
I spot the sun-kissed teeth lolling from a passing caravan, a blissed-out circus smile crossing a glittering Parisian canal in the loping manner of a drunkard sloth. I watch the smile as it bobs and weaves like an autumnal wave, a smile laden in the finest silk and steel, a smile adorned in dazzling pearls and reams of palladium gold, a smile of hooks and nets and traps and snares, a smile bewitching, bewildered and beautiful, a slightly smile beckoning me to follow, to follow, to follow to the ends of the earth – enraptured and untethered, I drop your bouquet of worms. I wade through the wild blizzards of Kailash and Harā Bərəzaitī. I offer slight bronze petals as tribute at the sacred spring of an abysmal skinned god. I wander the lavish gardens of an invalid child whose name is long buried and whose lands once lead to ice and barbarity and the unending sea. I cross paths with the wretched, the old and sublime, in the vast purple shadow of an decrepit horned beast built eons ago by the lost and the dead. I attend the coronation of an ancient, rusted emperor in a commonwealth of angels, each clockwork and sublime. I cross the turquoise river at the heart of the world. I greet a wandering stone beneath a cold and wilting moon. I walk the streets of desolate ports and deserted townships, sleep in the homesteads of the ruined and doomed. I walk countless miles and I greet countless faces, brave rockfalls and tricksters and a cursed haiku, until I reach the throne of the Father of Dread – and the smile, that beautiful smile, is gone gone gone. Crumpled and sobbing at the feet of the great and mighty Sphinx, I ask for the answer and the answer I do receive: a cacophony of secrets, beautiful secrets, abysmal secrets, burning, screeching, thrashing secrets, secrets in the form of howling fractals and unholy dirges and glittering nebulae. Alien colours of tang and burn flash and fizzle before my tired eyes, and as I stumble, as I nestle in the dust, I catch sight of them: the vast and tranquil orb-ships swaying idly in the depths of the wasteland. They are fantastic feats of chaos mathematics, impossible machinery built by impossible hands. I lose myself to their bewildering dance and wail to their heavenly song and scream, scream as they grind to a nauseating halt. The snow-covered landscape hums with a terrible expectation. A great temple rings its mighty bell. An apple is screaming through the winding streets of old Annecy. Mushroom clouds appear over Keresley and Radford and Walsgrave and Wyken and a withered hand takes mine and leads me through the sweltering darkness. A whispering choir of eunuchs and hermits call me by my name(s) and
I wake up hungry to a soaking bed. It looks like it’s been raining again.
You can listen to ‘You Can Hear the Sea From Here #1’ here, here and here.
Silence is important. Thank you.