that be you, good sir?'

The Bones

"What fine teeth!" said florcus, "are they actually carved?" The strangers face shifted into a smile, large and revealing the extent of his collection. "My gallery." he said with genuine pride. All three men leaned forward for a closer look.

"I am your past, your future, your dreams. i fit in between the people you see on the street, filling those alone moments that fly past your sub-conscience. i was your mother's lover when she was a teenager, i taught your father how to fight, i called your cats and dogs when you slept. i can give you freedom from your future, opening it's doors to a multitude of feelings. i will bear your kidney stones, they will pass from me in my pain, covering me in a sickening electric energy. i am the veteran who smoked your crack, lived on your pain medication until the VA clinic took them away in a puff of weed. i am the old man who's wife died in her 30's from a brain aneurysm, wracked with fear of a brain tumor, sitting up nights. i looked into your eyes late at night in the appliance section at Meijer's, we didn't speak, but you were carrying a basket filled with borsch, and tooth picks." At this point his grip on Florcus increased, the pain becoming visible in his eyes. The stranger leaned in closer to Florcus' face, almost nose to nose. "Who eats borsch in this day and age?" he said through his carved teeth.

w

He leaned back in his chair and Guiseppe and Florcus could do nothing but gape at him. His skin blended in inexorably with the beige flowers of the cafe wallpaper. A row of baroque teeth beamed back at them.
Information download 79% complete....

'Want some coffee?' he said suddenly, lurching forward and tossed a bag of what seemed to be frozen gravy onto the table. 'I brought it for sustainment on my journey.'

Florcus picked up the bag. It seeped gently from the corner onto the tablecloth. Florcus noticed a pattern appearing and moved the bag so that the pattern would be symmetrical.
'What's the matter with you? Cat got your tongue, sir? There is no generally agreed origin among etymologists for this bizarre expression, ha ha, although there does seem to be a broad view that the expression came into popular use in the 1800s, and first appeared in print in 1911!'

He took a breath.
'In my view the most logical explanation is that it relates to the 'cat-o-nine-tails' whip used in olden days maritime punishments, in which it is easy to imagine that the victim would be rendered incapable of speech or insolence. A less likely, but no less dramatic suggested origin, is that it comes from the supposed ancient traditional middle-eastern practice of removing the tongues of liars and feeding them to cats.'

The cafe door opened with a horrifying ting-a-ling, letting in a gust of wind which made the students dash around grabbing at pages with graphs on them. A lanky, curly-haired lad took advantage of the distraction to finish off the meatballs for the group.
The overall effect was that the stage was set for the entry of our new character. The hand that reached out obnoxiously into florcus's face, shiny, pink and overeager, belonged to....

Down the corridors where the hours are suns.

I am visited nightly by the seven muses, who sit around my boudoir and quote to me directly from God. When I arise, my mind is instantly flooded with an impulse to create and with it, beautiful, heroic epic stories which need to be told for the benefit of mankind through the medium of coffee.


My soul is innervated with the song of the ages and it is my destiny to impart my insights to the grovelling, flea-ridden masses of 'humanity' that dwell outside my door, waiting night and day to glimpse my greatness.


I often watch the people as they pass in their soulless droves below my turret window. They scurry about on the cobblestones in their badly repaired burlap sack 'clothing'. Their grasping hands and blank minds just calls for my edification. It is my duty to give it to them.

I start by kneeling in front of a stained glass window of Engelbert Humperdinck and calling before me the winged sprites who guide my hand to turn shadow into form; to bring being out from nothingness; then I pick up my pencil and turn to my room-sized easel that I had shipped out from Paris last week. I then take out the pile of coffee beans of all various hues to the canvas which I had made by five small Indian children in the village of Boratje for mere pennies. The rest is a vague void, for creation is a mystery and I am often caught up in the ecstasy and do not remember a thing.

The room is filled with God-rays, lighting both myself and the canvas every time I put down a stroke. It is by this sign that I know I am going down the right path and fulfiling the aforementioned destiny. I know the painting is finished when the heavens open, releasing brilliant light, heavenly music and trumpeting angels; the beauty so inspires them that they sometimes fly away back up to Heaven carrying my painting with them!'

He laughed and took a deep breath. He started rolling a cigarette, using his thumb to tuck the leafy material inside the paper. A new programme began on the tv in the cafe.

'When I have my coffee paintings displayed in Notre-Dame and the Louvre, in the National Galleries in Delft, Florence and Rome, in the New World and beyond, I want to hear stories from intrepid travellers as they spent their life's savings travelling by coffin ships from all four corners of the world to finally arrive in front of my paintings. I want to hear then how they fell before my masterpiece, sobbing and with their souls filled with self-loathing and a redemptive grace all at once. I want this to be a transformative process for my audience. I want them to go away knowing their lives will never be quite the same again, then to spread the word until I am known throughout the dark forests and the high-peaked mountain ranges, through the seven ages of rainland and the bleak shadowlands- then can I truly call my work done and I shall be transported to where I truly belong amongst the greats of the ages and I shall sit on the crowned throne as the Highest of All Artistés. Yes! Ha!'