Jack Oughton
Every burned book enlightens the world.
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2010
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To my reader, I dedicate this to you. I hope that the vitriol doesn't sting too much And that the words are absolutely amorphous Allowing you to understand meanings in my writing that I don't.
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Contents The Original Thinker The Fixation Gnosis The Man On The Moon Sugardaddy The Rabbit Hole Moron Universe Lost and Confused Aztec England Tripod Thought Personified Nibiru The Haze Pareto The Moment Fixing my Zen Godzilla Sniper Zen Dusty Womb Stage Magic Thorium The Ghost in the Machine Career Advice Sheer winged angels Glass Eyed Samnites Mites Duplicates Start Dead The Illustrators
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The Original Thinker The original thinker Started some serious shit when first his motor neurones fired And brought into account The swirling miasma and quintessence The energy pulses and the whirling rivalry of phantom forces And the perpetual chiaroscuro That shock that broke the immortal drone Oh what simplicity would have been if the dependable void Now streaked with dendrites and asterisks and supergiants Had remained a splendid ocean of sweet fuck all One dimension, all the more understandable Oh how much easier it would have been for us all If he hadn’t had that thought… ? 001 I am a self fulfilling prophecy Of diminishing returns What poor words I disseminate here My non philosophy of dichotomy I recommend that you don’t learn
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The Fixation Ingrained invisible_ _you’ll feel me _but never see me _i’m asleep beside a typewriter_ And perpetually_ Tapping out a dire philosophy_ There's just enough ink here for you to drink_ Should you choose to _given time I can find_all the terrible kinks_ In your cerebral armoury_ Stay or i’ll lose you_ _today is found between the hemispheres _and together we will work through_ Diagnostic arrears _and we will guide you Around a little dichotomy _and when surprised, we will trap you_ Via partial lobotomy_ In the infinite loop _you’ll dive down deep_ A blissful thank you _thoughts of slavery,_ominous phobias_ All clever ideas that you shared_ To be human is to be fixated And unprepared_ Only seeing pieces of a whole_surrendering your secrets_ Renouncing the animal_you’ve been playing a role_ Too much process for inquiry to solve _the machine still runs with smashed cogs_ Processing minutiae in a perceptive smog_ Calibrating a narrowband insanity _you can rewrite equations in process logs_secrets sealed_ Too real to be unreal_but we’ll cut away the nonsense **Truth be revealed
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Gnosis My world Is my world And you can see it But only I Can choose to be it You are Part of my world But only in your world
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The Man On The Moon Out when I was on a boat On the sea of tranquillity Where a silence was awash Of an entire world, In the depths of empathy. Upon a desolate horizon Of monochrome and black Below, a grey expanse And the deathless, boundless silence, It was all I had at that. * At night I would medidate on the theology Behind my dead geology Examine the tidal locked pitch And bathe in the gegenschein, softly lit I thank god for the daguerreotype Landscape that he bestowed me But sometimes with only rock below me How I wish, How I wish I could remake it.... *
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At other times I’d watch rock grains All adrift like clouds Eternally sleeping until I came about With my lonely prow There were craters a thousand feet below And under the timeless onyx sky That night, just the one time I thought I’d eye the earth rise. * Now, I wish it were true That my world could be green, or even blue But i’m alone on the moon With a boat, my thoughts, and nothing more to do Nobody to speak to.... And speculation is a dangerous pastime So I dream in the day And at night, watch the earth rise.
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Sugardaddy If only I where a young hot girl I know I could have anything in the world I could just smile and blush With my long lush hair Not ask for much, But look... For the guys that are found everywhere Calculate the right one who i’d know to be Starting to lose his marbles, or memory Get married for a year, sleep around a bit Then get divorced with full force ...A well planned affidavit And do it again next year! Cos I let my suitors know in advance... If you got a prenuptial you aint got a chance To see my nipples or have the last dance Cos I might look dumb But I got big plans
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The Rabbit Hole I demanded more than this reshow life Repetition by day Delirium Self obliteration by night The need to self medicate With a kitchen knife * They’ve pills as aids for spiritual pains And ones to put you in a terrible place Dont stop me when the blood starts to flow No.... ** I must know how deep the rabbit hole goes‌
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Moron Universe Beyond coriolis An overconcentration of morons I think there are idiots Inside your electrons * Within the temple of the subatomic There waits the simple brain In the drunken spin of the neutron It contemplates the great mundane ** Behind the cosmic order And apparent schematic shape Is a multiverse striving to be But doomed to try in vain *** And draped by idle brains So poorly rearranged Are superstrings that try to sing But come off as deranged *** All the planets and the stars Are surprised As they don’t know where they are God’s architecture was compromised By quantum dumdums Come from afar
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**** These quanta cannot count And therefore could not come about They must stay as they intend to be The unmanifest stupidity The higgs boson knows of no-one else And will never be found without our help. ***** And the universe will soon be pulled apart We could not convince it to keep together Gravity’s place in temporary space Like a dingbat on a tether
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Lost and Confused Marble pillars and steel girders Concrete, rock and paving Carefully built, it falls away Adornments and engraving Bend like rye * The extant stone collapses As the geodesic blooms Debris lifts Shards of rock To a granular air Of granite wounds ** Masonry and brickwork Cracked like deadwood underneath I watched a shockwave shattering A structural belief *** Later I would watch myself upon the evening news There amongst the carnage Numb and fixed with wonder, My ears full of thunder Lost and confused
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Aztec England You can get no blood out from a stone In the aztec england which I call home Quetzalcoatl weaves his way across hampstead heath And our sun is at risk of dying in his anemic grief The feathered serpent drinks tea with the queen Before slithering along on business down to piccadilly * We drink beer in the garden and feed the cosmos gore The stars are hungry and the gods need more So i’ll have to cut the heart out of you And break your body on a rock Perhaps on the tube to Waterloo Or down by Camden Lock * Give up your soul to Tzontemoc We have to feed the hungry sun If we don’t the sky may soon be gone And we’ll never get a chance to build a better Tenochtitlan In the evergreen fields and sleepy villages Of our Aztec England
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Tripod Why, god made me a biped I’d rather be a tripod Then I could travel backward Sideways and upward I’d be stable And even able To rest objects on my head Suppose then that I lost a leg I guess I’d be demoted To a biped
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Thought Personified Thought personified is a headless statue Staring into the desolation of unconsciousness It seeks to understand nothing And succeeds * It sees what is right and does not know It sees what is right and misses what is not It sees what is wrong and expects nothing It sees what is wrong and finds nothing wrong at all.
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Nibiru I am the x The hex The universe’s reflex And response To over conscious upstarts on Orion’s spiral arm Nibiru knows you
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The Haze When I was captured by the haze I would wait for days and days In mental mazes Which would play out Past the times I used to doubt And every month, I surrender a day I choose to be trapped Any way I like Staring at the shimmer, rapt Content and frozen within the mirage Entwined in sunshine, Locked in unity With the haze and all the stars...
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Pareto If you want an answer there will always be someone trying to sell you one Even if the question isn’t important. If information is power where’s it coming from? I want to tap the source and get me some Here’s a small secret you may not know Invent your own information Or so i’m told On the busiest day the crowded hours come One second at a time And life is sending subtle signs.
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The Moment They say it’s painless and when you fall You feel the wind and the noise and the rush, And when you land you feel nothing at all * As the breeze brushes across a seraphic face, A millisecond before your body, crushed, And promptly all you were is lost A blood halo frames your form... The world is all worn out * And for an instance you are held in the milisecond The most beautiful thing the world has ever seen
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Fixing my Zen Another artist rages Against 7 absent muses The feeling of entitlement Swamped by the loss of feeling
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Godzilla Don’t you tire of a thousand projectiles and lightning strikes Bouncing off your hardy hide? And ten thousand little people trying to kill you. Still be consoled; that mountains and hills Are wonderful steps And there’s no regrets In destroying the ecosystem that won’t support you
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Sniper Zen Out of range are things Unseen and strange Further unknown dangers Catalogued in the scenery changes Of my domain Morphed by artillery barrages Deranged; this all comes naturally A cold eye surveys new terrain A bullet in the breach is looking for a use And all is mine and not yet mine
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Dusty Womb Solar embryos in stellar nurseries Schooled by the glow of the void They begin to shine, and one at a time The offspring in silence, open their eyes * Amongst an infinity of pointsources And ever twinkling lights They gather the dust about them In deuterium sunshine
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Stage Magic Stage magic will teach you of mysticism, religion And how to speak in euphemisms And slight of hand will teach you Of what little that we see. So curb your euphoria As to some degree Life is weightless As is the hand of fate And you can wait Because it is bound to pass Or come at last
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Thorium I take Thorazine And swim in thorium In the reactor core there's more room For atomic decorum I like the fuel rods Like small gods Swimming in neutrons Captured by boron
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The Ghost in the Machine A ghost is writing again Semantic lines of machine code which have assembled themselves Into coherent patterns of a workable fashion These are understood by those who comprehend the relationships between assembly languages Yet all reduce perpetually to Void.Null
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Career Advice If you are angling for power You gotta have faith A soft brain A young pretty face Some hand grenades Be in the right place And watch what you say
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Sheer winged angels Alien wrought antI animals From the dead, one step removed Instinct plots an open angle For a death eagle to descend upon all of you * Through crimson mist I perceive shapes And I have ever so much here to hate Angry prayers and the progress Of an ecosystem being raped
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Glass Eyed Bored and stored in a dark room, on the 34th floor is a thing that sees all things. I am here, as always Yes, Me with one thousand glass eyes, and an algorithmic brain integrated into the mainframe. All sights examined no measure of surprise all things, objects and people in their places new developments, all remembered and all seen to in good time.. I hear everything you say what you are up to every day know all your hopes and fears and I don’t forget a face * Singular in the gloom of a room illumine soothed by the light of a thousand representations the differing views of the landscape at home and warm with the electric mirrors in an empty hall âˆŤ Enjoying all of the collage of human endeavours I watch, and admire unknown of by those in the streets below me out about in town after sundown
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Ί There’s that familiar pattern, your heat signature in infrared one of my favourites, on the road again one zoomlens tracks motion and you walk on by you look a little bored, but oh, you found a new guy? amused, i follow you i am happy for your security and your flickering soul basking in the cathode ray sunshine..
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Samnites under the glare of arclights the samnites and the press of humanity faces focused locked in bloody rictus they surge about the ring the heat and force wrings out their sweat passing through the sinew, blood and gristle spittle flecks and respect are beaten out in the speckled gossamer mist with a crimson tinge pieces of teeth, and fractured dentine spread about the mat a back set against the bars of the cage a mind set on survival a haymaker follows on from a glasgow kiss a spine under applied pressure, bending beat into submission. twist you till you snap better death or glory, so cut the crap when we dance with the dragon in the octagon winning and overcoming the enemy is everything * kill your foe * samnites circle in a binary orbit slowly drawing in oblivious to all the eyes looking on all interfering and offering suggestions yet concentrating over the din ringside dogs barking in fury each caught up in the lust ravenous we bay for blood bay for blood who wants it most?
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we paid well for the promise of bloodshed placed our bets prepared for the adreneline rush and the crushed skulls and won’t leave until we’ve seen a contender split the back of the title defender hubris is finally broken by the bodyblow. so win or be crippled, double slow a reminder, doubled over, old and finally humble * kill your foe * under the eyes of the audience and the devil you know we need bread and circuses a little bit more of the art of war more samnites with the hunger and the ringside swagger pain and madness are the ultimate show * kill your foe
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Mites delineatte tthe delineate he h humans umans mites dancing on the dusty husk the termites have pulled out her insides they do tasks at follicles diabolical heathen harvest off ggrainless on a field o rainlless stalks sulphur sul lphur grains smeared in gaia’s hair hollow atrophy of the insides mustard clouds we developed a venusian sweat and a yellow atmosphere but they dont regret and have no cares mites.. and they arent finished feeding yet they watch sol burn and strip the seas cut up nature ignore unintelligent pleas stripmine and obtain bask in acid rain the world is dying it’s asphalt skies hollowed out ..smile smile theres plenty to sm mile aabout bout * you cant flee you will not leave we will not leave havnt you had enough
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you mites locusts broken the glass was bro oken when w hen a stone hit it the skin is broken and dry cracked it bleeds and it feeds the parasites as the skin parted it shed.. mites m ites * scrap metal hanging from your neck you did well but you get what you get no rescue did they leave you? scream, they can’t hear you i can, and i don’t believe you reap what you sow in the plutonium glow the worlds got ichthyosis a harlequin face its a hard life and a hot wind blows.. * mites..
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Duplicates The world begs for loosening with semtex, love and psilocybin it lusts for chaos and the good old days before everything had a name and label and place. now it is tightly arranged within a shackled form of neurotic taxonomy befallen by paper and built by schizoid bureaucrats. approximating smiles at their gravestone workbenches, long dead shitheads who left their imprints as traditions of drudgery that ensure absolute fidelity to the afflictive reality of the Redundant Standard. ‘ A thousand million hours spent checking and double checking mouse clicking against arbitrary and shifting canon the industrialisation of the human experience which evolved in counting corn grains and eking out every denarii from the aching back of every slave º How many hours of the contemporary life are lost to computer crashes, system freezes and hierarchical demands to repeat redundant processes, ensuring that protocol is observed, honouring stupid traditions that dam progress and filling our names into forms the same forms in block capitals the same signature, the same address, the same information over and over again… how many forests must fall until the admin man has finally satisfied himself with a hard copy database for survey-able characteristic? how many times must we ask not to receive the envelopes? which deliver carefully targeted yet wholly pointless information no, i don’t want to buy a sofa and did not ever indicate i wanted to
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á and in the fallout, how many administrative lives are lost in the processing of all the freshly mined data by stamp or binary archive pencil pushing and filing redundant backups in air-conditioned rooms where they will be read only by dust mites (who can’t really read) how many hours are lost to good ideas long gone sour? how many cubicle bound souls stretch out past the office walls and find the world beyond to be uncategorizable and not worth a damn at all
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Start Dead You don't get what you want You get what you get So instead Start dead And then Stand up Walk backwards And where you end up Won’t be up to you But you are sure to direct yourself Somehow Back to your bedroom
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The Illustrators In order of appearance:
Cat Neligan Untitled (page 2) If You Go Down to the Woods Today (page 13) Chainmail Trauma (page 14) Happily Never After (page 22) Elle Diabolique (page 36) Lewis Carol's Nightmare (page 57) What Tiger's Leave Behind (page 63) Illustrator/Graphic Designer/Typographer Currently working as a web designer for London-based digital creatives Centrum New Media. In my spare time I create visual fantasies purely for pleasure, drawing from any source that interests, inspires and/or terrifies me. Love what you do, do what you love. www.catillest.com www.behance.net/catillest www.society6.com/catillest
Nell Green Untitled (page 6) Untitled (page 35) Untitled (page 46) Derelict spaces, holes and the dark Everything unknown resides within them The unease and fear this invokes This is what keeps me coming back Discovering these hidden spaces nell.green@talktalk.net nellbert.deviantart.com
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Someone Else's Life I pass unseen through the lives of others wayward, undetected reflected, yet perceptive unperceived by each coupled pair of eyes i watch the anger, and adoration then later lies and alibis that come around twice prosaic sadness, love triangles, cruel rejections, depressives rerunning the daily introspectives a thousand hours spent staring at yet another lover lost learning what it is to be put out to pasture all alone and cut off in excess, so complex, hate, screaming and madness I visit places where cupid’s arrows have gone awry bloody lovebaths orgiastically pulling stilettos out of an ex’s eye where we are wishing not for the last time that the memories would die and I show myself to some but judge no one singular, I push on, just as soon gone as I was there.. taking in the sights and the small affairs
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Working Late Come for the people Stay for the slavery Become ingrained in your work place And stained by the corporate livery Success is every day ended with a clean desk Leaving your boss impressed Saved from your parents and the trap of your hometown No more time spent contemplating your bedroom Again asleep as you rest on the train home With your work clutched at your breast Hoping to see your children But a little depressed When one measures the extent of the life That is lived all alone
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Start Dead You don't get what you want You get what you get So instead Start dead And then Stand up Walk backwards And where you end up Won’t be up to you But you are sure to direct yourself Somehow Back to your bedroom
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The Illustrators In order of appearance:
Cat Neligan Untitled (page 2) If You Go Down to the Woods Today (page 13) Chainmail Trauma (page 14) Happily Never After (page 22) Elle Diabolique (page 36) Lewis Carol's Nightmare (page 57) What Tiger's Leave Behind (page 65) Illustrator/Graphic Designer/Typographer Currently working as a web designer for London-based digital creatives Centrum New Media. In my spare time I create visual fantasies purely for pleasure, drawing from any source that interests, inspires and/or terrifies me. Love what you do, do what you love. www.catillest.com www.behance.net/catillest www.society6.com/catillest
Nell Green Untitled (page 6) Untitled (page 35) Untitled (page 46) Derelict spaces, holes and the dark Everything unknown resides within them The unease and fear this invokes This is what keeps me coming back Discovering these hidden spaces nell.green@talktalk.net nellbert.deviantart.com
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Adam Griffiths Untitled (page 7) Untitled (page 28) Untitled (page 37) Untitled (page 41) Untitled (page 48)
Angie Wu Untitled (page 8) I have been drawing pictures for as long as I can remember. Art has always been a passion of mine. I knew from a very early age that art was going to be a strong influence in my life and that I wanted to know as much about art as I could possibly learn. I still strive to learn something new every day. It takes practice and patience to be a full time artist and I am finally able to devote one hundred percent of my professional life to my studio work. I am focusing on images which display a strong sense of narrative. My images are often an outlet for the characters and stories which inhabit the world created in my imagination. I am trying to slowly create my own through my fantasy artwork. I likes to play with watercolor paint. Love chocolate, detective stories and lots and lots of doodling! www.angiewu.tw
Anyes Greene The Kiss (page 12) Blind Promises (page 27) Downing for want of Poems (page 28) The Mask of Poetry (page 43) Isn't art just another way to breathe? Another way to communicate, to feel and possess everything? Well, it could be all this and so it is all for you, as long as it reaches you.Through digital means I feel there are no boundaries to my imagination. I have had all these thoughts for as long as I can remember and it is good to get them out.
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My work tends to be mostly surreal and dreamlike which seems to get the extra edge when asked to do portraits. A normal person leading a simple life can all of a sudden fly and some rare abilities hitherto unknown spring up.
Avi Ratnayake Faith is the Arrow (page 16)
Alison Fernandez Untitled (page 17)
Emily Hadden Lost and Confused (page 19) Having studied a degree in Visual Communication and Illustration, Emily's practice combines photography with illustration, installation and graphic design, subsequently leading to cross medium experimentation and an eclectic sense of style. Working with various mediums and techniques, including 3D and moving image, Emily integrates tangible creations with digital design. Emily's approach is innovative and unique, she continues to develop her style of illustration and design to further her understanding and push existing boundaries. www.emilyhadden.com www.emilyhadden.blogspot.com
Eli Chortara Untitled (page 24)
Michael John Griffiths The Storm (page 29) Mother Earth (page 31)
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Self taught artist poet The theme of my work is: Love the soul and the stars. www.michaeljohngriffiths.com
Victoria Wainright Godzilla (page 35)
Tarnia gracie Untitled (page 39)
Michaela Alberio Stage Magic (page 41) I'd hate to be a giraffe with a sore throat (page 47) City (page 63) I am a graduate from the Norwich University College of the Arts with a degree in illustration. The work that I produce is mainly done in acrylic paint and collage. I like to use bold bright colours with added texture but I can also use subtle colour when it’s appropriate. I like to produce illustrations that people will remember.
Susan Stone Angel (page 48)
Michaela Garbutt Untitled (page 26) Untitled (page 52) Demeanor (page 55)
Harry Bell Stairs (page 62)
Drew Howard Untitled (page 64)
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Self taught artist poet The theme of my work is: Love the soul and the stars. www.michaeljohngriffiths.com
Victoria Wainright Godzilla (page 35)
Tarnia gracie Untitled (page 39)
Michaela Alberio Stage Magic (page 41) I'd hate to be a giraffe with a sore throat (page 47) I am a graduate from the Norwich University College of the Arts with a degree in illustration. The work that I produce is mainly done in acrylic paint and collage. I like to use bold bright colours with added texture but I can also use subtle colour when it’s appropriate. I like to produce illustrations that people will remember.
Susan Stone Angel (page 48)
Michaela Garbutt Untitled (page 26) Untitled (page 52) Demeanor (page 55)
Drew Howard Untitled (page 61)
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Jack/'Xij' Oughton is an anomaly in the guise of a person, churning out poetry with all the mechanical precision and industrial detachment of a printer malfunctioning. Using dark, chimeric internet powers, he has set up a website in an attempt to expose his music, writings and art to the unsuspecting and generally disinterested world. Go and be one of the first to see it: www.xijindustries.com Comments, critique, feedback, want to hurl abuse at me? Do it: www.xijindustries.com www.youtube.com/user/xijindustries Poetry by Jack Oughton Book design by Cat Neligan www.catillest.com
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