Rantings of a Damaged Mind By Nick Armbrister and Mel Grobler

Rantings of a Damaged Mind

By Nick Armbrister and Mel Grobler

For Paula

You should be on stage.

We'll throw plastic pint pots full of poodle piss at you.

In your own words: Mmmmm tasty warm piss in a glass.

From a poodle called Beckie, I add.

Height (wrote at Hay Festival, Wales 10/06/2012)

I ask why do I love you?

We've never met nor made love while gazing into each other's eyes.

Mirror to your soul.

What would it feel like to hold you close and have your hair obscure my vision,

as I breathe in the scent of you?

Triggering something so deep inside me that I forgot it ever existed.

It's broken and neglected,

taken over by a dark loneliness and a blood sodden inner despair starved of love.

Slicing through my soul.

You my angel, heal all that and replace it with everything, yourself.

I no longer am alone or feel death is a release.

Now I have more than mere words and art tattoos to live for.

I will never ever see the wrong gal again, like in 2005.

I see our magic spider’s web connecting us together.

Our hearts are a mirror.

Now I have no more sorrowful tears of blood.

My heart is a cloud and you a summer wind,

blowing all badness away.

In return there is placidity and eternal infinite joy.

Now you found me baby,

please don't ever forsake me.

Forlorn no more. Xxxx

Sky Wheel

Big sky wheel from heaven rolls over the land squashing houses and people and cities and families.

Sky wheel doing its business, from who knows where.

A trail of loose house bricks that once were human dwellings.

Now rubble.

Where are the people?

Under the boot of the sun wheel, totally fucked.

Who sent this kilometre diameter circular thing to Planet Earth?

Wrecking everything by squashing it till its dusty particles blown by the wind.

No more life here or anywhere.

Just a squash head sky wheel going round the block, again.

Coloured like a sea shell, multi spectral haze of eye watering iridium from outer space. On Earth doing mad damage, your home and mine totally bolloxed.

Military jets buzz the wheel and bomb it, chipping the surface but not halting it.

Each jet hit by smaller wheels spewed from Mother wheel.

Dead.

Dwelling squashing continues, unabated.

A culling of certain humans, facts only known now.

Men killed, women left in peace.

One lab.

She kicks the wheel over.

Sky Wheel

Big sky wheel from heaven rolls over the land squashing houses and people and cities and families. Sky wheel doing its business from who knows where. A trail of loose house bricks that once were human dwellings. Now rubble. Where are the people? Under the boot of the sun wheel, totally fucked. Who sent this kilometre diameter circular thing to Planet Earth?

Wrecking everything by squashing it till its dusty particles blown by the wind. No more life here or anywhere. Just a squash head sky wheel going round the block, again. Coloured like a sea shell, multi spectral haze of eye watering iridium from outer space. On Earth doing mad damage, your home and mine totally bolloxed.

Military jets buzz the wheel and bomb it, chipping the surface but not halting it. Each jet is hit by small wheels spewed from Mother wheel. Dead. Dwelling squashing continues, unabated. A culling of certain humans, facts only known now. Men killed, women left in peace. One lab for genetics. Man is obsolete.

She kicks the wheel over. It's over. For now.

Ticking

Waiting doesn't take long when I wait for you, with only you on that day in town. We had fun and you made me smile. I look forward when we meet again. So much we can do, go a walk, see a film, look at the sky and watch clouds. Our only limit is our imagination, my dear. Our kiss was serene, looking into your eyes was like being in the sky. Forever flying, in your embrace. 

Concept of time. An hour. What can happen in sixty minutes? I experienced a life changing event. In an hour my life changed forever. I saw a man shot dead. There's a definite before and after. As a poet I try to make sense out of madness. I fail totally and make new madness, breaking the original.

Twelve Years

In the twelve years since I worked at Park Cake Bakery, I've done so much in those short years. I left after Deb's dad died and I wasn't allowed a paid week off to be with her. Onto agency work and writing my Juniper's Daughter novel, becoming a fulltime writer. The dole paying my wage.

Living in my various flats, enjoying gothic music and frolicking with alternative ladies. My spurs were sharp and Metal Hammer mag took me to South Norway and a dark witch. Gigs, erotisism and more.

Nights out to Rockworld and other music clubs in Manchester. Gigs were wicked; The Gathering and Tristania gothed me out. I met a gal and moved down south. Three yeas of varied times. Tattoos in Southend, beer in Romford and chemical work in the Abbey.

Back to crap town when I was laid off in the decade recession. Ran my car into the ground, saw damaged gals, three and a half years of dole. Depressed? Back at Park Cake's putting cherries on cakes. Pays for my body art. Full circle? What next?

Belgrade

Broken warplane falls wreathed in smoke.

Me with two German bullets in my chest.

How it hurts.

Funny how I feel alive right now, before I die.

Was I dead when we met?

Something precious died inside when you left me.

So I joined the air force and became a pilot.

People feted me wherever I went.

Don’t you know I shot two Huns down?

Then number three got me.

Good and proper in his bull’s eye.

Sorry my dear wife, I won’t be coming home.

I fall down in a burning fighter plane near Belgrade.

I died for you and our Motherland my love.

Let Marshal Tito be proud of me.

Sincerely love me my dear wife,

I’m sorry we fought and you left...

Oldham

Writing is my future.

Not this dead town.

Something died in me when I moved back here.

I feel it in my soul every fucking day.

And if I let my guard down,

just for a minute,

that darkness will engulf me.

That’s going in a poem.

Don’t ever let this town beat you.

Not fucking ever.

Hold Rock

Are you my rock to trip me up before I fall off the edge of the world?

You take me for me, accept that I have problems.

And understand.

Will that understanding destroy you?

Will that be a plateau of levellity?

Perfect stability, eye of the storm.

What of you?

Do you actually notice me?

I bought her two nice tops and she left me by text message.

It'll never work.

Then she asked me back twice, every four and a half months.

I don't care why.

If I added to her vanity by carnage in saying no, does she know what I went thru?

It's obvious no gal cares for me and it takes an empathic woman to love me.

My footfall leads to the cliff edge.

A dark precipice beckons.

I see no rocks impeding my progress to oblivion.

My end.

For My Mates

I can stand being bossed about,

shouted at and being a human screwdriver

at work doing various manual jobs making cakes.

Varied hours aren’t too bad.

In the cold light of day what stings

the most is knowing that

2 of my old work mates are dead,

out of 5 of us in the early/mid 90s,

on our department.

I’m not sentimental but that does touch

a nerve on the quieter moments.

Simply put,

this is life...

and I don’t agree with it,

no, not at all.

Chair Man

He made a decision to clean the factory chimney out.

Did he know it would be messy?

I look out of my window and see so much smoke emanating from the chimney.

It blanketed the fields in particulate sulphate alkali acid.

I was so happy! I could be a zombie now.

I ran down to the fields and danced naked in the grass.

I was in a real pea souper of man made chemical arsenic fog.

Right away it happened: zombification!

My skin bubbled like acid and fell off in tatters.

My lungs filled with liquid and I drowned in my own blood.

Every orifice streamed liquid, a real cock burn. Won't be using it no more.

The only gals for me will be ones I eat.

The smoke thins and I see a watery sky.

The pause between before and after.

My life and my very body have changed for the better.

I feel my teeth turning into steel shards that yearn for female zombie flesh.

I go in search of my first victim.

As I stroll thru the summer grass I see her. Mrs Peters from the farm.

She looks disorientated.

I close in.

Nightly Events

I'm used to sleeping alone at night in my bed. No one there.

I'm used to being unloved and unwanted at night, feeling the touch of a bullet.

I'm used to being forlorn and forsaken, dead inside during dark hours. Inside and out. I'm used to having no lover to get wet and sweaty with, damn hot eroticism. Not in my bed or life.

I'm used to having no one hold me close when I need to be loved. Leaving me loveless and lifeless.

I'm used to not hearing precious words like, 'Nick, you mean the world to me and fill my life with joy. I'm so in love with you,' whispered under the covers.

I'm used to loneliness that cuts like a knife in the middle of the night. At times I have a blade.

Real darkness like aggravated anxiety making my heart beat irregular.

Debilitating depression floors my mind.

Engulfed by excesses of drinking, poor liver. No replacement for a lover.

I'm used to low quality gals who try to use me, good riddance bitches!

I'm so not used to you being here. Stay or go?

My Hay Memories:

My trip to Hay Fest was good. Something different with a chilled atmosphere. I was into the exiled Syrian poet. I can only think of his experiences. His work was thought provoking and to the point. The al Jazeera man was inspiring and has seen world history unfold. Fiona Shaw was a nice looking talented lady with good acting ability. I liked the poem she read (Wasteland verse). I found Jeremy Vine a switched on man, he told a funny tale of the Prime Minister calling an old woman a bigot, a stupid act. Head in hands, on camera on the radio. Very funny. All these added to a good weekend. I liked the free hotel and free food, a nice belly buster. I found the late night/early mornings tiring. Also I'd liked to have done open mic to promote my poems to a new live audience. I'm not sure if open mic happened at other times at the month long event. A lot was done in the time we were there, it was worth it. Food prices were terrible though. I liked meeting new people there.

There

There I stand in the bakery before the huge steel metal machine, 100 yards long and silver. A cake machine worth a mint. All sorts of ingredients thrown together to make cakes, quite a mix! You’d need to see it for yourself to understand what goes on. Not a case of add this and that to make a cake, oh no. Recipes and correct steps to take.

Think of the engineering that made this huge machine. Tens of thousands of components, some penny size, others as big as a car. People with brains made this bit of kit. Moving it and installing it must have been a job! How many trucks trucked it here?

Then there are ovens as old as the factory, still burning gas and cooking cakes. The grand children of the engineers will be alive now. Same as the first bakery workers. Who sees it that way, just me? I ponder the other things around me. The list goes on: cake mixers, air conditioning, factory floor plan, production lines where many people work. The end result is cakes. Lots of them!

Cakes that are designed, produced, marketed, distributed and eaten. A whole industry within an industry, all related. From designers and engineers making the machines, people producing cakes and customers eating them, it’s a world all by itself. As complicated as an aeroplane factory or car plant or rock quarry. A dizzying array of thought and actions brought this bakery into existence.

Think about that when you eat your Colin the Caterpillar cake.