There is infinity in our words
In our minds
And in our numbers
There is infinity in this sentence
In more ways than one
How do I know?
I know because I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know that I know etc
There’s comparatively little paper & ink
So I’ll keep this short:
It creates the problems that it solves, in infinite ways
It giveth & it taketh away
Yet somehow we are still left with it
Or in it , I should say
For who are we without it?
It sanctions the question
Sponsors the answers
It seems to enjoy speculation
It doesn’t stop
Yet it never starts
It is the original contradiction
Which bears our calendars
Winds out clocks
Confounds us with death
It is too big to be invisible
And too small to be palpable
And it holds whole worlds in between
All sorts of worlds, all of them,
Yet it is nothing more than nothing
Turned inside out,
An impostor,
An enchanter desperate for subjects,
A master of mirrors with light & shadow that seizes us in catoptric curls,
An impostor wanted
For questioning:
We have scoured snowy horizons amid snow storms,
Amid sand storm we have ploughed sandy horizons,
We found footsteps in sand,
Shadows on snow
Which we failed to recognize as our own,
We followed imprints left by windy stars
We thought we were perennial nomads just like them,
We called out behind closed eyes into glow-wormed horizons
And with abdication, fear & envy we took the echoes for something else:
An impostor
Yet between the calls
Within resonance
There was silence
Impossible silence
Suspended silence
Differentiating silence
Connecting silence
Silence that does not change yet accommodates out whims
Silence that cannot be spoken yet remains a word
Silence that promotes the hunger of hope,
That drives anticipation,
Silence that is so vast it is impersonal
Yet so finely tuned it apprehends the one
Silence that is something more than everything turned inside out:
A nothing that confound
A grounding nothing
An unnerving nothing
A nothing that is vital,
And the more we hear this nothing the less nothing we hear:
- Patterns of eternity
- Internal symbolism
- Longing
Yet if we were to linger forever
How things would lose their power to move us.
Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 4:54 PM UTC
Streets are empty
There are warning labels on the sealed doors of shops deemed unimportant
Funny how easily those were identified
They are ones that made us special
That made us free
Weren’t they?
We’re on our own now, so to speak
Sitting in our rented flats
In our shared flats
With tangible uncertainty
For many, not just the few
Seeing our loved ones in the daytime
Unable to hide our faces in the shadows of future plans
Something crumbles
Something elusive something real something persnal
The telly, the trusty thing, takes out minds off it,
I shouldn’t even be writing this,
Not before this whole things is done (which could be years)
But for now
Taking each day for a day, for a morning
A postman throwing his delivery into a window open with outstretched arms, it takes a few throws, what’s in that box, man? Something essential you bet
Beer sales are up
Evenings are mellow
Spring expects us to be out
But I got drunk with my mates twitching faces on skype touching my glass with the frame of the laptop, in the end it felt just as lonely as usual
And whilst I may be a fat cat that has to watch birds thru a window
for a while
There are real & broken men & women
Who have lost things irredeemable at the stroke of a hopeful pen:
Businesses they’ve been building all their lives – gone in two weeks
Their little hand made shops
Their lady cafes with cutesy cakes
Their restaurants with home made recipes passed on for generations
They’re serving dust now
While crowded in hospitals some are dying from something that had never even been on the menu
And we can’t help but wonder why
No chef in particular prepared this
It is taken to the tables by blind waiters
What could be more bitter than a taste of unfairness
What story more cruel than the one where the plot is unaware of its characters and the characters are unaware of the plot
See, I shouldn’t even be writing this
But that’s what everyone talks about
And all those words mean something
Yet none of them matter
When we are all hindsighted
Tragically, ironically so:
Think of Columbus sailing west to India,
The treaty of Versailles, and then Chamberlain in 38
Remember Mao exterminating Chinese sparrows in 1958, 220 million fell to the ground from exhaustion as masses of law abiding citizens waved their flags and blew their horns preventing the terrified birds from landing, next year locusts ate their harvests, 45 million dead from famine:
Chronically hindsighted
But we have to
We have to pretend we’re not
If we want to talk to each other
Have dreams about things and people
Express our experience
Our schooling
Our parenting
Now left without clubbing shopping grilling drinking without eating out where we get what we order like
pocket royalty
Without work that we are now relieved to be relieved of
And scared to be restrained from
Without holidays
We get a moment to ourselves
A little moment without noise:
Are we doing the right things?
Do we know what the right things are?
A moment to ourselves to think about our thoughts, seeing the mess inside
A little moment without fun & slavery
And naked lies
our trust in the future
But we have
We have to be ready
To get lucky
After all, we’ve a good history of that
(written after the fact)
With luck it makes sitting ducks dignified
With luck it makes moths defiant
And the dead
unlucky
Tragically, ironically so,
Just think of the Titanic and the number of lifeboats:
Pomp and luck
But mostly Luck
We are in her hands now more than ever
Sitting in our flats
Sleeping in her shadow
As she moves before the sun
Coming out of nowhere
(be it from a place we call China)
She’s an eclipse our Ptolemys missed
And she can put us all to shame
(including the advertisers)
Children giving in to the will of adults
Adults exposed in the dark
As lighting flashes across the landscape glimpsing primordial phantoms creeping out of the roots like shadows of naked trees but worse
And there’s **** in our pants
And our presidents get to speak of war
But there’s no front line
And borders borders borders are closed
And police police is on the streets
But the enemy isn’t visible
And there’s not enough information
There’s too much information
And we haven’t been taught patience
Proper patience
Or self reflection
So it’s hard to say if we’re learning
Or waiting to fly
It’s hard to say if we’re contracting like a snail
Or sitting on a warm stone like a lizard
Or rising to the surface like a shoal of herring pursued by whales
Yes, we can zoom, but we can’t zoom out
And we’re so used to things getting better
Not just for ourselves but for everyone on TV
But instinctively we are back in our little nests, in our national parks
Looking out the window seeing the world looking the The Scream by Edward Munch
And we notice that we only have ourselves our families our national myth and our government
Which may give us livelihood
And things above and beyond are yet to prove their worth
The cosmopolitan dream failed to enmesh reality
This level’s been abandoned
The deck is being shuffled
We’re playing the 20th century game again
And there will be heroes
But which kind
06.04.2020
Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 4:52 PM UTC
All my poems are
Wet, stinky, and brown.
Last night was wild,
And I mean it
It was proper uncivilised,
Things were said that were stupid
Lies celebrated
And truth passed around like a *****
It started slowly:
Smoking around strangers
Starting a conversation
With my beer –
she’s always so glad to see me
she makes me feel so special
like I’ve actually got something to say
More strangers come in
I think I’m overdressed
They’re all wearing sneakers & T-shirts
Advertising one thing or the next
In their eyes I must be a commercial for something too
Something silly, no doubt
Look, we can help each other
Let’s have a drink
What’s your name
I like football too
No, I don’t care about teams ..
Okay, I need a ***
It started slowly:
One then another drink
Lifting our heads out of the infinite bed of boredom
Let’s see, let’s play
It’s dark enough to get personal
If only we knew how
Another track of dominoes to hear & say
I wish I knew some fascists
Agreeing is so dull & unproductive
Don’t you agree?
Oh, you need a ***
That’s fine, I could use a smoke
Maybe talk to some women
But they’re all so mad at men these days
I’ll have to wear a disguise
What could I be?
A lion
Or a peacock
Or maybe an orangutan?
Perhaps then they will tell me
Why they have consciously surrendered the greatest power they have over men
Was it disgust and disappointment
Or pure prophetic wisdom
Or solidarity with those less powerful among their kind?
I think of Angela Merkel and I am confused
I need help
I need serious help
At the bar
A shot & a long drink
A shot & a long drink
I accidentally catch my reflection in the mirror behind all those bottles and I don’t know who I am
I have a peacocks tail
Lion’s *****
And the face of an orangutan
And I’m starting to smell like a man
A shot & a long drink
A shot & a long drink
To cover it all
Let’s have a ball!
Embrace a lack of sense
Lemme buy you a drink
Tell me about yourself,
I’ll keep quiet, I’m interested
Wow, now that’s a story I’ve never heard before
I should write a book about you
Or a poem if tonight we happen to sleep together
It’s up to you, I don’t mind
We all do as we please
Until it pleases us to surrender,
It’s late, you say
I take it the wrong way and go for a ***
When I come back
I go for a smoke instead
And when I look for you
I forget your face
So I end up reading my poems to whoever listens
Which works just as well
Or badly
I’m using my drink as an ashtray
And then when I turn another page
I spill it all over my texts
Now all my poems are wet, stinky & brown
That’s how I find them in the morning
Stuffed into my pants,
I’ll take the pants to the laundry
Maybe they’ll come out clear & dry
And smelling of pomegranate.
Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 4:51 PM UTC
Trains don't run
Planes don't fly
Cars & buses come to borders and reverse
I'm bumping into myself
trying to tell her
I miss her
Films are lame
Music's bland
art is feeble & inert
and none of the books on my shelf
can make me forget
that I miss her
City's bare
shops are closed
someone's getting reimbursed
I await the government's help
since I've declared
that I miss her
Flat is clean
dinner's cooked
and this hangover is a curse
Now that I've allowed myself
beyond all hope
to miss her
Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 4:50 PM UTC
I am a shadow of my former self
or my future self
when I stand in a place
or when I run
I never know which way I'm facing,
I never know which shadow I am.
I move only when my shadow moves,
which ever one it may be,
Yet my wish is to remain still
and watch,
maybe the shadow dares to move
on its own accord,
But when I look down
my shoes
blend with the impenetrable darkness,
and when I look up
I am blinded
by the light that I cannot see,
I do not know which shadow is longer
and which is denser,
but I do know that the best part of me
hides
somewhere between them,
in plain view
like a lamppost.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 5:13 AM UTC
As the morning sun cleared
the mist above the fields
harrowed with precision,
as cars hurried their servants
to serve,
as trains were running late,
and bakeries were busy,
a uniformed procession of capped men
and neatly trimmed women gathered
outside a tawny little church
in a sleepy little town
known for its irrelevance;
A serviceman expired here,
this last night of winter.
Whether from illness or old age,
gradually or
in a flash of chaos,
his mirror admits no more
the faces of those who shared his world,
and have now come to congress
and to remain
in the feasting sun of this first day of spring.
As blackbirds hush and tickle bush,
as more cars wiggle and park,
as naked trees pretend to still being naked,
crows flap around the tower that begins
a-belling,
and as pedestrians gaze after passing cars,
the mourners follow the bells into the church,
where they splash in thin silence
and scented air,
and stained glass admits the light of the world in,
as if through closed eyelids.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 5:10 AM UTC
I'm an alcoholic
I sleep and dream of drink
I don't care to show it
I don't care what your think,
Come we'll have a party at mine
Come, and don't forget the wine
It doesn't have to be good wine
It could be anything
It can be anything..
cause I'm an alcoholic
I don't care what I drink
could be sweet could be bitter
ah, bitter's much too sweet!
Lets talk about dear ol' you
and all the boring things you do
what goes into my ears I lose
your story's only good with *****
Oh it's incredible; It's unbelievable!..
Oh, what a symbiotic
relationship
you get to be holy
I get to go down with the ship,
Musicians play a dreary tune
I've emptied most of your perfume
We start with two and end with none
I think I've had myself some fun
Yes I did, I think I did..
It's gotta be demonic
this possessive urge
but you know when I'm on it
I don't feel the purge,
The world is a merry ol' place
I think I'm in love with my face
Come sit down, admire my face
Come sit down, don't be a disgrace
You stupid cow, you filthy dog..
Ah, where's the logic?
we're not made of it
You think I'm neurotic
I think you're incredibly fit,
You wanna show you wanna prove
But I already know the truth
from worried man the missing link
that leads to blissful ape is drink.
So have a drink, lets have a drink..
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 5:07 AM UTC
In the midst of thoughtless sand
Just off the coastal road
Where systematic palm trees
Provide just about the only distraction,
Ronnie runs a run down hotel
There in the gulf of Aqaba.
He knows his job well,
He's letting the place cool down a little.
He often sleeps in the day, at reception,
And he's got a glass eye that doesn't blink,
You can book yourself in for one night only
Unless Ronnie has know you,
Has seen you before,
Someplace shady, perhaps,
For it is said that,
Ronnie's tanned for several lifetimes..
Stay a night and
He'll treat you well,
For he's always up for a drink
And his pocket holds more than one light,
He says he used to be Egyptian royalty,
But now he's got his own cabin here
A bit out of sight.
But that's not where he keeps his things..
His cupboards are blank
And his blinds are eternally drunk,
They never come up.
He says he's known this bunk a while,
About the time fame went aside
And the rain got into the swimming pool,
And now you can watch it bloom with niffy pride.
And so half a bottle goes
And midnight it arrives,
And Ronnie sits you down in his dimly lit back room
And begins to tell you about the kind of people he can find:
Those who want to bring you luck,
Other who'd sell you gold at half the price,
No muck,
You may shrug
As he claims to know where the good times dock
And the bad times kept at bay,
And though he admits that he never had a close shave
You notice a scar on his cheek.
He was a minion in the spice trade
Before that war in Mozambique,
A model soldier he was
Credulous & meek and
Conveniently stupid,
So he raged and looted
And his ***** got him booted
To sunny California,
Where he got Cupid tattooed on his upper arm,
He drank with philanthropic truckers
Smoked with greedy hippies,
And he still wears these bracelets
That look like the end of a shredded sleeve
And a pinched fedora
that had its ex head murdered,
It was down town LA that instilled in him a feel
For rough bourbon
And sweeter-than-perfect promises,
He says he'd known love
Real love too,
And sank with it
Bottomless.
He watched dreams become skeletons
And skeletons become dreams
In the cities that took shape of parodies of yore
Upswept.
You notice that he's got almost no nails left,
But he swears he never stole
And he never wept
He says he begged in his bead,
But his pleas weren't quite potent enough
His visions too misty to get handcuffed
And put to work,
So he scuffed for joy
In the midnight murk
And morning slumbers,
Safety in lascivious female numbers,
Action in cursed bottles & pills,
Castrated wonders & faceless thrills that meant nothing but fills
Merging into chaos
He was disappearing fast,
Diving towards greater liberty of thought and speech,
Skedaddling from basic options,
Throttling in gaudy plastic oceans,
Without a map, without an anchor,
He says he finished school with rancour,
The only thing he took to end..
He takes a swig before he brags
That even death might overlook his self
Eventually..
Potentially, maybe,
But you know for a fact that actually,
He's 16 years to live and that is it.
And 4 years after that nobody will remember ****
And when you tell him that,
the morning comes,
But he doesn't **** or argue,
He smiles, puts up his thumb
And calls it a fair bargain.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 5:05 AM UTC
I woke up *****
And went to the shop,
I got corn, peas, chopped gherkins,
All canned,
I raided the reduced section like mad,
Got some cheese
And some ham
That I won't allow to go bad,
cause I'll make a ton of salad
Out of this myriad,
For breakfast, munch and evening feast,
It'll last a fortnight at the very least,
I can top it up with this
Foul smelling liquor I brought from the east,
Among the other mementos in my cellarette,
I could have a party in my ******
In my kitchenette,
My flat is so hot I could sign post it
'sauna to let',
But the swingers here don't speak a word of
English,
One time they took their ya-yas out
And called ME a delinquent,
As if I've got a funny kind of pigment
They can't live with,
I've tried to put my finger on it
But I don't want it to get stinky,
I think they simply haven't got an inkling
As to what and why they're thinking,
But never mind those pinkies,
Let us go back to my shopping
Just as it was getting *****
Before my skimpy trolley glided to the checkout,
I got a ticket for my pfand,
Which measured fairly to my pleasure
Of having my alcoholism,
Which is confess is merely leisured,
Redeemed into a form of solid ******* treasure.
Throughout the years my drinking
Let me celebrate the fear
Of lack of meaning,
It made friends out of strangers,
Lovers out of friends,
Ex lovers out of lovers,
Clowns out of boring people,
It made a clown out of me too,
My drinking took my money
And gave me a suspicious act
To cling to,
It made me a legless athlete
In a race against the future,
It excited me with waterfalls of chaos
Bursting through cracked normality,
It pretended to bring Arcadia
Into the ruling technology,
It invaded Scandinavia
With lawless Somalia,
It put peaks and crannies
Into the dull landscape of
Nord Rhein Westphalia,
I have a whole worthless encyclopaedia
Of what my drinking did to me,
Page after page of random numbers
Makes for a baffling read,
I don't know if I should frame it,
Burn it,
Or get some ****
My drinking always gave me an excuse to smoke,
I puffed my hours into nothingness,
Laughter & loneliness,
A condition of no ambition
Made life itself seem like a superstition,
But I don't want the repetition anymore,
Boredom is but a bed sheet of a sore old *****
A stifling breath of a handicapped mind;
But
Being now so temporarily poor
I find it easy to smile
As the cashier counts my pennies
Making the citizens in line
In their Jack Wolfskins and denims
Very uneasy,
Men & women of the Rhein get seriously queasy
When they see a foreigner like me
Simply taking it easy,
You know I had to break my piggybank just to get here,
I crossed a red light when it was all clear,
I have no bike lights - I just disappear,
Who knows what is it that I do inside the night?..
Could be something good,
Might be something bright..
Anyway,
I got my receipt,
Said my 'schön Tag' alright,
I should have said 'schön Abend'
But I guess I'm not polite,
Then I rode in the street,
My bags dangling left & right,
Balancing my act
Under the waning Eurodollar moon,
Some react badly
when they're given **** to spoon,
But my lack of money
In fact makes me feel immune
To superficial cravings like
iPhones, clothes, perfume,
shavings, shoes, tattoos;
I'd rather spend a fortnight
In the arms of David Hume,
Than stopping by at Rügen
On my way to Cameroon,
On a beastly ocean liner,
With pommes and Pauliner
Supplied ad infinitum!
I don't know my own mind,
I's time to take a trip down the ol' cerebrum,
While tickets are at a minimum
And the season is at a premium,
I'll tame my tantrums without ******
I'll let my maelstroms guide me to a podium
Of perfect equilibrium,
I'll get a glimpse of wisdom
By watching my own delirium,
I'm serious about this.
I don't reminisce about the years
I dismissed by watching television series,
Dumbing down with the Big Bang Theory.
I feel so blessed to be weary
And out of breath
From the long hand of entertainment
That wants to tickle everyone to death,
It's an epidemic worse than crystal ****
But it's not hard to shake the fever.
Only a ****** was born to be a ******
Man was cursed to be a dubious believer.
So kiss my feet
Or chop me with a cleaver,
Nothing will stop me from becoming an achiever,
Nothing but the habit pattern of my own demeanour.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 5:03 AM UTC
On an early Monday morn
Into this world my mother bore me
Although I never asked her to
But still she bore me
Into a hospital
A patient
Out of the train
Onto the station
The light, the air,
The Decompression,
No wonder that my first impression
I can't remember,
My mother thought I had a temper,
The nurses watched my massive member,
They put me down as baby boomer
Yeah, I was born to be consumer
But when I'm in my old age
I hope to be if not the driver,
Then at least the passenger
Aren't we going somewhere?
On holiday, perhaps?
Where birds of paradise dance
In savage colours
And sing in dazzling trance,
Where man's institutions are far away,
Where banks don't feed on our flesh,
Away from roaring trucks with pigs
Set for slaughter,
Away from downtown Bangladesh,
Away from ugly neighbours
And their children,
Away into the sweet fresh air
With no wifi
No zombifying TV,
No bling-bling chavs with one beat one key one theme music,
Where the weather is tolerable
And the scam of social media is no more,
We will leave the choking fumes
And strange wars...
Except we won't,
Cause that isn't where we go.
Let's be realistic,
We like postmodern world
It's lovely masochistic,
It takes out minds off questions
That probe beyond statistics,
Questions we don't even know how to phrase,
But fools are always one step ahead,
Delays make them enraged baboons,
When I am in my old age
I expect to see banners on the moon
And clouds shaped by advertisers,
Robot womanisers
And insect appetisers,
New ways to use fertilisers
On human brains
Making us none the wiser
But great at analysing market value
And levels of offensiveness.
I hope you don't think that I'm implying
That you will have something to do with this.
I know you're all good people here..
It's the corporations, of course.
Those classical psychopaths:
Self interested
Manipulative
Always the best
They prefer not to compete with the rest
Nor accept responsibility,
They suffer no conscience
Feel no remorse
And present superficial versions of themselves
To the world,
To the good people
Who take on their traits
Day by day
Year by year
Generation by generation
Because .. you know ..
Market forces and ..
Hunger .. for .. something..
Progress something !...
..it's the right way!
So what would you like to change?
Is this really your pimple?
When I am in my old age
I would like to be simple
I'll have my special armchair
That will be the envy of all people,
And I'd like to hope that something will be done
About climate change
But for that Israel needs to cease to exist
As well as all the other countries,
Old and new,
And national symbolism must get relegated
To the domain of underwear, swimming trunks and bathing towels,
Where washing machines will eventually bleach it into oblivion,
And the world must become truly global,
Entering the space age
United under redefined humanity!
When I am in my old age,
I still expect to see insanity on a global scale,
People fishing in empty oceans
Sailing their way to French Polynesia
on raging 20 metre waves
only to find French Polynesia
somehow not there anymore..
I hope not to be a bore in my old age,
I hope nostalgia won't be classed as a
Disease
And heavily medicalized.
I hope suicide will be legal like bread
I hope my head won't have the texture
Of a woman's inner thigh,
I hope my neck won't look like an accordion,
I hope I won't be making involuntary noises
Every time I lie down,
And I hope to lie down between women's inner thighs
From to time,
Yeah, I really hope this can be arranged
When I am in my old age
Even if I smell of old people
I hope the smell of old people will be ****
I guarantee it will get very messy
If they won't let me
Take my pension money out
all at once,
I intend to own the stage
Until my very last breath
When I am in my old age
I hope impending death won't make
Religious, or spiritual,
Whichever's worse..
When I am in my old age
I fully expect hats to be in vogue again
And smoking in airports
And free range drugs
When I am in my old age
Maturity will triumph
Over the teenage bugs
With naked ankles and baseball caps,
And the myth of youth will rightfully collapse,
And I will order and convincing martini,
Drive a convincing car,
Snap a convicting finger at the waiter
To the rhythm of swing played at the bar
Somewhere close to the equator
On some not-too-distant star
I will be my own dictator,
I'll be my own tsar
And all will be jolly!
Apart from all this
I really have no worries.
So let me get drunk and let the world laugh
For there is a remedy for everything
But death
(and burning cathedrals)
And as long as we are laughing
We do not weep
About the roses that we picked
That even the sweetest showers
Won't make grow again.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 4:57 AM UTC