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Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
.so... just because he's copper skinned, and doesn't speak the English language with a continental accent but some brash, canopy of urban slang, he's the superior authority of the dialectical drag of opinion? oh! really?! so we're talking to diacritical aesthetic snobs?! wow! i thought i was bad at that, which i am... but i'm first generation, and i know the courtesy of remaining the voice tracking, a minority... that somehow has enough oil in the cogs of cognition, to leave these isles... i'll stay... blend in... only the more obnoxious english people are bothered by my "accent"... like that one comic in Edinburgh said... you might wonder about my accent... it's educated... my one flaw... i live in Essex but don't fit the Essex boy stereotype... some i'm primarily foreign... not educated.

that's nice, no really...
  back in 1997
   i was an illegal immigrant -
deported from England
with my parents...
aged...
  1986... aged... 11...
about to start
secondary school...
Canon Palmer,
7 kings...
i remember the whole encounter,
happened on Sunday -
the Home Office officers came
plain clothes... knocked
on the door...
my father started running...
jumped a few garden fences...
was caught...
my grandfather was visiting,
kept blaming himself
for the incident....
the day before?
   we were out doing the usual
family stuff -
won a massive red dog doll
for my mother rolling
***** into holes with
camels racing across the
canvas...
   what was that place...
can't remember...
   but sure as hell i remember
the ride...
   started off circular horizontal,
ended up circular vertical...
    but turns out i remember
that Sunday better...
         one of the home office officers
walked into my bedroom with
me sobbing...
   and only said:
you have a nice computer...
i gave him the death stare...
   well... second time round
my parents figured out all the legal
issues of applying for citizenry -
  and managed to get it...
did i sing the national anthem
at the integration ceremony?
like **** it did...
           i speak an english
that transcends national anthem *******,
plus i'm waiting for Charlie...
   who probably going to
become George VIII or something...
    but i know the backbone of
illegal migration,
i was one, aged 11...
seeing my parents get arrested
i started a fist-fight with a wall
that i knew i was going to lose...
      point being...
  whenever some, ******* Somali migrant...
some African migrant in his teens
gets away with illegal migration?
look...
i know what illegal migration
looks like...
   don't tell me no person is illegal
because you're copper-skinned
and bronze when tanned...
and that's your sole excuse!
        ****** me off...
****... didn't you hear that
Bukowski already said?
  the poor are not good unto their fellows
and the rich are likewise...
so why expect economic migrants
to not think less of refugees?
economic migrants at least do
not smuggle in tears and homeland
literary worth regrets...
no-nonsense migration...
  competent roofers -
   competent plumbers...
   but i... kinda love how the middle class
english "lass" will prefer Afro-****
over an unblocked toilet...
            and their children,
Bahamas beauties, all of them...
pretty mongrels outliving pedigrees...
  there is a concept of illegal
immigration,
i was an illegal immigrant...
    but, hey... a white among whites
means i don't have the copper skin
argument to call it: "racism"...
   can people actually file for
a de- citizenship?
               there are still parts of Europe,
that do not have a post-colonial
  present...
  where the Somali, Nigerian argument...
will not, work...
it, will, not, work...
             it's days like these where
i'm like: whatever the U.S.S.R. was,
and what it became...
   i'm about to snuggle up to the current
shadow...
          no... illegal immigration
exists...
             unless you're *******
color blind...
                   hell...
at least i spent 1998 being home schooled -
and watching the World Cup with
my great-grandmother...
   and discovering Metallica...
but no... when some ******* sub-Saharan
tells me about the citizenry of
the world...
          look... head over to Kiev...
  see how happy the Ukrainians will be...
head over to the Warsaw...
   where the signs are in both Polish
and Ukrainian...
                please! please! i implore you!
try assuming that everyone
over those parts is bilingual speaking
English...
i'm waiting to see the Islamic takeover...
on the local and primordial level
of a "peasantry" -
                      but like shaggy said -
wazzin' me...
    i didn't castrate the English...
      to me their testicles are still dangling...
or at least i like to think they are...
    but as an economic migrant...
i abhor what others somehow find
emotional cupcakes of sugary ooze for
in terms of sympathy...
             guess the first line of chess -
collateral - pawns -
       is necessary beside the bishop -
   like what the Palestinians do with their
civilians, according to the Israeli
army...
                     so why bother making
psychedelics legal...
  when you trip on moral relativism?!
manicsurvival Aug 2013
I worry that the only reason I have to write is because no one will listen to me
I can't leak my thoughts to my psychologist or psychiatrist or parent because I know that my words aren't safe and that legality triumphs anything I say
I know that I'm like lava at its boiling point, about to erupt
I know that I'm self destructive and that things are only getting worse
I have so much to say, maybe if I told the entirety of the truth, I could be helped
But I fear the corrupt system too much
And I don't want to say anything to my parents because they have watched my prolonged mental distress and they have seen my breakdowns and hysterical fits and they've heard my screams
I've been medicated
SSRIs and Xanax and Ativan and Prozac and Klonopin and Lexapro
I've spent hours in a therapist's office, only to censor my life and hear a psychology major regurgitate everything I already know
I can't stand it anymore
I want to be high on **** forever and laugh at nothingness
I want to be drunk to the point where I forget that life is even a thing
I want to kiss his lips and touch him every moment of the day because I'd feel loved even if I wasn't
I hate what has happened
I hate what is happening
I hate that I've changed
I hate how hard I try because the payoff never seems to pay off
And that I try to keep changing but everything isn't enough and everything won't ever cut it
I don't know what to do
I need endorphins and serotonin and beta-blockers and benzos
I need to know that this isn't a never ending cycle
I need to know that what I'm feeling is temporary and that this isn't what my life will be like
I need to tell my therapist and my doctor and my psychiatrist that I don't know what to do anymore and that the thoughts that control me are no longer bearable because I know that I want to live
I know however, that if I say the wrong thing, my words will be reported to DCFS and I could be baker acted and I don't want that to happen
So all I have in the end are my thoughts, killing me inside every moment of everyday
Tearing me apart like my lungs can no longer expand
Like my heart can no longer pump
Because my mind controls everything, and everything is in flames
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2015
sample precursor: there are three binding directions of a chemical group (e.g. CH3) to the benzene ring - the ortho-, the meta- and the para-... but i'll ask a different question: what is copernican north what is copernican east a copernican west or a copernican west without a "flat-earth" / how else to read / navigate a 2D map going from point (a) via vector (c) to point (b) along the short-cut of the hypotenuse - which, isn't a short-cut, but the logical conclusion of walking neither the middle path nor the right path, but the logical path? we're no astronauts... we didn't see the proof... we can only entertain the "idea" of a 3D object we live on, but we're still strapped to a "flat earth" in order to navigate... endless stories of how GPS tech. fooled people off the edge of a cliff... "flat earth" is no reverse psychology ploy... i'm no ******* astronaut... i never stood left right or center on the moon to have the foggiest sense of admiration for that awe-balancing moment that leaves so many deluded in it being otherwise: first come first served, last come: what's there's to serve that last man if not merely the drudge-report of a commute? besides... trans- and cis-, why are people borrowing from chemistry and attaching gender to what is exlusive to chemical compounds? look at them... pop chemistry... cis-trans isomerism... fine, let these people have that... my new n.e.w.s. (north, east, west, south): orthography, something clearly missing in the anglophone world (no diacritical markers, i and j do not count)... ergo? orthography = east... paranormal = west... since the west is obsessed with either aliens or hush-hush military projects... now... both north and south are meta- coordinates... on the basis, on the basis of what? two words really work well to establish a foundation: from ars poetica? metaphor (borrowed from a change of mind - meta- and -phren - mind, a change of mind, all mental illnesses are changes of the mind, alternatives to alleviate the stranglehold of the commune of the greater picture known as society)... but... there's also metaphysics... which is in the interest of philosophy... how else not to explain the obvious, how else to treat both the reader / audience as the well informed genius(es) but mistreat them as would be grander genius(es) if the socratic endeavour of "pretense ignorance" was not to be established? it's a hard juggle... east is already well established in orthography, west in paranomal... literally: metaphor - a change of mind, literally metaphysics - a change of groundwork physicality of things... a rock remains a rock in either "heaven" or in "hell"... metaphysically there seems to be a direct translation... this is why i'm terrible at crosswords, this whole puzzle structure of either working from a direct definition to the word itself, some random geographical posists, some historical posits, some outdated out-of-vogue words related to specified period idiosyncracy, a tinge of the therausus... my current crossword is an interchange: meta-phor, meta-physics, meta-phot, meta-physics and on and on it goes: even with the isolated prefix of meta-, if i return to the words: as they are... would: denoting a change of thinking (state of mind) or... denoting a change of physics, i'm met with metaphysics, i.e.: a branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles... sounds like a priori physics, yet all i can fathom if i wrestle this word to its casual use: isn't it a posteriori physics?! the what comes after physics? i should think that most people understand metaphysics on an a posteriori basis rather than an a priori basis... hence the question: what happens when we die? last time i checked: death happens last... birth happens first... any question-worthiness (according to heidegger) should begin at: the beginning rather than begin at the end, in the same way that all questions should be sought in a medium of predating the dates of events, rather than with a spirit of hindsight, hindsight belongs to the "what if" of history in that dynamism of expressed time... on the canvas of an infinitely expanding space: we seem to be riddled by a very cul de sac concept / expression of time: our quill - given that ****** didn't learn from napoleon when it came to russia... perhaps finding out what copernicus found out: "we" figured: get me off this ******* celestial carousel where i can't even feel the dizzy immediate of a ferris wheel! again: i'm terrible at crosswords, sudoku? no problem... but words: if not gushing out of me, waiting like a lizard predator for a linear narrative spew? count me out... i don't play with words, i use words... i'm a wordsmith, hence the ethnic origin denote: słowianin: slav - i don't know where these west-saxon punks derived their etymology from: słowo = word... *****-liquor juice teens thought it was: oh fo' sho' smart... still: metaphor, metaphysics... metaphor... metaphysics... disgruntled with the immediate compound readied for pop use... meta-physics... the vector is the prefix... why do philosophers push metaphysics so much, but in turn rely on the crutch of metaphor? to change their mind, if metaphysics is an abstract theory with no basis in reality, then the schizoid / metaphorical mind is an abstract in an abstracted theory of the mind - which has "no" knowledge of reality, or rather: "reality" excludes such a mind from ever absorbing an expression in it... a schizophrenic can't explain the reality of a person who can solve crossword puzzles... just as someone who solves crossword puzzles with a fear of alzheimer's: who treats the fatty tissue that's the brain as a muscle... given that the cells of alzheimer's disease are killer proteins... proteins as the antithesis of white blood-cells that feed of fat tissue... after all: what else could the brain be if not fat and water? slow burner... first the sugars, then the more complex carbohydrates, then the fat: last? the proteins... the process of starvation... you want up? you want down? again: metaphysics / metaphor... ta meta ta phusika... the things after the physics... so what's with the inverted: prior things? hence people associated a life after death... hence how philosophers have to escape into the poetic realm to quickly change their minds on the definition... a change of mind is much easier than a change of what physicality entails... most spew metaphors but keep on course... after all: given the genesis of the metaphor, a metaphor is just a tool, a humble stop-off pause... born from humble poetics: it's only a literary tool, it's not some grand pillar of morality associated metaphysics, which nonetheless dictates: first principles come last and last principles come first... here's my crossword puzzle: metaphor, metaphysics, meta-alpha, meta-beta, metaphor and the meta-alpha, metaphysics and the meta-beta... etc. etc., i will not solve this crossword puzzle, even though it doesn't look like a crossword puzzle... it's a narrative crossword puzzle, i'm just looking for the sort of fixed point people associate with prime words: red, left, blue, right, up, fox, dog... words of readied vocabulary, readied vocabulary dissociated from puzzled vocabulary... i want to established a fixed permanence of the dissociated close proximity grounded in the meta- prefix of the words meta-phor and, meta-physics... i'm starting to find this impossible, given how the words have dissociated themselves from the grounding in the meta- prefix... phor alias phren (mind) and the whole gush of isolated metaphysics of beginnings: meta a priori vs. meta a posteriori - and of course: meta a- apriori... hell if i can't solve crossword puzzles: since i already have a crossword puzzle in my head... what am i to do? try writing pop?! a dog does what his master orders, a jester tells a joke his king would find amusing... i'll just treat this enclave of an audience as a bunch of people subscribed to ulterior forms of voyeurism (dissociated from pain / pleasure gratification, esp. that of a ****** nature).

.you know like in latin you had the interchangeable tongue twisters æ and œ? well... english resurrected one more... au... oh stralia... auntie; ******* hell i've been speaking this since aged ate and i still can't get my tongue into that phonetic plughole... or what's that onomatopoeia for: it really hurts? awe... nah... aw... aw... well no cute kitten about to say aww.

well it began with the usual... i wish i didn’t...
sitting in the autumnal garden
drinking coffee and eating a nicotine croissant,
watching the fog recede into nothing
while the earth showed its naked cleavage
after what seems like centuries of arcane dryness
befitting a story of an egyptian idol...
then the panic set in...
what to cook?! what to cook?!
my mother is away visiting her parents in poland,
who celebrate the feast of all saints with the usual
tackle formidable in poland:
forget the paris fashion week, forget the london fashion week...
forget the next gucci advert...
all the action happens in poland’s annual all saints’ fashion week...
through the cemetery (ahem) cat walks
(more like death on rollerblades donning a tutu
and looking fatter than size 0 models)...
because that’s when the fur coats are worn,
the make-up is heavier and everyone comes
to discuss the materialistic jealousy of a small town...
it is a small town after all...
death knocks with all the nine cat’s lives just to prove
the point...
anyway, so i’m the head chef, and in panic
i search for a recipe... i’ve only got pork on the ready
in the recognisable frozen state...
but i also have shrimps... tiger prawns...
so i look through the usual suspects... thai green curry...
ah ****! no coconut milk!
what’s it going to be? prawn korma curry
(better mild than hot i say, with all this maple syrup
and honey colours about... talk about decay),
active ingredients? chilli powder (1/2 tsp), cinnamon
(1/2 tsp), turmeric (1/2 tsp) and ground almonds (2 tbsp),
there ready... looking suntanned my gorgeous twirls of seabed manure...
enough to spare my father making himself sandwiches (i always
disguised my “dyslexia” by associations... sandy witches...
the t broke the barriers and the floods entered)...
with toasted nannies / au pairs... relatives of some sort...
then onto writing my father’s invoices:
project plaistow hospital and some housing development near
the city airport... beckton we call it... backwards and forwards
stink crowned with drinkers regurgitating on the pave...
now that is a *******... recycling centre or horse manure?
then to tesco... for the nightcap...
oddly enough tesco has become a friend of mine once more,
i divorced the turkish shop, they added 10 pence to the polish beers,
now i’m on the sedative medication of this bottle bavaria beer
and whiskey... 1 quid for the former... 10 quid for the latter -
i’ve sold my soul! never mind...
then to the beacon that’s home... it’s night... it’s spooky...
it’s essex: that non-touristy place in england people with passports
never dare to visit, shambles.
well one thing came out true... none of the above though:
you ever consider the theory of the aeroplane syndrome in writers?
you know, like with rock stars you get the full package,
you get the aeroplane and the retrieved delay of the engine mushroom,
but with poetry (which is competing with music,
philosophers just wait in that queue for the cheese, wink, whine and wrinkle)
you only get the sound... that delayed mushroom...
you see the poet but never hear him...
it’s a typical delusion i’d call parallel or even adjacent to narcissism,
you walk down the street and the closest you come
to someone recognising you is a stranger uttering out: ‘hey richard!’
‘name’s matt mate.’
‘oh... sorry.’
it’s this aeroplane syndrome theory... it’s perfectly acceptable...
you have the image but don’t have the delayed sound...
you have the delayed sound... but you only get a photograph...
you have the english national health service mental health unit crisis...
and then you have people shunning intellectualism
trying to cure people by burning / not reading philosophical books;
the day ends with drinking and reading
an article about keith richard’s antics in the sunday times’ supplement
and the thought: well i gave her a stabbing chance
at feminism... she thought the active ingredient in anti-contraception
pills was placebo... she phoned and gave birth to me...
i said abort... you’re no post-teen mum at university, you won’t be...
******* was great but i’m not that much of a match from a cosmopolitan magazine quiz
(as duly taken on my way from st. pestersburg to moscow to see
metallica play), plus there are no roofing jobs in scotland...
the scots have mountains already... there’s no point building
scratched sky skylines with mountain ranges nearby...
so even though i went to a catholic school...
i did my first redemptive act by reading about gnostic heretics...
and not getting confirmed being the second...
i would have not taken first communion... but playing the xylophone
at the nativity play was too much fun...
plus it is the only salvador dali bit of the story...
after that you have st. sebastian...
plus you see where this is going... the greeks translated
the tetragrammaton into the gospels
of st. matthew, luke, mark and john...
and the romans were duped into the legality of
things... first name, second name, confirmation name...
surname.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
.there are only two aspects of forgiveness worthwhile, kept in anticipatory slumber, (1) is watching the masses congregate within the confines of your thinking, but (2)... watching how individuals in said massing of resources... seem to be akin to: someone walking on tip-toe on a bed  egg-shells... i'm met a few crazies... and i've prescribed myself investigating a few normal-folk, who are seemingly petrified, "thinking" than such: negations of ease, akin to depression, have an epidemic ontology.... that they are contagious... more or less.... like a sick ego, that bribes one's thinking and sows a false duality between what constitutes a body, consumed, with what otherwise, constitutes a mind... i've seen a few crazies... they seemed to like me, even when i suggested that we only just met...  the most senile people in the world... thus, to be frank... i'm more concerned with the sanity projects... with their emotional intelligence worth less than the emotional relativism of a gnat to a bear, which begs the reason os arguing: none... who... are so barren... they'd prefer the status of a pawn, in a game of chess, akin to Jimmy Savile...so much for the Saxon logic of: innocent until proven guilty... more like: innocent proven by death, after which... there is no case for either innocence, or guilt... i'm of the conviction... that... i'd rather see an innocent man claim redemption in life... than a guilty man laugh at a redemption in death; sorry... but i don't share the sort of sentiment that argues otherwise... better an innocent man claim redemption while alive... than a guilty man "claim innocence" while dead... part-and-parcel of the legality of the death penalty... the former argument: guilty until proven innocent makes a whole lot of sense without a death penalty... and the latter? no logic behind it... it makes no sense... then again... i am drunk, and i do not delve into sober issues or: serious circumstance... i allow sober people to meddle in such affairs... after all... sober people... make... the most... compelling arguments and, to boot, the most convincing opinions for up-coming affairs! why become a thief in their ordinances?! please! let the mice play, while the cat is away!  i need no bargain with ****-stormers and ******-buggery!

oh i've been to a few psychiatric interviews
over the past 10+ years...
always wondering: what am i doing
here? psychoanalyzing the psychiatrists?

you do know what a psychiatrist is
a poor man's psychologist -
with the added branch of pharmacological
applicability?
  a psychologist will just talk,
perhaps serve you camomile tea...
but prescribe zero drugs...

the talking, the endless talking,
the talking
of a west London psychologist...
who ends the relationship when
you mention:
i've had a dream of Allah...
god he's grotesque...
but, point: there was
someone with him...

  i thought that Allah had no
companions, or rather: he took none?
oops...

i remember analyzing this
situation once,
a ****** psychiatrist brought in
aa medicine student
who wanted to specialize in
psychiatry...
   apparently he concluded that
i was sane...
nice... being the subject
of learning curvature
surrounding a medicine student...

next came the allotment plant
to mind the crazies
while mingling them with the physical
retards...
stole a lot of potatoes that day...
the retards slurred,
exposed their genitals...
and were huddled together like
cattle by the social workers...

******* marvelous!
couldn't expect a lesser
Moulin Rouge reinterpretation
if i wasn't watching harlots
dance the: flinging
of the undergarments on show
that warm July afternoon!

but always, whenever i visited
a psychiatrist in a clinic:
always...
  why am i here?

you know what scares psychiatrists?
EM-PA-THY...
scares the living life out of them...
empathy is what psychiatrists
apprehend the most...
   so you're neither a psychopath
or a sociopath?
what are you then? comes the auto-suggestive
interpretation
of the ****** expression that
comes with suggesting,
even the slightest lack of contempt
for a basic human emotion...

scared, ****-less!
as if on a diet of ****** ruling
over Sudan, or similar ****...
famine after famine,
scared, but unable to soil their underwear,
given... well... the ******* famine...

oh i love psychoanalyzing
psychiatrists,
they have a shorthand blistering
beneath their appreciation for
listening...
their pharmacology branch...
caught one psychiatrist off guard...
he says, out loud,
that... i was abused as a child...

and?
  perhaps i was, perhaps i wasn't...
better that than being treated like
the modern Humpty-Dumpty...
walking on egg-shells typo,
rather than type, of what constitutes
the ontology of individualism...

i had to retort  with / resort to seeking
the opinion of a Polish neurologist
who, with a basic question
'doctor, am i mentally ill?'
replied
  'whoever said you're mentally ill,
is mentally ill themselves!'
case closed...
    
hence the statistics are believable
surround the death of Ellie...
teenage suicide rose in England
by 67% between 2010 and 2017...
    
so you do know the difference between
a psychologist, and a psychiatrist?
camomile tea...
   a psychologist is a humanist,
a psychiatrist is a physician...

if you're rich enough...
you see a humanist...
  poor? shorry...
   the pharmaceutical branch
of the practice is coming into practice...
but don't worry...
chances are...
    you talk what they want to hear
for a while, and then you start
talking what: they don't want you to hear...

hell...
  with this type of medication
and the whiskey...
i could turn into a semi-variant of a
hibernating bear!
i don't mind...
           i found that the glorification
pompous camp of cancer "survivors"
had their stab in the dark...
   because can we only regress
to glorifying surviving one type of
disease, while making stigma of
another kind?

the mentally ill are less of my concern....
i'm worried about the dim-wits
who abuse antibiotics!
   and i am... ******* numb-skulls...
taking antibiotics like
free-prescription vitamins!
creating the perfect niche for
super-bugs!
                      dim-wits!
         numb-skulls!
  and i thought that head-banging was
a source for erasing brain cells!
Taylor St Onge  Oct 2013
Exemplar
Taylor St Onge Oct 2013
The inadequate bookshelf that sat near the door
that my sister used to call her own was
mostly made up of adolescent reads,
books better suited for preteen girls rather than
intellectually budding young ladies—
juvenile vocabularies and simple, non-complex
plot lines do little to craft and create
worldly, knowledgeable women.

I thought I must spring clean the
naiveté away and replace it with
the works of great authors like
Sylvia Plath
                        Simone de Beauvoir
                                                              Virginia Woolf
                        Margaret Atwood
Betty Friedan;
ingenious femme fatales that cut down
to the brittled bones of the misogynists
and burned their marrow along with the
ashes of bras and aprons and 350 degree oven heat.  

Growing up, to me, seemed like a wonderful epiphany
chock-full of ideas and opinions and
clever, ironic remarks that chased satirical witticisms
like felines to rodents and wolves to deer—
being an adult would guarantee me a say,
a vote
           prior 1920’s America
                                                  play dress up as a suffragette
           women’s rights
femininity personified by dolls in plastic houses.

To be eighteen-years-old,
the goal, the legality, the bright light at the end of the tunnel;
the official womanhood it would bestow upon me
seemed like something almost tangible
with the way that it loomed over my head.

Get good marks
graduate high school
travel back in time sixty years
meet a nice boy
become a “good wife”
have dinner ready by five
bear two beautiful heirs
clean up the messes left in the kitchen
fast-forward to the twenty-first century
go to a good college
find a stable career
settle down if the fancy strikes you
live non-docile and full of passion—
the parallelism of times are severely
di
    lap
          i
            dat
                 ­ ed.

1950’s America would never be a home for me
because I am much too wild to be contained.
wow I got really feministic there. sorry, man.
Melissa Taylor Feb 2010
Relax the formality
But hang onto legality
While spreading the reality
Of being lonesome and humility
Showcase your ability
It won’t last for infinity
But don’t join the infantry
Unless you’re accustomed to calamity
un-wavered by insanity
and have the bravery to protect humanity

4/5/09
copyright 2009
Victoria Kiely Jan 2014
It was midday in London on an afternoon of early spring. The streets were flooded with equal parts rainwater and people as everybody rushed through their busy lives. People easily forgot to look up, and often failed to notice the change in scenery as the bus sped along.
He occupied two seats on a lonely street car travelling down Aberdeen. One seat held him tightly to the window that was to his left, the other was taken by his various possessions. With him, he carried his black, customary briefcase, his dripping umbrella that tied just below the halfway point, and the large tan trunk he had collected from the antique shop. They sat stacked on top of one another with the trunk serving as a base for the structure. Each time the street car emitted the gentle thud that accompanied the many bumps from the *** holes, he felt tense as he readied himself to catch the old umbrella.
His hair hung down to the side, dripping slowly from the rain into his eyes, and progressively further down his face. Hands shaking, lips blue, he looked down at his shoes. The holes were visible but unnoticeable. Slicks of water formed as he pressed his feet further down off of the seat. He had known for months now that these shoes were about finished, but he couldn’t seem to find the money to replace them. He had been late to pay the rent to his small apartment for the past three months.
“I just need another month,” he would begin. “Just another month, I swear. I have interviews with a few guys this week, they seem promising.” But there were truly very few interviews at all; in fact, he had found himself without work or word for months now.  Still he insisted that he would be able to find something, anything, to satisfy the rent for the coming month.
He had been a stock broker all his life. He had worked for companies varying in legality and prestige, all of which he had done well in. Throughout his twenties and thirties, he had maintained these jobs with fewer problems than he had had in any other area of his life. Until the stock market crash, he had been successful in all aspects. After the crash, however, nobody trusted stocks or stock brokers. He had found himself without business within days.
Although he had grown to loath the occupation over time because of all of the lying, the indecency and the equivocation, he loathed his financial state more with each passing day. He was used to fine linen, tall ceilings and silver spoons. None of that had followed him to his new lifestyle. He could hardly afford the food that required the spoon now, anyway.
He looked out the window to the greying day littered with clouds. People milled about, blocking the rain with their arms. The street car came to a halt beside an old cinema.
A woman and her child emerged from the black awning that draped over the entrance of the theater. She held a newspaper over her daughters’ head, taking care to cover her so as not to get her wet. The mother laughed visibly and crossed in front of the street car holding her daughters hand. They boarded.
“How much for one ride each?” She asked the driver with a kind, simple voice that reminded the man of his mother.
“It’s three dollars for your ride, and I’ll let her on for free since it’s raining” The driver replied.
She looked down and smiled. “Thank you very much.”
She trailed her daughter along and sat a few rows ahead of him. She sat her daughter down first next to the window, and then continued to slid in next to her, taking the aisle seat. She pointed out the window and whispered something inaudible to her daughter – she giggled lightly. She continued, her smile growing, her daughters face mirroring her own. Finally, they each erupted in laughter. He had not heard one word they had said.
It was true that they seemed, in every sense, underprivileged, but it was just as clear that they were not poor. Neither felt sorry for themselves, neither seemed to care that they too had holes in their shoes, or that they hadn’t had the money for an umbrella. They laughed and smiled as though they were the ones who had had the fine linen, tall ceilings, or silver spoons.
At first glance, he had felt sorry for them – their ripped and wet clothing, their makeshift umbrella. It seemed now though, that the longer he looked at them, the more he seemed to realize the sad truth. It was he who had been poor his whole life, not the lowly people he once watched walking down the street through his office window, the type who sat in front of him on this very train.
He had never been married, as he was too busy with his work and ambitions. He had never known the joy of a child. He had missed so many opportunities to find the happiness that he saw in the woman before him. He also knew that he had never wondered about any of those people’s stories. He had never cared to.
His stop came and went, and still he watched the woman and her child. The woman sang nursery rhymes to the girl, squealing with joy and amazement, as the street car carried on. Finally, the woman pushed the button to signal the driver to stop. She stood and collected the few things she had brought with her, including a coat and the newspaper she had used previously. She took her daughters hand and exited the doors that hesitated, then shut tightly behind her.
Again the pavement began to pass beside him as he looked out the window. His eyes stirred, then focused on something resembling paper that had fallen to the ground recently; the edges were hardly damp on the soaked floor.
He slid into the seat kin to him, bent over, and picked up the slip of paper. He unfolded it and found it to be a picture of the woman and her child from moments before.
In the picture, the woman is sitting in a field with tall blades of grass that look as though they had not been cut for years. The light is dim, the sun is rising. Her teeth are showing in a brilliant smile, her face young and carefree. Her daughter, who must not have been more than two in this picture, sits in her lap, laughing at something that can’t be seen in the photograph. The mother is pointing to it, and the daughters eyes follow. In many ways, it looked like the scene he had just witnessed.
On the back of the photo in long, curled writing, he read her handwriting: “It is always darkest before dawn”.  With those six words, he knew that he had wasted much of his life in dedication to tangible riches, when the real treasures were those that you could not necessarily count or produce. By way of strangers in a lonely street car, one poor man had discovered value in things that do not hold worth.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
early on i left an imprint for me to remember,
kinda like 2 x 2, equating to 4,
not as simple with words:
i like this dialectic between Dionysian and
Apollonian attempts to express aye arr parley!
shake the pine trees to get the toothpicks
like you might get a mojito, onward! toward
El Dorado! transgressing 24 hour hours
and you get the flavour:
first beer in in from dieting, oh ****, it's bitter,
second beer, mm, sweeter... then the headline
of whiskey and coke... Kazakhstan nice... yok sh'eh mash?!

three movements working their way,
those conquered and exposed to direct roman rule,
presiding over the "charm" with roads, western europe,
now they're so pride to reach that far back,
mention Boudica, one, more, *******, time!
i'll give you Britain that made Louis XIV
the peasant king at Versailles, and Charles II
wise with a Guy Fawkes firecracker... mm, guess
it happened here! in the yeast of a baker's
reincarnation via Malachi's heresy:
Elijah coming soon? Elijah not coming any time
you blunt sword of monotheism excluding
the chance of many, democratic influences!
either the fish or the aquarium...
the aquarium... a billion of them plus Islam will
be anarchic China, people never wish for better,
they only wish to better themselves,
including the social strata stampede that's necessitated
in the process... scientific positivism of Enlightenment
died, the absolute necessity (god) / the absolutely
necessary thing became trapped in the Bermuda
or the Copernican triangle, no good for crossing
oceans, just ably whirling east to no east outside
the atmosphere, try me with two thing:
Copernican vectors with a stable point constantly moving,
rather than sunny, constantly expressed economically
as usurper against usurer and the university grant
of simony, although worthy of an actor to spread
charitable work and paedophilia in Asia dubbed
Portuguese Missionary - well i'm sure the apologetics will
come, my neighbour hugging her dog watching television,
closest kin of the genesis story having secondary reminders
determining whether the lie was white or instructive,
a joke or seriousness - indeed entombed in treating these
words as a holiness worth for all the present religious attire.
absolutely necessary Kant said,
he also said: you said omni- etc., indeed you're on a
roundabout of intellectual yawns, there's nothing new here!
i need god as a concept of vectors and cursors, mediating
more than the caging of man's affirmation of himself
with Freud... the sounds and equally shared optics
need to accommodate a oneness, god is a predicate
of essential function: a. the triple affirmative:
i, thought, existence... something to concern myself with,
b. the duo affirmative:
denial, thought, existence... the arithmetic goes further,
i am writing quickly hence i will not brood over,
except a comparison in cinema, the film *hostel
(2005)
and pretty much all of Hollywood's 1970's grit output...
take for example Al Pacino in the panic in needle park,
you know what i see? modern american interpretation
of what eastern europe represents, the farts
leave flamboyant Amsterdam hopeful for Slavic ******,
they come to Slovakia, and it hits them,
the passive lack of jealousy and need to impress
building a chrysler building, the oddity like landing on mars...
but it's already been done with, New York in the 1970s,
the same slavic grit, even the way the cinematography looks
like the colours were shaded with a peppering of sand...
new york in the 1970s is like Eastern Europe in
the horror set in 2005 in Slovakia... globalisation's paranoia,
there are still people out there who we can't ascribe
metaphors to being exclusive: no iron lady lifted the
iron curtain, the iron lady had an iron skirt, and she
couldn't lift that up either... Churchill puffer a cigar
and a million bees emerged heralded by Edward the Confessor.
that's the relation though, Hollywood's 1970's urban grit
and what the tourists encountered in Slovakia in 2005,
a sleepy kingdom, 2nd Mongolia, second to none,
which i beg to differ with, given the Scots were tight
stretching 2 pence copper coin to invent copper wire
and the Swiss (also in hilly surroundings) have us
elaborate paedophilia via Nabokov catching butterflies...
hardly two mountain ranges and hardly two plateaus.
it's called exotica these days... yep... the dissection of
the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and the emergence
of both Lach, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian
and White Russian is what the Czech say made them
speak both cesky and saksonski... tseba! holy roman
prague ****, disintegrated into the Austrian intervention...
very much as if: thank you for defending Vienna from
the Ottomans, Jan Sobieski.
but the Jews got reparations at the end of the ordeal,
and western Europe received the Marshall Plan...
eastern Europe received Marx... too proud they said,
it's not exactly Mama Russia surrogate,
it's Papa Khan also... moon gall! no news from Mongolia
i hear, sooner a tale from an American zoo
where a retired silver-back dragged a baby from
drowning in an inch of water, hero shot,
where were the parents? a four year old can hardly
sit on a kitchen stool let alone climb over zoological
fortifications... ah the blessing given unto man
by Iblis to ape ably a delay he has no chastity over:
if Iblis defended his pride, then man can but
defend his chastity - Iblis was given a longer time-frame,
man was given a shorter time-frame, Iblis'
choice expands furthest into myth, man's choice
implodes further into repetition - for Iblis' mistake
was but one, when knowing of man's aplenty;
it is said that when a man is to become a father,
he relives his childhood - legality i say would have
obliged me, but pride took no notice of symbols as signatures
of such love, especially given the expenses,
or as in the supermarket today, the cashier invested ?
into the one buying the goods:
- where is she? you're not together any more?
- oh, she's moving to York, it's her work, she has to.
- you're not moving with her?
- well, it's only for 2 years, and then she'll be back,
  training, it will take her 4 months...
na'h ah... bye bye...                       she ain't coming back...
tell you what mate, keep a cat, the most selfish animal,
bestia ex solipsism - no necessary petting by constantly
showering it signs of jealousy and ownership and upkeep,
as if having to punch a gorilla to hold hands.
i love feminism for one thing only:
it made sexism a branch of Darwinism, *** warfare...
in relation to me? two girls chatting away:
- *******! how could he leave you!
- but he did!
- what ***** made him do it!
- philosophy!
don't get me started on those who read very little
and can't allow philosophy a poetic form, and necessarily
have to plagiarise Aristotelian stylistics to be considered
philosophy (albeit only in scholarly musings).
i'm sure it was something about the fruits of our
presupposed wisdom that bore knowledge that individuated
us, to the point of extremes, as hardly scraps for
vultures, to no animal nobleness, parasitic amongst each other,
defining the 16th century or such desires to keep
afresh, minted and pampered for the next cohort of dupes...
some find the memory of dogs towards us keener
than our fellow men should wish to share...
the animal domesticated and not eaten is seemingly our
prefect to walk toward a seize-less craft of un-exhausted thought,
only un-exhausted because of missing interaction,
say there, is that Hegel's mirror (master) and narcissus (slave)?
the emergence of these belittled nations is clear in
western europe, the bombing of Libya,
the usurpers of Syria, the once conquered having a taste
for empire and colonial rule think they cherish
the biblical conundrum when the resurrection was inclined toward
the lands Sven and Mietek - toward the lands
of conquerors and the ones converted -
four movements thus (sketched):
a. sonata: βορας ηλιος - μακεδων να ινδια
b. adagio: βιργιλιος ως καντηνoν -
                  μεσoγειος: μαυρος (ex),
κoκκινος (ex), ειρηνικoς (ex),
ατλαντικoς (ex), βoρειος (ex), βαλτικη (ex),
south a poet, north a philosopher,
from only one sea came two oceans and many other seas
to sustain the thirst for seawater among men!    
c. scherzo: Casimir the 3rd welcoming the Jews.
d. sonata: an die mitternachtfreude - more like a calm
before taking up the arms.
L A Lamb  Oct 2014
Dolls
L A Lamb Oct 2014
I wrote several years ago, a scrap of paper with wondering thoughts--lost.

Delinquent, ovulating, *****, lovers, ***
devil, ****, lies, logic, science
dalliance, omission, legality lost, sultry
does oppression look like ***--yes:
It was forced, it ran it's course
but it still runs, runs runs
silently, but in actuality, loud
quietly, but it prowls, hunting for calamity
a sad reality-- a tragedy
with wicked twists which linger
on my wrists, hips and thighs
charred with scars and lies,
I lied: with my thighs
when i let you in, it wasn't a sin
but a lesson I learned, as a girl
and education I didn't earn
--but I sure paid for
no cause for concern
but I find it discerning, sick
and disturbing--you seek dolls
so fine, glossed pretty pink lips
that shine, lips like mine
but there is no crime,
put a price on a doll
and say she's worth a dime.
Colibri Apr 2013
There’s no grace for a sinner here.
In this little white room,
with the little white girls
and the good little boys.
They all cast the stones, cracking
my fragile bones,
and making my dress quite black.

There’s no place for a sinner here.
Where they all look the same,
all out to tame us,
damning us all to hell.
Technicalities steal pride, and
Legality’s crushing tide
forces our dignity to fall.

There’s no room for a sinner here.
You’ll do as you’re told.
Dare ask why and you’re bold;
never to make much in life.
Backsliders are peered on
over pretty noses apparently smeared on,
by simplicity and a bit of wine.

There’s no peace for a sinner here.
Perfect footprints are left over,
those lively blueprints we pored over
through many a midnight candle.
Both innocence and experience
leave them incensed and indignant.
keeping our consciences guilted.

There’s no rest for a sinner here.
Enjoyment is frivolous,
laughter is selfish,
and love must be evil incarnate.
If this is what perfect,
must look like, then I’m perfect-
ly happy with the mess that I’ve made.
Dear Lord! accept a sinful heart,
Which of itself complains,
And mourns, with much and frequent smart,
The evil it contains.

There fiery seeds of anger lurk,
Which often hurt my frame;
And wait but for the tempter's work,
To fan them to a flame.

Legality holds out a bribe
To purchase life from Thee;
And Discontent would fain prescribe
How Thou shalt deal with me.

While Unbelief withstands Thy grace,
And puts the mercy by,
Presumption, with a brow of brass,
Says, "Give me, or I die!"

How eager are my thoughts to roam,
In quest of what they love!
But ah! when duty calls them home,
How heavily they move!

Oh, cleanse me in a Saviour's blood,
Transform me by Thy power,
And make me Thy beloved abode,
And let me roam no more.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2019
. from personal experience? voluntary celibacy is becoming the new taboo, of the old taboo that was homosexuality... what with the homosexual **** coming full swing... evidently i'm not wearing a dog-collar or a monk's attire... voluntary celibacy is the new taboo that was the old taboo of homosexuality... from personal experience... so... blah; what? *******? on the toilet (it was never about scented candles) it's as easy as one (taking a ****), two (taking a ****), three (*******), four (massaging the prostate by sitting for a prolonged time on the throne of thrones)... i thought ******* wasn't a problem, as best exemplified in the film the shape of water by a woman, in a bath?

the sort of homosexuality
you'd associate with
Frank O'Hara,
and the current homosexuality
of, today?

the revision
of the banality of carnal
festivity...

well... for one:
   a complete lack of decorum...
and how prior to
homosexuals prized
decorum above all else...

me in my farce of
heterosexuality -
   a voluntary celibacy...
with the odd occassion
of a *******'s
         hour...
no... i can't say i was
born with an inherent
drive: derived from
                     an opposite...

with the original "act"
being given full permission...
evidently the labor of
gravitating toward
the mundane:
instituionalized
legality of... coupling...

on the reverse?
a need to push the **** further,
into transgender movements...
because the reins have
been slacked,
the **** needs to continue...

but upon reading
some of Frank O'Hara...
Spicer...
whoever...
                      what decorum...
the **** needs to pulverize
forward: march...

since now comes the fear
of the mundane,
the aura of what was once
prohibited,
but also: by prohibition
carved out from
the taboo populace
the sieve of
  the most adequate rhetoricians...

the continued homosexual
**** carnival needs
to continue:
because it fears having
to settled for
the mundane and thumb
of acceptance...

i base this on:
so the thrill of being "found out"
is gone, as is the thrill
and the hard-on?
so now a hard-on from
shock-awe?!

it's not like current homosexuality
is going to
fork-out something
that might transcend
the ongoing ****...

but when homosexuality could
identify itself with
the sort of esteem
no other sexuality could
fathom...
it could be guided and
be the perfected example of:
the composed aesthetic
of the urban specimen...

the thrill of the taboo
fizzled out...
oh my my...
what are the homosexuals
to do?
   push on with
the ****...
  because... settling on
the mundane grievances
of opposites
of a man & a woman...
that encompass
the entire study life
within the confines
of the canvas of time are...

"there", but not there...
or rather:
      the lost decorum of
the ones now
so blatantly generic...

   the old homosexual guard
is there, still in full splendor,
as is the new heterosexual
"guard" -
     of the voluntarily celibate...
because:
i forgot to have the sort
of competitive ambition
of a *****...
   i still get to ****
the ****: death...
does it matter if i am to
compete, or not compete?
Elizabeth Brown Nov 2018
This screen, bright with frustration, draws-
with careful precision-
the shape of your face.
It must grow tired, as I do,
of creating this image.
How can I know that you are real
when I have never touched your face?
Bitterness for a system long corrupt grows within me.
I am full to bursting with love and fury.

These complications breed more dissatisfaction.
Afraid of travel, afraid of people.
Stuck in a seemingly unending loop of legality
for crimes forgiven long ago.
How many moons more must I wait
to hold your hand in mine?
Eight years.

Long, empty time laughs cruelly at our labors
as we struggle to hold together a friendship
(now a bloomed and wilting relationship)
that we once held above all else.
My love for you is unending, a thing of faerie tale,
but I find my patience lacking.
I have waited and I have yearned for you.
I have tried, to no avail, to leave you behind me-
instead, I was greeted with the haunting realization that
nothing compares to you.
No man, no woman, no circle of peers,
can provide for me the things you offer.
I know you feel the same,
though a mix of dread and delusion prevent you from showing me
in the way I need so desperately to be shown.
I know that you, too, feel this pain.

Seamless, ceaseless pixels bring me your countenance,
now weathered with sadness and age.
Once upon a time, I thanked them.
Now, I throw curse upon curse;
hurling all my animosity at those things that carry you to me
in the only form I've ever known.
"I've been living so long with my pictures of you that
I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel."

If I cannot feel your hand, cold in mine-
If I can't smell your hair
or feel your chest drenched with those happy tears of
At Last!,
do you really exist at all?
Mercilessly, cruelly, are we brought before our judge,
The Test of Time.
Eight years; is it wasted?
Wrote this Oct 10, 2018. Computer crashed and I thought I'd lost it. Here ya go, I guess. Sorry not sorry for the pop culture references. These things are a part of who we are, and I bring my soul forth to bear.

— The End —