i was a hermit for so long: i wasn't expecting to
be so sturdy when being thrown
against a sea of people...
     was it work? i'd consider a carpenter to be
working, i'd consider a plumber
to be working... i don't think i was working...
but i'll be paid for me... sweaty feet aching
as they curl on the way home...
i don't think i was working: i was.... loitering...
but at the same time...
my mind took to an expanse...
i was studying people, coworkers & people...
i only had a minor role in this team
of stewards & security guards...
some of my coworkers took the laissez-faire
approach... i took some initiative:
i implored two guy drinking beer on the way
to the stadium to put their cans away:
to drink up... minutes prior i saw how...
the hierarchy dynamic of uniforms changes
when two women dressed as police-officers
could enforce more power...
they forced two other drinkers of the sacred liquid
to drink up and dispose their bottles...
when i made a similar suggestion...
the guys kept on drinking, walking,
but took note of my recommendation...
one of my coworkers: a complete leech:
cigarettes, free food, free travel...
how?! asked me whether i get angry easily?
she pretended to spot me tense up?
for ****'s sake: either i am in uniform or i'm not!
i need to get that ticket, move up the hierarchy
to get away from this slouch-loiterers...

i message i sent to one of my readers makes
perfect summary of my "predicament":

hello... yeah, it was fun, a walk in the park...
i've been such a hermit for such a long time that
being thrown into a sea of people,
i almost forgot how amiable people can be
when they're working together,
i don't mean when people congregate publically,
but when you're part of a team...
everyone seems to want things to go
as smoothly as possible, esp. when dealing with
entertaining a stadium sized crowd,
i spent so much of my youth concentrating on writing...
returning to work... guess what...
i don't know what Bukowski implied
by the drudgery of work... work is rather refreshing...
although the following words are infamous:
arbeit macht frei...
there's a cruel joke outside their original
implications as they were lifted above
the gates of the inferno...
that there was only a parody of work
in concentration camps... on the contrary...
outside that ****** period of history...
work really does alleviate... the drudgery of life.

the co-owner of this outfit of security
started his life as a career military man before
the age of 18... you can spot a man pretending to be all
alpha... strong handshake... loads of stories
from his personal life... of course the women will listen,
be amazed...

i helped with one Indian girl with her clip on tie...
i helped her with zipping up her newly gained
coat for the job... she went into the toilet
i was matthew the coat-hanger...
i don't how many subjects we covered...
the military man somehow picked up an "accent"...
that i was foreign... i'm 35... minus 8 years...
oh yeah... England is so foreign to me...
we later joked about it with the English girl:
she said she was born in England
when he asked her... so you're British...
obviously i am still not British: since i haven't been
born here...
so much for being white among whites...
**** this, **** that...
oi oi... bravado through & through...
oh how he abhorred the term ****...
sure... but i turn to say it with a prefix hyphen...
****-
   i.e. -stani... i speaking the ****- lazily...
like i might term someone Afghani...
& not... Afghanistani... which is incorrect...

Shiva's third eye... the bindi...  oh but it's banter...
the superior is making insinuations...
beautiful girls in Kiev... Kiev is like London...
but you head outside of Kiev... beautiful girls...
thick as **** though...
           oh i was in Rwanda...
   i was in Thailand... close call in the Maldives...
there's only so many times you can **** your wife...
i tell my Indian companion:
i sometimes i undertook a career life in
the military... alas... i went to university...
the banter will has to pass...
we all know it...
i don't have an underlying ****** accent...
she even noted it...
i explained it to... he's a military man...
he might have been banned from Dubai etc.
a real man of the world...
because of his credentials as ex-military...
oh the posturing...
go outside of London and what sort of girls
will you find?
******* Sappho or Casandra?!

            stupid... eh... i wouldn't call country-folk:
i'd call them: enough informed...
why? i can appreciate the docile life...
i can appreciate straying from the urban
hyper-informed... isn't it solipsism?
oh yeah... you were ****** over in the past
two world wars...
at least you chose the right side...
sure... the Polacks really had a choice about
the right side... wasn't it Britain that declared
war on Germany after the invasion...
"we", ahem, "chose"... the "right side"?!

if we chose the "right side"... why did the western
powers allow us to become swallowed by
the Soviet power?!
why didn't we receive Marshall Plan funding
(Sweden did, Sweden was ******* neutral!)
Poland was rebuilt thanks to communism...
you never lived under it, so you'll never know...
****'s sake... i sometimes think of going full out
hermit once more...
two of my coworkers i could barely understand...
they spoke English... natives to Lancashire
and... **** knows where:
i couldn't ******* understand them...
it would be made easier if they were Scots!

Mr Military Boss Man was intimidated by...
i used to visit the Edinburgh comedy club from time
to time... one of the comedians would start off his
gig with the following:
you might recognise my accent... it's educated...
my accent is rather that... urban universal...
which is very much different to what locals speak...
well... perhaps not outside of Devonshire...
but you get my point...
my Indian coworker also noted it...
you have an accent?
   so i explained the education part...
not from some ivory tower position...
but if a military man is going to nag you over... crumbs...
you'll make a sly joke...

smoothly does is... thanks for the strong handshake...
Fulham vs. Derby ended a 0 - 0 score...
i managed to spot Wayne Rooney in the team coach...
two corporates gave us match programmes with
signatures of two players...

this wasn't work... i'd be working if i were a plumber...
i was loitering...
then again: i was also studying people...
i think that's sort-of-work...
how people operate... rather a curious adventure...

blurry, some faces in the crowd seemingly recognised
me... not in an approachable way...
they seemed so... stunned... almost frightened:
as if they saw me in their dreams...

there ought to be a word for this phenomenon...
i will not coin it... it's still better as an abstract...
a whisper of Marcus Aurelius' return to the republic
of Rome...
the term reads:
i'm not famous...
  but people recognise you...
as if they saw you in their dreams...
& there you are, all flesh & blood...
standing before them...
how strangely their faces read: what, i'm not supposed
to be here?!
were you expecting someone else?

my Indian companion was apprehensive about
curating the Bishop's Park...
i implored her: look... the park is most beautiful
come the night... no one is here!
i like that look on people's faces...
you begin to wonder: have we met in your dreams?

they look absolutely stunned... since they recognise
you... not from t.v., not from adverts...
there are so little of them but enough to allow
you to spot this... jolt in the fabric of reality:
we must met in the realm of dreams...
quarter-petrified quarter-curious...
quarter-stone based.. an eighth-fire based...
an eighth-water based...
          i'm investing in a future i will not be part
of... may i be long gone from these abodes
before i might be finally recognised:
and even then, i hope i will not be...
now that i've seen how my coworkers react
to fame... i said to the leech:
i don't get it... the cult of celebrity... sure...
it's amazing what these people do...
but in doing... they're no more being than i'm being...
i can truly appreciate David Beckham
bending it like... said... at a free-kick...
but David Beckham per se? really?
do i have to? that same ****** conundrum of:
you must appreciate the work
of an artist: but not the artist himself...

i can play all nice... but then i'll suddenly visit
a brothel: when prompted by grooming one
of my cats.... when she raises her ****...
then again... what i get up to in a brothel is my business....
hardly any ****** or leather invoked...
wholesome *******, if wholesome ******* bothers you...
i know... the only game left to play in the realm
of adulthood... the dynamics of ***...
it's hardly: hide & seek...
*** is ugly when outside the act itself it has
to take these pseudo-political inferences...

i know today i was merely a pawn... but was i?
on paper... sure...
i have ambitions elsewhere,
income on the sly... i'll do x, y, & z...
but i'll also do a, b & c...
          work... **** me: if this is "work" then all
life's a joke...
the Indian gall was saying... to be a barrister you
need to be an old white male...
i refrained... from a more concrete answer....
old white males... like... beached whales?
like dolphin is the "other" white meat?
did she know how genealogical ambition works?
your father was X... your grandfather was X...
you're going to be also, X...
i said: as long as the system of meritocracy works...
you can't avoid certain hurdles...
life is bound to throw you set-backs...

forget about race... it works the same in India
with the caste system...
i'm pretty content with not...
earning too much... that's synonymous with
not having to spend more than is necessary...
you earn more = you spend more...
i don't need to earn in order to explore excesses
of expenditure...
enough: is enough...
i don't need to peacock around this *******
palace of the urban jungle...
i spotted one femme fatale with a Spanish type...
what was he talking about?
video games... look at her...
what a bombshell... oh well... not my partake...

i don't want to know what people want...
i want to know what people deserve,
what must be required of people...
fear, absolvement from duty...
             faking honesty...
   i want to peer at this frothing tide when
they congregate... i don't want to see the individual...
i want to see the entire: whole, ugly... parody of man!

yes, that's what i want to see...
not the uniqueness of man, per se or via a studied example...
i want to compound man into a whole:
put a decoder on his remarks, actions, wholeness...
to later apply a cipher to him...
confuse him a little.... entertain him a while...

that's what i want...
how i yearn to fathom this little corner of a non-existent world...
non-existent in that it's psychic...
in the flow of the crowd i sort of imagined myself
famous... i was merely a pawn...
not that i was famous in "real life": rather...
the ****** expression read:
i saw you in my dreams!

i can count 5 fingers on my hand...
yeah... the same number i arrived at...
that's enough...

in mein garten, kommen sie: die nacht:
ich blühen!
                                   ich leben!
ich bin! mich selber!
                    alles ist güt!
alles: ist... meisten erschreckend! ja...

oh high praise for me... spotting a Serbian flag, when
asked...