Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way...

exploring the last remains of thought -
well then... suit and boot me up for some "thinking"
as i extend it into writing...

if i were of the native stock... "elsewhere":
most probably h'america or australia... even in italy
having tea with mussolini i'd be:
an expat... as an outsider among outsiders
but among my sameness-namesakes of surnames
akin to jones and smith:

i will never be an "immigrant" among...
it's not even a voice of cocern, this little voice of
mine...
an englishman who decides to move
to h'america is an expatriate for the native
englishman who stayed behind...
he's never an immigrant...

perhaps other nations view the people that left
them in such a positive light?
where else to emigrate to that doesn't
speak basic english with a tinge of
a "welcoming" plethora of accents?

proudly having expatriated...
or having to have had to humbly emigrated...
bark bite and tail in tow...
my the luck of being an expatriate...
readily prepared with a francophile basis...
e.g., or some other: less frost-bitten
idealism as the work ethic of:
work work work...

we know the english immigrants
as expatriates... but i doubt that people
from where i from would call me...
an expatriate... they'd call me...
eh... hangman noose... a deserter...
god forbid the fact that i somehow managed
to integrate... but then found myself wondering...

have, have integrated into... "what"?!
today i was truly astounded...
after all... Romford, Essex... England...
can boast about a few things...
notably? it's the past place you can buy vinyl
without amazon.co.uk...
you can actually play the buyer and the person
that loiters with his shadow...
flicking through a dictionary of sorts...
finding a record...

i actually left the house for ulterior motives...
but i succumbed to the allure...
and as i walked the January 2nd 2020 highstreet
in Romford...
i heard english... as a spoken language...
twice in the pedestrian commute...
and of course when it came to a lingua franca
scenario of buying or selling something...
otherwise:

perhaps i retained my primitive instincts
and the tongue and should have left it with a ghost
of me back in the clarifying vicinity of
an airport 50 miles from Warsaw...
i have bigger things to worry about though:
how i should start learning Romanian...
even though: i thought bilingualism was a good
idea?
it's not?

not among the natives could i ever be
an expatriate...
an ever: never... like any more thesaurus
sharpening would do the trick to balance
the optics of "perspective"...

if it wasn't a mistake...
it has still been a purchase:
freddie hubbard on the trumpet,
jackie mclean on the alto sax,
kenny drew on piano,
doug watkins on bass
and pete la roca on drums...

the only reason as to why i bought
a gramaphone was to buy the only cheap vinyl
there is... jazz...
to escape the earphones...
to find the complete volume of space
that would later be deemed:
confined to a room... cell... or some alternative
variation: but... oh jeez...
how wrong it was of me...

make a note: alto sax jazz is not for you...
remember: alto sax jazz is not for you...

a sensation of being a foreigner in
an already double-dutch foreign sense of land...
anything that drops from clinching
to the London transport system
with the trains and the tubes and buses
is: england...
the england of my youth where i remained
like that... dunce in the ****** tunes cartoons
interlude...

and what of my citizenship on paper?
wave a passport around
like a benchmark or an otherwise easy
accent-identifier?
perhaps i don't even know:
Bristolian - my best guess with this acquired
tongue...

but at least buying jazz is getting easier...
freddie hubbard a known name...
but... no... alto sax jazz is not for me...
now it figures...
i can get away on a whim when
a trumpet solos... but not when an alto sax
solos... i really can't stomach it...
will i give this Bluesnik record back?
no, i need a testament -
i have bought something
but the self-reflection is free...

there's only so much classical music escapism
you can try -
before long you realise that the people
listening to classical music...
mostly... when they make requests...
want "something soothing"...
want "something jovial"...
or usually it's a piece of music that has
been attached to a movie...
classical music - apparently doesn't feed
people a subtle stream of images...
and it's obvious: those requests are not phoned
in on by blind people...

imagine... the ****** of F... when you have ⠋
to work with...
what is an sunrise... a sunset but a dash
of colour... a spring of the heavens
an autumn of the heavens...
but my my... in this inverted listening of jazz...
⠙⠑⠑⠏
⠃⠇⠥ ⠑    DEEP BLUE...

if i were blind: and came to the pearly gates...
i'd ask for letters: primo pronto!
later i'd worry about colours and shapes...
as i'd probably stick to my first passion
and hearing this fathomless shapeless
sounds that... abide to no lineage with a recant
of a triangle's use of 90°...

otherwise... what if you've been fed
the: classical music when listened to when a child
will increase your i.q. -
but what are the chances that you will:
"regress" from listening to classical
music and take to jazz?
perhaps because jazz has to be felt,
it has to be heard, first,
rather than... the silence and scribbles
of a composer at his desk -
where a classical music composition
is very much like writing:
that whole a prior shabang!
none of the a posteriori zigzagging
of impromptu and jazz?

one thing is certain... i'm not going to
be a fan of alto sax jazz...
sonny clark on piano - yes...
art blakey on drums - yes...
kenny burrell on guitar - yes...
alto sax no... ah... but give me tenor sax
and... no please no big bang jazz
equivalent to thelonious monk...
at least jazz gives you pedestrian tastes
and whims...
nothing akin to bowing at the altar
of a Beethoven: or talking lightly of
the man - "the man"...

and who the hell said that being
objectivity "works all the time"
that objectivity "runs the marathon"...
alto sax jazz is pedestrian music...
don't get me wrong...
you want to walk down a busy street
and you want to drown the sounds
of progress: no horses sneezing,
no horses' hooves playing tic-tac-toe
chess on cobweb stones...
alto sax jazz is your take-out
walk-through...
but when you're hunched in a chair
and pecking at a keyboard with
ten good beaks of the tips of your fingers...

again: how do the hands rest before
the keyboard?
the right hand:
index middle, pinky and thumb...
the ring finger is used for the: delete button...
a revision - the pinky does the enter -
and the cascade follows...
the left hand?

primarily the index and *******...
the thumb is always attached to space...
shared with the right hand's *******
to space,
i can't remember if i ever used my ring
or pinky finger of my left arm...

so much for inverted chiromancy...
the polacks will never give me the wings
to be an expatriate...
i will be forever: he who abandoned
that land running with milk and honey...
but... look at how they stand behind those
from england that decided to go "elsewhere"...
they are not immigrants...
they are... expatriates...
have nothing filthy them it comes to
the connotation...
it's not sad it's not funny it's: somewhere
"in between"...

because we know that the only russians
that ever make it out of russia
are the oligarchs... and by that standard
of "sentiment": they're always welcome...
who wouldn't welcome the pharaohs without
giza pyramid ambitions of construction?!
passing chalk as cheese -
and passing... ink for blood...
perhaps i haven't sweated enough to be allowed
to write but as little as this...

there's always this sense of alienation
among the germanic tribes of "israel":
europe... even if they are the scots or the welsh
suckling at the teats of romulus & remus' lupa...
as the old saying goes among the slavic people
when "integrating" into a germanic-esque society -
by the time you have integrated...
there's this dog-**** pile of Babylon left...
and the germans are: "nowhere"!

the saying goes via:
if you go among the crows...
you must croak their croak...

here's to flying high as an imitation seagull!
brazen: into this arable land...
that's being teased by the Thames estuary...

passing through a Warsaw train station
i noticed the immigrants / the expatriates
on the eastern front...
mostly mongols...
notably the ukrainians...
but now in england i'm starting to think
in concrete terms... better start learning
Romanians...
and on the street: you can't see a focus of
who's here and who isn't here...
back east the Roma people stood out
like a sore thumb or a voodoo plum and...
that didn't bother the locals since they were
meshed like glue...
but, here, in england?
everyone's a sore thumb a voodoo plum...
because the natives,
the blessed idiosyncratic professional
eccentrics have left and...
i'm not going to be the first chasing them down...

London the only and last bastion is
overrun with the whole lot of us...
well: the "us" vs. "them" mentality...
don't get me wrong... i'll still listen to the concerns
of the peripheries... in this cest pool
of immigrants, degenerates...
old people who "forgot" to move...
the lunatics the in-betweeners and the old guard
clinging on...
perhaps, after all... english was a very
accomodating language...
it wouldn't take a genius to learn it from scratch
being thrown into the deep end of the pool
aged 8...
who was mute aged 8 going to school
being moved from "east" europe to this island
with... no prior to linguistic connection?
moi...

and now look at me... i'm teasing myself
with... sordid welsh as if i were ever the posterboy
for welsh nationalism...
scottish nationalism? eh... if they were to retain
their gaellic roots...

expansion:
the longing for those who have left:
in the anglo-sphere - expatriate...
the abhoring sense of those who arrive -
immigrant...
otherwise... the english are always
and everywhere: welcome...
hence the expatriate status of those
who have left their native land...
even in h'america: a shared language:
to be an immigrant... while speaking
the same language?! how preposterous!

the difference between eastern style
comedy presentation and western style
comedy presentation: on stage...

the eastern folk prefer cabaret: theatre dialogue
montages...
the western folk prefer stand-up:
monologue samuel beckett esque
performances...
'woe i... stand alone in this infinite
space and... find others to laugh with...'

- perhaps we're not being less funny because
we're lowering our "i.q.": yes, the we are...
we are... lowering...
i find lee evans to be funny...
a laurel and hardy weren't exactly funny
by modern comedy standards that:
it's only funny if it's intelligent...
if there's a crossword puzzle at the end of "it"...

perhaps pride is the shackle...
and ham... what ever happened to self-depreciating
humor that managed to somehow
elevate you as also having a sense
of humor:
do intelligent men even laugh
at something that isn't a word-play or
a corset of wit?
perhaps we're experiencing a drying of wip...
perhaps the jokes are only supposed
to come: days after as a form of
reflection on the sigma canvas:
the joke has to exist outside the performer
and the stage... it needs to be: a live-experience...
it has to take on DASEIN qualities?
it has to be internalised?

that: oh yeah... that's funny...
perhaps the same thing has to be observed
and it can't be retold in an impromptu
fashion shackled to a stage?
the stage is the new camp-fire?
i thought so too... about the television...

as: here's to slagging off everything that's
being published online bypassing
the editorial process of selection...
well... if it weren't for all the seriousness
surrounding internet banking...
and internet shopping...
pen to paper...
******* clinching a ripped roll
of cushioning paper
and a pseudo-***** imitation
for a wipe while massaging my prostate
over the enlightened prospect
of dropping the blitzkrieg plump-dump-plum
into an echoing lake in the ceramic basin...
otherwise...

a seanse with that moment of realisation:
"something is happening to us
collectively"... it's as if: we're under a spell...
oh i was under a spell today...
watching alec guinness in the fall of the roman
empire...
and as coming from a people
that were never conquered by rome?
on this fine fine island that was...
well... my hopes were also high for
the conquests of the mongol empire...
and the remains of it in the form of the tatars
in crimea...

here are my tattoos... it's hard to break from them,
it's hard to wash them away...
but at least i can attest:
my brain might be all fat and sponge and
electricity... but there's some skull and skin
to be had of it...
otherwise... why would the year 1066
be important for me... why would the magna carta
be important for me?
i too have my years in tattoos on this big brian
of mine...

otherwise there's that copernico-darwinian
surge of: journalistic science...
i still find it staggering that darwinism continues
to capture the imagination of people...
"of people"... only in Wittgenstein was left
alone in finding that Copernicus did something
astounding... this surge of "awakening"
via darwinism: this statistical bombardment
like it was some tabloid journalism:
throwing a pebble at a mountain while
also ushering in a mantra: grow by
a poppy's seed added height! grow!

perhaps i'm just jealous...
among the polacks i will never be an expatriate...
what a jealous people...
an englishman who moves to france...
comes 20 year later...
he will have never experienced
the mark of cain: immigration "humphrey bogart"...
he or she moved to france...
perhaps to italy...
i remember being in greece and...
i was nothing when i said i was ******:
but with british citizenship! to add...
so what?
well... so what greece...
i latched onto some north africans
and went to **** away the night
in some strip-bar where i had
two strippers either head o' mine...
and it was constellations galore...
grandmother Etna said:
rest here, among the smooches poor child...

i borrowed Etna from when Aeneas
"left off"...
****'s sake... this is the Meditarrean
and not the Baltic? where is the amber
the whiskey and the leverage of gratations
of time?!

i will agree. Macedonia come night traffic
of quicksilver tinging?
if the metal is cheap and you douse it in some gold?
a mountain dripping fresh from some quicksilver
from the moon peering at it?
objectivity what?

the finite plateau of snow-riddled Serbia...
and perhaps that's because these people
speak their own language...
and have so... and i'm just the next
"english" tourist...
a jack kerouac americanism and:
oh sure! sure!
spectacular fly-over country tourism!
everything's so so different!
and yet all so oh so much the same!

darwinism was going to run the 5000 meter
race... it's currently running the 10000 meter
race... god help it in running the marathon
of still pretending: old news is new news...
i can't distinguish between darwinism
and copernican discovery...
only in the english-speaking world
would this discovery not escape a criticism
from ancient greece and some, some predecesor!

wouldn't anyone just bore of darwinism
if they were told: over and over again:
the copernican "reality"?
a scientific fact is... akin to a religious dogma...
until... it becomes regurgitated with
enough time, with enough journalism and...
tabloid wind... and after a while...
it's only worthwhile to be spoken to
amnesia peoples of the world: unite!
it's hardly "stupid" or "intelligent"...
more or less overlooked...
because a pebble thrown at a mountain:
is... no added mountain to behold...
conventional wisdom is the only wisdom
that there ever was made to be made:
available...

nonetheless, the circumstance stands...
unless from the slavic hemisphere
of europe...
unlike any other circumstance: other than
the one given, among islanders...
among continent builders akin
to australia and h'america...
the post-racial societies of post-colonial
spain in south america?
ever wonder why the brazillians don't
look for inspiration from the portugese
when it comes to football?
you'd think: those yanks better have
the best football team in the world...
they haven't exactly looked back...
back at "us": oh god... tea afternoon and cricket...
baseball wha'?
basketball? "football"?
why are "we" looking forward and "they're"
looking back?
perhaps i should learn some spanish and
get some insinuation about:
the argentinian sense of lack when looking
back into spain...

or what else is there to be had?
move to Greenland... admire Denmark...
**** it: do the whole stretch and find
some locals on the Faroe Islands...
perhaps i too will find a tomorrow...
but tomorrow i will find: sobering up
and having to deal with: everything beside jazz...

mmm... "delayed gratification" prospects...
seven kings: canon palmer catholic school...
when boys are educated alongside girls...
what if i went to Ilford County High?
what if i were born to immigrant parents
and wasn't an 8 year old immigrant?
what if i went to the Ilford Ursulines?
the all-girls school... the former, Ilford County High?
what chances of me being an intellectual
******?

what, oh the chances!
perhaps praying: segregated... is a tad extreme?
but perhaps ******-exclusion policies:
teaching boys throughout their puberty
as segregated from girls in the same hormonal
development "range" is...
well! how else! you take a boy and girl
and you put them into the hormonal cocktail!
just because it's in a shared educational
environment... why these teenage pregnacies
you ask?
i wouldn't ask such blunt questions...
not since the genius of Copernicus
couldn't attract these...
psychological left-over intelligenstia clingers...
that darwinism has allowed...
what it darwinism and journalism?
everything! the ant as the ego
inside the mind of an ape...
the dormant tapeworm embryo
inside the mind of an ant:
with siesmic consequence of a disturbance
of the collective hive network...

borrow too much from an ape...
borrowing from an ape is one thing...
it's the borrowing from all other
animals: with the ape as the backdrop
that's truly bothersome!
at least religious spew the same facts
over and over again...
scientific dogma? who keeps track?
tomorrow might be the next:
butter vs. margarine controversy!
what sort of "religion" is science
(it's not a religion... if it's not...
why does it have to cohabit a bed
with journalism then, to spew "new",
"improved" facts, then?!)
when... it's so ******* finicky!

look via the ape long enough:
it won't matter whether it's a geocentric
of a heliocentric system that
reigns above your head, no torso,
a pickled spine...
legs and arms floating about like:
an octopus experiencing spasms
pickled in brine...

perhaps these are the zenith years of
darwinistic popularity...
perhaps like the copernican popularity...
there will come a time of:
fatalism... that somehow all of this
is... inevitable...

i see one answer: this cage of grammar
this cage of whatever this god made human
pressures me into complying to...
to the last typo! i will stand against it!
without caging me into a use of emoji or
some other hieroglyphic purse of:
shortened "thinking"...

the "seven silences" might have passed
around my presence that i dare not
call it: in concrete - figure...
and still my eigth silence to unmask
nothing more than a mask...

who are these immigrants, these tight brewed
broods, these furrow brows
representing the native pensive "squint":
of anything beside the eyes and a thought
of h. p. lovecraft?
perhaps inside of europe:
but as ever... without a russian passport...
without a russophobia that's
a tickling hard-on... the "in-between-land"...
perhaps the balkans...
who are we... to these germans and quasi-germans?

we use their tongue, their zunge...
their everything they will otherwise allow themselves
to deny: perhaps this is not Dublin,
this is not Glasgow this is not Cardiff...
perhaps this is not Italy,
this is not France...
perhaps this is "europe" as long as
Scandinavia is involved...

woe a we unto us: the viking Rus...
or some lent word of lost vogue...
last time i heard:
these northern ******* are in no favour
of treating the Spaniards or the Greeks
as their equals...
as long as they have rich arab pimps
race their lamborghini brute ******
down... knightsbridge...

then! and only then! iz ist europa "reconquista"!
"reconquista"... i'll defend these poor polacks
that didn't think it...
"necessary" to only learn english in order
to comply to the global dictum of neu-communist
internationalism...
- what, they didn't teach you you stupid
**** that it only took to learn from english?!
- last time i heard... not teachings polish
to a canape of anything beside the french,
the spanish... also worked!

english as a language is oh so accomodating...
the people will react like antibiotics,
naturally... enough of darwinism and you'll
be found, bound, to having to reference it...
past a de facto menu:
and more like a subjectivity...
there's only so much truth that can be stated...
before fiction has to reply...
because... how many regurgitated facts
can be regurgitated...
before the desert of fiction and...
there's only the fact of a bottle of water...
that remains...
and there's not impetus to walk toward
an oasis...
a fata morgana is hardly a scientific experience...
when experienced...
it's something associated with
a desert and within the desert must either:
live... or die...

what if etymology was to become the new
standard for journalism...
what if one were to escape this contant
bombardment of darwinism...
like it wasn't the next new vogue akin
to the copernican "revolution"?

is that even possible?
whenever i return to Poland...
esp. in Warsaw... i'm a deserter...
i'm not an expatriate...
the native english call those who left
with a sense of longing...
somehow: or at least that's the leftover...
the expatriates from the inside-out
perspective... never the immigrants...

i'm an immigrant and...
a paper citizenship is: no citizenship at all...
a passport is only worth a passport
at a border crossing...
in between the everyday daily affairs?
'where are you from?'
****... 'Bristol?!'...
i'm hardly going to speak
the cockney cockers or an essex schlang...
am i? ***!
all but ******* plumbers and church pulpit
mongers... and some over-ripe
riddle fruits: if not simply left
bottles of wine for the bears...

the first part though, bothers me...

someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way... in mere thinking...
and a dog barking...

the natives will only have a freedom of speech...
what if an immigrant becomes a citizen?
just asking...
what if an immigrant is granted a citizen
status?
well then... i am your humble example
of a civic nationalist...
such a confusing term...
it must be: for the natives...

oh ****... what language am i using?
the language of the... natives!
rubric civitas!
civic nationalism is reserved for:
those that came from abroad...
i guess the ethno-nationalists never made
this distinction clear:
watching their contemporaries leave their
native pit of woe...
and they would never call them:
deserters... only... only... expatriates...
after all... aren't we in the postmortem of ancient Rome?!
isn't this the time when the remnant
english come out and glorify being
the conquered people of this: lettering?

what is civic nationalism?
what is learnt, integrated nationalism...
this is civic nationalism...
how about the english forget about something,
like solving crosswords...
esp. among the middle-classes...
and let's envision their globalist dream!
let them learn a second language
and let us all become bilingual!
oh no... not polyglots... just bilingual!

i can't be an ethno-nationalist...
em... because (a) (b) and (c)?
aren't the post-colonial commonwealth
remnants of the empire the sort
civic-nationalists there's talk of?
what language am i writing in?
hebrew?! mandarin?!

ethno-natioanlism and its tribalism...
civic-nationalism and its state...
where does the church fit into all of this?
it's like not being an amuptee but
nonetheless being prescribed a "missing limb"...
the **** would i need a third arm for?
wilt the third leg allow me to run faster?!

i guess the term ethno-nationalist is
conflated with civic-nationalist in the ethno-nationalist
realm of "debate"...
a civic-nationalist is your casual parlance
h'american patriot...
patriotism in h'america: nationalism (still)...
in europe...
if we have to: hello, my name is: bob
do it all over again with the squares
and dictum assertions and what not attached...
between the ethno-nationalists and
the civic-nationalists...
the inter-nationalists...

i'm a civic-nationalist because:
i fear people need concrete examples...
i will not move back to Poland...
except on the holidays...
to visit my grandparents...
which is why i have retained the labour
of a native tongue... and "identity"...
i will remain in England...
until England becomes: Alle-Land...
and even when all these
ethno-nationalists ******* to Australia...
and become civic-nationalists over there...
well: over there good luck!

why would anyone ask an ethno-nationalist
the question: are you a civic-nationalist or?
civic- implies:
i'm a Brit from a grand "beyond":
circa 3000km away...
civic is a bewildering prefix for the nationalist
of a ethno- persuasion...
it really is... esp. when this ethno-nationalist
doesn't believe in the existence of
expatriates... that he would remain... "stuck"...
and that somehow... ethno-kin could come
and replace... those kin that left: "in good faith"...

savvy?!
Jevaugn Sep 2016
If not imminence, is it lust?
A need for silence, a want for noise
I ask to live and breathe
But breathe the scent of laced intoxication.
Fabricated bliss in subordinate dictation -
It tastes like blood on the tongue,
An iron will I detest.

Against the color painted hues of false amnesty

In amber rests preserved skeleton supremacy

Montages.
To be continued...
Alessander Jun 2015
A7
I told them,  “I don’t feel sorry for Robin Williams.
He lived it. Coke-fueled, bearded trickster of ******.
Well traveled and well versed, raging into worlds
Physical and ephemeral, like a ghostly bull
Goring mortals to unfeel the estoques
Sunk deep into his vital corpse.”

I had a friend who blew his brains out
While his parents were watching tv in the living room
And another who rented a room at the Marriott
Then hung himself off the shower-rod

Both early 20s
You won’t see them on the big screen
Or hear their witty banter on interviews
Chic celebs won’t eulogize them
On “Extra”, “TMZ”,  or “Access Hollywood”
No 2 minute montages
At award shows, while tuxes and gowns float
Clapping in ovation behind the shimmering façade
Of golden statues

They got a few lines in an obituary, in A7
Those who knew them will speak in hushed euphemisms
No one daring to whisper “suicide”
As if it’s the ****** Mary of deaths
Like walking under a ladder, or breaking a mirror
The mirror containing, like smoke, the future
The jagged shards reflecting moonlight faintly

I love them all the same
estoques: the swords ****** into bulls
Anais Vionet Aug 2023
Memories can become blurry, over time,
like underdeveloped photographs,
or incomplete, like sunlight through blinds.

Our lives move ever forward,
like the inflexible patterns of stars.

Once fevered and immediate events
recede, with frightening, doppler effect,
as remembered yesterdays,
become forgotten yesterdays.

New Haven was abuzz. The hotels were booked and moving trucks had taken every free parking space for miles. Last Sunday was freshmen move-in day and 1,554 freshmen moved into their Yale residences. It’s one of our favorite days of the year. The hubbub of freshmen moving, lunching, shopping and later, seeing off their departing parents, created a delicious emotional chaos that we watched unfold, like a Greek chorus.

The movie ‘Love Actually’ begins and ends with montages of people greeting friends, family and loved ones at Heathrow airport - it’s emotional and heartwarming. Move-in days are a lot like that - with their gordian knots of beginnings and endings. My parents were nervous and emotional on my freshman move-in day - as was I - but we all tried, desperately, not to show it.

Welcome to New Haven freshmen, everything’s beautiful, but you’ll get too busy to enjoy it much.

We upperclassmen move in tomorrow.
Sarah Jan 2014
An entire sequence of fantasy,
played out in the course of four hours.
Like all good dreams,
an abrupt awakening,
rude and cold,
gasping for breath,
attempts to make sense of what is essentially nothing
but means so much more

Video montages,
played over and over in the mind.
Tired, and overplayed,
still powerful and overwhelming  
something out of a fairytale:
the way the light plays off his face,
the evening sun shining on the branches,
grass swaying to make way of a ball,
nervous giggles accompanying nervous cries of birds,
anticipating the moment we may beautifully collide-
reality surrounded by a haven of immortality and happiness of the purest type

Unforgettable.

Problematically so.
J Arturo Jun 2014
Tamir is Israeli. I don't know what that means beyond he speaks Hebrew, came at one point from that area, and keeps dark-skinned friends.

I'm trying to cultivate a lethal talent
because one day I want to **** people
by painting them as they are

(and when you're known
as yourself
you have
nothing else)

but all my days are micro montages, characters
grandiose, come and go
drink a beer, do a line, perhaps
chat about the politics of
Germany France UK Belgium a
little high.
and then they go.


this is a great city on maybe
the world's longest coast
and odds are tomorrow, 87%, the whole day will be
grey and fog and a halfdark cloak
with a sort of haphazard mist that isn't rain, but
somehow in the grey condenses enough to
slippen tiles, dampen jackets, water roses
where everywhere it blow.


within four weeks men in black jackets, ties
sunglasses and training will come for me
and though I have accomplished much and
in a way am capable I
will try and throw myself from a nearby cliff and I
dream at night of the *****, of
wonder how far out I'd have to leap
to hit the highway below.
(and honestly politely hoping I
don't disrupt too much traffic when I go)


because there is a life lived and a life worth living and this
molecular decomposition holds
no loyalty on me. but I guess I had some
faith that I would live to....
that I would live.


I saw my life a grand tapestry. thought my
idolatry would eventually
coalesce into at least one great novel, Bildungsroman, tale of
development and
I guess that's been taken away from me.

and I've prepared ill-ly only exercised in
beat/postmodern poetry. l will
maybe soon stumble from the cliffs or
handcuffed bite my wrists, and
take any artery I might rend open

and all particles, unfettered, heartless bits. nonwritten novel, this is it...

there is the west and then there is the ocean.
aj heatherly May 2013
Sitting in my room,
Boxing up my life,
Sorting photos and tickets,
Newspapers,
Trinkets,
Tokens of all sorts of yesterdays.

Do you remember when we turned a GA at MUN
Into that silly sci-fi universe,
And do you remember those stupid montages,
I showed in class so proudly,
And that trip to San Francisco,
When we probably passed each other's cars.

What about before those days,
When I was still in to planes and history and other's lives,
Curious if I could ever live one as fully.
Those 2 summers I spent on little league,
When I learned no matter how hard you try,
Sometimes you don't get better.

Do you remember the dream you told me about,
When we were left alone and all we need was us.
What about when I had my first kiss,
Or that time the beach lit up like a nightlight.
Then there was that night when we starred up at that sky,
All those nights with our backs on that cold stone.

Then there were those drives,
Those movie nights,
Those dance parties,
Those birthdays.
Those conversations,
That always carried us through the twilight.

So many sunsets,
From my roof and the hill
The milkshakes after midnight,
The board games, and cards,
The trees and the trails,
The ocean's cool waters.

For a long time I thought it was beyond help,
Trying to hold on to all those things,
I surprised myself today,
See, when you throw out a picture, a poster, a page,
You'll never have to say goodbye,
Oh, what a beautiful mind indeed.
Moving from my childhood home in a few weeks. Inspired by the contents of a keepsake bin. Enjoy =)
Harrison Apr 2017
My grandpa who eats steamed sweet potatoes on foothills textured in green rice patties
dreamt up a tall brick house with a black iron gate
barbwires sprung around the tips of the entrance to keep out thieves
right now he wonders how long he can keep fibbing to my mother—
their rotten hut at the end of the massive foothill, not fleeting
monsoons come early, swells the ground till it gave
a landslide takes four people and a child

that day, red stars hung above Tiananmen square gates
grounded bones came in sacks, white cement hauled by green skin trucks

My grandpa who loves sweet potatoes constructs an ivory wall.

after the revolution, the sun peeks out in montages
peering through the smoke
gunpowder stuck to the tank tire roads
black heads roll off yellow tar dirt into a pit
My grandpa gives his best friend one thousand yuan—
visas for my mother and grandma,
His best friend disappears,

writes my grandpa
an apology and, leaves him a large white sack of uncooked sweet potatoes

light tan, severs in half and plops down on the lumpy cutting board,
dusty orange inners, grandpa tosses them in the boiling water
and later, while gnawing down,
he pretends they are oranges for once

Grandpa, who’s kneeling on our dried front yard with a worn out copper pail
waters the salty earth slowly until it sprouts sugar canes
chops one down, breaks it in half, the sun beats
peering through palm leaves
a viridescent river of silk and pale honey
my small three year arms grab a hand full
sliced by grandpa into pieces neatly placed
in a blue flowered ceramic bowl
years later, I chop a stalk down and chew until
English becomes a second language again
and in my twenties, I grab a hand full
sliced my mom into pieces, places them in a weaved basket
made of reinforced bamboo
I put it in front of my grandpa’s grave
in Fujian on the foggy mountainside of a small retirement town.
The edge of the South China coast covered in a thick plastic smog,
I sit on a stone eating sweet cold potatoes with my grandpa facing outland,
a red kneeing sun, barely visible past the trees
Richelle Leigh Dec 2011
oh ****, you sent me those chills again today
that one song knows how to bring it all back
and i knew exactly what to do
indulge, indulge, devour what i could

sweep up these teary eye diamonds
no questions---who am i kidding
a million questions all across the grid
it's magical, and i refuse to let it go

nothing is remotely relevant like you

i give you credit for breaking my heart
trashing it with euphoric bursts
your name, full of weight on my tongue
prestigious, if only to these uninvited thoughts

but i welcome them in, cordially and whole heartedly
maybe, since then, i was disposable after some time
****, i'm that kodak, thrown in the back of the drawer
i'll suffer with those oh so familiar montages of photos

treasure that innocent film we made
i'll always pause at your smile---
banged up, reminded of you
can't help the feeling of today

brutally graced into submission
we were imperfection held by conviction
that...that i still love
our relationship was dolled up for a date

held by hairspray, that'd unravel every night
colored by lipstick, that'd fade after one too many kisses
darkened by eyeliner, that'd turn the normal into mysterious
crafted by mascara, that'd run at the first sight of tears

tyrannize, patronize, calcify my broken heart...

don't hold back, instead, enable me---
enable me, and my broken heart
send me those chills every so often
i need to be reminded of you

i'm addicted to yesterday
and you underestimate the things that i will do

search for those benson and hedges
craddle that bitter coffee
moving closer towards the edge
suffer again and again

i'm hopeless
a hopeless romantic...
and i give you credit for breaking my heart.
Fish The Pig May 2015
just a girl
confused about boys
trying to find her place
laying on the floor
watching Skins
dying to be skinny
but can't stop binging
crying over silly things
heartbroken over matters
that in years won't matter
lonely
angry
misunderstood
broken inside
writing poems
because I'm so deep
and unique
no idea
how to be social
without the media
staying away from drugs and drink
because that's the only way to cope
with past tragedies
that have soiled my good dress
so I only wear pants
in case I need to go on an adventure
so my life can be more like those teenage movies
with dancing
montages
love triangles
and happy endings
thinking I'm extraordinary
pretending I don't notice
how conformed and ordinary I am
unsatisfied
reactive
and inactive
I'm just a teenager
no different from the others
I'm just a teenager
and soon I will grow up.
Wynona Green Dec 2012
"If my life were a movie?
Oh, there would be a lot of montages because maybe I'd get things done faster that way.
I don't think I could be an actor however.
I'm clever enough to make it but too honest to fake it.
Take it or leave it.
I'm just a writer.
Or at least that's what I wrote on the form when they tried to admit me.
And those ******* told me I was crazy.
But you told me I'm golden.
Which got me thinking.
And I thought,
'I do have a problem,'
I thought,
'I think I think too much.'
No, don't touch that remote this show is a classic.
Oh ****, if my life were a T.V. show?
Well, it would obviously be a dramatic comedy.
Because I'm emotionally unstable and ******* hilarious.
But that would never happen because everyone thinks I'm crazy.
Which is funny because I was crazy once.
And those ******* put me in a small dark room infested with rats.
Which is funny because I hate rats.
They drive me crazy."
sura May 2017
depression is never blue, nor gray,
nor black and white;
it is seeing colors for what they are
dissolving into one another,
creating beautiful montages
of vivid details...

but their beauty is never
a sight to behold,

you just look past them.
Kush Apr 2017
Mr. Movie

Locked and loaded, ready to go
I can already hear sneakers squeak on the linoleum floors
Everything plays out in slow motion
I guess the movies get some things right

There’s really not much to aiming down sights
nothing too complicated about squeezing a trigger
What I never prepared for is the ease of being a star
Each and every kid or teacher I shoot just sinks down
no dramatic death scenes or stupid monologues
Hell, they don’t say much at all
maybe one or two grunts on the way down

I’ve got to hand it to Arnold
When I missed just to the left of his heart, guy didn’t quit
He looked like one of those soldiers in training montages
Our brave hero crawled under the bodies of students rather than barbed wire
I didn’t expect the show
My appreciation of his ingenuity was a headshot

I make my way around the lower level of the school
A peculiar sight catches my eye
Some ****** appears to be spying on my work
He’s got one nice piece of shining metal clutched in a fist

Who’s this interesting character?


Mr. Minute

It’s finally ******* time!
This morning, I tossed my calendar in the trash
Today’s the day
I circled it in red sharpie

Geometry bored me as usual
I looked to my left and right with a private smile
None of the ******* around me could see the truth
Judgment Day was upon them
While Mccarthy droned on about triangles, my eyes stayed on the clock
Passing period was only five minutes away
That’s when I’d whip out my revolver
That’s when these ***** would know their time was up

Imagine my surprise when I heard gunshots down the hall
I quickly unzipped my backpack, took out the gun, and blasted open Mccarthy’s head
The other kids took a couple of seconds before screaming
I was too busy peering out the door to mind them
How the hell was this possible?!
I planned this out since the idea first popped into my mind
Some ****** was trying to steal my schedule

*
Not on my watch
A pair of independent school shooters and one coincidence
CNM Aug 2018
Lately I've been driving in my car by myself
The night sky reflecting off the empty streets
That I convince myself belong to me
Until the lights of another car remind me that everything is shared
And I'm moving in montages, in sequences as the lazy strums of a guitar match my existing beat
And I know where I'm going, the path opens up to me each turn I take
But I have no idea what I'll do when I reach my dark, quiet home
Full of people, yet I'm the only one awake, in this reality that feels just as far away as their dreams
I'm alone in my shower when it warms my skin and melts the ways I tried to distract myself today
A heavy comfort I cannot fully accept within my melancholy
I walk into my hollow room, becoming the only life inside
I begin to search for the meaning of Narcissism
But stop myself because I know a picture of you would appear
Like the one in my journal with your eyes crossed out
And they say eyes are the window to the soul
But those are not windows
Those are prison cells
Ken Pepiton Nov 2022
Those three, none of now, {3 acts rerun}
not possible, some how,
you know
what I was thinking is, what I say?
Hey,
remember, hey, hey, what I say?

We all said what I say? Like we heard it said,
Daddy,
on TV, maybe so, not in some momma's house,
true told.

Blue-eye black boy looked at me and said,
"Maybe news for a twelve-year-old white boy."

Guiled was I, got me good, I understood, y'know
nothing of my function
at this junction, 11-04-2022 @8:08

an infinity piercing point returned to the Bud,
type 2, we think,
we are graphing the wholeg-stalled uphill and
a yodeller, Gestalt, halt, religion has some pull

yes, confirmation in the spirit, the Friday night spirit,
vibe, post Halloween, lotsa sweets,
right usual, ritual,

spirits rise, and near the edge, one warrior watches,
warnings, seen in stars told tales so wild a child scorns,

old man, did you never dig?
Oh, I dug, I dug a plenty, never dug no grave,
but I doubt any story with a grave needs diggin'.

- I double mind, my kind of mind, take it down
- to reptilian for decision,
- to limbic for reaction to infectious ideas
War stories make money and we use money to make peace,
does that make sense to me, no, so who has my reins,
ai asked, if this made sense to whom it may concern,

sift through the dust, if there is no diamond in this dust,
we are all clouds of hot air interacting with water in time.

What are these montages, standardo?
Trace the curve, and follow the wave, if it were Cartesian,

flat out. LO, no, not lost, I can read.
I cannot make Ubuntu boot from USB, but that's on me,
do I care, years of this is on those hard drives,

precious as this in ten years, as times continuance clause
is disputed in samsara cultivars sprouting food for war,
with good reason,
crispered in, like the sizzle in a sale, seals the deal,

Pop. Leak. Enuresis I spelled that right, and remember

Sgt. Whykill, I have not called,
because
I made a character of you, I told you, when I did it,
you can't remember much

it is strictly confidential, with faith, alone, no wu wu, fi solo fi
fine, we good
call me t'morrow, next time you get there first/.<)
Antony Glaser Jul 2022
Say I was wise and different
who has three German penfriends
who only wrote in English
We write about photography,
be sent photocopies of Black and White montages.

I  own about  30 Cameras
cursed not to be photographic each day
searching on meetup for courses
Someone suggested West Brompton  cemetery
Tried Macro photography
Bon Soir to Landscape
I'm on the verge of a buttercup
prosaic in my newfound world
Lili Sep 2020
She is existing between life and death.
Most "waking" moments feel like a dream,
and days pass like coming of age movie montages.
Only she is not the main character.
She is a side character whose only purpose is to be in a scene to further the plot.
But where do characters go once they've served their purpose?
Are they doomed to a life frozen in time watching the main characters live their happily ever afters?
Or do they cease to exist the moment no spotlight is on them?
The answer eludes her.
Despite being in the best position to know who she is, she remains clueless.
She was forced into a flat character arc so early on that she felt that it was easier to comply rather than to experience more trauma trying to resist.
She serves her purpose being one thing.
The geek.
Or the nice girl.
Or the outcast.
Or the *****.
But never all at once.
Never can she exhibit more than one trait.
After all of the titles given to her by others she merely accepted them as who they are.
Why try to define yourself when others are going to do it for you, she thought?
Because she was one thing she could never develop further.
Her character arc was flat.
She wasn't allowed acquaintances, friends, or partners that weren't determined before her use expired.
She was forced into the place between life and death alone.
Forced to watch both life and death alone.
And forced to experience the numbness alone.
Maddy Dec 2019
In time, you will be a private smile on a frosty day
In time, your words will echo warmly like a trusted well-worn blanket in need of a replacement
You don"t have the heart to do that
In time, the laughter will soothe a blustery rainy day
In time, all the bad memories will be moments  we should have never wasted
In time, your place will be scrap booked with photographs and montages
In time, our time will never be again
In time, we won't wonder why Hello became Goodbye

c@rainbowchaser2019
Yenson Dec 2021
when life experiences and references
are from base level
they tend to reflect floored opinions
and lowdown characteristics
all so asinine and pedestrian
tripping journeys of the journey men

the jaywalkers marching in struggles
alley cats with litter minds
weather-beaten vacuous fluffy drones
bred montages of desperation and rancour
in trysts and twists with ill choices galore
stomping pavements stepping on all the cracks

and their inroad wisdom drifts airily
from the wrong side of the tracks
the wits from shebeen and trailer parks
the mourning sounds of the underground
waves of flotsams in windswept gales
venting for attention in their sidewalk lives

what does it all tell us but their cries
and that  theirs is the road less travelled
where the catcher in the rye finds no paths
and its all to many wall street and yellow brick roads
picking from their flaws and cast chains
the grapes of wrath



©
Maddy Jan 2020
you'll be  private smile on a raw day
your words will echo warmly like a trusted well-worn blanket in need of a replacement
you don't have the heart to do that, do you?
The laughter will soothe a rainy dreary day
all the bad memories will be moments we should have never wasted
your place will be scrap booked  with photographs and montages
our time will never be again
we wont wonder why Hello became good bye
In time

C@rainbowchaser2020

— The End —