Flesh-Prism | Visionary Art, Psychedelic Poetry, Illuminated Books...

Emergent Musics by Mark Conway Wirt

2012-03-23T17:22:00.000Z

Emergently Musical by Psilly, Ink & Watercolour on Paper, 15x28cm, 2010.

“Emergent Musics” by Mark Conway Wirt is a collection of music that, like some magical audio gardener, he has grown from a series of self-organising seeds. He has taken these seeds and placed them in a mathemusical greenhouse based on drawings by the invisible hand of emergence. They are lit by the sun of his creative imagination and watered delicately with the crystal purity of his aesthetic sensibilities. They flower into marvellous rotating parasols and unfurl spiral curls around cones of sonic delight. They plink like the translucent threads of a (philip) glass piano trying to dance on a (terry riley) rainbow. They pluck at the occult parabolas of transcendent geometries with tiny ears on the tips of their fingers. They are the sound of a waterfall in a sky-blue porcelain cave; the musical tremblings of a spider’s web tickled by triangular flies that don’t fear death; a jungle breeze playing dot-to-dot with its own discrete particles…

That’s my theory anyhow – as you can probably gather – it’s best put to the test…

Download everything for free at *emergentMusics* (and while you’re at it why not investigate the intriguing *theory behind it all*.)

Psychedelic Press UK reviews Being Psilly!

2012-03-21T13:55:00.000Z

I'm very pleased to announce that the excellent Psychedelic Press UK have reviewed my first book of illustrated poetry, and a fine review it is too - Rob is clearly a fellow enthusiast of all things psychedelicious and most definitely gets where I'm coming from.

You can read the review here: "Being Psilly Reviewed" and please check out the rest of his website while you're at it - plenty of info on festivals, events, and lots of reviews of psychedelic books both old & new, well known & rare.

I've noticed since the review that a few people have come to my site through searching for a download of Being Psilly. This is a limited edition precious-psilly-little-thing so I won't be making it available online. However you're welcome to read or download "ReCreate Weality" which is a small collection created specifically to gift - it features a few (slightly modified) pages from Being Psilly, notably: Elf Sex Planetary & yoUtopia. You're welcome to get it HERE. (Please note it took me just over a week whereas I worked on Being Psilly for years!)

kNew Toy For A Happy Medium

2012-02-21T17:03:00.007Z

Wait, er... Wait, er... There be Elves in me Digitals by Psilly (Digital Painting, 2012)

Got mice elf a Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet. The picture above is my first experiment with using the tablet to control Photoshop: I'm impressed by the immediacy of it, the exploratory nature of my process remains in tact and I end up feeling like I'm actually painting (albeit in a slightly cramped way - the active area of the pad is only about A5). It's good to know that elves and other wyrd creatures will happily manifest in the digital!

After playing around with the painting I got an old photo out and experimented with drawing on it, the results are below - it's a really quick attempt at something I've been pondering for a while but it's satisfied my sense that this new medium can open up some lush kNew avenues to wonder.

Ultra-Violet by Psilly (Digital Drawing on Photograph, 2012)

Paying Brigid

2012-02-03T16:01:00.005Z

She puts down the phone.

“Mum says it’s Saint Brigid’s day tomorrow, apparently if I get a piece of ribbon and tie it to the door she’ll bless it and if we have any aches and pains in the coming year we can tie it round the affected area and Brigid’ll help heal it.”

I look up from checking my emails, intrigued:

“Can I come with you?”

“Of course...”

She holds out a fair length of silvery-grey ribbon, shining like the surface of a lake on an overcast day:

“What do you think of this one?”

“Should look good if you get a headache.”

She holds it to her forehead like an elfish rambo and grins at me.

*

I haven’t put any shoes on, so the concrete is cold on my feet, the late January air contracting my muscles:

“Are you supposed to say anything?”

“Um. I don’t know… I guess…
Saint Brigid, please, if you pass this way,
see fit to bless this ribbon with your powers of healing…
and if you do please know that we will do our best
to let that healing pass through us and on to others.”

She ties the ribbon in a bow round the brass knob of our heavy black door, taking care to be sure it hangs prettily. It’s a pleasure to watch but I’m feeling the cold, being perhaps a little more hasty than is proper when requesting something from a saint - especially one who is sometimes considered another form of an ancient pagan Goddess.

*

I’m back in front of my computer, reading out loud some newfound information, courtesy of wikipedia:

“Apparently tomorrow is the day the old hag Cailleach goes out gathering her firewood for the rest of the winter, if she intends to make it drag on she’ll make the weather fair so she can gather plenty of firewood... So if the weather is shitty tomorrow we could be in for a nice early spring!”

“Then let’s hope it’s a rainy day!”

*

We’re woken in the early hours of the morning by foxes performing an edgy chorus of tortured keening: the loudest one is yelping repetitively like a wounded monkey while a few quieter voices whimper in drawn-out moans like upset children long left alone.

Our dreams disturb us.

*

She is standing at the window, peering out through a gap in the blinds:

“It’s a purple-pink sky! Looks like winter might last a long time!”

I’m tucking in to a large mug of stodgy porridge with honey, almonds and dried fruit:

“At least it’ll be a nice cycle to work!”

*

I’m sat at my desk in a prism of tinted windows, surreptitiously surfing the internet, reading some more about Brigid in her form as a Goddess. The telephone rings:

“Hello, Southside Social Care, can I help?”

“Can I speak to Moira please?”

“I’ll try her for you. Who’s speaking please?”

“Tell her it’s Bridget from Groamagh Road.”

Pleased with the coincidence I vow to be as much help as I can, unfortunately Moira sounds rather stressed and tells me she’s snowed under and can’t take any calls.

“Hello Bridget? I’m very sorry but Moira isn’t taking any calls this morning. Can I pass on a message?”

“This is no good! I tried to reach her all day yesterday! She hasn’t paid me properly! I have bills to pay!”

“I’m really sorry Bridget, all I can do is pass on a message for you.”

“I need to sort this out today. I’m thinking of coming down there to see her. I’m going into hospital tomorrow for an operation and I won’t be out for two weeks! HR will vouch for me. I need to pay the bills!”

“OK Bridget. I’m very sorry to hear that. I’ll make sure Moira gets your message as a matter of urgency. I’ll tell her everything you told me. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get this sorted.”

I pass the message on
but outside the sky has turned grey
and flecks of rain are already starting to spatter the windows.

*

I get home, soaked on the outside by rain and clammy-skinned with sweat. She is happy to see me, I smile inside at the smile she has kissed onto my lips, and this sustains it. I tell her about the phonecall from Bridget - she immediately sees a meaning I had missed in it:

“Oh no! We didn’t pay her properly! I’ve been reading more about her today - apparently they would do stuff like light a fire and then check the ashes in the morning to see if she’d passed. And all the ladies would get together and make a doll, and then all the maidens, the unmarried ladies, would gather in the house and the men would come round and have to treat the maidens and the dolly properly. And then the next day all the house-holders would stay at home and the maidens would come round and the ladies would welcome them with coins or a snack!”

“Shit,” I smile, “I went out with bare feet all cold and distracted, I know well enough to give these things my full attention - I should’ve made an offering or something!”

“No, you’re alright - it’s mostly on the ladies.”

“Not quite - she’s a Goddess of Poets as well you know!”

We’re smiling at each other, but you don’t have to be fully convinced of a thing to be sure that it matters. We might not be glum, but we take seriously what these subtle events can tell us about our being in the world.

“Well at least we’ve had the chance to learn a lesson.”

“Aye. And it might make a nice little story… I should write it down.”

“Yes,” she says with a twinkle in her eye, “She’ll like that.”

*

Addendum: I wrote this little story, true-to-life, just after Saint Brigid's day in 2011 - it was the first time Dame Kind & I had recognised the day together. The feeling of a connection having been made continues to manifest in strange and beautiful little synchronicities: On Imbolc this year we found ourselves visiting a farm in the Black Country that we may decide to apprentice at, it seemed somehow significant that this important event in our lives, potentially leading us into a deeper engagement with the Earth, was occurring a year after our first meeting with Brigid. And just now, as I prepared these words for publication, I was distracted by a knocking at the window and turned to see a long-tailed tit sat on the sill tapping its beak on the glass! Happy Imbolc!

(image of Saint Brigid's cross, made of rushes from County Down, taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Brigid's_cross.jpg)

Occupy London

2011-12-06T18:31:00.012Z

Occupying Myself / A Future Present.

One day

the world changed

while we were

otherwise occupied.

They asked us

for an alternative -

We threw it out

for democratic debate

but it got lost in the

ever-shifting avenues

of an ever-growing

city of tents

(& is yet

to return)

I mapped it out for myself

& held it up to Reality

but my eyes were like

magnifying glasses

& it burned up

in my hands

All you ever did

was say how

it wouldn't work

All they ever did

was business

as usual

Meanwhile

the alternative

happened

It happened

all of its own accord

(just as big changes tend to)

(being truly an alternative)

it wasn't quite

what we'd thought

It wasn't the enaction

of some grand plan -

not the fruit of the mind

nor the work of The Man

It was an initiation really

an encounter

with a great teacher -

a lesson from Death

Our world

was held up

to Reality

& when we saw thru

the paper-thin skin

of civilisation to

accept the truths

of a bigger picture -

when we saw our story

glowing as if depicted on

a decorated lampshade &

felt life itself animating us -

& when we then became the bulb

filament & firmament ablaze! -

Our world burned up

in our eyes - no longer

to obscure the brilliance

of our heart-led minds

it fertilised

the long-forgotten

fields of our ImagiNation

and we saw

the true alternative

as if for the first time...

Wisdom.

We were finally ready -

we had wisdom, now

we could have anarchy!

JoyInUs!

Click text or picture to view "A Psilly Communification For Occupy London"

Limited Edition of 36 Books produced. 10 dropped in the library at the St. Paul's camp (the first of my books to ever be stocked by such an institution!-) another 10 dropped at the Bank Of Ideas on Sun Street (walked in and saw someone had drawn "WISDOM" on the wall, seemed like the perfect place to drop them, on my way out I noticed that someone had moved them to make space for their laptop, can't help but imagine a pile of my books being shifted from place to place, not being read by anyone... maybe I should've written a more rousing poem? ;-) 10 books to be gifted to next 10 customers, remaining 6 books given to friends. (20/12/11)

Mushroom Season 2011

2011-12-06T16:37:00.009Z

(The following information is intended to be supplemental to a good identification guide, not a replacement for one.)

Greetings fellow fungi hunters!

I only managed to get out once this season, with mixed results. I headed to a previously unexplored piece of grassland situated in the transitional zone between London and Kent - a beautiful grey day, just as you'd expect. It wasn't until I'd wandered for hours and decided to give up that I found anything (I find it quite amazing to think of the odds that one man walking wibbly paths through many miles of open grassland will ever manage to find even a single of these temperamental and cunning little brown mushrooms!) I was on my way out of the fields when I was flashed by a small group of the mischievous little elves and all of a sudden my faith was renewed! Due to these little fellas in the photo below I spent another couple of hours stomping in sodden boots around this misty wonderland...

Alas I found no more Liberty Caps (and dutifully chided myself for not starting out a little earlier - I had seen another beard+backpack combo leaving the fields just as I arrived) but, just my luck, I found a few of these intriguing fellows - similar enough to the untrained eye - standing solo around the place...

Having returned home and done a little research I discovered these dudes are known as "Psilocybe Strictipes" - the clearest difference is the way the gills attach to the stem, you'll see in the lower image (if your screen isn't too high-contrast or dark) that the gills go straight from the edge of the cap to attach to the stem, in "Psilocybe Semilanceata" (The Liberty Cap) the gills are pretty much free of the stem, if they attach at all it's normally very near to the inside-tip of the cap. Strictipes also lacks a prominent nipple. I wouldn't even have touched these beauties if it weren't for the darkness of the gills - here's a little tip for all you hunters: lots of little brownish mushrooms have similar shapes to the Liberty Cap, but in my experience they all have light coloured gills, Psilocybe spores are nearly black you see, so a quick way to check if you've found something magical (in the field in the UK at least) is to take a look at the colour of the gills (as well as the shape of the cap!) and don't bother picking anything that isn't at least a dark grey in appearance.

I was also pleased to take home my first specimens of the edible (but non-psychoactive) "Parasol Mushroom". These guys are quite a common sight round these parts, and man do they taste good! They're big and beautifully textured and taste great with butter and garlic or in an omelette. You need to be cautious you don't have the "Shaggy Parasol" which some people have mild allergic reactions to - just make sure your mushroom has the scaly pattern on its stem, isn't pungently smelly, and that its flesh doesn't redden when cut.

Happy Hunting!

ReCreate Weality

2011-12-05T17:17:00.012Z

"ReCreate Weality" is my first proper attempt at making a book. It took about a week to make, and was designed to be gifted to the people at Boom Festival in Portugal in 2010. I knew I wanted something to give away, in celebration of the joy of being among so many happy souls, so I gathered a few of my early poems and did quick illustrations for them, and compiled the whole thing, and printed 36 copies on the sly while I was at work. I took it home, chopped it up and bound it with gold inners and a textured black cover (redesigned for the online version) et voila!

I recommend using the Scribd window (above) to preview the book to get an idea if it interests you or not, but to view it as I originally intended I'd rather you download it (there's a link in the toolbar at the bottom of the window) and view it on your computer with the pages side by side. If you're really fond of the book and would like me to print and bind you a unique copy just register your interest by leaving a comment or send me an email: sam (at) fleshprism (dot) com and I'll get back to you.

(ReCreate Weality by Psilly, 2010, 15x10cm, limited edition of 36 copies signed, numbered & given away.)

Place Where The Boar Come

2011-11-17T18:22:00.017Z

Wild Boar Warrior-King by Psilly

Place
where the boar
come to put on
their war paint

Spring
spreading
iron-rich silt -
a watery tree
of orange furrows
glowing in the damp
dappled light

Chaotic canopy
without bottom
- shot thru
with runs -
tunnels of air
caressing the floor

Place
where the boar
come to put on
their war paint

Primitive
orange dirt
hoof-churned
& snout-pocked

One damp
boar-shaped bowl
where the King
surely lay -
coarse hair
gathering
the colour of rust
molten metal dust
that puffs
clouds of animal power
as he rolls
& ruts

This is the place
where the boar come
to put on
their war paint

Where
brambles cut
strict tattoos
in the iron-ink-blood
of these
quietly awed
explorers -
shins as orange
as fallen trunks
- red orbs
left shining
on the thorns
like dying stars

Minds exhaled
into the amber
light of the sinking
sun, scattered
& broken

Place
where the boar
come to put on
their war paint

Absorbing us
into the picture
by their absence

Urging our hair
to bristle
while a low
wind whistles
in expanding nostrils
& the ground
grows closer
until we flop
with abandon
into the moist
orange mud
& dig with
our hooves
& churn with
our snouts
& roll
& rut
& run
until the earth
is molten
& the air
a firey storm

This is the place
where the boar come
to put on
their war paint

Fierce
Animal
Warriors

Aware
but without care
for battles
beyond them

-as long as
they have
this place-

Their paint
is the blood
of the mountain
&
Their picture
is flowing
&
Their war
is not one
for winning
-
It holds them
together
while the world
gets torn
apart
.

The King, at home, with his portrait.

*
The work in progress
(click images to enlarge)

POMPOUS ARSEHOLE POEM (my lineage is longer than yours)

2011-11-17T16:15:00.010Z

Holy Shit! It's Chief Arsehole!

My arsehole has

a 200,000 year long

lineage...

It shat before

the first human words
were ever spoken

(THE PRIMORDIAL VOICE

OF THE BODY)

It burped its way merrily

thru the birth

of religion

Fertilized fields

& increased yields

from the dawn

of agriculture

& grumbled with strain

erecting ancient

megaliths

My arsehole

was the big fat

ZER0

that made maths

possible

Its puckered lips

dreamt

science

into being

My arsehole

initiated an army

of priests

as it flapped

funky breezes

from its lofty platform

in the House Of God

My arsehole lost control

to TERROR

& made a huge shitty mess

moments before my

heart was ripped

from my chest

atop some scabby

Mayan pyramid

islanded by mist

My arsehole founded Glastonbury

& has participated

(mostly silently)

in every Druid ritual

since the 17th Century

It backed up

every bearded Celtic priest

& shabby shaman Gaul

before history ever

perverted itself

out of myth

My arsehole seeped sweetly

when the word "Wicca"

was first mouthed

& breathed deep

in the fresh air

of dark forests

as it circled

the dancing fire

chanting poetry

My arsehole spun with

the first Sufis,

was too roomy for Rumi,

& messed up

Mohammed's bed

My arsehole

achieved enlightenment

5,000 years before Buddha

ever plucked his first flower

It whined all the way

thru the sermon on

the mount & sat out

the last supper

due to food poisoning

My arsehole was

the abyss out of which

the Kabbalah arose

- as fully formed

as sweetcorn

My arsehole was the

jungle where

the Maya

disappeared

It sat stunned at the centre

of the flattened trees

of Tunguska

My arsehole

gave 33 & a third

turds to the instigator

of freemasonry

It haunted

the dreams

of every occult master

with unsecretable

blasphemy

& soiled the final goal

of even the most

obsessive compulsive

alchemy

My arsehole tried

to make ascetics
laugh

by blowing bubbles

in the bath

It whispered

dark thoughts

during royal weddings

& shat on Eden's snake

while its skin

was shedding

It stank up the room

the day the first

Satanists

learnt how to create

an effective sense of doom

& loomed on the horizon

as the first official Christian

began preaching

love

It gave in

to devilish priests

& let out

for saintly nurses

My arsehole

was a fountain

of mushrooms

one day on the savanna

with the distant ancestor

of Terence Mckenna

My arsehole

blubbered freely

the day Timothy Leary

wrote his first book

& parped "GO!"

the whole time

Kerouac was

on the road

My arsehole wrote

entire lost Gnostic

gospels about

blind gods &

space peacocks

(then incarnated again

& encoded them

into trashy sci-fi)

My arsehole

shat the first totem pole

in the Americas

& tootled brightly

as the first shaman

took on the skin

of a jaguar

My arsehole

has been

here, there & everywhere

e v e r y w h e n

& it remembers

it all effortlessly

resounding in its

all encompassing

r i n g . . .

My arsehole was animal

arsehole before man,

is animal arsehole now,

& will be animal

arsehole long after

& so my arsehole

isn't really mine

at all...

It is OUR SOUL

...So really my lineage

extends back to

the beginning

of spacetime

& I was initiated

by God myself

& personally farted

S P A C E D U S T L I F E

into vast Cosmic

Angels

& personally

expanded galaxies

with my inevitable

W I N D

& created the void

by accident

while exploring

the wHOLE

in my

R I N G

My, my, my,

Our Soul

is the oldest of all

You can try

to lay claim

to its lineage

Butt...

It belongs

to no-one

at all

FleshPrism is Dead, Long Live FleshPrism!

2011-11-16T11:42:00.005Z

Selected images from summer-just-gone...

Travelling Dragon Doodle by Psilly & Dame Kind

Anonymous Art on Bike Sign

Interacting with an Alien

A Mulberry Broadcast by Dame Kind

Inside a San Pedro Flower

Homegrown Tobacco in Flower

Brainless Mulberry Muncher by Psilly

Changa Painting by Psilly

Wild Sage Flower

Detail from a Bower

Changa Painting by Dame Kind

Couples Therapy by Psilly & Dame Kind

Mulberry Man-Fly by Psilly

Gonzo-nosed Weevil

Home in the Rainbow

Ye Olde WorldPrism by Psilly

Grinning Mulberry Rocket Dog by Dame Kind

Dragon's Breath

Green Grasshopper on Nicotiana Rustica

Fire in the Meadow