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Surreal Irish Childhood
This is a song from my Irish childhood called chuck chuck cheese. It has been slightly altered. I sung it three times with different types of altered voices (high, deep, child’s voice) then combined them into one track and added old Freudian cartoon to go with it. You can listen over here: Chuck chuck cheeze Read more
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Invisible Monsters
I have a flash fiction invisible monster in new issue of Plastic Cocktail. Plastic Cocktail is in Bushwick. Bushwick is in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is in New York City. Someday maybe I will see Bushwick. I have seen New York City, but it was mostly in the movies. Read more
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PEACHES (first take)
From my new novel in progress for the summer. It’s called The Dreamlife of Honey. Here is the current description: From the over-stimulation and financial stresses of London to a slower life in Madrid and Barcelona, Don Whiskers and Pineapple are ready to live simply with less ambition. What is the relationship between your environment… Read more
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WHITE RABBITS BY LEONORA CARRINGTON
Here is story, from Leonora Carrington, about carnivorous rabbits. And more. Read more
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The Endlus Summur
Image: Trilogy of the Desert, Salvador Dali, 1946. Dali painted The Trilogy of the Desert shortly after moving to the United States in 1946. The desert was new to me, as an immigrant in America, from Northern Ireland to the Vegas desert. Snakes, also new, since St. Patrick chased them out. And also legs, since… Read more
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THE REALITIES BY LOUIS ARAGON
Except from Paris Peasant, by Louis Aragon. A French surrealist classic. Pg.55-56. English translation by Simon Watson Taylor. Read more
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ORIGINAL PLUS DUB
A collaborative poetry experiment for the anthology Original Plus Dub (Hesterglock Press, 2019) edited by Paul Hawkins and Richard Skinner. The premise: to work with a collaborator (Richard Brammer), each producing an ‘original’ (text/poem/artwork, etc.) then swap works and ‘remix’ each other’s original piece. Here is one of our colloborations. It is called “Autechre.” The… Read more
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Hermit Kingdom (the first 8 pages)
(Art: Hieronymus Bosch. From Garden of Earthly Delights. Read more
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A MASK OF RUBBER BANDS
From book of stories in progress. This one is called “A Mask of Rubber Bands.” Read more
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LIMITED EDITION: THE SPIRIT OF THE BATHTUB
The Spirit of the Bathtub is a limited edition. You can grab a copy until 1st June 2019. Here is a description of the nomadic surrealist journey: Experience surreal tales from the bathtubs of South Korea, Utah, Turkey, Italy, Poland, and London. Vibration therapy with Spirit monkeys. Trying to define yourself is like trying to… Read more
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From Altazor by Vicente Huidobro
A small sample from Vicente Huidobro’s Altazor. So much magic. It is easy to get lost in there. The best kind of traveling. (Painting: Miguel Hernadez. Music: Minor Victories. Reading: Marcus Slease) Read more
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DEEP SPACE ADVENTURES
A small excerpt from my novel in progress, Never Mind the Beasts. This is the early 80’s, on a government housing estate in Milton Keynes, England. Don Whiskers is baptised into a new religion. Learns how to swish whiskey. Becomes a friend of Jesus. Tries to find a hammer. Acquires a Millennium falcon. He is… Read more
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EXCHANGES: FOUR POEMS BY GRZEGORZ WROBLEWSKI
Kyoto. Spiders. Men in black coats. Minimalist existentialist prose poems by GRZEGORZ WROBLEWSKI (Painting by Janusz Tyrpak. Drawings by Grzegorz Wroblewski.) Read more
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from “The Lover’s Nest”
A excerpt from my second novel in progress, Hermit Kingdom. This section is called “The Lover’s Nest.” Polish sailor pubs. Rustic jazz clubs. Vibrating Pineal glands. Self-branding, love and companionship, monsters, MILFS, and satanic energy drinks Nomadic journeys from Katowice to Madrid to North Carolina with beer butt chicken and pimento cheese sandwiches. How to… Read more
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Miroslav Holub and Bud Powell
“The Subway Station” by Miroslav Holub, 1970. “Ornithology” by Bud Powell. Reading by Marcus Slease. Read more
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Maryland Trip
From my 1st novel in progress, Never Mind the Beasts. This excerpt from the section “Howling Dogs and Crinkled Whispers.” Read more
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Interval of the Apotheosis
by Leonor Fini. A sylphlike figure, a voyeuristic dialogue. Lurking behind the perfect figure, old hags contorting themselves into lascivious gestures. Read more
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The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet. June 20th 1931. A hut or a cave by the sea? How does our slavery weigh upon us? The monotony of everyday existence. Most of life is maintenance. The nothingness that is everything. How to be freedom? Read more
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Albert Porta
Fantastic Art has been with us since the beginning. The birth of consciousness. Again and again. Read more
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Jitters
“A part wants to break away from the other part. The part that wants to break away claims a different culture. How many cultures make the whole. Who are the true people from the part that wants to break away and the true people from the part that believes in the whole.| My flash fiction,… Read more
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Dream Pop
Some excerpts from my novel Never Mind the Beasts (formally The Autobiography of Don Whiskers) in the new issue of Dream Pop. “In Milton Keynes, during the conversion, they watch E.T. with the branch, the branch is a small gathering, if it is a larger gathering it is called a ward, they don’t have a… Read more
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Leonor Fini
Terrific article about the erotic art of Leonor Fini. A sexually charged lifelong revolution Read more
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Everything is Connected
Danishness, homo-sapiens, improv jazz, interconnections, collaborations. Reminds me what matters!! Needed that. Investigative. Imaginative. Open. An interview with nomadic existentialist artist and writer Grzegorz Wroblewski https://www.dik.org.pl/everything-connected-interview-author-grzegorz-wroblewski/?lang=en Read more
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Reading of Wild Man
Are you feeling wild. Beepers were wild, especially on studly belts, in the 1990s, in Southern Utah. Here is a studly poem. From my most recent book, The Green Monk (Boiler House Press). (image: Nancy Baker, ‘Wild Man’) Read more
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Simone Yoyotte
The first woman of African descent to take part in Surrealism, Simone Yoyotte was born in Martinique. Read more
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2018 Beachies
Super happy to have my book Play Yr Kardz in terrific list of books from Beach Sloth. Check ’em out over here Read more
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The Street of Lamps
In Madrid there is a street called the street of lamps. It is called the street of lamps because they sell many lamps. It is also a street with cold floor cafe with sawdust and old medieval style damp alleyways with flowerpots on the balconies. I sat there, in the cafe, after wandering the street… Read more
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Gold Chains and French Kissing
Jerry sported gold chains, even when he broke the bread, the body of Jesus, and passed the little cups of water, the blood of Jesus. It was a thin one, there were thicker ones. It was the end of 1980s, North Las Vegas. French kissing was in the air. Here is a gold chain, from… Read more
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Swan’s Way
There are so many. Dancers dance them. Lordly swans. Soft swans. Isn’t it time for the swans. Noise rock, post-punk, industrial and post-rock. Temperamental and beautiful. Here is a poem, from The Green Monk, about swans, written in London, in a bone cold room, during winter, warmed by swans, and the thought of swans, and… Read more
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That Weird Guy
From Scenes from a Childhood by Jon Fosse. Translated by Damion Sparks. Fitzcarraldo Editions. Read more
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Workers of the World
An excerpt from my novel in progress, Hermit Kingdom, is up today at Queen Mob’s Teahouse. Hermit Kingdom is interconnecting flash fictions, prose poetry, hybrids. International Worker’s Day 2018, Pineapple and Don Whiskers, living in Madrid, walk the walk past Cazorla, with the best tapas, and the friendly waitress, down past the death ring, to… Read more
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The Green Monk Out Now!
The Green Monk is out in the world. Collaborations with the paintings of Dali and Leonora Carrington. The green parrots of Garcia Lorca and Paul Celan. The queer erotics of swans. The mysteries of milk in Madrid. Soul suckings. Bazaars and border fluencies. Nomadic surrealist prose poems written in Krakow, Katowice, Madrid, London and more. And… Read more
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The Hacking Powders
An excerpt from my novel manuscript, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers, is over at #thesideshow. Partly based on experiences in Katowice, Poland, Cercedilla (Spain), Madrid (Spain), and Palermo (Sicily). It is part of an ongoing trilogy of nomadic surrealist novels. Part autofiction, part magical realism. This excerpt begins in Katowice, at the Zoo, with pagan deities:… Read more
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Bear Review
Super happy to have my horse poem in the new issue of Bear Review. It is from my book The Green Monk. This poem, in the new issue of Bear Review, is surrounded by many other magical poems and art, and it is a poem, in part, about the garden of eden. It was written… Read more
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Psychic Marmalade
The Green Monk is heavily influenced by Surrealist writers and painters who have lived or passed through Madrid in the first part of the 20th century. It is also influenced by nomadic surrealist wanderings around Europe. It has four movements: Built to Spill Psychic Marmalade The Green Monk Great Expectations Here is an excerpt from the… Read more
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Dostoyevsky Wannabe Spotlight
A nice spotlight on Dostoyevsky Wannabe over at The London Magazine by Robert Greer. Greer describes the presses radical approach to publishing, in both design, distribution, and content: “With their books retailing at around £5 each, accessibility seems to me an important part of Dostoyevsky Wannabe, and the most obvious comparison for me is the independent record… Read more
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THE GREEN MONK
I am very happy and excited to announce my new book, The Green Monk, is now available for pre-order. The Green Monk is a dreambox or a sweatbox of a sugar skull. A black hole full of hairspray and cigarette butts where the deer are twitching. It is the great urn of space dust where yellow… Read more
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Adjacent Pineapple
Super happy to have an excerpt from Hermit Kingdom (formally The Autobiography of Don Whiskers) in Adjacent Pineapple. Book 2 begins in Spain (Madrid) and the move to Barcelona. This excerpt is all about the body. And also the great Madrid fiesta San Isidro. It is also about friendship and creating a hermit kingdom as… Read more
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A BEND IN THE RIVER
Another childhood micro story. From my novel manuscript The Autobiography of Don Whiskers. A micro tale of a six year old boy from Northern Ireland in London in the early 80’s. He is always unlatching the gate and singing songs in old English pubs along the river. He is a pub storyteller. Everyone loves his… Read more
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THE TIGERS
After my brother Aaron died I went on a road trip with my brothers and sisters. We traveled from Utah to the ocean of California. Along the way we stopped in Hurricane, Utah, a place in southern Utah where we used to live. I lived there mainly for my senior year in high school and… Read more
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Review of Play Yr Kardz Right by Beach Sloth
Terrific review of my book Play Yr Kardz Right. Thank you so much Beach Sloth!! “Over the course of the work, the use of a childlike wonder allows the poetry to expose deeper held truths within the world. Lust, love, hope, fear, these roll on through in ways that feel beyond the usual. Highly honest,… Read more
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THE POWER OF HERMITS
Do you want the magic back in your life? Me too. Also people. It is so noisy out there. Meaning in here. How about some peace. We are all competing for endless roads to nowhere. But sometimes somewhere. I am at least 60% natural hermit, ditto Ewa. It depends on the day. Of course we… Read more
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A RABBIT HAT ADVENTURE IN LONDON
Just before leaving London/Tower Hamlets to live in Madrid, I met up with my good friend and fellow artist Stephen Emmerson. We walked across Waterloo Bridge and wandered into a magic hat shop called The Mad Hatter. I ended up with a rabbit hat (thanks to Stephen). It is a special hat. I composed… Read more
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Warrior of Light
As an immigrant in America I was obsessed with ninjas and invisibility. Also pink hot dogs. I was no good with baseball but liked the slap of the leather. My first pair of American sunglasses were made of gold plastic. Every journal entry ended with I am a warrior of light. Here is the poem.… Read more
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BRIGHT EYES BURNING LIKE FIRE
Did you watch Watership Down, the cartoon, as a wee lad or lass? Was it scary? I think it is still scary. The theme song, with its chorus of bright eyes burning like fire, still haunts me. How about Roland Rat? Roland Rat with the floppy doll of my brother before we immigrated to the… Read more
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TEN POEMS FROM THE GREEN MONK AT FLULAND
Fluland published 10 of my nomadic surrealist stories/prose poems from my book The Green Monk (forthcoming from Boiler House Press on 5th November 2018). Some Las Vegas immigrant stories. Gold chains and french kissing. Aliens and fig leaves. German Edelweiss hidden in bibles. And much more! Thank you Fluland!! Check ’em out over here: http://www.fluland.com/2017/05/10/ten-poems-marcus-slease/… Read more
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DALI AND LONDON MUSTARD IN STOCKHOLM REVIEW OF LITERATURE
I have two prose poems in The Stockholm Review of Literature from my book of surrealist prose poems. The book is called The Green Monk. Forthcoming from Boiler House Press on November 5th 2018. One of the poems is based on Dali painting. The other based on a late night in London. They are called… Read more
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NOMADIC SURREALIST STORIES WITH MUSIC
https://nevermindthebeasts.bandcamp.com/album/never-mind-the-beasts Folk surrealism. Experimental electronic. Magical realism. Immigrant stories. Outsider art. A journey!! A collaboration between UK musician Stephen Emmerson and Madrid-based writer and performer Marcus Slease. Available over at Bandcamp: https://nevermindthebeasts.bandcamp.com/album/never-mind-the-beasts (album cover by outsider artist Grzegorz Wroblewski) Read more
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MODERN SHAMANISM AND NOMADIC SURREALISM
There are so many of them. Don’t you get tired. Reading all those words. Dry lifeless fossilised language. Every technology leaves something behind. There is a cost, always, with traveling from one technology to another. For example from oral literature to written, and now, maybe the omega point, the internet. Words, there are too many… Read more
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WHAT IS HOME?
There are so many places in the world and the grass is always greener. If we are lucky and live in rich countries with professional jobs, or live simply, we can migrate to many new countries for work. We can try to find that perfect new homeland for living, or if not a homeland at… Read more
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NOMADIC SURREALISM
“Slease refuses the comforts of rootedness, stability, permanence. In doing so, he represents what the philosopher Rose Braidotti identifies as the model of nomadic subjectivity “in flux, never opposed to a dominant hierarchy yet intrinsically other, always in the process of becoming, and perpetually engaged in dynamic power relations both creative and restrictive.” For many… Read more
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WHAT IS NAPLES?
The Grand Tour, back in the day, we based on John Dewey and experiential education, at least partially. It was also based on ideas of high culture, and the lack of it in England. Also class and privilege, since mostly it was some aristocratic females and of course upper class males. Get out of the… Read more
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IMPROV JAZZ WITH POETRY FROM THE BATHTUB
When Ewa and I first arrived in Madrid, Christian Pérez, his wife Megan, and their son Oscar welcomed us. Showed us around their neighbourhood of La Latina, lollies and neighbourhood festivals with sweet meats, up on their rooftop terrace, an introduction to mighty fine Spanish olives, wine, and cheese. And much much much more. They… Read more
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WHAT IS PLAY YR KARDZ RIGHT?
Las Vegas had a show on the telly, it was exotic and foreign, hard to imagine, and we were going there, as immigrant pioneers, for a better life, like immigrants and migrants the world over, changing their languages and also adding to the host languages, the big mixing bowl, maybe. Play Yr Kardz Right, my… Read more
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WHAT ARE HUNGRY MONSTERS?
I have never been comfortable with money. The chasing it, living my life for numbers. In America, as an immigrant, I was saturated with the lack of it. Lower middle class, chasing the American dream, the endless informercials and my family trying so many pyramid schemes, doing the grunt work to make someone else wealthy,… Read more
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HOW TO GIVE BIRTH IN A HOLE
A few years ago The National Poetry Library in London invited me to record a poem. I decided to read my poem”The Fly“. After the death of my brother Aaron, I began having a series of dreams about flies. Every night the flies came. One night, I tried to speak to one of them.… Read more
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HOW TO RENEW YOURSELF WITH MINDFUL TRAVEL
Why do we travel? The weekend getaway. The summer and winter breaks. The islands and exotic locations. What are we looking for? The travel industry is one of the biggest on our planet. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the travel industry generated 7.6 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016. We are looking… Read more
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WHAT IS INFLUENCE?
Super happy to have my poem “Feedback” in Poetry magazine. It is part of my manuscript The Green Monk, forthcoming from Boiler House Press in November 2018. It was composed while ingesting everything written by the great Lydia Davis. I can’t help wondering if some of her approach to writing leaked in there, but also other… Read more
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NOMADIC SURREALIST TRAVEL IN KAZIMIERZ
My partner Ewa and I visit Poland for Christmas every year. My partner Ewa is from Katowice so that is our home base. During our summer visits we explore mountains and villages, but at Christmas it is mostly family. However during Christmas 2016, after 4 months of living in Madrid, our new home base after… Read more
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WHAT IS NOMADIC SURREALISM?
Panmelys wrote a nice review of my nomadic poetry. She writes: “seeking otherness Of a soul, hungering after ‘Hiraeth’. Which means ‘A longing for something This World can never give’, Celtic source, with an Emphasis on ‘This’ as opposed to ‘Other ‘world” I like this very much. I think it gets at the seemingly contradictory… Read more
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MR WHISKERS WITHOUT THE PICNIC BASKET
The only award I ever won, and didn’t even enter, was for a poem called “Mr Whiskers and the Picnic Basket.” It was published in Hayden’s Ferry Review as a winner of the AWP Intro Journals Award. I was completing my MFA at UNC Greensboro at the time. Then it was republished at storySouth in 2004. This… Read more
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POEMS FROM HELLO TINY BIRD BRAIN IN POLISH ANTHOLOGY
Some of my poems from Hello Tiny Bird Brain (a chapbook from Knives, Forks, and Spoon Press in the U.K.) are now available in Polish. Translated by Adam Zdrodowski. These poems in Polish originally appeared in the Polish magazine Helikopter and are now published in Helikopter‘s terrific anthology of Polish poetry – Przewodnik Po Zaminowanym Terenie [A… Read more
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NOMADIC POETICS WITH MARCUS SLEASE AND GRZEGORZ WROBLEWSKI AT DESPERATE LITERATURE
A terrific launch last night of The Spirit of the Bathtub with Grzegorz Wroblewski reading from his latest work (in English) Zero Visibility (translated by Piotr Gwiazda). Super nice folks in the audience. Nice chats during and afterwards. We are not alone folks! Read more
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ON FATHERS
“My step father grew up in Warrington, he joined the British Army. A way out. Northern Ireland. He married my mother. In Bletchley, we went to the swimming pool. Hot chocolate, in the plastic cup, from the machine. I’ll give you a pound if you go down the slide he said. In London, in the… Read more
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NEVER MIND THE BEASTS: A NEW WEBSITE
I just reached over half million visits on my blogger website Never Mind the Beasts. A mile stone maybe. Thank you so much for stopping by!! The blogger Never Mind the Beasts blog has now gone dark to avoid duplicate content. Never Mind the Beasts now has its own domain and a new site. This… Read more
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Las Vegas, 1985, maybe August. I am a newly arrived immigrant in the United States of America. First Vallejo in a trailer park and then Las Vegas. Also, from a few years previously, a new religion, Mormonism. I was almost 12. On the border of puberty with a funny accent from Northern Ireland. Do… Read more
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DEAR BELOVED HUMANS
“For eight years now I have been translating the poetry of Grzegorz Wróblewski, a Polish writer and visual artist based in Copenhagen. So far we have published two volumes: Kopenhaga (Zephyr Press, 2013) and Zero Visibility (Phoneme Media, 2017). We are now working on our third project, Dear Beloved Humans: New and Selected Poems.” —… Read more
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THE NEW SINCERITY
(Marcus Slease in 1995) Irony and sincerity combined like Voltron, to form a new movement of astonishing power.” — Jesse Thorn How do you feel about irony? And sincerity? Are they really opposites? Like all good art, they make for good cross fertilisation. In 1995, after coming home early from a Mormon mission,… Read more
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STELLAR LINEUP FOR PAST SIMPLE 13
The new international issue of Past Simple out now. Manchester, New York City, Lisbon, London, Seattle, Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Liège, Madrid, Cambridge (MA), Worcester (MA), Pittsburgh, Prague, Eindhoven, North Queensland (Australia), and more . . . Edited by Marcus Slease and Grzegorz Wroblewski. The issue is full of wild, electric, strange & wonderful writing. Check it… Read more
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THE ELEPHANTS
The moon is sometimes bloated. There is so much. Just stop, slow down, take a look at your brain. It is very bloated. Put your thoughts in a balloon, maybe 99 red balloons, and pop them. Over and over. Here are some balloons. From my book The Green Monk, forthcoming from Boiler House Press on… Read more
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