keep me in this prison: to recount the spinning
labyrinth of thought before falling
to sleep only 14 hours ago...
                      and having done so:
dreaming up the most uncomfortably real dreams -
not that detailing them would be worth
anything...

   begging myself: remember the words
prior to sleep: write them down: you fool!
the "other" man is speaking - rising from the depths:
the child "abadoned": to curate this tongue
has risen from the depths by chance
of you favouring to enter them in turn...

a protest concerning kenneth rexroth:
but sir... what's there to boast about?
    aren't you reading Proust as a translation?

keep me in this prison... as of today...
a few chapters from the pickwick papers:
yes... i do kind Dickens much easier on the eye:
and most certainly much more peacock-strutting
than Shakespeare...
            perhaps with the exception of Macbeth:
as ever... exceptions can and sometimes
must be made...
                      however: minor...

and in between chapters... well...
                         a swedish ***** and some tonic
and lime...
            and then the windowsill...
perched on a folded leg...
       smoking a cigarette... continuing
to sip the thrill zapping... crisp and cutting...
      warm snow...
                       and the song...
             qui nous demaine:

                  trois fleurs d’amour i trouvai
                  en la bonne estraine
                  voici le mai, le joli mois de mai
                  qui nous demaine...

in the rendition of corvus corax...

yet another moon-less night...
         such nights: where it almost feeds to be inclined
to conjure up some nearby nomad with
a robe attired with stars...
         a silver globus of glistening
romance and death...

                  such nights when the moon
doesn't appear...
            and frankly... the clouds have settled
for keeping the man in the ***** of earth:
never to aspire toward galileo and copernicus ltd.
in protest! for astronomy!

yes... between reading the pickwick papers...
and listening to some music:
never the two at the same time...
a parting of the seas...
the art of reading: in the sea of silence...
where you can fiddle with...
    a whisper from the buzzing aeon bound
to minutes: the sound of an electric demon
in a lightbulb...

and of course beyond this sea of silence:
a sea of sighs and yawns...
a flipping of a page: like a crease in time -
or a passing whale-shaped-tsunami
of sound...          to then the music...

as death would have it: beside the music...
perhaps once upon a time...
but i do not believe it:
a pen on paper - a hunched crow left scratching
with its claws...
while a fire **** between such
imaginary creatures took place in a candleflame...
but no music...
perhaps in the 20th century:
the radio... and the type-writer: machine-gun...
the radio static would have aided
the mechanisation of the type-type-typo!
scratch-rip! again!

21st century antics?
   pristine quality, earphones...
all the better to not hear the clicking sound
of a lineage of ten little hammers on a keyboard...
perhaps plucking oysters from the depths...
or for that matter pearls...
or perhaps searching for delicate mushrooms
and pulling them by the stump...
still the umbrella royalty still: that sucker's bribe
of pride...

of note: the old tongue wanted an audience...
concerning? drinking... and other... habits...
*****: most certainly... with the lime and tonic...
in "rationed" doses... and a good sleeping
hygiene... i must call it a sleeping hygiene...
at most 12am to bed... and at least 8am the rise...
the drinking:
one day upon a sleeping lake...
another day upon a raving lunatic of a sea!
a time for drinking: a time for thrist...
a time for living and a time for dying...

i tried to imagine myself in one of those a.a.
meetings... self-lacerating myself:
in that secular ugliness: without a monk's tunic
or: tools for: penitence...
after ten weeks or so: clap clap all round applause!
i bet...
       the dry stretch: applause applause:
lady gaga go-go! to live for applause...
b'ah! to ******* with that sort of attitude...
and this is where the old tongue spoke(:)

o piciu?! wersja: jak, pić?!
chcem tego psa na smyczy niż tą smycz: samą!
bez tego psa! ten "niby"
wzamian z tym marno-nerwowym
   człowiekiem! tą śpiącą pijawką!
suma sumarum?
   wole tego psa na smyczy - niż tą smycz
bez psa!
lepiej ja z tym psem na smyczy:
   niz ten czlowiek ze swą śpiącą pijawką!

tr.
     on drinking?! version: how to, drink?!
i want this dog on a leash than this leash:
on its own! without this dog!
                  that "so-called" alternative
with this feebly-nervous human!
                                    that sleeping leech!
<>
i rather this dog on a leash - than this
leash without a dog!
better i with this dog on a leash:
than this human with his sleeping leech!

it's not some eternal wisdom...
but...                                 it's a good enough start...
and yes... please... this prison...
every... single... day, and, night....
forever...
i can become the observant spy mushroom:
the hitchhiker in 1960s psychadelia
mingling with darwinism...
the mushroom that hijacked the ape...
etc.

                  it's a pretty simple list...
a dickens... a ***** and tonic and lime...
a windowsill... a cigarette...
   some... folkish song... i'd much prefer
the lyrics to the sung in anything but english...
french, latin... german... norwegian...
but please... not italian... i'll settle for greek...

if asked: why didn't you marry...
good question...
                why didn't i marry?
                        perhaps this... or perhaps...
i much prefered the 1 hour periods
of entertaining the company of prostitutes
in a brothel?
               honest transactions: stealing kisses...
the mainstream already laid the generic
framework: jack the ripper sort...

                      well: from judas to jesus
to me to the... "lowest denominator"...
                                            or so "they" say...
since if there was anything to be celebrated
at easter... outside of a homogenous catholic
nationhood... in england...
the lair of the huguenots...
         well... i teased reading kabbalah...
i teased reading the gnostic texts and i really did go
mad about the nag hammadi library...
after a while though:
can i change the direction of the Vistula
by putting a stick in the middle of it?
i certainly: ha ha! river... not the sea:
what can you do? turn the time and the flow?

anyway... catholicism...
                the usual suspect rubric check-list...
baptised? had i any say in it?
first communion? did i have any say in it
or would you rather ask whether
i lied when taking my first confession?
a first confession is a precursor to a first communion...
or... i don't remember...
i played the xylophone at the st. augustine's
primary school nativity play:
yeah... and drinking under-age...
crux of the matter: if we're all about peacocking
and comparing all the little richards
via the 3rd's **** or whatever...
confirmation?                      yeah...
          ­           so much for a church wedding...

all that... and i have to come back...
sensibly... catholic intellectualism or sorts...
bribe me and i might take it seriously...
love me and i might even throw in some fiasco
of apologetics... but then i'd be like
a monkey at a sushi bar: eat it? fling it?!
the only sensible consolidation of
a celebration of easter...

    the winter has been crucified...
                 and today was the first day i could
pick up a scent of spring...
in the rain... it trickled with...
earth... from far away... dry sand... mingling
with the water... the wind must have
picked up the sand from sahara and a dollop
of the evaporating mediterranean...
flung it to these isles...

                       yes: origins in catholicism...
which always more fun to break away from...
"apostate": notably watching apostate intellectual
jews and their spezial brand of atheism...
since: i mean... trust a catholic convert to
judaism? trust a *** reading into gnosticism?
or trust a muslim at all?
                         basic questions of: a priest,
a rabbi...                        a druid walk into a bar...
sort of jokes...
           there a litany of them...
a whole 'ymn book o' 'em!
                       sam's the weller! see the son?
moi noi'ver!

         but back and forth back and forth
within and without catholicism...
                                it's not as fun... black-clad
sober, serious, surplus of secularism...
                         all that: agitation from... what the persians
rebelled against... when finally the islamic
schism came so early...
and the ****'ites and... the persians like
the good choir boys of catholicism...
     one eye is said to be reserved for reading...
one eye is said to be reserved for admiring...
           it's hard to admire a text...
                          when it's even harder to read
into a sculpture!

oh yes... i like this prison... very much...
                                             where, is, my, mind?!