title: copepod
body:
blister-whale:
somewhat: 2. 502 bad gateway give-away

i have to admit, i took a hiatus from listening to
Marilyn Manson... by chance i came across
a review of... either Born Villain or the Pale Emperor...
clearly: i wasn't paying attention...
ever since i missed the chance to go to a concert
when he was touring the Holywood album...
that same year Mudvayne were touring with L.D. 50...
i switched off after their debut...
i switched off from the music of my youth in general...
went down several rabbit holes...
notably medieval music - blues - jazz -
                      some extra-curriculum classical....
but the artist ages... well... so does his audience...
i don't even remember when i started writing:
let alone posting dotty-doodles on this platform:
i had only one focus... for all the ills that the internet
enhanced... revealed when it comes to the interaction
of people: sure... the older generations found it
convenient to shop... to do banking... to book plane
tickets... but for us younger folk... the ones born
into the years prior to the inception of the internet...
this was our time to build up an underground
of communication... for me? what better way to bypass
the gatekeepers, the publishers...
having amassed some readership... 44 thousand on just
one poem? hmm... let me spell it out: 44,000...
if i were to write it out in matchsticks, i.e. |||||||||| = 10...
what is 44,000 of those pretty stacks of arithmetic?
let me see what 100 looks like...
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what about a thousand?
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                                                  = 1000...
now... i know what 44 thousand looks like... roughly...
how many spectators were there at Wembley...
for the woman's F.A. cup final?
                                        let's say... 41K...
now multiply that space of matchsticks by... 44...
but this is only one poem... i have... thousands of poems...
some are still stashed on my facebook page:
or rather lost on my timeline...
           mind you: i haven't performed any of them...
why? they don't rhyme: for starters...
i like listening to people sing Aud Lang Syne
on new year's eve... and even Shakespeare can't
beat that... Shakespeare's words were never put
to music... and they won't be...
sure... great meter blah blah... but you can't sing
Shakespeare... so there goes the baby...
with the bathtub and the water out of yer
******* window...
                            i'm more a composer than a performer...
i'm more a composer than a performer
therefore not an entertainer...
i gave myself this: jinx... the moment i start
performing... is the moment i stop composing...
i'll just be regurgitating the very few poems
that might be left in my repertoire like...
Ginsberg... having to recite Howl ad nauseam...
me? i'm sort of in the mindset: plough along...
let's not beat around the bush...
   for all the ills of the internet... there's one good...
the possibility to bypass gatekeepers...
publishers... no one would touch my ****...
and yet: they are printing tabloid spew...
           sorry... tabloid *****...
                they are printing propaganda left right
and centre... my work would be... obscure...
revealed: ha ha... perhaps after my death...
let the people judge for themselves...
                     i'm not saying it's Shakespeare...
god forbid writing that stuffy ****...
                             it's contemporary... i don't even think
i'd allow myself to belong to a movement
akin to post-modernism...
   hell: if **** comes naturally... it comes...
if it doesn't... well... i usually need to do something...
ha ha: "cope"... do some cooking, do some cleaning,
do some gardening... so some ironing of the shirts...
go to my part-time job... wait a year until i'll ask
for references and then apply for a job as a teacher...
or take the current route and become a security guard...
which route would allow me to write, more?
probably the latter... then again... experience
as a security guard... could come in handy...
on a curriculum vitae... when it comes to crowd control...
in a classroom of kids...
    but i really don't want to teach chemistry...
i'd love to teach English...
                   - but don't get me wrong.... some artists /
bands got the mix right... they understood
that there needed to be a prominence of the BASS guitar...
Metallica sure as **** didn't catch up...
pretty much all those kinds of bands didn't...
barely audible... well... with the exception of
the intro on Devil's Dance... but then the bass disappears
into inaudibility...
it's like a post-jazz hybrid... in rock music...
the rhythm guitar and all that is considered "melody"
can sort of *******... let's just leave in the screetching
accents of the guitar... keep the vocals...
but... but... let the bass guitar exfoliate...
   and... let the drums compliment it...
    no no... the drums are no longer the building block...
the bass guitar comes first...
  it's a bit like borrowing from opera...
    bass is the baritone... rhythm / solo guitar the soprano...
yada-yada-blah-blah some minutes later...
songs like the Gardener from Born Villain and
Third Day of a Seven Day Binge from the Pale Emperor...
if you listen to them... you can truly... truly: groove...
you can't stop nodding, can't stop swaying...
you start thinking: how is it that pigeons don't
get headaches? i guess they must be listening to cosmic
music only pigeons can hear... like those dog whistle
scenarios... humans can't hear it...
but since... all birds descended from dinosaurs...
they strut... nodding... head-banging... some ancient
music of the cosmos: ergo? no head-ache...
hmm... and this writing coming from a guy who
drinks like a pirate... and is waiting to do psychedelic
drugs if... he might enter the confines of dementia...
oh yeah: i'm keeping that option open...
should i start to slip up... on my pedantic spelling
and punctuation... i'm ******* off to Amsterdam
to a brothel and some magic mushrooms... ****...
i'll need to get a bus out of Amsterdam and find some
forest... something scenic... mind you:
the Netherlands are not that scenic... flat... upon flat...
upon flat... although... that's the jist of things you see
from the motorway when going through...
i'm sure i could find some beautiful spots to trip...
  should the worst come...
but the artists i was fond of listening to in my youth
have finally caught up with what i was thinking:
where, the ****, is, the BASS?
       ****** music jerking off the solo guitar...
no, please... and all that rhythm guitar...
   challenge the drum & bass crowd...
that sputnik crowd of... turning African drumming
into... a stampede of hyenas on amphetamines...
    boomboomboomboomboomboomboom...
mind-blowing load of headache....
the bass guitar can do two things...
it can set the rhythm... it can set the beat...
but it can also can create an undercurrent of a melody...
oh ****... that's three things...
   early Marilyn Manson did respect the bass playing
of Twiggy Ramirez... but... there was still the guitar-maker
melody overload...
the mature artist... given songs like: the Gardener
and Third Day of a Seven Day Binge...
respects the bass guitar... it comes so gloriously to the fore...
something a band like Metallica can never
accomplish... or Led Zeppelin... all those 1970s greats...
those bands had the bass guitar pop up...
in a segment of a song... NIB? by black sabbath?
and then... disappear... don't undermine the Leviathan...
this rock fusion with post-jazz...
oh of course... there's no section in this music...
whereby each instrument takes a chance to solo...
there's no need... everything is just ******* dandy
as it stands...
             - and where would i be... the internet is evil!
ooh: boogie-woogie! sure... people are acting
like ****-storm brainiac... brainiack... brainiak...
   brainiaq...      just four of the possible aesthetic questions
regarding the spelling of: Otto Binder...
not that i'm a massive comic book fan...
well... if you get a chance to meet Declan Tan...
Declan... yeah... for my birthday he gave me a copy
of... Batman vs. Alien... no wait... it was Batman/Aliens...
published in 1997... i think Declan liked me...
i sort of think i liked Declan...
                      the first time i tasted chicken soup that
wasn't Slavic born... with sweetcorn...
(ISBN 1-56971-305-7)...
sure... it's evil... people ghosting each other...
dark-web ******* inner circles etc., the silk road...
hmm... ghosting... poor Jeminah...
how many times did i play roulette... cycling down
Mawney Road in the past... 3 weeks?
not that often... i tried at least once a week...
not that i'm stalking... but it's a decent route...
it's all downhill... and chances of cycling onto sharpnel
is limited... mind you... never... ever...
cycle into the London borrough of Barking & Dagenham...
chances of getting a flat tire... esp. if you're cycling
on 23cm wide tires of a road bicycle?
no brainer...
   before pulling into Mawney Road... i was...
blinded by a sunset... idiot me forgot to wear his sunglasses...
but i stared at the ***** with eyes wide open
waiting for white phosphorus to start pouring
from under my eyelids...
   oh... i'll be looking at you... until the point
where i see you for what you really are:
but you're never really that when you're at sunset...
or sunrise... it's only at your zenith when...
staring long enough at you... exposes you as this
pulverising... vibrating mirror of fluorescence...
sort of silver... sort of white... but not when you're
coming down from your zenith... you're still blinding...
  - only a day prior i thought i saw Frankie...
Friendrich... her son... getting on the bus...
from a 5-a-side football centre off Eastern Avenue...
turned out it wasn't him:
no, it couldn't be him... over-protective mother
would never allow her son to take the bus on his own...
plus... the kid is supposed to be an actor...
she's milking him... "apparently"... he's into bedroom fun
on a games console... you couldn't find him
climbing trees or playing sports... a *****... basically...
the only sport he might have heard of...
is... boxing... to defend him mother from abusive
boyfriends... where: he'd always lose...
- i was waiting for this moment...
the sun blinded me gloriously...
   as i cycled down Mawney Road...
that's the thing about meeting Jeminah... her dog...
i had these self--inflicted knuckle wounds
from putting out cigarette butts on them...
her dog... oh man... her dog loved me...
he really quickened the healing process...
he licked and licked and licked... and licked...
the scabs off... to the point where i started bleeding again...
looking at my knuckles...
nothing prettier in the world... no tattoo could
compensate them...
so as i was cycling down Mawney Road...
who do i see? the over-existed dog... barking... chewing air...
i see the dog first... the dog sees me first...
i later make out that... glorious colour of her hair...
that darkened ginger that's mingling with oak-cask
auburn... i put on my most impressive frown...
i don't look her in the face... mind you:
everything's ******* fluorescent before me
having been blinded by the sun just minutes prior...
i'm not stalking... she was the one that invited me
back to her home twice... yeah... i know where she lives...
that's when i had that mad moment
of leaving her flowers on the porch...
and a Valentine's card through her letter-box...
o.k.: fair enough... that's borderline creepy...
what isn't... with modern woman and feminism?
          a simple boy can't offer up simple love...
i learned from my supervisor...
the daughter of my neighbour that she's no longer
working for the company...
SLANDER... in H'america you can go to court
for that sort of ****... false-accusation, no?
that's what happens...
when a devil tries to outsmart a devil...
the latter devil pushes on... with gifts... with niceties...
the former devil has no option but to retreat...
to its own, former: hellhole... bog...
imagining someone i wanted to love...
stomach pains... mistaking them for butterflies...
single mum, dating much younger men...
or dating men who were big on *******...
former ex-boyfriend women beaters who ran her
into bad credit rating... with... debt...
i know of the mistakes i've made...
   two... in my early twenties... that's why the rest of
my twenties are a blur... that's why only now
i've reemerged as this extroverted silent type...
in my mid-30s... having plans...
   i wouldn't call it: ******* away my youth...
i'd call it... sorry... what? no, sorry... i was sort of absent...
probably alone in the forest... probably at night...
problem being... she can block me on whatsapp...
she block me on the internet...
       hmm... small world... a very small world...
she'll have to move... or commando the minutes she takes
her dog for a walk... the ******* dog licked my scabs / wounds
clean... he has my blood in his veins...
if he sees me... he's going to bark in my direction...
ghost me, *****? in the good old days...
the claustrophobia of a little city where i was born...
my parents lived... let's say... 600 metres apart...
but it took... being jointly invited to a wedding of fellow friends
that brought them together...
Jeminah can't ghost me... like she could forget about
all those guys she flicked left on
when we worked together on a shift on Tinder...
you can't shake off locality...
i'm practically her neighbour... in terms of of how
globalism comes across... what? i'm not allowed to cycle
down this street? she's not even living on the street i'm cycling
down... she's living on the cul de sac...
but i'm not paying for... the debt her ex...
whatever he was racked up in retaliation...
what a pretty face... what pretty hair: hair that i'd give
up drinking whiskey for... it's almost the same colour...
just keeping to the foundation
of routine... i like that street... cycling down it...
if she has any complaints... she better take out
the scab tissue of my DNA from her dog's gob...
but dogs don't simply: forget who they endear...
with affection... the internet distance conundrum
is not going to work on me... the only way she's going
to ghost me... proper... is moving somewhere else...
small world... small town... in the vicinity of Collier Row...
obviously i'm not going to bother her...
god forbid... i have Khedra to mind...
the ******* that gets all the *** that no man
rarely does... and has to text me: come over...
i need you... yeah... that type...
i cycled past with a frown... i just spotted the dog...
ooh... right... well... i know who's behind that dog...
yep... a flicker of dark ginger: disguised brunette...
yeah... that's Jeminah...
but this is counter to how the internet works...
no? in a cosmopolitan setting?
she can't exactly ghost me...
  sure... she can block me... on whatsapp...
   from a ****-show she herself orchestrated... why?
because she didn't have the confidence to compliment
me, directly... she had to: slander me...
she became one of those... idiotic... sappers...
she self-sabotaged herself... notably? after i pushed forward...
with... wine, cake and flowers...
she became a self-saboteur...
   like i said to one of the other girls: lies don't walk on
stilts... lies have short legs...
just wait... see... i've been alone long enough to know...
certain little, ******... analogies?! behavioural patterns
of blah-b'ah black sheep...
             now... i'm waiting for the crescendo...
there's no denying it... i do drink...
   but... allowing women this "sixth sense" of sniffing out
alcohol on... a person you just met...
accusing them of drinking on the job?
i know the territory... my grandmother had the same
sixth sense... when she turned my grandfather into
an alcoholic... he finally broke down and threw her
through a glass door...
        me? ******* prostitutes?! i'm trying to escape that
headache... keeping it sorted behind a... paywall...
   first comes the payment...
i'm not landing on something that's... ahem... "free"...
- it is a big deal! you slander someone
and in H'america you can be taken to court!
i do drink, heavily... but when i'm working...
i half my intake if not third it...
      i wash, i pamper myself... i end up sober on the shift...
at the London Stadium people either take
selfies with me or give me sweets...
i'm a sucker for pop music and... gelatine infused sweets...
i can't refuse them... chocolate can simply not
exist... but... give me a bag of Haribo...
esp. those sour-sweet types... i can't help myself...
i just have to eat them...
- but, this is... a 2nd Jeminah Revelation...
she... she can't swipe left on me... on Tinder...
i'm not on Tinder: never have...
    i'm almost her neighbour if i take out the bicycle...
i can be round her house in a matter of minutes...
London, even Greater London... has... shrunk... for her...
she can block me on an APP-lication...
but she can't... block me... cycling down a road
she takes her dog for a walk...
               i wonder how this dynamic will work out...
on her mind... i was waiting for this moment...
you can't just... ghost me... when i'm living: locally...
sure... you can... "ghost" me... but... that implies:
you have to move... i'm not moving...
i'm rooted... i haven't been this rooted in a long time...
funny how that works...
whatever it is that works... bicycle breaks...
the wheels... the moon and the tides...
that sure as **** works...
the sun and photosynthesis... that also works...
but... the interaction between women
and men, these days?
sure as ****: it's not working...
  which is, rather... a crying shame...
do we really have to go into interracial territory
for it to work?
personally? i don't feel like it...
    no, not really...
                  whoever takes over...
oh... i'm pretty sure the current white overlords
are planning an ultra-coup-uprising of
being the chosen typos...
               whatever...
                i have lost interest in this world...
from about... 2 years ago?
yeah... the world is sort of automated for me...
i lost interest in it...
the whole matter of the "pandemic"... sort of desensitized
toward any sort of attitude toward Ukraine...
i sort... hmm... ahem... don't care...
Ukrainians celebrated the invasion of Poland
by the Nazis during World War II...
if i'm not directly involved: invoked...
i'm going to play the "solipsist" / pacifist card...
the Pontius Pilate poker...
               i'm out... i was already out...
i just don't want to be involved...
                         is that somehow a Buddhist monk
"sentimentality"?
             to hell with Buddhism...
                         1960s cultural appropriate import...
i'm yet to be rid of the **** Christianity that
turned European barbarism into European
secularism.