Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Jan 2023
i've noticed that, upon ushering words from the depth
of nothing, or as an interlude in Knausgaard's day-to-day
musing in vol. 6 after inviting Geir over:
this "i" or that "i" or for that matter "my" i...
however you want to frame it...
    i noticed that if i allow myself an evening of not writing...
esp. on an electric screen for someone else to see...
if for example i lay down to go to sleep...
not exactly asleep: dart out of bed and scribble something
on a piece of paper for only me to see...
i will still dream...
but if i sit down and face the electric screen:
pixels like the eyes of a fly... for someone else to see?
i don't dream...
   otherwise... having scribbled down the following
on a piece of paper:

   exploring Heidegger's dasein in another language...
my native, which i will translate into English,
basically prepositional coordination of(f) being
off not necessarily implying non-being -
perhaps merely: being-in-itself or rather the other...

tu-być : be-here
              to-bycie : this-being
ten-byt :                      ditto
although: nuance... there is a distinction...

i also scribbled down something i heard a long
time ago about how Russia, India and China are
re-orientating themselves with the slacking of the western
influence on: whatever it was that the west had
for the past three decades beside
proxy wars, collateral damages and "culture"...

i heard the term: post-ethnic-nationalism
post-ethno-state post-nation-state...
ergo: multiculturalism... which, oddly enough:
i can't come to grips with trying if not trying to
pretend to be a native of these isles -
perhaps it might be a shock for someone outside
of London - but in London it's almost
second nature to... be surrounded by people
from all around the world...
needless to say: the natives are not so disgruntled
once they're sitting all pretty-cherry on top
of some hierarchy: esp. in the journalistic
opinion sections of the Saturday / Sunday magazine...
then it's an open bonanza against
the "lower class racists" and what not...
i can't be an anti-racist: after all...
                                     anti-racists once produced
a schematic for us to learn from in primary school...
which shower the size of brains of...
a white person, a black person and a racist...
and some other brains...
the racist's brain was under-developed:
smaller...                                      ­ really?!

anyway... so Russia, India and China have opted for
what has come to be known as the:
civilization-state...
                                     given the ongoing zeitgeist
******* blowing up in the Anglophone world from
H'america... the culture-war(?!) -
i would bet fairly and say that pretty much all
former nation-states of western Europe
and beyond are currently in a state of morphing
into: buzz buzzword: being - culture-states...

but whereas a civilization-state seems an abrupt
optimal to counter and disagreement with regards
to continuity: civilisations don't merely come and go...
whereas cultures do...
   culture is somehow a totality of the little things
in life... fashion, the arts, politics, faux pas innuendos,
trends, diet...
that's culture and some...
but civilisation? to me that's like saying...
the foundation of Rome was the creation
of the aqueducts...
                  civilisation to me is like saying:
the British Empire and the steam-engine...
civilisation to me, London, exclusively is... the tube...
the underground network...

seriously... i don't need to go to a West End Play
i don't need to go and see Ed Sheeran play
to a sold out Wembley stadium of 100,000+ people
(although, i did, even though i did because
i worked a shift there doing security,
so, technically i didn't, but did)
            i don't need culture... as such...

all i need to do is first, do a shift at Craven Cottage...
hope that the Elizabeth Line won't be working
travel on the Central Line from Newbury Park all
the way to Holborn... and then blah blah...
instead of trying to look at the tired faces opposite
me admire the map of the Central Line
(it's a toss-up between the Central Line map,
or the District, Northern or Piccadilly)
and then, on some sunny day... get my bicycle
out... and bicycle for most of the route... notably...
skewing... merging at Fairlop working my way
through Barkingside, coming to Gants Hill
then less of the tube route (mind you...
between Leyton and Stratford it's pretty
much over-ground) -
   and then from Stratford - through to Mile End...
from Mile End via Whitechapel... to Aldgate...
from Aldgate to St. Paul's... Chancery Lane...
Holborn... rat beneath the ground:
like a rat needs a bicycle -
   well this rat is no hamster: hence the bicycle
and not a hamster-wheel...

what culture? movies?! i tried watching something
relevant to the 1980s today... ***** Dancing...
great soundtrack but... cringe!
that's even before Malcolm X and how inter-racial
inter-****** relations had to be the new norm:
i mean: ******* fair play...
    building the new Brazil -
    but i still think there's an under-representation
(and isn't everyone supposed to get a fair share
of representation) of white boy Romanian girl
(Roma, gypsy) or white boy Turkish girl...
   or white boy half-white half-Indian girl...

i know i will not dream tonight because someone
will see this...
my little itchy thoughts, my freed from the reins
"i" that doesn't really have these words clogging
up its mind - only until the itching of the fingers starts
and i have a blessed day...
like today...

why is it that a Saturday evening can feel like
a Sunday evening?
oh, right... i made steak for dinner tonight...
potato wedges (skins on, first boiled until
the the water started boiling, turned off, soaking
for 5 min, drained, olive oil, cajun pepper sprinkle,
into the oven)
    and some baked vegetables:
leeks, carrots, parsley root, red onions,
celeriac, swede... balsamic vinegar,
    sambal, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper,
sugar (i stopped using honey,
   it sticks to the baking tray plus the vegetables
lose their crunch, and vegetables need their crunch)...
2 steaks (456g total) shared between three people...
seasoned with sea salt and grain black pepper
(i prefer pepper grains than pepper powder,
i.e. pockets of explosion of that spice)
    3 min each side... a perfect medium-rare blush...

however the Indians might sell their spices...
chillies etc. there's still something wholesome
when it comes to eating certain types of food...
given that... i wouldn't be eating beef in India:
i wouldn't be seasoning beef with chillies!
that's why pepper is important...
that's why horseradish is important...
i let most of the Indians slip up: oooh! the Europeans
didn't have any spices...
apart from thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender,
mint... pepper, horseradish, i#m sure we
were also familiar with cumin seeds -
as well as that anise-seed that' not the star
(i forgot the name of it, it looks like
a cumin seed, but fatter, and split down
the middle - green) oh and of course:
plenty of salt...
what's all the spices in the world in the culinary world...
IF, YOU, AIN'T, GOT - SALT?!
   (if you don't have... i know i know...)

it's rather bewildering talking to certain Asians...
although, saying that...
most of Eastern Europe had plenty of interaction
with Asians, namely the Mongols
and the Turks - which the western Europeans
sort of... "forgot"... after Darwinism they
skipped over Asia and went straight back
to Africa... personally? i feel more akin to Asians
(esp. the oriental folk) than i do with anyone
from Africa... however Christianity was born...
after all: what's the definition of a white man?
Caucasian? and where's the Caucus?
Asia... Europe was always going to be
a funnel - a bottle-neck continent -
a port... a departing point...
       perhaps we shouldn't be so clingy to it...
unless of course:
   oh the parody of Jesus never came out of
Europe: "we" had to wait for it coming from
North America, but by then it was no longer
a parody of Jesus but a parody of North American
Christianity... a North American parody of Jesus
is... oddly enough... a European parody
of North American Christianity: via Jesus...

which brings me to another thing... only upon
doing a shift at Craven Cottage did i first hear
the parakeets... never before...
     i'm not going to bloat my ego this much but...
since then i've seen an article on Wikipedia that
i never saw before, the article just appeared out of
nowhere: feral parakeets of England...
subsequently... only a day ago:
you're only here for the parrots, fans chant
as birds swarm Leyton Orient pitch (Evening Standard
4 hours ago)
and bare conker trees overrun by bright green
parakeets make them seem vibrant despite leafless
branches (Daily Mail, 3 days ago, somewhere
in south London)...

today i was given the chance to walk back into my old
haunt... as much as i love cycling...
it's sometimes refreshing to walk...
the slowing of pace, the horizon almost intact...
more so... if walking into a forest...
Bower Wood... i know it is a curated wood...
it's not as feral as the pine woods of Eastern Europe...
but: if life gives you X... you make XY...
x = lemons, y = juice ergo xy = lemon juice...

i'm pretty sure i was familiar with this wood...
i was out hunting for souvenirs for my mother to dress
the table / fake deer antennas for candles to sit in...
holy, some other greenery with black berries...
i was hunting for ferns, almost near impossible
given this time of year... found some! bright blush
of childish envy... oh... and birches...
some oak barks fallen off... just me alone in the forest...
i was so thankful by myself...
but usually i heard crows, magpies and woodland
pigeons... but now?! parakeets?!
here?! now?! parrots in winter in these parts?!

i swear the world is standing-up-side-down...
it's hard not to miss an under-current of a serious
pagan revival weaving and slithering its way through
Europe: if only you care to listen...
i switched off from whatever is available in culture
these days... i know that what i'm listening to
will not gain popular traction...
i can walk into the forest and... there's the forest...
i go back home... cook dinner...
go into my bedroom, open a bottle of cider
thinking: no champagne will beat this...
put on a record akin to...
Heilung's TENET and... hey presto!

                       i was in company of a good friend:
someone already dead who...
i don't know how someone can lose themselves
in the forest... pareidolia...
   you can sometimes see paths already trodden...
unseen but somehow: you can see a "ghost"
of a foot here and there...
    you know: you just KNOW where a human foot
prior to yours once treaded...
there are patterns... better sticking with pareidolia than
the iconoclasm of celebrity...
i always thought that was better...
i like to think i'm in the company of strange
creatures: phantoms of my mind...
but hardly! how can these be phantoms of my mind?!
i didn't spontaneously conjure a face in a tree
when the ******* tree is older than me!
the tree was here before me!
what?! some sin?! some psychological sin
of non-conformity?! i don't adhere to star-gazing
in the filth of commodities and entertainment?!

i know why this feels like a Sunday evening even
though it's a Saturday night...
i was planning on going to the brothel tonight...
but... oh hey mother, hello father...
i'm going out... where? you don't have any friends...
blah blah... yeah... well... i'm kind of happy
because of that: no social-constraints of expectations...
as the conversation usually ran with the last
remaining friend i had from high-school...
- so, what have you been up to?
- nothing...
     and he knew that i was scribbling like mad...
what's there to talk about when it comes to writing?!
last time i heard: you read what is written...
you don't talk about it...
hopefully the reading of something written goes
back into thinking and is not spoken of:
since the conventionality of everyday
formality of social-speech crushes anything delicate
that is born from i-ought-not-but-regardless-i-must!
it's a compulsion!

i went to the shop about 3 hours ago to buy an extra
bottle of cider because i knew: having read a little more than
usual i had to keep the Libra of conscience in place,
"conscience": never write more than you read...
and never read less than you write - so so...
          wow... FORK in the "ROAD"...
                        this is me replaying the opening of the song
TENET - the sound of the horn...
well... i didn't have a horn in the forest...
but i had my pagan statue... a dead white tree...
i left this little stick next to it... i used to walk this wood
more times than i can remember...
sometimes i walked into it bare-chested...
blind from the darkness, but somehow illuminated
by the moon... sat on a stump of wood...
silence... then a breaking of a branch...
not the sort of breaking of a branch still attached
to a tree... something stepped on it...
i wasn't alone... i froze but then ushered in my voice
to compliment a shared bewildered amazement:
that is not a foot of a man stepping on a branch...

in the same wood i saw my first GARMR...
would i really have to go with the flow
of a Christopher J. MacCandless?!
                                       if hell is going to send its hounds
out to meet me, it doesn't matter where that might
be... i don't need to visit the northern most parts
of Norway to find what i'm seeking...
and what i'm seeking i found: since i'm dragging what
needed to be found around...
it's not surprising that at Bower Wood i was
alleviating a traffic problem when
two does and about 5 fawns were causing havoc...
"havoc" in the night implies 3 cars pulling over...
me coming down from the hill running up to
the village of Havering-atte-Bower spotting one...
not caring if there was a stag nearby running
with the fawn which subsequently ensured
the two does and the rest of the fawns
started to gallop and disappeared into the Wood...

i wish i could make this stuff up...
but then again: i'm not jealous of people
who have seen the Galapagos Islands or the Maldives
or... ah... just recently...
i took that rat-above-rat-below trip on my bicycle
into central London... i said to myself:
circle round St. Paul's cathedral... nope...
not good enough... around the Old Bailey then...
o.k. - and i "prayed": please! not another flat tire!
hey presto! on my way back... a flat tire at Aldgate!
great! well... i walked this distance before...
i can walk it again... walking back...
passed the East London Mosque and then...
Allahu Akbar! a bicycle repair shop!

walked up - leaned the bicycle against the wall,
the Chinese guy said: just 10 minutes
(while he was fixing this Deliveroo rider's
electric bicycle) - no problem -
i took some times to each some gelatin sweets
and drink some water, looking at people,
i felt like i was in some exclusive club,
only cyclists allowed - it felt like a very urban
sensation that most punks must have felt,
or goths, standing out...
i paid too much compliments to those guys
in Cycle King bicycle shop in Chadwell Heath...
i knew the front tire was worn down,
but i thought: get the professional's opinion...
they would be more than willing to change
the inner-tube for the Nth time before telling me:
oh... you need to change the actual tyre...
how many times did i change the inner tube?
**** knows! milking it... ******* were milking it!
but this Chinese guy said outright plainly...
it's ****... i'll change it for you...
inner tube, tyre and labour... £55...
done!
               he changed it to a tyre that...
well... let's face it... 2nd gear front
and 4th, 5th 6th and 7th gears in the back...
i was whizzing past home... he said:
less width... more grip... for the grit...
   but at least he was ******* honest...
that's what i mean about a European's relationship
with the Asians... i'm honest, they're honest...
they're not some SCAM MERCHANT KNIGS
of NIGERIA: CNUT-MBAPPE typos...

oh... and it's not like anyone didn't notice
that Indian girls think they're the bomb?!
oh yeah... oh no, not the Muslim girls... those girls
are whipped into always staring down...
like white girls are whipped into peering into
their smart-phone screens and envisioning:
anything outside of inter-racial relationships is:
pederasty (loose term)... whatever it might me...
bulimic antics: not done properly, mind you...
not in the Roman style of training the oesophagus
to just spew on a whim: i.e. i ate too much...
apologies... i need to... ugh! ugh! ugh!
                      get ready the trampoline!
we're going to launch half-digested fish-heads!

now i'm happy... my Trek Merlin 5 is compatible...
fun... looking at that *** trying to chase me down
working my way down toward the Old Bailey...
Asian ceramic raven haired
no helmet... and never, never... ride a bicycle
in an urban environment minding
the sticker on the inside of a large vehicle:
BLIND SPOT... well... d'uh... so use the large
vehicle like a battering ram against all the gnats
of smaller vehicles... ride on the outside of the large
vehicle... always on the outside...
what are you, cyclist... a Hebrew forced by
the **** brown-shirts to walk in the gutter rather
than on the pavement?! what am i?
just because i'm a cyclist i'm no less a hazard
to a motorcyclist?! momentum, self-generated!
i like my legs... let me know when you're dealing
wheelies and whizzes on a ******* wheelchair...
until i have my legs... i'll be skimming through
traffic... Norman Davis might have called
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth God's Playground...
i think i'll call London my playground...
there's plenty to play with around here...

                 but for once i listened to my ego...
for some reason i didn't require a depth of the
Freudian secular trinity of the addition of superego
and id... i was just about to think about going to the brothel
but then my ego said: you're not feeling it...
and i wasn't... i still had to clean the kitchen up,
take the garbage out... i was oiling myself up...
"oiling": checking if i still had a 30 year old's hard-on
i stopped using the fake diet of ******* of
actors: disposable, unattainable...
i switched to: ROMANIAN AMATEUR ****...
well... it's what i'm going to get...
but i checked my hard-on too many times today...
checked, i.e. checked without climaxing...
checked about 4 times... the 5th time i checked
i was thinking about going to the brothel...
but then my ego (not my ego) checked me...
you're not going anywhere:

THE FICKLE MIND AND THE FIRM TRUTH
OF THE BODY...
the mind lies more times than the body cares to admit...
until, of course... the reality of body steps in
and the mind has to retreat... just as happened with
my excess drinking... i went to buy that extra bottle
of cider and waiting in the queue while a mother
with three daughters "****'s sake" the mother retorted
while the girls were undecided what else
to add to the basked i looked at the shelves
with all the spirits... no! no! no more whiskey!
no more *****! no more!
i checked my supposed "impotence" too many times
today... "impotence": more like being
insulted by the madam: beached-whale...
she just flicked it when it went limp because
i found her physically abhorrent...
flicked it... like it was a worm...
like she was 6 years old and i was 5 years old
and she was still playing with Barbie dolls
and unlike she was...
because she knew what a key was and what a keyhole
was... but she had no idea what
physical attraction was...

                        reciprocated...

well ****... it's working... guess it's not working with you...
a bit like the horse that Christopher Reeve rode
when it dropped him and recalculated Superman:
without a spine...
plus i had no excuse to leave the house...
i had plenty of excuses to read some more of Knausgaard
and write this...
tomorrow i'll have the excuse of "working late"...
going to a brothel is not like saying:
oh yeah... i'm going on a date with a girl
we're going to the cinema blah blah...
       no... dearest ******* Madam...
she's the one that chased away both Mona and Khadra...
what the **** happened?!

what am i? a Duracell bunny?! there's an ON and OFF
switch with regards to my phallus?!
if that's the case... what's the dynamic of ****?!
is ****... no... it can't be... **** is a man *******
a turned-off woman? i once had an experience
of a woman who... let's put it mildly:
her **** was as dry as the adequate metaphor
of sensation one might regret to feel from rubbing one's
hands on sandpaper!
hands... finger tips... rough skin...
ergo the ability to play guitar or rock climb...
we're talking tender skin...
so... technically: hardly a pleasure for a ****** to feel
pleasure from an unaroused ****!
ergo?! that was an aroused **** and it's all psychological:
not physical... the shame of giving it so freely
and unwillingly... whereas playing games with
those one might want to give it up to...
i can hardly **** with a LIMPY -
   but i certainly wouldn't want to **** a timber-mill worth
of toothpicks, match-sticks and left-overs...
**** is psychological it would seem...
                the shame of it... all those labyrinths of playing
games suddenly disappearing from the case of
"spontaneity"...
   you should ask her: South African... Sancha...
worked in a private school... teaching boys Mathematics...
maybe she was a *******... by now who knows?!
i do know that i wasn't terrible aroused by her
the first time we tried...
i got a limp... like i got a limp with Ilona:
a forewarning... but she was adamant and whispered
into my ear: you will not deny me...
second time i was in her teacher accommodation
i brought a copy of the Machinist with me on DVD...
she must have spiked my drink because then the horror
of cocoon *** ensued and that's when
she climbed on top of me and gave me the sawdust
sandpaper **** treatment in the dark...

it kind of follows through to the casual mode of
argumentation people have concerning the schizoid condition:
it's all in your mind...
right... so the schizoid condition is simply: so...
your i-think detaches itself from thought
and forms a i-hallucinate complex as if: spring follows winters?
well then... it's all in your mind...
**** is probably in most of women's minds...
it doesn't actually exist in reality:
in the physiology... **** is a mental construct...
it must be... since i don't recall any ******
talking about: oh ****... i had to pull out...
her **** turned into a mantis or the mouth
of a worm from the planet Dune... i just couldn't
continue!

the next day she drove me to the station and i never saw
her again...
ergo? i have a strange relationship with a limp ****...
it's not impotence: per se,
it's more a judge of character concerning a ******
partner: however brief, however informal...
it's like a wild animal freezing still...
     deer in the headlights...
                                      i should have known better
with Ilona... but she pressured to the point where it
finally started "working": i wish "he" didn't...
it would have saved me so much pointless drama...
if i were a man with a child i would tell him just as much:
it's not working for a reason...
that ***** is a mantis... you're not a robot...
this isn't a *****... you're not an extension of a *****...
it's not working for a reason...
go and check... watch the most realistic "*******":
switch to amateur stuff...
                                that's all you're going to get...
and can you, get it up? well then...
it's not you...
                                     once all the glamour is gone
and you're left with a butcher's cut of antics...
                              well... if you're aroused by that sort of stuff
in private... why can't the partner reciprocate?
maybe that's just me finalising some logistics for
tomorrow...
shift at the Ice Rink tomorrow...
me... two girls...
   one butch lesbian... she keeps rubbing off on my arms
every time the home side scores
and she's celebrating...
      one rub by chance i can understand... two rubs
and i'm thinking: this isn't homosexual conversion therapy,
is it?
the other? got me the job to begin with...
started taking dieting pills because she feels depressed
because she thinks she's fat and this is what
working with women looks like if you're not
in the business of being a plumber: in the realm of
customer service...
    
                 that's how this new girl i fancied at work
got fired... about 4 other girls ganged up on her
and she was literally bullied out of work because...
            
it's coming up to 1am... i need to get up early tomorrow...
do a cycling shift...
trim my mustache, my beard, my ***** region, my arm-pits...
finish one more bottle of cider for good luck:
or no luck...
           listen to some more pagan music...
think about Bower Wood and how i wish that if i weren't
working tomorrow
i'd buy myself a bottle of whiskey and walk
into it, right now... to howl and wake up the crows.

p.s. oh, right, that dream i had last night when
i didn't scribble any words for anyone else to see?
two night ago i was swimming with
pseudo-jelly fish on the edge of the universe
transmitting vibrations of light...
last night i was watching while some colts
were gleefully celebrating their ability to drink
shots of absinthe... until i walked up to the bar
and showed them how to drink absinthe
properly...
i took out a spoon, dipped the spoon in some
sugar... poured some absinthe onto the spoon...
lit the spoon and the sugar alight...
watched the caramel form...
then poured some water into the glass
to clue them in into the secret of drinking absinthe:
you don't drink absinthe like *****...
you need for the green-milk of wormwood
to emerge!
    sie müssen für die grünmilsch von wermut
zu auftauchen!
Mateuš Conrad
Written by
Mateuš Conrad  36/M/Essex (England)
(36/M/Essex (England))   
1.4k
 
Please log in to view and add comments on poems