Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve
or writing letters to his children, lost,
and to his children's children, and to us.
What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?
Say that it changed, for better or for worse,
sifted by leaves, sifted by snow; on mulberry silk
a slant of witch-light; on the pure text
a slant of genius; emptying mind and heart
for winecups and more winecups and more words.
What was his time? Say that it was a change,
but constant as a changing thing may be,
from chicory's moon-dark blue down the taut scale
to chicory's tenderest pink, in a pink field
such as imagination dreams of thought.
But of the heart beneath the winecup moon
the tears that fell beneath the winecup moon
for children lost, lost lovers, and lost friends,
what can we say but that it never ends?
Even for us it never ends, only begins.
Yet to spell down the poem on her page,
margining her phrases, parsing forth
the sevenfold prism of meaning, up the scale
from chicory pink to blue, is to assume
Li Po himself: as he before assumed
the poets and the sages who were his.
Like him, we too have eaten of the word:
with him are somewhere lost beyond the Gorge:
and write, in rain, a letter to lost children,
a letter long as time and brief as love.

II

And yet not love, not only love. Not caritas
or only that. Nor the pink chicory love,
deep as it may be, even to moon-dark blue,
in which the dragon of his meaning flew
for friends or children lost, or even
for the beloved horse, for Li Po's horse:
not these, in the self's circle so embraced:
too near, too dear, for pure assessment: no,
a letter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that lightning-stroke which in your sleep you saw
wrinkling across the eyelid? Somewhere else?
But somewhere else is always here and now.
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid:
each moment you must die. It was a tree
that this time died for you: it was a rock
and with it all its local web of love:
a chimney, spilling down historic bricks:
perhaps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites.
And with them, us. For we must hear and bear
the news from everywhere: the hourly news,
infinitesimal or vast, from everywhere.

III

Sole pride and loneliness: it is the state
the kingdom rather of all things: we hear
news of the heart in weather of the Bear,
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair,
still on the nursery floor, the Milky Way;
and, if we question one, must question all.
What is this 'man'? How far from him is 'me'?
Who, in this conch-shell, locked the sound of sea?
We are the tree, yet sit beneath the tree,
among the leaves we are the hidden bird,
we are the singer and are what is heard.
What is this 'world'? Not Li Po's Gorge alone,
and yet, this too might be. 'The wind was high
north of the White King City, by the fields
of whistling barley under cuckoo sky,'
where, as the silkworm drew her silk, Li Po
spun out his thoughts of us. 'Endless as silk'
(he said) 'these poems for lost loves, and us,'
and, 'for the peachtree, blooming in the ditch.'
Here is the divine loneliness in which
we greet, only to doubt, a voice, a word,
the smoke of a sweetfern after frost, a face
touched, and loved, but still unknown, and then
a body, still mysterious in embrace.
Taste lost as touch is lost, only to leave
dust on the doorsill or an ink-stained sleeve:
and yet, for the inadmissible, to grieve.
Of leaf and love, at last, only to doubt:
from world within or world without, kept out.
  
IV

Caucus of robins on an alien shore
as of the **-** birds at Jewel Gate
southward bound and who knows where and never late
or lost in a roar at sea. Rovers of chaos
each one the 'Rover of Chao,' whose slight bones
shall put to shame the swords. We fly with these,
have always flown, and they
stay with us here, stand still and stay,
while, exiled in the Land of Pa, Li Po
still at the Wine Spring stoops to drink the moon.
And northward now, for fall gives way to spring,
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing,
and he remembers, with the pipes and flutes,
drunk with joy, bewildered by the chance
that brought a friend, and friendship, how, in vain,
he strove to speak, 'and in long sentences,' his pain.
Exiled are we. Were exiles born. The 'far away,'
language of desert, language of ocean, language of sky,
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know him beyond knowledge, like ourselves;
ocean unknowable by unknowable sand.

V

The locust tree spills sequins of pale gold
in spiral nebulae, borne on the Invisible
earthward and deathward, but in change to find
the cycles to new birth, new life. Li Po
allowed his autumn thoughts like these to flow,
and, from the Gorge, sends word of Chouang's dream.
Did Chouang dream he was a butterfly?
Or did the butterfly dream Chouang? If so,
why then all things can change, and change again,
the sea to brook, the brook to sea, and we
from man to butterfly; and back to man.
This 'I,' this moving 'I,' this focal 'I,'
which changes, when it dreams the butterfly,
into the thing it dreams of; liquid eye
in which the thing takes shape, but from within
as well as from without: this liquid 'I':
how many guises, and disguises, this
nimblest of actors takes, how many names
puts on and off, the costumes worn but once,
the player queen, the lover, or the dunce,
hero or poet, father or friend,
suiting the eloquence to the moment's end;
childlike, or *******; the language of the kiss
sensual or simple; and the gestures, too,
as slight as that with which an empire falls,
or a great love's abjured; these feignings, sleights,
savants, or saints, or fly-by-nights,
the novice in her cell, or wearing tights
on the high wire above a hell of lights:
what's true in these, or false? which is the 'I'
of 'I's'? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.

Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow's foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.

VI

The thousand eyes, the Argus 'I's' of love,
of these it was, in verse, that Li Po wove
the magic cloak for his last going forth,
into the Gorge for his adventure north.
What is not seen or said? The cloak of words
loves all, says all, sends back the word
whether from Green Spring, and the yellow bird
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang,'
or 'from the Green Moss Path, that winds and winds,
nine turns for every hundred steps it winds,
up the Sword Parapet on the road to Shuh.'
'Dead pinetrees hang head-foremost from the cliff.
The cataract roars downward. Boulders fall
Splitting the echoes from the mountain wall.
No voice, save when the nameless birds complain,
in stunted trees, female echoing male;
or, in the moonlight, the lost cuckoo's cry,
piercing the traveller's heart. Wayfarer from afar,
why are you here? what brings you here? why here?'

VII

Why here. Nor can we say why here. The peachtree bough
scrapes on the wall at midnight, the west wind
sculptures the wall of fog that slides
seaward, over the Gulf Stream.
                                                       The rat
comes through the wainscot, brings to his larder
the twinned acorn and chestnut burr. Our sleep
lights for a moment into dream, the eyes
turn under eyelids for a scene, a scene,
o and the music, too, of landscape lost.
And yet, not lost. For here savannahs wave
cressets of pampas, and the kingfisher
binds all that gold with blue.
                                                  Why here? why here?
Why does the dream keep only this, just this C?
Yes, as the poem or the music do?

The timelessness of time takes form in rhyme:
the lotus and the locust tree rehearse
a four-form song, the quatrain of the year:
not in the clock's chime only do we hear
the passing of the Now into the past,
the passing into future of the Now:
hut in the alteration of the bough
time becomes visible, becomes audible,
becomes the poem and the music too:
time becomes still, time becomes time, in rhyme.
Thus, in the Court of Aloes, Lady Yang
called the musicians from the Pear Tree Garden,
called for Li Po, in order that the spring,
tree-peony spring, might so be made immortal.
Li Po, brought drunk to court, took up his brush,
but washed his face among the lilies first,
then wrote the song of Lady Flying Swallow:
which Hsuang Sung, the emperor, forthwith played,
moving quick fingers on a flute of jade.
Who will forget that afternoon? Still, still,
the singer holds his phrase, the rising moon
remains unrisen. Even the fountain's falling blade
hangs in the air unbroken, and says: Wait!

VIII

Text into text, text out of text. Pretext
for scholars or for scholiasts. The living word
springs from the dying, as leaves in spring
spring from dead leaves, our birth from death.
And all is text, is holy text. Sheepfold Hill
becomes its name for us, anti yet is still
unnamed, unnamable, a book of trees
before it was a book for men or sheep,
before it was a book for words. Words, words,
for it is scarlet now, and brown, and red,
and yellow where the birches have not shed,
where, in another week, the rocks will show.
And in this marriage of text and thing how can we know
where most the meaning lies? We climb the hill
through bullbriar thicket and the wild rose, climb
past poverty-grass and the sweet-scented bay
scaring the pheasant from his wall, but can we say
that it is only these, through these, we climb,
or through the words, the cadence, and the rhyme?
Chang Hsu, calligrapher of great renown,
needed to put but his three cupfuls down
to tip his brush with lightning. On the scroll,
wreaths of cloud rolled left and right, the sky
opened upon Forever. Which is which?
The poem? Or the peachtree in the ditch?
Or is all one? Yes, all is text, the immortal text,
Sheepfold Hill the poem, the poem Sheepfold Hill,
and we, Li Po, the man who sings, sings as he climbs,
transposing rhymes to rocks and rocks to rhymes.
The man who sings. What is this man who sings?
And finds this dedicated use for breath
for phrase and periphrase of praise between
the twin indignities of birth and death?
Li Yung, the master of the epitaph,
forgetting about meaning, who himself
had added 'meaning' to the book of >things,'
lies who knows where, himself sans epitaph,
his text, too, lost, forever lost ...
                                                         And yet, no,
text lost and poet lost, these only flow
into that other text that knows no year.
The peachtree in the poem is still here.
The song is in the peachtree and the ear.

IX

The winds of doctrine blow both ways at once.
The wetted finger feels the wind each way,
presaging plums from north, and snow from south.
The dust-wind whistles from the eastern sea
to dry the nectarine and parch the mouth.
The west wind from the desert wreathes the rain
too late to fill our wells, but soon enough,
the four-day rain that bears the leaves away.
Song with the wind will change, but is still song
and pierces to the rightness in the wrong
or makes the wrong a rightness, a delight.
Where are the eager guests that yesterday
thronged at the gate? Like leaves, they could not stay,
the winds of doctrine blew their minds away,
and we shall have no loving-cup tonight.
No loving-cup: for not ourselves are here
to entertain us in that outer year,
where, so they say, we see the Greater Earth.
The winds of doctrine blow our minds away,
and we are absent till another birth.

X

Beyond the Sugar Loaf, in the far wood,
under the four-day rain, gunshot is heard
and with the falling leaf the falling bird
flutters her crimson at the huntsman's foot.
Life looks down at death, death looks up at life,
the eyes exchange the secret under rain,
rain all the way from heaven: and all three
know and are known, share and are shared, a silent
moment of union and communion.
Have we come
this way before, and at some other time?
Is it the Wind Wheel Circle we have come?
We know the eye of death, and in it too
the eye of god, that closes as in sleep,
giving its light, giving its life, away:
clouding itself as consciousness from pain,
clouding itself, and then, the shutter shut.
And will this eye of god awake again?
Or is this what he loses, loses once,
but always loses, and forever lost?
It is the always and unredeemable cost
of his invention, his fatigue. The eye
closes, and no other takes its place.
It is the end of god, each time, each time.

Yet, though the leaves must fall, the galaxies
rattle, detach, and fall, each to his own
perplexed and individual death, Lady Yang
gone with the inkberry's vermilion stalk,
the peony face behind a fan of frost,
the blue-moon eyebrow behind a fan of rain,
beyond recall by any alchemist
or incantation from the Book of Change:
unresumable, as, on Sheepfold Hill,
the fir cone of a thousand years ago:
still, in the loving, and the saying so,
as when we name the hill, and, with the name,
bestow an essence, and a meaning, too:
do we endow them with our lives?
They move
into another orbit: into a time
not theirs: and we become the bell to speak
this time: as we become new eyes
with which they see, the voice
in which they find duration, short or long,
the chthonic and hermetic song.
Beyond Sheepfold Hill,
gunshot again, the bird flies forth to meet
predestined death, to look with conscious sight
into the eye of light
the light unflinching that understands and loves.
And Sheepfold Hill accepts them, and is still.

XI

The landscape and the language are the same.
And we ourselves are language and are land,
together grew with Sheepfold Hill, rock, and hand,
and mind, all taking substance in a thought
wrought out of mystery: birdflight and air
predestined from the first to be a pair:
as, in the atom, the living rhyme
invented her divisions, which in time,
and in the terms of time, would make and break
the text, the texture, and then all remake.
This powerful mind that can by thinking take
the order of the world and all remake,
w

how do you paint water, or clouds?

I could read poetry for the brief,
of my of remaining life, however brief,
and never be satiated, of love, and streams of water,
never stilled, always running in patterns that exist,
but for milliseconds, admired by clouds born in, of,
a moment of re-formation that is perpetuity long:
unending shape shifting, like the freedom of flowing water
currents, forming, reforming and unthinkable, nay,
inconceivable that human eyes or their spoken words
could capture their shiny white foamy essence

But of love, that we can do, paint, design, recreate its
endless loops of undulations, like the radiating circularity
of a pebble dropped gently to its burial sight in a quiet pond.

Humans know, understand and excel at clasping and grasping
at the synapsing of human cells from differing bodies: the
exogenous erogenous of human touch that like the clouds
and the water, who could paint that, who capable of capturing
said sensations that wrack and enliven the body with invisible
interior chemical reactions. I cannot. Thankfully better men and women have treatised  their entreaties to the powers of the universe and been rewarded with the skilled delicacy of weaving human tapestries, the milliseconds of connectivity, eclectic and electrifying of different currents and differing amperage’s forming and reforming like water moving, just  like the clouds changing in response to the externalities of wind and gravity and all the forces of nature that encourage us to study and stare at these flows, hoping to entrance them into standing still for but a moment, and instead, mesmerizing us into standing motionless for hours in awe of their freedom.

Love’s undulations too mesmerizing, and freezing us into
place, or alternatively caucus to run endlessly arms extending,
flying though not airborne , rocketing us upwards while feet never budging, but finding good wards, masterful metaphors to recreate and thus to share the fabulous mystery of this thing we know as love.


2:58AM
Friday
jul 22 (jewel 22) of the 23rd year of the 21st Century.


O.L.P.

pasty white ghosts haunt
the corpse blue cornfields of Iowa
whispering wisps of smoke
shimmering shadows of the past
setting the pace for the rat race
that is the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

senators billionaires doctors
frauds liars fools
campaigning for selection in an
archaic and outdated
form of governance

witness the spectacle
the orgastic worship
of solipsistic oligarchs
bloated by their own
sycophantic rhetoric

it's just another form
of all-American
entertainment

each orator's charismatic adage
froths forth from a
throat like a grave
pragmatism throttles hope
as we stoke the fires of
self-indulgence and neglect
the fact that we acquiesced
as another deceiver stole votes

we're choking on placebo pills
every ballot cast is another act of apathy
escapism pleading vainly for a
savior to rescue our sick society but
these hands didn't evolve so we could
collect a representative to lead us
blindly into one fiasco after another

these fingers penned  
humanity's symphonies and
these calloused palms have
toiled for years under an apathetic sun
we learned to make love
using our fingertips and
with these fists
we could chart a new path
but only if we raise them in
defiance

our only chance is leaderless resistance

What has become of us
Amidst the hustle and bustle of city life
When did evolution condone us to regress into a state
Of uncalculated caucus
As we meander our way through the rapids of life

Rapid
Is hardly a best-fit descriptor
For we are past the point of speed
We mill around like headless horses
Buzzing bees
Stinging roaches
Fallen leaves
Roaring lions
Try to lead
But fail
Like cottons fighting breeze

Is this all we are?
Is this what we were made for?
To quickly climb the climb
And await the graceless fall
Parachutes prepared for praise
But our pride prevents and prevails

Till the day I climb the ladder
Shall I not attempt to see
What the view at the top might be like
I fear it enthralls me
But then reality strikes like a maddening blaze
And suddenly I see
That I'm well on my way up the hill
As I swing from bridge to bridge

Is this the way to live?
Uncautious steps with kleptomaniac ease
As we take what we desire
From our capitalistic divider
Though we hate to be the same
Not at all do we differ
Are we not all blinded mice
With a tetra-human vice
Spiders apt at spinning lies
Banking life on Friday highs

All around me boring beasts
Lost to whims, to say the least
What I fear most is the day
I give in and join the race
Is the day I eat my heart out
Just to enjoy the highest gaze

Till then here trapped in the zoo
Enclosure encasing truth

Finding fault with every human till the day I conform too

139

Soul, Wilt thou toss again?
By just such a hazard
Hundreds have lost indeed—
But tens have won an all—

Angel’s breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee—
Imps in eager Caucus
Raffle for my Soul!

that litre of whiskey last night, downed in one session
seriously did the trick.*

the unacknowledged legislators that we are,
sure enough, we are,
taking quills from angelic wings and hoping
for pigeon **** on us in trafalgar sq. reverse
logic of a black cat crossing the street and the no. 13.
our lineage dating back to the caucus is worried,
will we survive, earn the credential of middle-age
and middle-class?!
i don't know, art and work are akin,
although the former stressors are said as:
i'm working... i'm working! but i'm not getting paid!
in the latter scenario... well i think i'm working...
but i'm just looking busy... and i'm getting dough
for that... smiling a fanciful card trick of the
sociable with a stranger passing along the way
of my muffin / coffee stand, pop-up in a busy linchpin
of economy known as the shop gallery -
now imagine putting a pound coin in the shopping gallery
and a pound coin in an art gallery... obviously
there's a 99 pence store you could buy something
and get enough frank sinatra losing the change
outside... but in an art gallery? a pound coin on the mahogany?
you were asked to donate your own trusted allowance
at the door... donate the quid and admire the canvases,
don't be one of those 191% increase of theatre ticket sales lot
taking a questionnaire then booking tickets to
define old school bourgeoise as exclusively theatrical,
this is the west end - everyone's pompous...
or as aristotle said: tourism begins with awe...
all these tourists are perfect actors of philosopher...
mouths open walking with flashlight frenzies
they almost look like philosophers... awe-struck...
mouths open... a pigeon could just about do a blitz
drop into their mouths;
yet something worries me... for such a courteous
nation as the british claim to fame are...
why seriously throw all the cursors and vectors of curtsy
onto placards on the street for reminder... like this one t.f.l.
advert asking the english "gentleman"
to excuse his knackered limbs
of farting into an office seat for 8 hours for an old lady
on the tube? why... big brother said it had to be advertised,
this english curtsey of the gentlemen with
sexism clarified with tampons and public space urinals -
but as all white big bangs go... i guess it's an
evolutionary fear... we'll never beat the insects...
we can beat the dodos the lions the mammoths...
we can't beat the insects... we already know
there's a worm for every **** ******* eyesight scented
talking hole once we die and aren't cremated;
we're in the atomic playground, atomised i hardly
think is an adequate congestion of comparisons...
then if not atomic then humanoid,
or just black-void to stress known origins...
while mama caucus sells chickens...
originally there was only one bull solomon for the
perfect breed... reverse of man the cows said:
you send men to war like bulls to slaughter
keeping the king and the queen oriental to
poke and point at the next living man dead...
we're the lactose ganges, people dye burnt human
remains in the twirl and sidewinder of nature that
defines us... but let children chuckle and suckle at
our *******... but most of the beef you see sold
comes from those akin to bulls...
you keep one and adorn him with india's tear
that's sri lanka... and churn the rest to war...
while the she of each she that is left for milking,
is then discarded among the bull corpses.

Needlepoint threadbare caucus with an instant Kodak box camera filled nitrite
Like the sun-kissed barely lit beaches over Normandy
Stormed into the kitchen with a missile and an avalanche to overpower the pirates
With their long-forgotten and ill begotten flagship armada
The flowers hang low and the nooses lower with ever-present danger of going over
The needle hits skin puncture left right down touch your toes uplift like the cross
Arms hung low over the alabaster sky with a long trench-coat and wary eyes
Cloud cover start to blow the cover and touch the roller coaster coffee cup sitting
With an eye to the glass and the telescope lens flare catch like the door latch
Down to the basement with the worn out sofa sit alone like the bedraggled soldier
With his dog tags hanging like a sign of the times down to where his feet locked
To the floor in an instant with the bombshells all around and a seductive twist
The ring and fling the pin out count down begins to the gravity shift consciousness
Like the cancer patient under the knife the tumor’s removed the chemo begun
With the bulb burning down over a hospital bedside and the white sheets lingering
Smell of a machine gone bad turned tail like the redcoats running down the chute
With the mail to the end of the day the laundry’s out to dry on the steel clothesline
Their bolt cutters damage the elderly couple hanging from the tree with the cymbal
Underneath like the gong of the undertaker the dam’s release
The water runs down to cleanse the disease and carries the pathogens to find their caprice and restraint held back on the man in the chair with vacant eyes and half
Muttered prayers to an unknown God with long white beard
Sitting alone under a payphone like the cold-dead wires of a long gone bee hive
Mind pictures play off the words on my tongue like an over-told rhyme
The nursery songs and bells and whistles come together to form an indignant sound
Like the steel clap trap of the boot black against the pale white walls of the by-gone
Era with a viscosity of ancient monolithic capacity
Sourdough rising like the falling red sun over the horizon sit and contemplate the weather-worn-battle-torn visage of man remembered yet never met
Till death and earth turn and burn in the ascending light of the pale moon
Wolf-howl over the distant city lights like the mournful wail of a banished soul
Away from home for ever so long with a comb to the palace in the heart of the beast
It sings for summer and faraway places of the corporeal magic in an elemental fashion show sip the martini glasses ***** and break and shatter like popcorn
In the kettle boil over the levee let it sink down into the visage of a man in the underground coat around the tails of the whipped dogs running like hell.

I’m a just right, out of sight, lily-white,
Never coy, ball of joy, good old boy,
So great it keeps me up at night,
Clever son of all the tricks I employ.
A world-beating, caucus leading,
Really big deal, big wheel big shot,
Clean outside, mean on the inside
Super savvy, super cool, super hot.

I’m the guy you want to toast
I’m the tops, I’m where it’s at
Some are good, but I’m the most.
I’m a sainted southern aristocrat.
It’s not good to get on my bad side.
I’m a fearless, remorseless go-getter.
I’m right, you’re wrong, if there’s a fight,
Yeah, you may be good, but I’m better.

I’m a cut above, you’ve just got to love
A gift from God sent from high above.
A card-carrying good guy to the letter,
A credit to my entire race, nobody better.
Whether in the news or word of mouth,
A quality beacon of the Sainted South.

I’m the guy you want to toast
I’m the tops, I’m where it’s at
Some are good, but I’m the most.
I’m a sainted southern aristocrat.
It’s not good to get on my bad side.
I’m a fearless, remorseless go-getter.
I’m right, you’re wrong, if there’s a fight,
Yeah, you may be good, but I’m better.

So, go away with your stupid picketing;
We knew how to run things way back when
We have God on our side, so just back off.
Old ways are the best way, again and again.
Your talk about equality and nigras rights
May sound good, but it’s all just libel.
We are the chosen children of our God
And you can find that in The Holy Bible.

I’m a cut above, you’ve just got to love
A gift from God sent from high above.
A card-carrying good guy to the letter,
A credit to my entire race, nobody better.
Whether in the papers or word of mouth,
I’m a quality representative of The South.

Some people say Im mad I just blame the L-RAD
Attacked by services syndicate post grad
Breaking the code of conduct that's sad
Criminal cause nullify's the collaborative ad
All privileged storm troopers got more than I have
Is the conscience alive while watching that sat-nav?
As a key worker your care is what we have
But straying for a kickback is a dent & bad
The mental health stigma is the foot soldiers weapon
Labelling us mentally ill with the DSM con
Exclaiming we're mental while the victim is alone
Stigma comes from the compound hear us groan
Hearing me everywhere have traits of a stalker
Attacking innocents with energy weapons lawbreaker
Violating human rights piggy back hijacker
The conspiracy hypothesis is the startler
Whats the biological molecular structure
Of a mental health disorder
A caucus of people of who can shout louder
Followed by misrepresentation from a reporter

i've noticed that, upon ushering words from the depth
of nothing, or as an interlude in Knausgaard's day-to-day
musing in vol. 6 after inviting Geir over:
this "i" or that "i" or for that matter "my" i...
however you want to frame it...
    i noticed that if i allow myself an evening of not writing...
esp. on an electric screen for someone else to see...
if for example i lay down to go to sleep...
not exactly asleep: dart out of bed and scribble something
on a piece of paper for only me to see...
i will still dream...
but if i sit down and face the electric screen:
pixels like the eyes of a fly... for someone else to see?
i don't dream...
   otherwise... having scribbled down the following
on a piece of paper:

   exploring Heidegger's dasein in another language...
my native, which i will translate into English,
basically prepositional coordination of(f) being
off not necessarily implying non-being -
perhaps merely: being-in-itself or rather the other...

tu-być : be-here
              to-bycie : this-being
ten-byt :                      ditto
although: nuance... there is a distinction...

i also scribbled down something i heard a long
time ago about how Russia, India and China are
re-orientating themselves with the slacking of the western
influence on: whatever it was that the west had
for the past three decades beside
proxy wars, collateral damages and "culture"...

i heard the term: post-ethnic-nationalism
post-ethno-state post-nation-state...
ergo: multiculturalism... which, oddly enough:
i can't come to grips with trying if not trying to
pretend to be a native of these isles -
perhaps it might be a shock for someone outside
of London - but in London it's almost
second nature to... be surrounded by people
from all around the world...
needless to say: the natives are not so disgruntled
once they're sitting all pretty-cherry on top
of some hierarchy: esp. in the journalistic
opinion sections of the Saturday / Sunday magazine...
then it's an open bonanza against
the "lower class racists" and what not...
i can't be an anti-racist: after all...
                                     anti-racists once produced
a schematic for us to learn from in primary school...
which shower the size of brains of...
a white person, a black person and a racist...
and some other brains...
the racist's brain was under-developed:
smaller...                                      ­ really?!

anyway... so Russia, India and China have opted for
what has come to be known as the:
civilization-state...
                                     given the ongoing zeitgeist
******* blowing up in the Anglophone world from
H'america... the culture-war(?!) -
i would bet fairly and say that pretty much all
former nation-states of western Europe
and beyond are currently in a state of morphing
into: buzz buzzword: being - culture-states...

but whereas a civilization-state seems an abrupt
optimal to counter and disagreement with regards
to continuity: civilisations don't merely come and go...
whereas cultures do...
   culture is somehow a totality of the little things
in life... fashion, the arts, politics, faux pas innuendos,
trends, diet...
that's culture and some...
but civilisation? to me that's like saying...
the foundation of Rome was the creation
of the aqueducts...
                  civilisation to me is like saying:
the British Empire and the steam-engine...
civilisation to me, London, exclusively is... the tube...
the underground network...

seriously... i don't need to go to a West End Play
i don't need to go and see Ed Sheeran play
to a sold out Wembley stadium of 100,000+ people
(although, i did, even though i did because
i worked a shift there doing security,
so, technically i didn't, but did)
            i don't need culture... as such...

all i need to do is first, do a shift at Craven Cottage...
hope that the Elizabeth Line won't be working
travel on the Central Line from Newbury Park all
the way to Holborn... and then blah blah...
instead of trying to look at the tired faces opposite
me admire the map of the Central Line
(it's a toss-up between the Central Line map,
or the District, Northern or Piccadilly)
and then, on some sunny day... get my bicycle
out... and bicycle for most of the route... notably...
skewing... merging at Fairlop working my way
through Barkingside, coming to Gants Hill
then less of the tube route (mind you...
between Leyton and Stratford it's pretty
much over-ground) -
   and then from Stratford - through to Mile End...
from Mile End via Whitechapel... to Aldgate...
from Aldgate to St. Paul's... Chancery Lane...
Holborn... rat beneath the ground:
like a rat needs a bicycle -
   well this rat is no hamster: hence the bicycle
and not a hamster-wheel...

what culture? movies?! i tried watching something
relevant to the 1980s today... ***** Dancing...
great soundtrack but... cringe!
that's even before Malcolm X and how inter-racial
inter-****** relations had to be the new norm:
i mean: ******* fair play...
    building the new Brazil -
    but i still think there's an under-representation
(and isn't everyone supposed to get a fair share
of representation) of white boy Romanian girl
(Roma, gypsy) or white boy Turkish girl...
   or white boy half-white half-Indian girl...

i know i will not dream tonight because someone
will see this...
my little itchy thoughts, my freed from the reins
"i" that doesn't really have these words clogging
up its mind - only until the itching of the fingers starts
and i have a blessed day...
like today...

why is it that a Saturday evening can feel like
a Sunday evening?
oh, right... i made steak for dinner tonight...
potato wedges (skins on, first boiled until
the the water started boiling, turned off, soaking
for 5 min, drained, olive oil, cajun pepper sprinkle,
into the oven)
    and some baked vegetables:
leeks, carrots, parsley root, red onions,
celeriac, swede... balsamic vinegar,
    sambal, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper,
sugar (i stopped using honey,
   it sticks to the baking tray plus the vegetables
lose their crunch, and vegetables need their crunch)...
2 steaks (456g total) shared between three people...
seasoned with sea salt and grain black pepper
(i prefer pepper grains than pepper powder,
i.e. pockets of explosion of that spice)
    3 min each side... a perfect medium-rare blush...

however the Indians might sell their spices...
chillies etc. there's still something wholesome
when it comes to eating certain types of food...
given that... i wouldn't be eating beef in India:
i wouldn't be seasoning beef with chillies!
that's why pepper is important...
that's why horseradish is important...
i let most of the Indians slip up: oooh! the Europeans
didn't have any spices...
apart from thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender,
mint... pepper, horseradish, i#m sure we
were also familiar with cumin seeds -
as well as that anise-seed that' not the star
(i forgot the name of it, it looks like
a cumin seed, but fatter, and split down
the middle - green) oh and of course:
plenty of salt...
what's all the spices in the world in the culinary world...
IF, YOU, AIN'T, GOT - SALT?!
   (if you don't have... i know i know...)

it's rather bewildering talking to certain Asians...
although, saying that...
most of Eastern Europe had plenty of interaction
with Asians, namely the Mongols
and the Turks - which the western Europeans
sort of... "forgot"... after Darwinism they
skipped over Asia and went straight back
to Africa... personally? i feel more akin to Asians
(esp. the oriental folk) than i do with anyone
from Africa... however Christianity was born...
after all: what's the definition of a white man?
Caucasian? and where's the Caucus?
Asia... Europe was always going to be
a funnel - a bottle-neck continent -
a port... a departing point...
       perhaps we shouldn't be so clingy to it...
unless of course:
   oh the parody of Jesus never came out of
Europe: "we" had to wait for it coming from
North America, but by then it was no longer
a parody of Jesus but a parody of North American
Christianity... a North American parody of Jesus
is... oddly enough... a European parody
of North American Christianity: via Jesus...

which brings me to another thing... only upon
doing a shift at Craven Cottage did i first hear
the parakeets... never before...
     i'm not going to bloat my ego this much but...
since then i've seen an article on Wikipedia that
i never saw before, the article just appeared out of
nowhere: feral parakeets of England...
subsequently... only a day ago:
you're only here for the parrots, fans chant
as birds swarm Leyton Orient pitch (Evening Standard
4 hours ago)
and bare conker trees overrun by bright green
parakeets make them seem vibrant despite leafless
branches (Daily Mail, 3 days ago, somewhere
in south London)...

today i was given the chance to walk back into my old
haunt... as much as i love cycling...
it's sometimes refreshing to walk...
the slowing of pace, the horizon almost intact...
more so... if walking into a forest...
Bower Wood... i know it is a curated wood...
it's not as feral as the pine woods of Eastern Europe...
but: if life gives you X... you make XY...
x = lemons, y = juice ergo xy = lemon juice...

i'm pretty sure i was familiar with this wood...
i was out hunting for souvenirs for my mother to dress
the table / fake deer antennas for candles to sit in...
holy, some other greenery with black berries...
i was hunting for ferns, almost near impossible
given this time of year... found some! bright blush
of childish envy... oh... and birches...
some oak barks fallen off... just me alone in the forest...
i was so thankful by myself...
but usually i heard crows, magpies and woodland
pigeons... but now?! parakeets?!
here?! now?! parrots in winter in these parts?!

i swear the world is standing-up-side-down...
it's hard not to miss an under-current of a serious
pagan revival weaving and slithering its way through
Europe: if only you care to listen...
i switched off from whatever is available in culture
these days... i know that what i'm listening to
will not gain popular traction...
i can walk into the forest and... there's the forest...
i go back home... cook dinner...
go into my bedroom, open a bottle of cider
thinking: no champagne will beat this...
put on a record akin to...
Heilung's TENET and... hey presto!

                       i was in company of a good friend:
someone already dead who...
i don't know how someone can lose themselves
in the forest... pareidolia...
   you can sometimes see paths already trodden...
unseen but somehow: you can see a "ghost"
of a foot here and there...
    you know: you just KNOW where a human foot
prior to yours once treaded...
there are patterns... better sticking with pareidolia than
the iconoclasm of celebrity...
i always thought that was better...
i like to think i'm in the company of strange
creatures: phantoms of my mind...
but hardly! how can these be phantoms of my mind?!
i didn't spontaneously conjure a face in a tree
when the ******* tree is older than me!
the tree was here before me!
what?! some sin?! some psychological sin
of non-conformity?! i don't adhere to star-gazing
in the filth of commodities and entertainment?!

i know why this feels like a Sunday evening even
though it's a Saturday night...
i was planning on going to the brothel tonight...
but... oh hey mother, hello father...
i'm going out... where? you don't have any friends...
blah blah... yeah... well... i'm kind of happy
because of that: no social-constraints of expectations...
as the conversation usually ran with the last
remaining friend i had from high-school...
- so, what have you been up to?
- nothing...
     and he knew that i was scribbling like mad...
what's there to talk about when it comes to writing?!
last time i heard: you read what is written...
you don't talk about it...
hopefully the reading of something written goes
back into thinking and is not spoken of:
since the conventionality of everyday
formality of social-speech crushes anything delicate
that is born from i-ought-not-but-regardless-i-must!
it's a compulsion!

i went to the shop about 3 hours ago to buy an extra
bottle of cider because i knew: having read a little more than
usual i had to keep the Libra of conscience in place,
"conscience": never write more than you read...
and never read less than you write - so so...
          wow... FORK in the "ROAD"...
                        this is me replaying the opening of the song
TENET - the sound of the horn...
well... i didn't have a horn in the forest...
but i had my pagan statue... a dead white tree...
i left this little stick next to it... i used to walk this wood
more times than i can remember...
sometimes i walked into it bare-chested...
blind from the darkness, but somehow illuminated
by the moon... sat on a stump of wood...
silence... then a breaking of a branch...
not the sort of breaking of a branch still attached
to a tree... something stepped on it...
i wasn't alone... i froze but then ushered in my voice
to compliment a shared bewildered amazement:
that is not a foot of a man stepping on a branch...

in the same wood i saw my first GARMR...
would i really have to go with the flow
of a Christopher J. MacCandless?!
                                       if hell is going to send its hounds
out to meet me, it doesn't matter where that might
be... i don't need to visit the northern most parts
of Norway to find what i'm seeking...
and what i'm seeking i found: since i'm dragging what
needed to be found around...
it's not surprising that at Bower Wood i was
alleviating a traffic problem when
two does and about 5 fawns were causing havoc...
"havoc" in the night implies 3 cars pulling over...
me coming down from the hill running up to
the village of Havering-atte-Bower spotting one...
not caring if there was a stag nearby running
with the fawn which subsequently ensured
the two does and the rest of the fawns
started to gallop and disappeared into the Wood...

i wish i could make this stuff up...
but then again: i'm not jealous of people
who have seen the Galapagos Islands or the Maldives
or... ah... just recently...
i took that rat-above-rat-below trip on my bicycle
into central London... i said to myself:
circle round St. Paul's cathedral... nope...
not good enough... around the Old Bailey then...
o.k. - and i "prayed": please! not another flat tire!
hey presto! on my way back... a flat tire at Aldgate!
great! well... i walked this distance before...
i can walk it again... walking back...
passed the East London Mosque and then...
Allahu Akbar! a bicycle repair shop!

walked up - leaned the bicycle against the wall,
the Chinese guy said: just 10 minutes
(while he was fixing this Deliveroo rider's
electric bicycle) - no problem -
i took some times to each some gelatin sweets
and drink some water, looking at people,
i felt like i was in some exclusive club,
only cyclists allowed - it felt like a very urban
sensation that most punks must have felt,
or goths, standing out...
i paid too much compliments to those guys
in Cycle King bicycle shop in Chadwell Heath...
i knew the front tire was worn down,
but i thought: get the professional's opinion...
they would be more than willing to change
the inner-tube for the Nth time before telling me:
oh... you need to change the actual tyre...
how many times did i change the inner tube?
**** knows! milking it... ******* were milking it!
but this Chinese guy said outright plainly...
it's ****... i'll change it for you...
inner tube, tyre and labour... £55...
done!
               he changed it to a tyre that...
well... let's face it... 2nd gear front
and 4th, 5th 6th and 7th gears in the back...
i was whizzing past home... he said:
less width... more grip... for the grit...
   but at least he was ******* honest...
that's what i mean about a European's relationship
with the Asians... i'm honest, they're honest...
they're not some SCAM MERCHANT KNIGS
of NIGERIA: CNUT-MBAPPE typos...

oh... and it's not like anyone didn't notice
that Indian girls think they're the bomb?!
oh yeah... oh no, not the Muslim girls... those girls
are whipped into always staring down...
like white girls are whipped into peering into
their smart-phone screens and envisioning:
anything outside of inter-racial relationships is:
pederasty (loose term)... whatever it might me...
bulimic antics: not done properly, mind you...
not in the Roman style of training the oesophagus
to just spew on a whim: i.e. i ate too much...
apologies... i need to... ugh! ugh! ugh!
                      get ready the trampoline!
we're going to launch half-digested fish-heads!

now i'm happy... my Trek Merlin 5 is compatible...
fun... looking at that *** trying to chase me down
working my way down toward the Old Bailey...
Asian ceramic raven haired
no helmet... and never, never... ride a bicycle
in an urban environment minding
the sticker on the inside of a large vehicle:
BLIND SPOT... well... d'uh... so use the large
vehicle like a battering ram against all the gnats
of smaller vehicles... ride on the outside of the large
vehicle... always on the outside...
what are you, cyclist... a Hebrew forced by
the **** brown-shirts to walk in the gutter rather
than on the pavement?! what am i?
just because i'm a cyclist i'm no less a hazard
to a motorcyclist?! momentum, self-generated!
i like my legs... let me know when you're dealing
wheelies and whizzes on a ******* wheelchair...
until i have my legs... i'll be skimming through
traffic... Norman Davis might have called
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth God's Playground...
i think i'll call London my playground...
there's plenty to play with around here...

                 but for once i listened to my ego...
for some reason i didn't require a depth of the
Freudian secular trinity of the addition of superego
and id... i was just about to think about going to the brothel
but then my ego said: you're not feeling it...
and i wasn't... i still had to clean the kitchen up,
take the garbage out... i was oiling myself up...
"oiling": checking if i still had a 30 year old's hard-on
i stopped using the fake diet of ******* of
actors: disposable, unattainable...
i switched to: ROMANIAN AMATEUR ****...
well... it's what i'm going to get...
but i checked my hard-on too many times today...
checked, i.e. checked without climaxing...
checked about 4 times... the 5th time i checked
i was thinking about going to the brothel...
but then my ego (not my ego) checked me...
you're not going anywhere:

THE FICKLE MIND AND THE FIRM TRUTH
OF THE BODY...
the mind lies more times than the body cares to admit...
until, of course... the reality of body steps in
and the mind has to retreat... just as happened with
my excess drinking... i went to buy that extra bottle
of cider and waiting in the queue while a mother
with three daughters "****'s sake" the mother retorted
while the girls were undecided what else
to add to the basked i looked at the shelves
with all the spirits... no! no! no more whiskey!
no more *****! no more!
i checked my supposed "impotence" too many times
today... "impotence": more like being
insulted by the madam: beached-whale...
she just flicked it when it went limp because
i found her physically abhorrent...
flicked it... like it was a worm...
like she was 6 years old and i was 5 years old
and she was still playing with Barbie dolls
and unlike she was...
because she knew what a key was and what a keyhole
was... but she had no idea what
physical attraction was...

                        reciprocated...

well ****... it's working... guess it's not working with you...
a bit like the horse that Christopher Reeve rode
when it dropped him and recalculated Superman:
without a spine...
plus i had no excuse to leave the house...
i had plenty of excuses to read some more of Knausgaard
and write this...
tomorrow i'll have the excuse of "working late"...
going to a brothel is not like saying:
oh yeah... i'm going on a date with a girl
we're going to the cinema blah blah...
       no... dearest ******* Madam...
she's the one that chased away both Mona and Khadra...
what the **** happened?!

what am i? a Duracell bunny?! there's an ON and OFF
switch with regards to my phallus?!
if that's the case... what's the dynamic of ****?!
is ****... no... it can't be... **** is a man *******
a turned-off woman? i once had an experience
of a woman who... let's put it mildly:
her **** was as dry as the adequate metaphor
of sensation one might regret to feel from rubbing one's
hands on sandpaper!
hands... finger tips... rough skin...
ergo the ability to play guitar or rock climb...
we're talking tender skin...
so... technically: hardly a pleasure for a ****** to feel
pleasure from an unaroused ****!
ergo?! that was an aroused **** and it's all psychological:
not physical... the shame of giving it so freely
and unwillingly... whereas playing games with
those one might want to give it up to...
i can hardly **** with a LIMPY -
   but i certainly wouldn't want to **** a timber-mill worth
of toothpicks, match-sticks and left-overs...
**** is psychological it would seem...
                the shame of it... all those labyrinths of playing
games suddenly disappearing from the case of
"spontaneity"...
   you should ask her: South African... Sancha...
worked in a private school... teaching boys Mathematics...
maybe she was a *******... by now who knows?!
i do know that i wasn't terrible aroused by her
the first time we tried...
i got a limp... like i got a limp with Ilona:
a forewarning... but she was adamant and whispered
into my ear: you will not deny me...
second time i was in her teacher accommodation
i brought a copy of the Machinist with me on DVD...
she must have spiked my drink because then the horror
of cocoon *** ensued and that's when
she climbed on top of me and gave me the sawdust
sandpaper **** treatment in the dark...

it kind of follows through to the casual mode of
argumentation people have concerning the schizoid condition:
it's all in your mind...
right... so the schizoid condition is simply: so...
your i-think detaches itself from thought
and forms a i-hallucinate complex as if: spring follows winters?
well then... it's all in your mind...
**** is probably in most of women's minds...
it doesn't actually exist in reality:
in the physiology... **** is a mental construct...
it must be... since i don't recall any ******
talking about: oh ****... i had to pull out...
her **** turned into a mantis or the mouth
of a worm from the planet Dune... i just couldn't
continue!

the next day she drove me to the station and i never saw
her again...
ergo? i have a strange relationship with a limp ****...
it's not impotence: per se,
it's more a judge of character concerning a ******
partner: however brief, however informal...
it's like a wild animal freezing still...
     deer in the headlights...
                                      i should have known better
with Ilona... but she pressured to the point where it
finally started "working": i wish "he" didn't...
it would have saved me so much pointless drama...
if i were a man with a child i would tell him just as much:
it's not working for a reason...
that ***** is a mantis... you're not a robot...
this isn't a *****... you're not an extension of a *****...
it's not working for a reason...
go and check... watch the most realistic "*******":
switch to amateur stuff...
                                that's all you're going to get...
and can you, get it up? well then...
it's not you...
                                     once all the glamour is gone
and you're left with a butcher's cut of antics...
                              well... if you're aroused by that sort of stuff
in private... why can't the partner reciprocate?
maybe that's just me finalising some logistics for
tomorrow...
shift at the Ice Rink tomorrow...
me... two girls...
   one butch lesbian... she keeps rubbing off on my arms
every time the home side scores
and she's celebrating...
      one rub by chance i can understand... two rubs
and i'm thinking: this isn't homosexual conversion therapy,
is it?
the other? got me the job to begin with...
started taking dieting pills because she feels depressed
because she thinks she's fat and this is what
working with women looks like if you're not
in the business of being a plumber: in the realm of
customer service...
    
                 that's how this new girl i fancied at work
got fired... about 4 other girls ganged up on her
and she was literally bullied out of work because...
            
it's coming up to 1am... i need to get up early tomorrow...
do a cycling shift...
trim my mustache, my beard, my ***** region, my arm-pits...
finish one more bottle of cider for good luck:
or no luck...
           listen to some more pagan music...
think about Bower Wood and how i wish that if i weren't
working tomorrow
i'd buy myself a bottle of whiskey and walk
into it, right now... to howl and wake up the crows.

p.s. oh, right, that dream i had last night when
i didn't scribble any words for anyone else to see?
two night ago i was swimming with
pseudo-jelly fish on the edge of the universe
transmitting vibrations of light...
last night i was watching while some colts
were gleefully celebrating their ability to drink
shots of absinthe... until i walked up to the bar
and showed them how to drink absinthe
properly...
i took out a spoon, dipped the spoon in some
sugar... poured some absinthe onto the spoon...
lit the spoon and the sugar alight...
watched the caramel form...
then poured some water into the glass
to clue them in into the secret of drinking absinthe:
you don't drink absinthe like *****...
you need for the green-milk of wormwood
to emerge!
    sie müssen für die grünmilsch von wermut
zu auftauchen!

Psychiatry sat America on the couch
And said Tell me about yourself.
America was referred to by the World Caucus
Who had to stage an intervention
Because they feared for America
America was getting out of control.
Staying out late at night in other countries.
Getting drunk on oil.
People warned, All this oil you like will lead to fire
And burn your chest.
Being told to leave and refusing to do so,
Saying This isn’t colonialism.
This is nation-building
Finally getting kicked out and told never to come back.
Throwing Democratic and Republican Parties alike into a mess.
The world caucus was worried
So they referred them to psychiatry.

America tried to explain itself.
Tried to justify
Saying, I stand for freedom
Psychiatry replied, Maybe it is better to sit down.
America continued
I said in my birth certificate that all men are created equal.
Psychiatry answered
Frowning,
Yes but not blacks
Or women,
Or Native Americans
Or even white men without land.
So that all men, was really all men who fit a certain profile.
What men did you actually mean?
America stammered.
But we changed!
Psychiatry scolded
You needed to have the most awful fight
That nearly destroyed yourself
Killed many of your relatives.
Before you could see those of a darker skin as equal
And even today it is so bad it is called America’s original sin.
But that is neither here nor there.
Continue.

America then waved its hands
Started rocking back and forth
And intoned.
I fought in the War to End all Wars.
Then after that in the most modern war
Then in the Cold War
Then the War on Terrorism
And I never received a piece of land from any of them.
Psychiatry replied in a stern tone- You were not supposed to.
You can’t congratulate yourself on an action you should not have done anyway.
The world applauds your sacrifice.
Now what you are doing is not so much sacrifice
But compulsive behavior.
Because you have been at war so long
You forgot how to make peace.
Be honest, you are not at peace with yourself
Because you cannot fight everyone you have a disagreement with.
And saying this is nation-building
Was the same as calling the Trail of Tears relocation.
Slave-owners Mistaken Founding Fathers
The Civil War The War between the States
And religious discrimination- the rightful exercise of war power.
Don’t you see that the relabeling you have done to yourself
You have exported to the world.
But the world will not put up with it.
So what are you going to do.
America said, I might need a follow-up session.
Psychiatry said, Good.
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