Penguins.
A fever dream on acid.
Brighton is, and remains, a city of contradictions— the British seaside charm laced with neon delirium, where reality bends and stretches under the weight of hallucinogens and half-truths. It was my home, and even though thousands of miles away it always will be.
This poem is a descent into that world, a fever dream of love, loss, and psychedelic lucidity. Inspired by nights soaked in 2C-B, the absurdity of existence, and the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson. The past me wanders through fragmented memories and surreal encounters—penguins, postmen, corduroy-clad spiders—all pieces of a trip that blurred the line between meaning and madness.
It’s a journey through an untethered mind, searching for something real in a world that refuses to stay still. And, yes, it was written on acid in one stream of consciousness.
Penguins.
My front door closed behind the woman
who randomly appeared on my doorstep.
She was completely made out of far-fetched stories from my childhood.
A majority of her existence consisted of Rapunzel hair
flowing down her back like a river bleeding into a concrete sea.
Her nose would enlarge with every lie
falling from her cavernous mouth
and she always insisted on laying a trail of string behind us,
just in case we went too far and got lost.
She carried a rosy red apple with her,
and those glass slippers would irritate me—
they were obviously too small.
I watched her leave my place
and disappear into pixels and dust.
I sat on a brick tuffet
eating discarded porridge,
and wondered what would become of her.
She was too damn precious for this world,
too high maintenance.
She was seeking to be rescued,
whilst I rather liked being the frog.
My teeth had started to resemble
a Victorian graveyard of lost relatives and dead painters.
Each tomb was decayed to a point
where the inscriptions were barely legible.
Yellowing stones with green and grey vines
arcing around their root.
A succession of infrequent mourners
came to pay their final respects
to somebody they used to know.
I half expected the illegitimate daughter
of Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allen Poe to approach in a veil,
hand me a copy of The Bell Jar.
I'd open it
to discover it contained handwritten notes in the margins
from a sea of widowers.
‘Dear Lover,
I am sorry you had to leave.
Yet, I knew it was coming because I was leaving too.
We will remain the silence beneath the trees.
We will carry on as carrion.
We will breathe in light, and last forever.’
I watched a raven in the distance
arc high in the maudlin sky.
The backdrop of unwashed clouds coloured the horizon.
This bird seemed to be enjoying flight that morning.
Nothing more than the ability to enjoy his freedom—
a small delight amongst an otherwise pallid beginning
of another day.
‘We all go back to where we belong,’
said the tabby cat that had suddenly appeared
I pondered if I had somehow landed in a Lewis Carroll novel
as I watched his furry tail disappear down a side alley
where the weeds had grown beautifully—
they had started blossoming yellow.
Isn’t it wonderful
how even the ugliest of living things
can spawn beauty, every so often?
It was then I noticed I was finding breathing difficult.
My lungs felt damp, almost corroded,
and there was a sense
the inevitable was lurking around the corner.
I should have known it then,
but my fate was already sealed—
and this was how I stumbled,
quite by accident,
into the love of my life.
A move I would later once try to regret.
Motioning away from the Regency squares,
I walked past a toad in a top hat
who offered me a haircut at a discounted price.
I thought it strange
amphibians would know anything about hair.
For sure, there was a better vocation for them
than coiffeuring the tangled fibres of humans.
My head gazed south
to avoid eye contact with this being covered in warts
and I marched solemnly onwards.
His tongue lashed past me like a dominatrix whip—
an innocent fly stuck to it
before being swallowed back down to the pit of his stomach.
Boarded-up shops littered the littered streets.
A lighting shop pronounced to the world
on an infinite loop
that it was closing down next week.
The local newspaper proclaimed
that a duck killer had been caught on CCTV.
‘Who the hell was killing ducks for entertainment?
And who was monitoring all of this?
What sick individual was setting up cameras
to catch murderers of feathered beings?’
The pub on the corner was filled with a plethora of globes.
Destinations, which appealed with their distance—
but that’s all they were:
distant opportunities
out of reach
and starting to become out of focus.
The 2CB had started to kick in fully
and normally with that came paranoia,
and eventually serenity.
2C-B (4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine) is a synthetic drug—
almost the incestuous coupling of MDMA and LSD.
I used to call it the perfect crime.
Pure 2CB would leave you with practically no come down
and its highs were vibrant, controllable, and magical.
I once witnessed the entire solar system
being pissed out of my urethra.
Glistening globes floating out of my organ,
one by one,
and into the ether.
‘Where did I want to be?
Did I really want to be here?’
I thought to myself.
Not just in location but in mind.
People's faces started to contort—
their chins and noses full of muscle, tissue, and sinew.
It all looked as if everything was decaying
and hanging by the tiniest thread.
I shifted my weight onto my left foot
and darted inside a pub.
And there she was.
I met Julie on a barstool.
She was perched like maudlin decor
hanging over the Grand Canyon.
She was pregnant from the shins down
and her first words
that fell from her mid-century modern mouth were:
"Penguins, we must stop the penguins."
She didn't need to explain.
I was fully aware of the situation.
Yet, she carried on.
I looked at her,
listened to the inane ramblings
and thought her alabaster tongue
would trip over the rotund postman
delivering the ever-increasing costs of life.
At this juncture of the trip,
it was the last thing either of us needed.
Especially the penguins.
Her hair reminded me of croissants,
her skin like liver
dripping off cold-white ceramic.
I knew we'd be cemented like two proverbial bricks
by the end of the night.
And so this union began.
Our one-night flight resembled more of a crime scene
than a love affair.
Flashing blue lights,
areas of the bedroom cordoned off,
and a plethora of men in suits
dusting me down with powder.
I pondered to think
how many times this scene would be recreated
before hastily trying to make for the door.
Fortunately, Julie had one foot in the past
and the other in a taxi.
She was gone
before the penguins arrived,
and I was left with an awkward silence for company
and mottled shoes.
A spider in corduroy flares
proceeded to tell me
that my life should be dedicated
to setting up a sanctuary for cats.
I took him deadly serious.
The penguins looked perplexed.
If all the colours I could see whilst on acid
were a paler shade of beige,
then what hope did I have in the real world?
For some reason this had me thinking about Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol again! Thanks!
That was one hell of a fun ride.