Down on the South side a
tube ride away,
out in the Borough
where some people stay and
some people say,
it's a nice place, a
well-lit place, a somewhere
to sit and deep think place.

but

there's another side, a ride back in time
when the streets were caked in
horse **** and grime and the urchins
searching for somewhere to stay,
some nicer place
on a much nicer day.

And the Stew houses
but no stew inside,
known to children and
no place to hide,
Goose, oh goose
let my children go loose,
cries far away from
the Borough today.
js

The following text is taken from 'Goodreads' reviews of John Constable's 'The Southwark Mysteries'.


'For tonight in Hell, they are tolling the bell
For the ***** that lay at The Tabard
And well we know how the carrion crow
Doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard.'


In 1107, the Bishop of Winchester was granted a stretch of land on Southwark Bankside, which lay outside the law of the City of London. The Bishop controlled the numerous brothels, or 'stews'in the area, but the prostitutes, known as 'Winchester Geese', who paid the Bishop licence fees, were nevertheless condemned to be buried in unhallowed ground. For some 500 years, the Bishop of Winchester exercised sole authority within Bankside's 'Liberty of The Clink', including the right to licence prostitutes under a Royal Ordinance until Cromwell and the Puritans shut down the bear-pits, theatres and stews of Bankside's pleasure quarter.

In 1996, those working on an extension to the Jubilee line of London's underground, unwittingly began to dig up the bones of the outcast dead of Southwark, extimated to number 15,000, and John Constable began writing the Southwark Mysteries and later became part of a campaign to preserve part of the cemetery as a memorial garden.

I can't resist pasting in an article from the Daily Telegraph that appeared after the performance of the Southwark Mysteries at Shakespeare's Globe and Southwark Cathedral on Easter Sunday and Shakespeare's birthday, 23rd April 2000:

The Sunday Telegraph, May 14th 2000

"DEAN REJECTS CRITICS OF 'SWEARING JESUS' MYSTERY PLAY

A religious play staged in an Anglican cathedral has provoked fury after it featured a swearing Jesus and Satan wearing a phallus.

The Southwark Mysteries was produced by Southwark Cathedral and Shakespeare’s Globe in south London as part of the capital’s 'String of Pearls' Millennium celebrations. It mixed ***** medieval scenes with modern imagery and referred to bishops engaging in homosexual *** with altar boys and priests visiting prostitutes. The character of Jesus, who rode onto stage on a bicycle, was shown apparently condoning a range of ****** activities, while Satan told scatological jokes and ordered Jesus to 'kiss my a*'. At one point Jesus was admonished by St Peter for his swearing and responded: 'In the house of the harlot, man must master the language.' At another, Satan, played by a female actor, strapped on 'a huge red phallus' before using it to beat his sidekick, Beelzebub.

The play was written by John Constable, who said that he had deliberately wanted to challenge Christians. 'Profanity is a theme of the play', he said. 'The point of it was to explore the sacred through the profane. ' Mr Constable said he had worked closely with Mark Rylance, the Globe’s artistic director, and the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, who conceived the idea of a joint production to mark William Shakespeare’s birthday falling on Easter Day. He said the clergy had made a number of suggestions about the content, but he had not acted on all of them. 'They did ask me to make sure that Satan did not wear the phallus in the presence of Jesus, which I did', he said.

The first section of the play, which contained much of the ***** material, was staged at the Globe, and the final part, 'The Harrowing of Hell' in the cathedral. 'Colin Slee was very robust in keeping me on the straight and narrow', Constable said. 'The play is a new version of the traditional medieval Mystery plays, which were religious in nature but accepted human imperfections and took place in a carnival atmosphere. It seemed to be well received by most people who saw it.'

But one member of the audience, Simon Fairnington, has condemned the play as 'disgustingly offensive', saying that it 'revelled in the glorification of vice'. In a letter to the Dean he complained: 'Had the play been a purely secular production, one might not have been surprised at its treatment of Christian belief. What was dismaying was that it was sponsored and performed in part within a Christian cathedral. The cynical part of me wonders whether this is simply a sign of the times, and the way the Church of England cares about its Gospel and its God.' Anthony Kilmister, chairman of the Prayer Book Society, said: 'This is not the sort of play that should be performed in God’s house. It is quite disgraceful.'

But the Dean, who was the centre of controversy a few years ago when he allowed the cathedral to be used for a Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement celebration, defended the play. The performance was in keeping with traditional Mystery plays and 'portrayed graphically the life and history of the area' which was 'where the seamier side of life was to be found', he said. 'The message was that even the worst sins are not beyond redemption', he added.

Most of the audience responded positively to the underlying message of mutual forgiveness. Like the Dean, many accepted Satan’s *****, blasphemous words and deeds as part of the Mystery Tradition. The theologian Jeffrey John was of the opinion that, despite some obvious heretical tendencies, Constable was presenting 'remarkably orthodox Christian teachings going back to the first century AD'. Constable’s Harrowing of Hell is closely modelled on a play from the medieval York Cycle. His version shows Jesus’ spirit of forgiveness triumphing over the letter of The Law. Jesus’ ultimate 'Judgement' is a verse paraphrase of Matthew 26: 35-45.

  JESUS
  My blessed children, I shall say
When your good deed was to me done.
When man or woman, night or day,
Asked for your help, your heart not stone,
Did not pass by or turn away,
You saw that, in me, they too are One.
But you that cursed them, said them nay,
Your curse did cut me to the bone.

When I had need of meat and drink,
You offered me an empty plate.
When I was clasped and chained in Clink,
You frowned, and left me to my fate.
Where I was teetering on the brink,
Did bolt and bar your iron gate.
When I was drowning, you let me sink.
When I cried for help, you came too late.

  RESPONSE
  When had you, Lord, who all things has
Hunger or thirst, or helplessness?
Had we but known God a prisoner was
We would surely have sought to ease His distress.
How could God be sick or dying? Alas!
When was He hungry, thirsty, or homeless?
How could such things come to pass?
When did we to thee such wickedness?

  JESUS
  Dead souls! When any bid
You pity them, you did but blame.
You heard them not, your heart you hid.
Your guilt told you they should be shamed.
Your thought was but the earth to rid
Of them I am now come to claim.
To the poorest wretch, whate’er you did,
To me you did the self and same.

Like a psychotic docent in the wilderness,
I will not speak in perfect Ciceronian cadences.
I draw my voice from a much deeper cistern,
Preferring the jittery synaptic archive,
So sublimely unfiltered, random and profane.
And though I am sequestered now,
Confined within the walls of a gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55 lunatic asylum (for Active Seniors I am told),
I remain oddly puerile,
Remarkably refreshed and unfettered.  
My institutionalization self-imposed,
Purposed for my own serenity, and also the safety of others.
Yet I abide, surprisingly emancipated and frisky.
I may not have found the peace I seek,
But the quiet has mercifully come at last.

The nexus of inner and outer space is context for my story.
I was born either in Brooklyn, New York or Shungopavi, Arizona,
More of intervention divine than census data.
Shungopavi: a designated place for tribal statistical purposes.
Shungopavi: an ovine abbatoir and shaman’s cloister.
The Hopi: my mother’s people, a state of mind and grace,
Deftly landlocked, so cunningly circumscribed,
By both interior and outer Navajo boundaries.
The Navajo: a coyote trickster people; a nation of sheep thieves,
Hornswoggled and landlocked themselves,
Subsumed within three of the so-called Four Corners:
A 3/4ths compromise and covenant,
Pickled in firewater, swaddled in fine print,
A veritable swindle concocted back when the USA
Had Manifest Destiny & mayhem on its mind.

The United States: once a pubescent synthesis of blood and thunder,
A bold caboodle of trooper spit and polish, unwashed brawlers, Scouts and      
Pathfinders, mountain men, numb-nut ne'er-do-wells,
Buffalo Bills & big-balled individualists, infected, insane with greed.
According to the Gospel of His Holiness Saint Zinn,
A People’s’ History of the United States: essentially state-sponsored terrorism,
A LAND RUSH grabocracy, orchestrated, blessed and anointed,
By a succession of Potomac sharks, Great White Fascist Fathers,
Far-Away-on-the Bay, the Bay we call The Chesapeake.
All demented national patriarchs craving lebensraum for God and country.
The USA: a 50-state Leviathan today, a nation jury-rigged,
Out of railroad ties, steel rails and baling wire,
Forged by a litany of lies, rapaciousness and ******,
And jaw-torn chunks of terra firma,
Bites both large and small out of our well-****** Native American ***.

Or culo, as in va’a fare in culo (literally "go do it in the ***")
Which Italian Americans pronounce as fongool.
The language center of my brain,
My sub-cortical Broca’s region,
So fraught with such semantic misfires,
And autonomic linguistic seizures,
Compel acknowledgement of a father’s contribution,
To both the gene pool and the genocide.
Columbus Day:  a conspicuously absent holiday out here in Indian Country.
No festivals or Fifth Avenue parades.
No excuse for ethnic hoopla. No guinea feast. No cannoli. No tarantella.
No excuse to not get drunk and not **** your sister-in-law.
Emphatically a day for prayer and contemplation,
A day of infamy like Pearl Harbor and 9/11,
October 12, 1492: not a discovery; an invasion.

Growing up in Brooklyn, things were always different for me,
Different in some sort of redskin/****/****--
Choose Your Favorite Ethnic Slur-sort of way.
The American Way: dehumanization for fun and profit.
Melting *** anonymity and denial of complicity with evil.
But this is no time to bring up America’s sordid past,
Or, a personal pet peeve: Indian Sovereignty.
For Uncle Sam and his minions, an ever-widening, conveniently flexible concept,
Not a commandment or law,
Not really a treaty or a compact,
Or even a business deal.  Let’s get real:
It was not even much in the way of a guideline.
Just some kind of an advisory, a bulletin or newsletter,
Could it merely have been a free-floating suggestion?
Yes, that’s it exactly: a suggestion.

Over and under halcyon American skies,
Over and around those majestic purple mountain peaks,
Those trapped in poetic amber waves of wheat and oats,
Corn and barley, wheat shredded and puffed,
Corn flaked and milled, Wheat Chex and Wheaties, oats that are little Os;
Kix and Trix, Fiber One, and Kashi-Go-Lean, Lucky Charms and matso *****,
Kreplach and kishka,
Polenta and risotto.
Our cantaloupe and squash patch,
Our fruited prairie plain, our delicate ecological Eden,
In balance and harmony with nature, as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce instructs:
“These white devils are not going to,
Stop ****** and killing, cheating and eating us,
Until they have the whole ******* enchilada.
I’m talking about ‘from sea to shining sea.’”

“I fight no more forever,” Babaloo.
So I must steer this clunky keelboat of discovery,
Back to the main channel of my sad and starry demented river.
My warpath is personal but not historical.
It is my brain’s own convoluted cognitive process I cannot saavy.
Whatever biochemical or—as I suspect more each day—
Whatever bio-mechanical protocols govern my identity,
My weltanschauung: my world-view, as sprechen by proto-Nazis;
Putz philosophers of the 17th, 18th & 19th century.
The German intelligentsia: what a cavalcade of maniacal *******!
Why is this Jew unsurprised these Zarathustra-fueled Übermenschen . . .
Be it the Kaiser--Caesar in Deutsch--Bismarck, ******, or,
Even that Euro-*****,  Angela Merkel . . . Why am I not surprised these Huns,
Get global grab-*** on the sauerbraten cabeza every few generations?
To be, or not to be the ***** bullgoose loony: GOTT.

Biomechanical protocols govern my identity and are implanted while I sleep.
My brain--my weak and weary CPU--is replenished, my discs defragmented.
A suite of magnetic and optical white rooms, cleansed free of contaminants,
Gun mounts & lifeboat stations manned and ready,
Standing at attention and saluting British snap-style,
Snap-to and heel click, ramrod straight and cheerful: “Ready for duty, Sir.”
My mind is ravenous, lusting for something, anything to process.
Any memory or image, lyric or construct,
Be they short-term dailies or deeply imprinted.
Fixations archived one and all in deep storage time and space.
Memories, some subconscious, most vaporous;
Others--the scary ones—eidetic: frighteningly detailed and extraordinarily vivid.
Precise cognitive transcripts; recollected so richly rife and fresh.
Visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory reloads:
Queued up and increasingly re-experienced.

The bio-data of six decades: it’s all there.
People, countless, places and things cataloged.
Every event, joy and trauma enveloped from within or,
Accessed externally from biomechanical storage devices.
The random access memory of a lifetime,
Read and recollected from cerebral repositories and vaults,
All the while the entire greedy process overseen,
Over-driven by that all-subservient British bat-man,
Rummaging through the data in batches small and large,
Internal and external drives working in seamless syncopation,
Self-referential, at times paradoxical or infinitely looped.
“Cogito ergo sum."
Descartes stripped it down to the basics but there’s more to the story:
Thinking about thinking.
A curse and minefield for the cerebral:  metacognition.

No, it is not the fact that thought exists,
Or even the thoughts themselves.
But the information technology of thought that baffles me,
As adaptive and profound as any evolution posited by Darwin,
Beyond the wetware in my skull, an entirely new operating system.
My mental and cultural landscape are becoming one.
Machines are connecting the two.
It’s what I am and what I am becoming.
Once more for emphasis:
It is the information technology of who I am.
It is the operating system of my mental and cultural landscape.
It is the machinery connecting the two.
This is the central point of this narrative:
Metacognition--your superego’s yenta Cassandra,
Screaming, screaming in your psychic ear, your good ear:

“LISTEN:  The machines are taking over, taking you over.
Your identity and train of thought are repeatedly hijacked,
Switched off the main line onto spurs and tangents,
Only marginally connected or not at all.
(Incoming TEXT from my editor: “Lighten Up, Giuseppi!”)
Reminding me again that most in my audience,
Rarely get past the comic page. All righty then: think Calvin & Hobbes.
John Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year old boy,
Subject to flights of 16th Century French theological fancy.
Thomas Hobbes, a sardonic anthropomorphic tiger from 17th Century England,
Mumbling about life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Taken together--their antics and shenanigans--their relationship to each other,
Remind us of our dual nature; explore for us broad issues like public education;
The economy, environmentalism & the Global ****** Thermometer;
Not to mention the numerous flaws of opinion polls.



And again my editor TEXTS me, reminds me again: “LIGHTEN UP!”
Consoling me:  “Even Shakespeare had to play to the groundlings.”
The groundlings, AKA: The Rabble.
Yes. Even the ******* Bard, even Willie the Shake,
Had to contend with a decidedly lowbrow copse of carrion.
Oh yes, the groundlings, a carrion herd, a flying flock of carrion seagulls,
Carrion crow, carrion-feeders one and all,
And let’s throw Sheryl Crow into the mix while we’re at it:
“Hit it! This ain't no disco. And it ain't no country club either, this is L.A.”  

                  Send "All I Wanna Do" Ringtone to your Cell              

Once more, I digress.
The Rabble:  an amorphous, gelatinous Jabba the Hutt of commonality.
The Rabble: drunk, debauched & lawless.
Too *****-delicious to stop Bill & Hilary from thinking about tomorrow;
Too Paul McCartney My Love Does it Good to think twice.

The Roman Saturnalia: a weeklong **** fest.
The Saturnalia: originally a pagan kink-fest in honor of the deity Saturn.
Dovetailing nicely with the advent of the Christian era,
With a project started by Il Capo di Tutti Capi,
One of the early popes, co-opting the Roman calendar between 17 and 25 December,
Putting the finishing touches on the Jesus myth.
For Brooklyn Hopi-***-Jew baby boomers like me,
Saturnalia manifested itself as Disco Fever,
Unpleasant years of electrolysis, scrunched ***** in tight polyester
For Roman plebeians, for the great unwashed citizenry of Rome,
Saturnalia was just a great big Italian wedding:
A true family blowout and once-in-a-lifetime ego-trip for Dad,
The father of the bride, Vito Corleone, Don for A Day:
“Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I! Funicula, Funiculi!”

America: love it or leave it; my country right or wrong.
Sure, we were citizens of Rome,
But any Joe Josephus spending the night under a Tiber bridge,
Or sleeping off a three day drunk some afternoon,
Up in the Coliseum bleachers, the cheap seats, out beyond the monuments,
The original three monuments in the old stadium,
Standing out in fair territory out in center field,
Those three stone slabs honoring Gehrig, Huggins, and Babe.
Yes, in the house that Ruth built--Home of the Bronx Bombers--***?
Any Joe Josephus knows:  Roman citizenship doesn’t do too much for you,
Except get you paxed, taxed & drafted into the Legion.
For us the Roman lifestyle was HIND-*** humble.
We plebeians drew our grandeur by association with Empire.
Very few Romans and certainly only those of the patrician class lived high,
High on the hog, enjoying a worldly extravaganza, like—whom do we both know?

Okay, let’s say Laurence Olivier as Crassus in Spartacus.
Come on, you saw Spartacus fifteen ******* times.
Remember Crassus?
Crassus: that ***** twisted **** trying to get his freak on with,
Tony Curtis in a sunken marble tub?
We plebes led lives of quiet *****-scratching desperation,
A bunch of would-be legionnaires, diseased half the time,
Paid in salt tablets or baccala, salted codfish soaked yellow in olive oil.
Stiffs we used to call them on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.
Let’s face it: we were hyenas eating someone else’s ****,
Stage-door jackals, Juvenal-come-late-lies, a mob of moronic mook boneheads
Bought off with bread & circuses and Reality TV.
Each night, dished up a wide variety of lowbrow Elizabethan-era entertainments.  
We contemplate an evening on the town, downtown—
(cue Petula Clark/Send "Downtown" Ringtone to your Cell)

On any given London night, to wit:  mummers, jugglers, bear & bull baiters.
How about dog & **** fighters, quoits & skittles, alehouses & brothels?
In short, somewhere, anywhere else,
Anywhere other than down along the Thames,
At Bankside in Southwark, down in the Globe Theater mosh pit,
Slugging it out with the groundlings whose only interest,
In the performance is the choreography of swordplay and stale ****** puns.
Meanwhile, Hugh Fennyman--probably a fellow Jew,
An English Renaissance Bugsy Siegel or Mickey Cohen—
Meanwhile Fennyman, the local mob boss is getting his ya-yas,
Roasting the feet of my text-messaging editor, Philip Henslowe.
Poor and pathetic Henslowe, works on commission, always scrounging,
But a true patron of my craft, a gentleman of infinite jest and patience,
Spiritual subsistence, and every now and then a good meal at some,
Sawdust joint with oyster shells, and a Prufrockian silk purse of T.S. Eliot gold.

Poor, pathetic Henslowe, trussed up by Fennyman,
His editorial feet in what looks like a Japanese hibachi.
Henslowe’s feet to the fire--feet to the fire—get it?
A catchy phrase whose derivation conjures up,
A grotesque yet vivid image of torture,
An exquisite insight into how such phrases ingress the idiom,
Not to mention a scene once witnessed at a secret Romanian CIA prison,
I’d been ordered to Bucharest not long after 9/11,
Handling the rendition and torture of Habib Ghazzawy,

An entirely innocent falafel maker from Steinway Street, Astoria, Queens.
Shock the Monkey: it’s what we do. GOTO:
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey/
(HQ music video) - YouTube//
www.youtube.com/
Poor, pathetic, ******-on Henslowe.


Fennyman :  (his avarice is whet by something Philly screams out about a new script)  "A play takes time. Find actors; Rehearsals. Let's say open in three weeks. That's--what--five hundred groundlings at tuppence each, in addition four hundred groundlings tuppence each, in addition four hundred backsides at three pence--a penny extra for a cushion, call it two hundred cushions, say two performances for safety how much is that Mr. Frees?"
Jacobean Tweet, John (1580-1684) Webster:  “I saw him kissing her bubbies.”

It’s Geoffrey Rush, channeling Henslowe again,
My editor, a singed smoking madman now,
Feet in an ice bucket, instructing me once more:
“Lighten things up, you know . . .
Comedy, love and a bit with a dog.”
I digress again and return to Hopi Land, back to my shaman-monastic abattoir,
That Zen Center in downtown Shungopavi.
At the Tribal Enrolment Office I make my case for a Certificate of Indian Blood,
Called a CIB by the Natives and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The BIA:  representing gold & uranium miners, cattle and sheep ranchers,
Sodbusters & homesteaders; railroaders and dam builders since 1824.
Just in time for Andrew Jackson, another false friend of Native America,
Just before Old Hickory, one of many Democratic Party hypocrites and scoundrels,
Gives the FONGOOL, up the CULO go ahead.
Hey Andy, I’ve got your Jacksonian democracy: Hanging!
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) mission is to:   "… enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. What’s that in the fine print?  Uncle Sammy holds “the trust assets of American Indians.”

Here’s a ******* tip, Geronimo: if he trusted you,
It would ALL belong to you.
To you and The People.
But it’s all fork-tongued white *******.
If true, Indian sovereignty would cease to be a sick one-liner,
Cease to be a blunt force punch line, more of,
King Leopold’s 19th Century stand-up comedy schtick,
Leo Presents: The **** of the Congo.
La Belgique mission civilisatrice—
That’s what French speakers called Uncle Leo’s imperial public policy,
Bringing the gift of civilization to central Africa.
Like Manifest Destiny in America, it had a nice colonial ring to it.
“Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent,
Allotted by Providence for the free development,
Of our yearly multiplying millions.”  John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Our civilizing mission or manifest destiny:
Either/or, a catchy turn of phrase;
Not unlike another ironic euphemism and semantic subterfuge:
The Pacification of the West; Pacification?
Hardly: decidedly not too peaceful for Cochise & Tonto.
Meanwhile, Madonna is cash rich but disrespected Evita poor,
To wit: A ****** on the Rocks (throwing in a byte or 2 of Da Vinci Code).
Meanwhile, Miss Ciccone denied her golden totem *****.
They snubbed that little guinea ****, didn’t they?
Snubbed her, robbed her rotten.
Evita, her magnum opus, right up there with . . .
Her SNL Wayne’s World skit:
“Get a load of the unit on that guy.”
Or, that infamous MTV Music Video Awards stunt,
That classic ***** Lip-Lock with Britney Spears.

How could I not see that Oscar snubola as prime evidence?
It was just another stunning case of American anti-Italian racial animus.
Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky would see it,
Must view it in the same context as the Sacco & Vanzetti case,
Or, that arbitrary lynching of 9 Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891,
To cite just two instances of anti-Italian judicial reach & mob violence,
Much like what happened to my cousin Dominic,
Gang-***** by the Harlem Globetrotters, in their locker room during halftime,
While he working for Abe Saperstein back in 1952.
Dom was doing advance for Abe, supporting creation of The Washington Generals:
A permanent stable of hoop dream patsies and foils,
Named for the ever freewheeling, glad-handing, backslapping,
Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF), himself,
Namely General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man they liked,
And called IKE: quite possibly a crypto Jew from Abilene.

Of course, Harry Truman was my first Great White Fascist Father,
Back in 1946, when I first opened my eyes, hung up there,
High above, looking down from the adobe wall.
Surveying the entire circular kiva,
I had the best seat in the house.
Don’t let it be said my Spider Grandmother or Hopi Corn Mother,
Did not want me looking around at things,
Discovering what made me special.
Didn’t divine intervention play a significant part of my creation?
Knowing Mamma Mia and Nonna were Deities,
Gave me an edge later on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Cradleboard: was there ever a more divinely inspired gift to human curiosity? The Cradleboard: a perfect vantage point, an infant’s early grasp,
Of life harmonious, suspended between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Simply put: the Hopi should be running our ******* public schools.

But it was IKE with whom I first associated,
Associated with the concept 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I liked IKE. Who didn’t?
What was not to like?
He won the ******* war, didn’t he?
And he wasn’t one of those crazy **** John Birchers,
Way out there, on the far right lunatic Republican fringe,
Was he? (It seems odd and nearly impossible to believe in 2013,
That there was once a time in our Boomer lives,
When the extreme right wing of the Republican Party
Was viewed by the FBI as an actual threat to American democracy.)
Understand: it was at a time when The FBI,
Had little ideological baggage,
But a great appetite for secrets,
The insuppressible Jay Edgar doing his thang.

IKE: of whom we grew so, oh-so Fifties fond.
Good old reliable, Nathan Shaking IKE:
He’d been fixed, hadn’t he? Had had the psychic snip.
Snipped as a West Point cadet & parade ground martinet.
Which made IKE a good man to have in a pinch,
Especially when crucial policy direction was way above his pay grade.
Cousin Dom was Saperstein’s bagman, bribing out the opposition,
Which came mainly from religious and patriotic organizations,
Viewing the bogus white sports franchise as obscene.
The Washington Generals, Saperstein’s new team would have but one opponent,
And one sole mission: to serve as the **** of endless jokes and sight gags for—
Negroes.  To play the chronic fools of--
Negroes.  To be chronically humiliated and insulted by—
Negroes.  To run up and down the boards all night, being outran by—
Negroes.  Not to mention having to wear baggy silk shorts.



Meadowlark Lemon:  “Yeah, Charlie, we ***** that grease-ball Dominic; we shagged his guinea mouth and culo rotten.”  

(interviewed in his Scottsdale, AZ winter residence in 2003 by former ESPN commentator Charlie Steiner, Malverne High School, Class of ’67.)
                                                        
  ­                                                                 ­                 
IKE, briefed on the issue by higher-ups, quickly got behind the idea.
The Harlem Globetrotters were to exist, and continue to exist,
Are sustained financially by Illuminati sponsors,
For one reason and one reason only:
To serve elite interests that the ***** be kept down and subservient,
That the minstrel show be perpetuated,
A policy surviving the elaborate window dressing of the civil rights movement, Affirmative action, and our first Uncle Tom president.
Case in point:  Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman & Metta World Peace Artest.
Cha-cha-cha changing again:  I am Robert Allen Zimmermann,
A whiny, skinny Jew, ****** and rolling in from Minnesota,
Arrested, obviously a vagrant, caught strolling around his tony Jersey enclave,
Having moved on up the list, the A-list, a special invitation-only,
Yom Kippur Passover Seder:  Next Year in Jerusalem, Babaloo!

I take ownership of all my autonomic and conditioned reflexes;
Each personal neural arc and pathway,
All shenanigans & shellackings,
Or blunt force cognitive traumas.
It’s all percolating nicely now, thank you,
In kitchen counter earthen crockery:
Random access memory: a slow-cook crockpot,
Bubbling through my psychic sieve.
My memories seem only remotely familiar,
Distant and vague, at times unreal:
An alien hybrid databank accessed accidently on purpose;
Flaky science sustains and monitors my nervous system.
And leads us to an overwhelming question:
Is it true that John Dillinger’s ******* is in the Smithsonian Museum?
Enquiring minds want to know, Kemosabe!

“Any last words, *******?” TWEETS Adam Smith.
Postmortem cyber-graffiti, an epitaph carved in space;
Last words, so singular and simple,
Across the universal great divide,
Frisbee-d, like a Pleistocene Kubrick bone,
Tossed randomly into space,
Morphing into a gyroscopic space station.
Mr. Smith, a calypso capitalist, and me,
Me, the Poet Laureate of the United States and Adam;
Who, I didn’t know from Adam.
But we tripped the light fantastic,
We boogied the Protestant Work Ethic,
To the tune of that old Scotch-Presbyterian favorite,
Variations of a 5-point Calvinist theme: Total Depravity; Election; Particular Redemption; Irresistible Grace; & Perseverance of the Saints.

Mr. Smith, the author of An Inquiry into the Nature
& Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776),
One of the best-known, intellectual rationales for:
Free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism,
The latter term a euphemism for Social Darwinism.
Prior to 1764, Calvinists in France were called Huguenots,
A persecuted religious majority . . . is that possible?
A persecuted majority of Edict of Nantes repute.
Adam Smith, likely of French Huguenot Jewish ancestry himself,
Reminds me that it is my principal plus interest giving me my daily gluten.
And don’t think the irony escapes me now,
A realization that it has taken me nearly all my life to see again,
What I once saw so vividly as a child, way back when.
Before I put away childish things, including the following sentiment:
“All I need is the air that I breathe.”

  Send "The Air That I Breathe" Ringtone to your Cell  

The Hippies were right, of course.
The Hollies had it all figured out.
With the answer, as usual, right there in the lyrics.
But you were lucky if you were listening.
There was a time before I embraced,
The other “legendary” economists:
The inexorable Marx,
The savage society of Veblen,
The heresies we know so well of Keynes.
I was a child.
And when I was a child, I spake as a child—
Grazie mille, King James—
I understood as a child; I thought as a child.
But when I became a man I jumped on the bus with the band,
Hopped on the irresistible bandwagon of Adam Smith.

Smith:  “Any last words, *******?”
Okay, you were right: man is rationally self-interested.
Grazie tanto, Scotch Enlightenment,
An intellectual movement driven by,
An alliance of Calvinists and Illuminati,
Freemasons and Johnny Walker Black.
Talk about an irresistible bandwagon:
Smith, the gloomy Malthus, and David Ricardo,
Another Jew boy born in London, England,
Third of 17 children of a Sephardic family of Portuguese origin,
Who had recently relocated from the Dutch Republic.
******* Jews!
Like everything shrewd, sane and practical in this world,
WE also invented the concept:  FOLLOW THE MONEY.

The lyrics: if you were really listening, you’d get it:
Respiration keeps one sufficiently busy,
Just breathing free can be a full-time job,
Especially when--borrowing a phrase from British cricketers—,
One contemplates the sorry state of the wicket.
Now that I am gainfully superannuated,
Pensioned off the employment radar screen.
Oft I go there into the wild ebon yonder,
Wandering the brain cloud at will.
My journey indulges curiosity, creativity and deceit.
I free range the sticky wicket,
I have no particular place to go.
Snagging some random fact or factoid,
A stop & go rural postal route,
Jumping on and off the brain cloud.

Just sampling really,
But every now and then, gorging myself,
At some information super smorgasbord,
At a Good Samaritan Rest Stop,
I ponder my own frazzled neurology,
When I was a child—
Before I learned the grim economic facts of life and Judaism,
Before I learned Hebrew,
Before my laissez-faire Bar Mitzvah lessons,
Under the rabbinical tutelage of Rebbe Kahane--
I knew what every clever child knows about life:
The surfing itself is the destination.
Accessing RAM--random access memory—
On a strictly need to know basis.
RAM:  a pretty good name for consciousness these days.

If I were an Asimov or Sir Arthur (Sri Lankabhimanya) Clarke,
I’d get freaky now, riffing on Terminators, Time Travel and Cyborgs.
But this is truth not science fiction.
Nevertheless, someone had better,
Come up with another name for cyborg.
Some other name for a critter,
Composed of both biological and artificial parts?
Parts-is-parts--be they electronic, mechanical or robotic.
But after a lifetime of science fiction media,
After a steady media diet, rife with dystopian technology nightmares,
Is anyone likely to admit to being a cyborg?
Since I always give credit where credit is due,
I acknowledge that cyborg was a term coined in 1960,
By Manfred Clynes & Nathan S. Kline and,
Used to identify a self-regulating human-machine system in outer space.

Five years later D. S. Halacy's: Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman,
Featured an introduction, which spoke of:  “… a new frontier, that was not,
Merely space, but more profoundly, the relationship between inner space,
And outer space; a bridge, i.e., between mind and matter.”
So, by definition, a cyborg defined is an organism with,
Technology-enhanced abilities: an antenna array,
Replacing what was once sentient and human.
My glands, once in control of metabolism and emotions,
Have been replaced by several servomechanisms.
I am biomechanical and gluttonous.
Soaking up and breathing out the atmosphere,
My Baby Boom experience of six decades,
Homogenized and homespun, feedback looped,
Endlessly networked through predigested mass media,
Culture as demographically targeted content.

This must have something to do with my own metamorphosis.
I think of Gregor Samsa, a Kafkaesque character if there ever was one.
And though we share common traits,
My evolutionary progress surpasses and transcends his.
Samsa--Phylum and Class--was, after all, an insect.
Nonetheless, I remain a changeling.
Have I not seen many stages of growth?
Each a painful metamorphic cycle,
From exquisite first egg,
Through caterpillar’s appetite & squirm.
To phlegmatic bliss and pupa quietude,
I unfold my wings in a rush of Van Gogh palette,
Color, texture, movement and grace, lift off, flapping in flight.
My eyes have witnessed wondrous transformations,
My experience, nouveau riche and distinctly self-referential;
For the most part unspecific & longitudinally pedestrian.

Yes, something has happened to me along the way.
I am no longer certain of my identity as a human being.
Time and technology has altered my basic wiring diagram.
I suspect the sophisticated gadgets and tools,
I’ve been using to shape & make sense of my environment,
Have reared up and turned around on me.
My tools have reshaped my brain & central nervous system.
Remaking me as something simultaneously more and less human.
The electronic toys and tools I once so lovingly embraced,
Have turned unpredictable and rabid,
Their bite penetrating my skin and septic now, a cluster of implanted sensors,
Content: currency made increasingly more valuable as time passes,
Served up by and serving the interests of a pervasively predatory 1%.
And the rest of us: the so-called 99%?
No longer human; simply put by both Howards--Beale & Zinn--

Humanoid.

Everyday caught
In the labyrinth of mind,
I am,
Where dreams,
And desires
And lust,
From nothing
Conspire something.

Destination: Canada Water.
The next station is Surrey Quays.
Doors will open on the right-hand side.
Exit here for Goldsmith's College.

In the cerebellum
Fragments flash cerebrum bright:
Wheels in tunnels burn,
A neural screech amplified deep,
As waves of electrons churn,
And in multiple places keep.

This stop:
- My birth -
Is in Westminster!

It’s time:

Do you love me?
DO YOU LOVE ME?
          Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

In the space-time continuum,
The labyrinth is forever,
Within a fourth dimension.

It’s time …

You love me, right?
YOU LOVE ME, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
ASH FREE

Lost in the labyrinth: a journey to an exit.
The Overground train pulls!
And from floor to ceiling,
Between vertical orange pins,
A medley of languid listless limbs lulls,
       Seated hips,
       Angled legs,
       Dangling feet,
And neck-less heads,
Lost, ghoul-like,
The disconcerted move doggedly on,
Everywhere somewhere; but forever nowhere
Through London's hills and bogs.

From  STOP to STOP,
In the labyrinthine network,
In tubes splayed out on cubes,
Of bright brushed viscose comfort,
Overhead, the ads exhort:

       Top Up Your Soul,
       Fast Forward Your Escape
And
       uSwipe
       uSwitch
       uSave

Like these,
A hundred escalating messages,
Each more insistent than the last,
Compel, enough to distract,
So man’s desire enslaves his heart.

Its time…

         You love, right?
YOU LOVE, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
ASH FREE

How? Why?
Has bacterial sludge,
Built these edifices of glass and steel.
This labyrinthian cage,
Whose walls race up at the speed of light,
While the inner commuter flame gutters,
Everywher, in multiverses,
Supernovas explode in showers.
And for a moment, in the moment, The Overground chromatic glows.

New Cross Gate, Canada Water, Southwark.

Lit and digital and LCD:
        
  ALL CHANGE, PLEASE.
  THIS TRAIN TERMINATES HERE

A few automated steps, and:
       Southwark,
       Green Park,
       Then Baker Street,
Appear, fade and disappear.

Now walking down Belsize Road,
On the evening of the
Super Gibbous Moon,
As it rises high over the Ziggurat dimensions of the Alexandra Estate,
And all is blood orange at dusk,
As I, a slinking silhouette,
Make for the event horizon of home,
For surely given, and taken,
A few more bends, another turn,

It’s time, again.

         Love, right?
         LOVE, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
FREE ME.

To the event horizon of consciousness,
To that black hole at the core.
In death's star-like eye,
Embrace, pass through,
(Fear not),
On, through the labyrinth northward,
Entering and exiting,
We go awhile, a little longer.

Stars, my Stars,
Again, it's time.

You love me, right?
YOU LOVE ME, RIGHT?
Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
DEATH FREE.
LOVE!
BE,
WINGS FREE:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL

One more stop:

       New Bond Street.

GET BEYOND
DESIRE,
BEYOND THE LABYRINTHEAN LIE,
CONSUMER, DIE!
BE
MATERIAL FREE.

Last stop:

       No-name, this one:

BE:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL.

SAY IT:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
     DEATH FREE.
     LOVE!
     BE,
     WINGS FREE:
    
     WE ARE:
     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL

WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot,                       *sweet
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath                    grove, forest
The tender croppes and the younge sun                    twigs, boughs
Hath in the Ram  his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
(So pricketh them nature in their corages);       hearts, inclinations
Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
And palmers  for to seeke strange strands,
To *ferne hallows couth  in sundry lands;     distant saints known
And specially, from every shire's end
Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful Martyr for to seek,
That them hath holpen, when that they were sick.                helped

Befell that, in that season on a day,
In Southwark at the Tabard  as I lay,
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelry
Well nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry folk, by aventure y-fall            who had by chance fallen
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all,           into company.
That toward Canterbury woulde ride.
The chamber, and the stables were wide,
And well we weren eased at the best.            we were well provided
And shortly, when the sunne was to rest,                  with the best
So had I spoken with them every one,
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And made forword* early for to rise,                            promise
To take our way there as I you devise.                describe, relate

But natheless, while I have time and space,
Ere that I farther in this tale pace,
Me thinketh it accordant to reason,
To tell you alle the condition
Of each of them, so as it seemed me,
And which they weren, and of what degree;
And eke in what array that they were in:
And at a Knight then will I first begin.

A KNIGHT there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the time that he first began
To riden out, he loved chivalry,
Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy.
Full worthy was he in his Lorde's war,
And thereto had he ridden, no man farre,                       farther
As well in Christendom as in Heatheness,
And ever honour'd for his worthiness
At Alisandre  he was when it was won.
Full often time he had the board begun
Above alle nations in Prusse.
In Lettowe had he reysed, and in Russe,                      journeyed
No Christian man so oft of his degree.
In Grenade at the siege eke had he be
Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie.
At Leyes was he, and at Satalie,
When they were won; and in the Greate Sea
At many a noble army had he be.
At mortal battles had he been fifteen,
And foughten for our faith at Tramissene.
In listes thries, and aye slain his foe.
This ilke worthy knight had been also                         same
Some time with the lord of Palatie,
Against another heathen in Turkie:
And evermore *he had a sovereign price.            He was held in very
And though that he was worthy he was wise,                 high esteem.
And of his port as meek as is a maid.
He never yet no villainy ne said
In all his life, unto no manner wight.
He was a very perfect gentle knight.
But for to telle you of his array,
His horse was good, but yet he was not gay.
Of fustian he weared a gipon,                            short doublet
Alle besmotter'd with his habergeon,     soiled by his coat of mail.
For he was late y-come from his voyage,
And wente for to do his pilgrimage.

With him there was his son, a younge SQUIRE,
A lover, and a ***** bacheler,
With lockes crulle* as they were laid in press.                  curled
Of twenty year of age he was I guess.
Of his stature he was of even length,
And *wonderly deliver, and great of strength.      wonderfully nimble
And he had been some time in chevachie,                  cavalry raids
In Flanders, in Artois, and Picardie,
And borne him well, as of so little space,      in such a short time
In hope to standen in his lady's grace.
Embroider'd was he, as it were a mead
All full of freshe flowers, white and red.
Singing he was, or fluting all the day;
He was as fresh as is the month of May.
Short was his gown, with sleeves long and wide.
Well could he sit on horse, and faire ride.
He coulde songes make, and well indite,
Joust, and eke dance, and well pourtray and write.
So hot he loved, that by nightertale                        night-time
He slept no more than doth the nightingale.
Courteous he was, lowly, and serviceable,
And carv'd before his father at the table.

A YEOMAN had he, and servants no mo'
At that time, for him list ride so         it pleased him so to ride
And he was clad in coat and hood of green.
A sheaf of peacock arrows bright and keen
Under his belt he bare full thriftily.
Well could he dress his tackle yeomanly:
His arrows drooped not with feathers low;
And in his hand he bare a mighty bow.
A nut-head  had he, with a brown visiage:
Of wood-craft coud* he well all the usage:                         knew
Upon his arm he bare a gay bracer,                        small shield
And by his side a sword and a buckler,
And on that other side a gay daggere,
Harnessed well, and sharp as point of spear:
A Christopher on his breast of silver sheen.
An horn he bare, the baldric was of green:
A forester was he soothly as I guess.                        certainly

There was also a Nun, a PRIORESS,
That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Her greatest oathe was but by Saint Loy;
And she was cleped  Madame Eglentine.                           called
Full well she sang the service divine,
Entuned in her nose full seemly;
And French she spake full fair and fetisly                    properly
After the school of Stratford atte Bow,
For French of Paris was to her unknow.
At meate was she well y-taught withal;
She let no morsel from her lippes fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep.
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep,
That no droppe ne fell upon her breast.
In courtesy was set full much her lest.                       pleasure
Her over-lippe wiped she so clean,
That in her cup there was no farthing seen                       speck
Of grease, when she drunken had her draught;
Full seemely after her meat she raught:           reached out her hand
And *sickerly she was of great disport,     surely she was of a lively
And full pleasant, and amiable of port,                     disposition
And pained her to counterfeite cheer              took pains to assume
Of court,* and be estately of mannere,            a courtly disposition
And to be holden digne of reverence.                            worthy
But for to speaken of her conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,                      full of pity
She woulde weep if that she saw a mouse
Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bled.
Of smalle houndes had she, that she fed
With roasted flesh, and milk, and *wastel bread.   finest white bread
But sore she wept if one of them were dead,
Or if men smote it with a yarde* smart:                           staff
And all was conscience and tender heart.
Full seemly her wimple y-pinched was;
Her nose tretis; her eyen gray as glass;               well-formed
Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red;
But sickerly she had a fair forehead.
It was almost a spanne broad I trow;
For *hardily she was not undergrow.       certainly she was not small
Full fetis* was her cloak, as I was ware.                          neat
Of small coral about her arm she bare
A pair of beades, gauded all with green;
And thereon hung a brooch of gold full sheen,
On which was first y-written a crown'd A,
And after, *Amor vincit omnia.                      love conquers all
Another Nun also with her had she,
[That was her chapelleine, and PRIESTES three.]

A MONK there was, a fair for the mast'ry,       above all others
An out-rider, that loved venery;                               *hunting
A manly man, to be an abbot able.
Full many a dainty horse had he in stable:
And when he rode, men might his bridle hear
Jingeling  in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud, as doth the chapel bell,
There as this lord was keeper of the cell.
The rule of Saint Maur and of Saint Benet,
Because that it was old and somedeal strait
This ilke monk let olde thinges pace,                             same
And held after the newe world the trace.
He *gave not of the text a pulled hen,                he cared nothing
That saith, that hunters be not holy men:                  for the text
Ne that a monk, when he is cloisterless;
Is like to a fish that is waterless;
This is to say, a monk out of his cloister.
This ilke text held he not worth an oyster;
And I say his opinion was good.
Why should he study, and make himselfe wood                   *mad
Upon a book in cloister always pore,
Or swinken with his handes, and labour,                           toil
As Austin bid? how shall the world be served?
Let Austin have his swink to him reserved.
Therefore he was a prickasour aright:                       hard rider
Greyhounds he had as swift as fowl of flight;
Of pricking and of hunting for the hare                         riding
Was all his lust, for no cost would he spare.                 pleasure
I saw his sleeves *purfil'd at the hand       *worked at the end with a
With gris, and that the finest of the land.          fur called "gris"
And for to fasten his hood under his chin,
He had of gold y-wrought a curious pin;
A love-knot in the greater end there was.
His head was bald, and shone as any glass,
And eke his face, as it had been anoint;
He was a lord full fat and in good point;
His eyen steep, and rolling in his head,                      deep-set
That steamed as a furnace of a lead.
His bootes supple, his horse in great estate,
Now certainly he was a fair prelate;
He was not pale as a forpined ghost;                            wasted
A fat swan lov'd he best of any roast.
His palfrey was as brown as is a berry.

A FRIAR there was, a wanton and a merry,
A limitour , a full solemne man.
In all the orders four is none that can                          knows
So much of dalliance and fair language.
He had y-made full many a marriage
Of younge women, at his owen cost.
Unto his order he was a noble post;
Full well belov'd, and familiar was he
With franklins *over all in his country,                   everywhere
And eke with worthy women of the town:
For he had power of confession,
As said himselfe, more than a curate,
For of his order he was licentiate.
Full sweetely heard he confession,
And pleasant was his absolution.
He was an easy man to give penance,
There as he wist to have a good pittance:      *where he know

THE PROLOGUE.

When that the Knight had thus his tale told
In all the rout was neither young nor old,
That he not said it was a noble story,
And worthy to be drawen to memory;                          recorded
And namely the gentles every one.          especially the gentlefolk
Our Host then laugh'd and swore, "So may I gon,                prosper
This goes aright; unbuckled is the mail;        the budget is opened
Let see now who shall tell another tale:
For truely this game is well begun.
Now telleth ye, Sir Monk, if that ye conne,                       *know
Somewhat, to quiten with the Knighte's tale."                    match
The Miller that fordrunken was all pale,
So that unnethes upon his horse he sat,                with difficulty
He would avalen neither hood nor hat,                          uncover
Nor abide no man for his courtesy,                         give way to
But in Pilate's voice he gan to cry,
And swore by armes, and by blood, and bones,
"I can a noble tale for the nones                            occasion,
With which I will now quite the Knighte's tale."                 match
Our Host saw well how drunk he was of ale,
And said; "Robin, abide, my leve brother,                         dear
Some better man shall tell us first another:
Abide, and let us worke thriftily."
By Godde's soul," quoth he, "that will not I,
For I will speak, or elles go my way!"
Our Host answer'd; "Tell on a devil way;             *devil take you!
Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome."
"Now hearken," quoth the Miller, "all and some:
But first I make a protestatioun.
That I am drunk, I know it by my soun':
And therefore if that I misspeak or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwark, I you pray:             blame it on
For I will tell a legend and a life
Both of a carpenter and of his wife,
How that a clerk hath set the wrighte's cap."   fooled the carpenter
The Reeve answer'd and saide, "Stint thy clap,      hold your tongue
Let be thy lewed drunken harlotry.
It is a sin, and eke a great folly
To apeiren* any man, or him defame,                              injure
And eke to bringe wives in evil name.
Thou may'st enough of other thinges sayn."
This drunken Miller spake full soon again,
And saide, "Leve brother Osewold,
Who hath no wife, he is no cuckold.
But I say not therefore that thou art one;
There be full goode wives many one.
Why art thou angry with my tale now?
I have a wife, pardie, as well as thou,
Yet *n'old I, for the oxen in my plough,                  I would not
Taken upon me more than enough,
To deemen* of myself that I am one;                               judge
I will believe well that I am none.
An husband should not be inquisitive
Of Godde's privity, nor of his wife.
So he may finde Godde's foison there,                         treasure
Of the remnant needeth not to enquere."

What should I more say, but that this Millere
He would his wordes for no man forbear,
But told his churlish tale in his mannere;               boorish, rude
Me thinketh, that I shall rehearse it here.
And therefore every gentle wight I pray,
For Godde's love to deem not that I say
Of evil intent, but that I must rehearse
Their tales all, be they better or worse,
Or elles falsen some of my mattere.                            falsify
And therefore whoso list it not to hear,
Turn o'er the leaf, and choose another tale;
For he shall find enough, both great and smale,
Of storial thing that toucheth gentiless,             historical, true
And eke morality and holiness.
Blame not me, if that ye choose amiss.
The Miller is a churl, ye know well this,
So was the Reeve, with many other mo',
And harlotry they tolde bothe two.                        ribald tales
Avise you* now, and put me out of blame;                    be warned
And eke men should not make earnest of game.                 *jest, fun

Notes to the Prologue to the Miller's Tale

1. Pilate, an unpopular personage in the mystery-plays of the
middle ages, was probably represented as having a gruff, harsh
voice.

2. Wite: blame; in Scotland, "to bear the wyte," is to bear the
blame.

THE TALE.

Whilom there was dwelling in Oxenford
A riche gnof, that guestes held to board,   miser *took in boarders
And of his craft he was a carpenter.
With him there was dwelling a poor scholer,
Had learned art, but all his fantasy
Was turned for to learn astrology.
He coude* a certain of conclusions                                 knew
To deeme by interrogations,                                  determine
If that men asked him in certain hours,
When that men should have drought or elles show'rs:
Or if men asked him what shoulde fall
Of everything, I may not reckon all.

This clerk was called Hendy Nicholas;                 gentle, handsome
Of derne love he knew and of solace;                   secret, earnest
And therewith he was sly and full privy,
And like a maiden meek for to see.
A chamber had he in that hostelry
Alone, withouten any company,
Full *fetisly y-dight with herbes swoot,            neatly decorated
And he himself was sweet as is the root                           *sweet
Of liquorice, or any setewall.                                valerian
His Almagest, and bookes great and small,
His astrolabe,  belonging to his art,
His augrim stones, layed fair apart
On shelves couched at his bedde's head,                      laid, set
His press y-cover'd with a falding red.                   coarse cloth
And all above there lay a gay psalt'ry
On which he made at nightes melody,
So sweetely, that all the chamber rang:
And Angelus ad virginem he sang.
And after that he sung the kinge's note;
Full often blessed was his merry throat.
And thus this sweete clerk his time spent
After *his friendes finding and his rent.    Attending to his friends,
                                                   and providing for the
                                                    cost of his lodging
This carpenter had wedded new a wife,
Which that he loved more than his life:
Of eighteen year, I guess, she was of age.
Jealous he was, and held her narr'w in cage,
For she was wild and young, and he was old,
And deemed himself belike* a cuckold.                           perhaps
He knew not Cato, for his wit was rude,
That bade a man wed his similitude.
Men shoulde wedden after their estate,
For youth and eld are often at debate.                             age
But since that he was fallen in the snare,
He must endure (as other folk) his care.
Fair was this younge wife, and therewithal
As any weasel her body gent and small.                      slim, neat
A seint she weared, barred all of silk,                         girdle
A barm-cloth eke as white as morning milk                     apron
Upon her lendes, full of many a gore.                  ***** *plait
White was her smock, and broider'd all before,            robe or gown
And eke behind, on her collar about
Of coal-black silk, within and eke without.
The tapes of her white volupere                      head-kerchief
Were of the same suit of her collere;
Her fillet broad of silk, and set full high:
And sickerly* she had a likerous eye.          certainly *lascivious
Full small y-pulled were her browes two,
And they were bent, and black as any sloe.                      arched
She was well more blissful on to see           pleasant to look upon
Than is the newe perjenete* tree;                       young pear-tree
And softer than the wool is of a wether.
And by her girdle hung a purse of leather,
Tassel'd with silk, and *pearled with latoun.   set with brass pearls
In all this world to seeken up and down
There is no man so wise, that coude thenche            fancy, think of
So gay a popelot, or such a *****.                          puppet
Full brighter was the shining of her hue,
Than in the Tower the noble* forged new.                a gold coin
But of her song, it was as loud and yern,                  lively
As any swallow chittering on a bern.                              barn
Thereto she coulde skip, and make a game                 also *romp
As any kid or calf following his dame.
Her mouth was sweet as braket, or as methe                    mead
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincing* she was as is a jolly colt,                           skittish
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A brooch she bare upon her low collere,
As broad as is the boss of a bucklere.
Her shoon were laced on her legges high;
She was a primerole, a piggesnie ,                        primrose
For any lord t' have ligging in his bed,                         lying
Or yet for any good yeoman to wed.

Now, sir, and eft sir, so befell the case,                       again
That on a day this Hendy Nicholas
Fell with this younge wife to rage and play,       toy, play the rogue
While that her husband was at Oseney,
As clerkes be full subtle and full quaint.
And privily he caught her by the queint,                          ****
And said; "Y-wis, but if I have my will,                     assuredly
For *derne love of thee, leman, I spill."     for earnest love of thee
And helde her fast by the haunche bones,          my mistress, I perish
And saide "Leman, love me well at once,
Or I will dien, all so God me save."
And she sprang as a colt doth in the trave:
And with her head she writhed fast away,
And said; "I will not kiss thee, by my fay.                      faith
Why let be," quoth she,

In this church built from lust and inadequacy
where the reason of thought is the currency,
corralled in the stalls until Jericho falls
I find faith in the meaning of sanctuary.

The folds of the flock gently cover me
until I drown in the sea of discovery and
am reborn in the sea they call Galilee.

The Devil does not advocate celibacy
he reads from the book of debauchery
his acolytes form lines to follow me,
I slip under the waves because
I know Jesus saves and
I drown in the sea they call Galilee.

She sits next to him
on a side seat
on the bus;
they're going to
Waterloo Rail Station
to watch the steam trains.

She holds in the palm
of her small hand
the 3d piece
her mother
had given her;
it's sweaty;
the 12 sides make
a slight impression
on her skin.

She moves
side to side
as the bus
turns corners;
Benny's arm
touches hers
as they move.

Why you have to go
with him
to see the trains,
God only knows,
her mother had said,
but at least
he's a decent sort,
going by his mother.

She likes Benny's mum;
she smiles at her,
and is soft spoken,
unlike her own mum,
who bellows
and spits words
and slaps her.

She looks out
the window,
then looks sideways
at Benny.

He's looking forward,
his hazel eyes
taking in the man opposite,
his quiff of light brown hair
bouncing with the bus's motion.

He's got the money
his mum has given him
in his jean's pocket,
along with a small penknife,
old conker and string,
handkerchief washed grey.

Beside him sits Lydia
the girl from downstairs
in the flats.

She's skinny
and her lank hair
seems out of place
with her bright eyes.

He suggested going
to the station to see
the steam trains;
he loves the smells
and sights and sounds
of the trains.

He had a job
persuading her mother
to let her go,
but eventually
she agreed,
(must have been
his smile).

The man opposite
stares at Lydia;
his ******* eyes
drinking her in.

Benny stares back at him,
gives the man his best
Bogart stare,
even holding his head
at an angle.

The man's green tie
is stained;
the shirt is too small
and seems to want
to escape from his body.

The man stares at him,
his eyes moving to him
like two black slugs.

Benny touches Lydia's
small hand and says:
soon be there.

The man ends
his black eyed stare,
and looks away.

Well done, Bogey,
Benny says
inside his head,
and senses Lydia's hand
grip her 3d piece coin;
her bright eyes showing
small portraits of him
in each one,
absorbing him
like dark cloth
does the sun.

London is an onion.
Not one of those big, brown juicy globes
you can buy in packs of three, from Tesco,
No, an earthy, shrivelled relic from an old geezer's allotment,
With trailing fronds and a few infestations.
If you were to take a bite, your eyes would smart and your body rebel with a cough, a shudder and a wheeze,
But moments later, a smile would be playing round your lips,
Such a sensory adventure, though not exactly pleasant, can still be savoured,
And you'll remember the taste forever.

Londoners are weevils, hiding in the layers.
Outer, inner, some of us worm our way between them all.
Me, I tend to head for the heart of the thing,
Soho, Southwark, the inner sanctums.
I sometimes venture nearer the surface, the outer edges,
But too close to the unknown, and unfamiliar air,
And I start to pine for the centre.
You can work between the layers,
But the many skins are tougher than you'd think,
Better to burrow down, find a place to sustain
The appetite of a hungry little grub.

Some call me a prophet
Others see me as a derelict
These stories I’ve stored in my head
Can easily be twisted to fantasy

Am I reliable?
You have no choice
But to take what I say and believe
At least for a little while

I believe the listener
Is as naïve as I seem
Sitting on every detail
Every word

While visiting Southwark
I met a variety of characters
From different means of life
With different perspectives on the world

Looking innocent has its advantages
It gives me a leeway
To invade other’s privacy
And extend the truth to the edge of fabrication

Have you ever questioned a storyteller?
We all seem friendly
We talk highly of everyone we meet
Until we dive deeper into their secrets

The Squire
Composing music is his forte
I say it sounds beautiful
And he seems fresh as the month of May

The Friar
A gossiper full of language
I hope to understand
To grasp




A Sailor
Having bad joints
From extensive labor.
He must work substantially to acquire those injuries

The Summoner
Full of white pimples
Yet drinks red wine
As red as blood

I create a story
Yet can end it all the same
I tell you what you want to hear
Not what reality presents in front of me

For life is not exciting
Without a bit of imagination.
And with my mastered poker face
It may be impossible to seek out my lies

The darkness inside us all
Can peek its head at any time
Consuming us into a downward spiral
Of lie after endless lie

So am I reliable?
We’ll just have to see.
So here comes a story
Told by me.

It was the fourth day
since the break up
from school
for the summer vacation

and you were riding
with Janice
on the bus
to London Bridge

and she was wearing
the lemon coloured dress
you liked
that came to the knees

which were pressed
together
and the brown sandals
with the patterned holes

and the red beret
on her fair hair
was swaying
with the motion

of the bus
opposite you
was a man
wearing a trilby

and a moustache
who kept looking at you
with his dark eyes
his head going

from side to side
as the bus moved
and he sat next
to Janice

his hands
on his knees
and he turned
and gazed

at Janice’s knees
then up at you again
his features flushing
and then he looked away

at the passing scene
behind you
pretending
you weren’t there

then at London Bridge
he got off
and so did you
and Janice

and you waited
until he had gone
walking up
and over the bridge

and you said
he was a queer fish
who?
said Janice

that bloke
who sat next to you
why?
she asked

he kept staring at me
and ogling
at your knees
did he?

Janice said
you wait
until I tell Gran
about that

she’ll say
you watch out
for his type Janice
he’s no better

than he ought to be
you nodded
and smiled
at her imitation

of her gran
and she laughed
and you both
walked down

the steps and by
Southwark Cathedral
to the embankment
by the River Thames

and stood by the wall
looking at the passing
boats and ships and tugs
and the occasional

ducks floating  
on the brown water
and you felt Janice’s
9 year old hand

touch yours
as she pretended
(as she often did)
that you were

a married couple
out for a romantic walk
gazing
at the passing scenery

with the added
small talk.

On a brighter note
a Thames lighter boat,
where the rivermen between the banks give thanks to
tidal waves and wave across between the shores,between the puritans and ******,
Southwark never bores the citizens,pitting them against the age where Shakespeare plays upon the stage and Chaucer sits in Tabard Square,
awaits the pilgrims who are milling corn atop the bridge.

Cromwell sells the tickets for his latest gig,to dig the graves and inter the raving lunatics who switch from bedlam down to palaces in the minster where the spinster out of place knits balaclavas for the faces that she sees dropping from a guillotine,
these things I've seen a thousand times, written in ten thousand lines and acted out below the chimes of clocks that stand before the sway of one more 'down south london way'  or anyway what do I care if it's share and share alike or not.
I've got allotted but a short spell here,time for dinner,one more glass of beer and then my dear I'm on my way,
to stroll through more of yesterday.

She left in the morning with just a burlap sack
She sat upon the bus with the sack upon her lap
She marvelled at the travellers who all looked very sad
And in the service-stop the salesmen, they all seemed very sad
And the teller and the feller selling coffee, they seemed sad
And she prayed that the city was exempt from all this sad

But when she arrived in the city not far after five
All the faces seemed blurred
And only half-way alive
So she sat by a statue, tried to pin down the picture
But her eyes weren’t adjusted, and her brain wouldn’t let her
And a man shouted at her
And another tried to tempt her
And she slept in a doorway till a cop came and kicked her

So she walked by the river where a man tried to trick her…
And as the drunks staggered homeward and the jackals closed their eyes
She began to see the city as the sun began to rise
And in the shadows of the shards and the black brick buildings
The steeples and the courtyards had their moment of revealing:

Amidst the sky-scape of Hawksmoor and the mind-scape of Blake
A landscape of Albion was summoned in its wake
And the God within the River raised his head to shake his hair
And the ancient stone of London sent a signal to her there
And the head of Bryn ascended from a mound near Tower Hill
Whilst the Southwark geese all danced to a mighty jig and reel
She heard the echoes of the anarchy of ancient London fayre’s
Where the rich never lingered, and the power never dared
She glimpsed the ghost of Jack Sheppard upon the rooftops of the Squares
And Leno’s crazy clog-dance whipped a whirlwind in the air

All the heroes of the city filled her aching soul with light
As she pulled her knees to her chest and curled her aching body tight
Cocooned now in sleep, the revelries all ended
And she dreamt the city back to life, as the worker-ants descended
And each and every day thereon she would dream as they descended

Now she sees beyond the blurs and the slate-grey etched-in faces
She sleeps amidst the majesty of all the hidden holy places
She lies outside the fear and lies; the ruckus; riot; and squall
Some say she’s an incarnation of the Holy Hermit in the wall.
But maybe she’s a frequency – outside of space and time
And the spirit of the City, within her now resides

And though the Peace of the city is killed by screaming cars
And the Light of the city extinguishes the stars
And the Heart of the city is banished to the edges
And the Beat of the city is traded by the hedgers  
The Soul of the city is safe within her hold
So pray tonight she’s wrapped up tight against the biting cold.

-And bless her when you see her and thank her for her dreams
For the dreams she weaves are miracles and we are products of those dreams

So bless her
If you see her
And maybe, you could feed her
For though the city is her lifeblood
It often fails to feed her
And if the city shall not feed her, and if she fails to dream
Well – can you truly visualise a world devoid of dreams?

-Can any of us visualise - a world devoid of dreams?

****** of Southwark,
lay down your Book of Hours
and rise, uprooted,
like trees!

Wednesday kicks of with a song and the drunk who started it gets me
to sing along.

It doesn't surprise me down on the Jubilee
why would it?

Contactless payments,
touch in with your card, but don't touch your fellow commuters,
it's personal space so
get outa my face which is
difficult when it's jam packed.


And it's just getting light on a grey day
a day when there's not much to say day.

The accent or essence of intent
is missing
I think it's a portent

Seventeen red shoes I have counted,
he thinks
Long John must be on this train
maybe he's
taking the Jubilee to sail the Caribbean Sea
but
I don't think it goes that far.


Only and if.

the worms are out of control
as they roll up their joints
between stations
the underground windows
are shadows
I bet ' Pass'
because I'm on a roll.

On overdrive now
under
Green Park
and it's as dark as it can be
here on the Jubilee
I think that's a portent too.

The jubilee line
a
different take on a journey I make
because a change is as good as a
rest,
just doing my best to keep it fresh.

It's Friday and why not?
yes
I know it was Friday a week ago
but things have a way of repeating
on me.

It'd be nice to say that this was the
better way, but it's so bleedin' cold and I'm shivering
if the heating was on and turned up to a reasonable temperature
I'd feel better

and then I'm
at Greenwich,
the 02 must refer to
the Fahrenheit scale.

From
Canary Wharf and Bermondsey
I can almost see that London bridge
is not falling down it's only sinking
slightly
might be me and my poor eyesight
though.

Southwark then Waterloo
what do I do?
get off and wait underneath the clock?
taking stock of my situation and the weather and none whatsoever of the tick tock
I lock my sights on Bond street and the Central line
perhaps an interchange is as good as a rest too.

Haha
I missed out Westminster and Green park
easy to do in the dark when it's cold.

I opened my eyes to an announcement
the tannoy tells me Waterloo station is closed

I wasn't getting off there but I could have been
and might have been waiting forever underneath a clock and no one would ever know.

This is a nice line
a twin track to that
time when work wags
Its finger at me.


and that's it
no observations
on my fellow travellers,
possibly because the
carriage is empty,
but
I'm full of hope
and that's a good line
as well.

What, Wednesday?
no way,
surely
we had one last week.

I'm going to complain
not sure who to
but
that's what I'm going
to do.

Actually
I'm already on the jubilee
five fifteen
and I've never seen such
a motley crew
except on
' Captain Pugwash'
and they were just
cartoon characters.

It's cold
because it's nothing
without a mention of
the weather.

West Ham
like boiled ham
but
not as tasty.

And it's her again

woman with the candy floss hair
I'm wondering how it stays in place
she looks as if she doesn't care.

Canning Town
a bit uppity
needs a
dressing down
but
the vinyl man gets on
records under his arm
I want to say,
your day has gone
but
I don't.

North Greenwich,
not the American village
but close enough.

Lots more get on,
the tube moves on
I stay seated.

Canary Wharf,
do canaries tweet?
I'll find out on Twitter
later.

Canada water
not quite Canada
but the water
is nearly there.

People off,
maybe going canoeing
or going to work
I presume
which leaves me room
to stretch my legs.

I'd have to stretch my imagination
to imagine the next station,
yes it's,
Bermondsey
a wait and see place
south of the river.

Onwards
with John's words.

Next bridge
is London Bridge,
we're
getting  ready to cross over,
no!
not the great divide
just the Thames

Southwark?
never heard of it
although we stop for
a bit
to let people off.

Waterloo
under the clock
at two
at three
at four the policeman
says,
what are you waiting for?
I move along.

Westminster, a
den of thieves
a lot of chaos
I'm still
here.

Green park
greener now we've
had rain
and the next stop
is
Bond Street
I'm
nearly at work,
what, again?

i miss being a young man, in his late teens...
i don't know what happened to my 20s...
honestly: i really don't...
     i was out of the usual treadmill antics of
a boy's 20s...
    by the time i resolved all the difficulties that
can be associated with a psychotic breakdown:
women started telling their children:
mind this man walking past you...
man... man... i forgot being a boy...
        i was secluded in my boyhood of my early
and late 20s... i only came back to society: slowly...
cautiously... once i passed the mark of turning 30...
who said that they'd welcome the quick passing
on the tyranny of beauty? Plato...
   and who might add: the idiocy of youth?
    that bravado... that cockiness... self-assurance:
as false as they come? i guess i could be accredited with
uttering such words... there's this middle path
when life becomes bearable... after your 30s until
you hit 60... and then... those consolidation years...
  facing up to mortality...
                  not until then...
   but i miss the boy i was when i was 14 through to 21...
when women could and would mystify me...
when i wanted to pursue them...
           i was allocated the "tribe" of men:
women don't take a ****! women don't ****!
   don't be silly!
            they eat but they don't take a ****!
            don't be silly!
                     of the relationships i've had... ha ha!
"relationships": my grandparents (on my maternal side)
ended their relationship by sleeping in separate rooms
in separate beds...
   well... it was more of a fling: hell!
i had the chance to visit Russia for a month...
spend a month in St. Petersburg...
    visit the Russian version of Versailles...
         travel overnight to Moscow on the train
listening to Bob Dylan on the top bunk bed...
   managed to see Metallica...
      kiss the girl while everyone took out their
cigarette lighters when Fade to Black was being played...
i remember that song oh too well...
in my bedroom covered with posters of bands...
falling asleep to that song
   while dreaming of next day's commute with
the Ursuline girls... coming from... Hainault and beyond:
Debden... Loughton...
  
sure... she slapped me when she picked me up from
the airport... since that slap i punched
myself harsher... what was i going to do?
complain? she would have kicked me out of the house
and with as little of a knowledge of Russian as i had...
become a homeless person in St. Petersburg?
so i took the slap... i subsequently took it out on her
by ******* her for 7 hours one night...
i hope she felt a Spartan cohort of 300 having fun with
her... i hope i exhausted her...
i still remember that slap... i hope she remembers
those seven hours of bedroom antics...

i did behave in a "hypergamous" way... like a woman...
what are the chances of visiting Russia: these days?
i played nice...
                   i wouldn't mind returning to her to simply
slap her *** during *******...
but i was 21 and stupid back then...
i once heard a friend of my estranged uncle say:
slap her about at the beginning...
then she'll stay... i did that with my cats...
one of them was ******* in my bed...
i didn't know which one it was...
first time i saw **** in my bed i inquired
by slapping both of them...
the second time i caught the culprit! he was taking
a dump in my bed...
now? after slapping him...
       then washing him... then curling him into
a towel like a mummy and placing him in the sun?
we're the best of friends... he keeps slipping into
my bed from 10pm through to 1am...
i'd hate to do that with women...
     slapping a girl just to get some respect?
i don't need to: i don't want to do that...
i don't want to do what i did with my cats
to become translated to women...

              ergo? i miss the 14 through to 21 year old
boy's libido...
   i wish i could want that ******* Khedra more...
it has almost been 2 months since i last saw her...
i'm already due to get a haircut... and a shave at the Turk...
ergo? i need to trim my ***** hair elsewhere:
no, not the beard on my face...
   she stopped sending me selfies...
i stopped sending her pictures of flowers from my garden:
currently? the chives are in bloom...
pretty little purple flowers... reminiscent of
the Scottish thistle...
               it's not that i'm out of practice:
i just don't feel the need to feed the need for ***
anymore...
   i have lost the hunger for it...
     not that i'm impotent... but i just...
                 need it... sparingly: on a whim...
last time i was woken up from an asexual slumber...
god forgive me...
i was grooming my female cat... and she raised her
backside into my face...
i know! i know: *******...
ergo? i cycled like mad across the north eastern
part of London looking for a brothel...
i already knew where the brothel was...
but i cycled all the way to Tottenham Court High Road...
back to Stratford... £160 for an hour... pretty steep...
back to Goodmayes... £130 for an hour...

point being: when i was with this Russian girl...
oh man... sleeping in the same bed...
maybe that's why i never took relationships too seriously...
the sleeping arrangement...
it's already difficult sharing a bed with 10kg Maine ****
cat... imagine sharing it with a woman...
each and every, single, *******, night...
one side of me became: NUMB...
yeah... that B is a surd... it's silent: NUM' -
hello apostrophe...
                
because i couldn't possibly fall asleep not hugging her...
but by that "logic" half of me would
get cramps... and dead-meat numbing
effects...
   oh to hell with that!
why do all the rich people need so many bathrooms?!
you need at least three bedrooms!
one in which you sleep... one in which she sleeps...
and one in which you ****!

i miss being mystified by women, reading Stendhal...
that's not coming back...
too many practicalities came along...
me and a single mum?!
we're creatures of habit... before we are even
associated with politics or society...
man is a habitual creature....
by 30+? you have your habits...
and they are non-negotiable...
  
   personally? the most pristine distance to cycle
casually... i'd say... over the distance of a marathon...
so... 50+km... / 26+ miles... that's relaxing...
anything less is sort of boring...
that's why i forget the countryside from time to time...
and cycle into central London...
why?

a) i'm cycling in to... look at some girls...
   randomly... girls and architecture...
andy williams... music to watch the girls go by...
b) hmm...
           cliche, that point (a)...
    get ******* at traffic...
     being a traffic shepherd...
             elevated status of pedestrian...
   danger... leeching off buses and trucks...
leeching off ambulances... just the general
sense of commotion... people spotting...
bore and yawn and yawn and bore...
c) ah... spatial orientation...
if you start off at around Collier Row...
and cycle toward Barkingside...
and you take that B174 (Romford Rd.)
       route... you have that beautiful precursor
of a London skyline... and you start thinking:
well... i'll be there in about an hour and half an hour plus...

i found my favourite route "roundabout" today...
South London... i don't care what anyone says...
immediately: in the immediacy of cycling across
the bridge... London feels different in the south...
a little round around via London Bridge
and back up north again via Southwark Bridge...
and... whatever 20+ miles back home to do some
work in the garden...

****... no pretty girls along the way...
nothing that might stand out...

i know why i'm reluctant regarding visiting that brothel...
last time i wanted to perform oral ***
on a ******* she asked me to pay extra...
hell... if Khedra was willing to perform unprotected
***... because... the two of us...
are hygienic Nazis... i'm thinking...
slob... slob... the one time and place i can turn into
a slob... i want to pucker up my lips to those
other pair of lips...
but... i don't want to be paying extra...
i'm imagining... falling asleep on my stomach
and pushing my mouth into a pillow...

and hallucinating daffodils...
no... tulips! anything floral and the female genitals!
hmm... ha ha: yummy yuck!
maybe that's why i prefer to eat a rare beef steak...
lick, ****: but: if you're going to bite...
gently...

hell: if women can explore their sexuality...
can i, too, please?
i'll just word it... without having multiple partners...
but it's so much easier with prostitutes...
what dating apps?! never heard of them...
the money is on the table...
lucky for me i tried ******* for the first time
aged 35+ years old... and i was like:
i prefer coffee...

coffee an nicotine in the morning... first thing's first...
n'ah... nein nein... NO! i don't do powdered
crowds...
what m shift tomorrow? Wembley... play-offs...
whoever it playing i'm pretty sure i'll be looking for a
wife...
but i want my mojo back...
   i want to go back into that brothel and ****
like a 21 year old... i want to rekindle a hunger
for a female body...
          on the throne of thrones:
it really doesn't help... abstaining from all
that libido insomnia of over-exposure to *******...
sometimes... i tried a whole month dry...
it changed: **** all!
i need to be in the mood...
   i haven't been in the mood for about 2 months...

**** on me! cacas mihi on (take on me
variable wording ancients tongues etc.)
i fall back on something sinister...
Dante took Virgil as his guide...
    ******* from Horace! ******* from Horace!
he's mine!
i fall back on translating Latin texts...

Horace:

quid obserstis auribus fundis precces?
non saxa nudis surdiora navitis
Neptunus alto tundit hibernus salo.
inultus ut tu riseris Cotytia
volgata, sacrum liberi Cupidinis,
et Esquilini pontifex venefici
inpune ut urbem nomine inpleris meo?
  quid proderat ditasse Paelignas ****
verlociusve fata te votis manent:
          ingrata misero vita ducenda est in hoc,
novis ut usque suppetas laborisbus.
optat quietem Pelopis infidi pater
                egens benignae Tantalus semper dapis,
optat Prometheus obligatus aliti,
  optat supremo conlocare Sisyphus
in monte saxum; sed  vetant leges Iovis.
Voles modo altis desilire turribus,
                 modo ense pectus Norico recludere,
frustraque vincla gutturi nectes tuo
                    fastidiosa tristis aegrimonia.
vectabor umeris tunc ego inimicis eques
                meaeque terra cedet insolentiae.

an quae movere cerreas imagines,
ut ipse nosti curiosus, et polo
      deriepered lunam vocibus possim meis,
possim crematos excitare mortuous
desiderque temperare pocula,
      plorem artist in te nil agentis exitus?
    
you dare bring requests toward clogged ears?!
not so on the voice of naked sailors does the
deaf rock and not so during winter does Neptune
shakes his trident (three-tooth), like you with the word,
who so weighs himself by laughter serving up
Canidia's ******, slandering love, the holiness of
   Cupid.
               do you not call yourself the priest of
the Esquiline practices, you're not raving,
whatever the saliva will bring?
    haven't i overpaid the Paeligni(ne) witches?
do i no longer detect poisonous poisons?!
    even though the parks have extended your age,
you will feel death's pressure all the more.
Pelops' treacherous father Tantal(us),
emptied from the godly feasts, desires respite,
    Prometheus with an eagle by his liver lacquers,
without end, Sisyphus rolls the stone up the hill
endlessly - Jupiter doesn't allow a respite.
you're looking for an escape, jump from the highest
floors,
     with a Norico sword: a naked breast unravel
   (unravel a naked breast)
   or... tighten the rope, on the neck looped...
   chased by not-mind (misunderstanding),
with disgrace's stigma.
in the meantime: onto the back i'll jump on astride,
i'lll big back the earth - incredible joy.
wax(y) puppets will get up, into motion admired,
i will break off the moon from the sky,
    i will revenge satisfaction,
      i will, the dead and the burnt i will resurrect,
with desires' loving magic i will return tormenting,
these tears are for nothing -
      a phantom will enter the suicide.
are you still going to be able to
                               place resistance against art?    


of note:
- Cotytia - rendered Canidia in English
was the first witch of ancient Rome...
- Esquiline "practices?
   Rome was founded on the seven hills...
one of those hills was the Esquiline hill...
the other six are:
   Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Caelian, and Aventine...
- the Paelignī? an Italic tribe - etymologically
associated with the words
    an cognate-mix of
       privignus (stepson) & paelex (concubine) -
most associated (wrongly) with the Sebine women...
mind you... step-parenthood was very prominent
in the upper eshelons of ancient Roman society...
- Pelops - a king of Pisa...
- Tantalus - father of Pelops...
- Noricum - a Celtic confederation of tribes
these days associated with the geographic region of
Austria and Slovenia

eh... language has changed so much...
how Latin didn't survive... i get it...
the modern tongue has many more prepositions...
a long time ago...
nouns / verbs could have inbuilt
conjunctions, prepositions... articles...
that changed with the atoms...
                oddly enough... certain languages haven't
changed that much... Kierkegaard mentions
this changelessness of God...
               English has changed beyond recognition...
******?! hasn't changed that much since
the 13th century...
how we managed to get Italian from Latin...
and... Spanish and French...
              well...
                      today i don't feel like being in awe...

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 William Needs an Intervention

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 42

Will, we need to talk:
                                                       this is all your grief
Your friend and your lover aren’t grieving at all
I’ve seen them swanning around The Swan in Southwark
Catching Pembroke’s Men in The Isle of Dogs

They saw your Julius Caesar here at the Globe
But were mostly canoodling high up in the back row
I cannot imagine they were admiring your wonderful verse
Grieving over the deaths of Romans, or thinking of you

Give over your hoping, your moping, your sighing, your wishing -
The Avon’s down the road; we should go fishing