Tryptich

1

 

 

the first thing i noticed

when i moved into a dingy 

little flat

on Barrow Road

was the number 418 painted

in bold white Arabic figures

across a black gate

behind the small parade of

shops

 

 

i would think of the self-

styled Great Beast Aleister

Crowley

every morning when i’d pass

the sign

after hopping off the 250

from Croydon

where i’d been slaving away

at my crappy all-night-job at

a factory,

and every evening going to

my crappy all-night-job

at the factory,

 

 

it wasn’t until i moved

sometime later on,

and even sometime later

after that

 

 

that i learned (in the pages

of a book called A Magickal

 Life by Martin Booth)

that A.C. had gone to Streatham

college

as a young man,

 

 

and so i read,

that’s where the college

was said to have been

before it closed down,

 

 

in the building right in front

of the 418 gate

 

 

that looks up,

toward the brown-green-earth hill,

of Streatham’s Common

 

 

2

 

 

i looked in the mirror

at work one night,

my visage bright red

with weeping pizza-faced puissant

sores

 

 

i couldn’t sleep

when i’d finally get home

from the gruelling twelve hour

shift,

so i started taking

extra strength Nytol

to try and knock me out,

 

 

two of them.

 

 

my work colleague

told me his name

one night

on the hour long lunch break,

he seemed a nice lad,

bandana wrapped tight

around pale scalp . . .  Theo    

 

 

it brought back

memories of the inquisition

unit,

 

 

my manager’s name,

 

 

Theo . . .

 

 

and i crouched down

behind boxes,

started shouting

at the doctor and cpn

in my mind,

 

 

the air turbines cutting

out the sound

so nobody else could hear,  

 

 

“why should i be diagnosed

for what his parents named

him?!” i cried.

 

and i didn’t stop

shouting

at them, discreetly,

in my walls,

 

 

at work,

 

 

on the streets  -

 

 

for nearly a year

and a half afterwards

 

 

3

 

 

my room

was the smallest room

i’d ever had in my life.

 

 

the flat was awful,

and i wanted out,

 

 

i was breaking down.

 

with my wage i bought

myself a tv with built in video,

and also a dvd player.

 

 

i bought

the best of Bowie.

a compilation

of his music videos

to some of his songs,

 

 

and heard

for the first time,

the song the Buddha of Suburbia

with the lyric, “screaming along

in south London”    

 

 

and i felt

 

 

like i hadn’t felt

in a long time,

 

 

that i’d been touched,

blessed,

during this . . .

“dark night of the soul”,

kind-of-thing,

 

 

felt that no matter what,

 

 

i was still on the path,

 

 

that no matter what,

 

 

it would all be okay.

it would all work out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[...]

. oh, this is overwhelming, monsieur ... infinitely comforting and hopeful ... i needed to read this piece today ... thank you for this post ...