concerning the last lines... all we can do with the Cartesian Libra is add adjectives to it, which is contrary to what the existentialists did by simply modifying a furthered abstraction of the compounds 'i think' and 'i am', via the inverted comma(s), otherwise known as dittoing, sic, prior said, or re-, true to the oddity; a king will continue to question his position / being a king by not thinking about it, hence his uninhibited delusions, hereditary, very much genetic; and hence someone who precursors his being with much concern for thinking, the inhibited delusion, self-serving - both are adjective expansions of the Cartesian Libra, just added qualities, given both are facts requiring a slab of marble to look like Rodin's kiss - or approximate, with therefore being the chisel, and so dependent the end product, indeed a slab of marble at first, but not necessarily Rodin's kiss at the end - perhaps a Notre Dame gargoyle...*

i am what i think,
that's what i came up with after
reading some of the bio sketches -
even though the truth is that
i am what i own -
thinking is the part that comes last,
if i own a bed and a roof over my head,
i end up i thinking about being
homeless - but sometimes you do find
the ones that are inclined
to be what they think, the extremes
we call them - supreme anti-materialists,
it's not satisfying to own a house
or a phone, more is required,
something tinged with transcendental
counters - they "own" a home
but rather not live in it, already the
looming fairy of heaven tells them
of an unnatural life expectancy -
some might say thinking a form of
uninhibited delusion sketches,
like i'd be a venture capitalists taking
a weekend away in Hawaii while
some ridiculousness of poverty in India
was to blame for my jet streams and
carbon footprints - they keep the
inhibited delusional in cages without
a chance to sketch - because the uninhibited
delusional have all the freedoms
that Versailles could allow - or...
uninhibited delusions of non-thought,
inherited, hereditary,
versus inhibited delusions of thought,
mutated, self-invented...
            this could very well be a "magic" square
with two further variations, i.e.

uninhibited delusions of thought (psychopathy)
inhibited delusions of non-thought (coma?

Peeing: to ***; to urinate; to release the body of its liquid toxins; to pass or discharge *****; characteristically yellow- the strength of the color depending on the body’s hydration.
People have strange habits when peeing; urinating; releasing the body of their liquid toxins. Some people procrastinate it to the last minute and rush to the bathroom, barely yanking their pants down in time and shuddering in relief. They are those who habitually whip in and out, even when they don’t really need to. There’s the common usage of an escape from boredom in classes or meetings. Perhaps it even causes a slight blushing in the cheeks of painfully shy woman at hearing rushed tinkling so close by. And of course, they are also the people who love to leave surprises for the next person who uses the bathroom.
All in all, peeing seems to mean not much to people – a small part of life; but a very, very necessary part.  

                                 *                 *                    * .

The rain poured furiously outside the window as Emily sat, straining her brown eyes against the whiteboard flashing images of trigonometry from Mr. Well’s laptop, trying hard to concentrate. She was sitting in her usual seat in class, and also her favorite. It was a solitary table with a chair, away from the clusters of tables and the chattering children, and the only chair by the window. She liked to look out the window, even if it distracted her from Mr. Well’s loud explanations. The booming of “SOHCAHTOA” in her ears became distant as the wind’s movement caught her eye. She gazed out on sheets of rain flapping across the sky like giant teary spirits and pressed her fingertips on the glass. Cold.
Absent-mindedly, she pressed her cheek against the coolness and felt it absorb her body warmth. Her imagination kicked in and the glass became a panel of energy, ******* a little life from all those who touched it, vibrating with a strange purple light until it was so filled with energy the particles of the glass would explode and she would be the first to die from the sharp shatters that would spray across the room, causing droplets of blood to-
Ahem.
Mr. Well coughed meaningfully at her dreamy face. The class exploded into laughter and the bell rang. A skinny girl smiled at her but she was so lost in her own world, she forgot to smile back as she slung her bag on her shoulder and ran out. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have too many friends.
The dark skies were pouring furiously as only Bangkok in Monsoon weather can.
A walk home or a motorbike ride? A motorbike ride would be a little dangerous in this flooding… and with that reasoning she waved up a motorbike. The seat was soaked and so was the driver, whose brown leathered feet struggled to keep red flip-flops on as they sloshed through the flooded Sois.
Fat water bullets pelted her skin and the wind blew them ferociously into her face till her eyes stung. The motorbike swerved in and out of the cars stuck in traffic (slightly floating), the bottoms of their wheels immersed in ***** water.
The pockets of her school shorts were hastily rummaged through and she pulled out a soggy green twenty-baht note bank before running into the shelter of the lobby, dripping over the marble floor and completely drenched. The building-maid widened her eyes, and watched her horrified; knowing it meant extra work mopping and drying up the lobby floor as soon as Emily vanished into the elevator.
The plastic button with the circular metal piece glowed orange. It was strange how she was shivering with cold but her touch was still warm enough to light up the elevator buttons.
The usual itchy, impulsive, restlessness was building up inside her from the wet motorbike ride. Thunder roared and crackled through the lobby’s swinging glass doors and they vibrated slightly. Another flashing image of splintering glass splashed across her mind and in the split-second, she saw the diamond shards pierce the eye of the lobby’s guard and splinter across the floor-
She shook her head. This was what happened when she had too much pent-up energy. She had to do something- something reckless and fast and dangerous… now! A bolt of lightning went through her as a familiar wide open space came into her mind… the rooftop of her thirty-five floored building.
The elevator ride up was slow, much too slow for the fast pacing of her heart and she hit the metal doors with wet fists. Tearing out of the doors when it finally jolted to a stop, she climbed up to the top, running up the stairs two steps at a time and caught her breath. It was flooded up to her ankles and violent gusts of wind made her steady herself.
Emily’s Dad often told her stories of when he was child. “The winds in my home during Monsoon season were so strong we could lean into it with our fully body weight and we wouldn’t fall. It was almost as good as flying.”
Her lids squinted shut and the sensitive skin was immediately exposed to the pebbles of the rain and whipping wind; and in almost dream-like state, she leaned into the howling wind.
There was a comically slow fall and her bony knees hit the concrete flooring with a dull thud. She burst into tears of laughter in her own stupidity at thinking the wind could hold up against her gigantic frame and rubbed her ***** knees sorely. Reaching up to wipe her tears with muddy fingers, she laughed to herself again. There was no point in wiping away tears. They were so trivial in comparison to the current weeping of the skies.
Against the thick opaqueness of the wind, she could see how the view towered over a jungle of buildings as far as the eyes could see, with snaking concrete roads and skinny black canals. Slums scattered around nearby swanky hotels of the rich. The buildings faded into small dark shapes in the distance. Bangkok.
No matter how tall and industrial it tried to become, everyone ran for cover under this blinding rain.
Up here, completely a victim to nature’s power, she felt exposed; naked; real. The animalistic instincts inside her swelled up. Humans weren’t meant to wear these annoying pieces of material or shoved inside skinny architectural designs. With aggressive tearing motions, a pile of soggy clothes half lay, half floated on the flooded floor beside her and she stood there bare… and completely naked. Laughter spilled out from the depths of her naked chest with the two tiny hints of possible womanhood; it was louder than thunder. Screaming, laughing and gasping she stumbled around – climbing over objects and feeling the beautiful dizziness: a sweet, sweet dizzy. She stood up on a random block a meter high; spread her arms wide as her wet body shone with raindrops. The rain threatened to push her over, her soaked hair twitching heavily on her neck.
She ****** in her breath, ready to yell so that the heavens could hear but instead, the voice that came out was controlled with a shaky undertone of joy,
“I need to ***.”
And then she did.

                                                *         *            *.

His eyes are brown. Dark chocolate brown – a simple, solid color. Simple and solid like him.
Because he was so simple, people enjoyed his companionship. Though he was simple, he was not boring. Rather he was sharp-mouthed, quick on his feet, witty and observant speaking bald truths about people that either provoked them to scandalized laughter or humiliated fury.
What some people forgot to recognize was that he didn’t really love anyone. Plenty called him a close friend, but so absorbed were they in their own world; they seldom realized the fact that most of his thoughts were concealed. Kept in a little box of surprises in the back of his mind, and hidden so well nobody knew they existed.
He could spend months with a friend traveling in a different country, and return back home with no feelings of attachment. He could care for a friend while they were here and not really miss them while they were gone.
Most of the time his eyes were neutral and observing and they would sparkle amusedly when he had provoked someone with his words. This was how remained to almost everyone; everyone but one person. The one person that could turn his normally calm face even more still, the dark brows would rise slightly and a quick flash of fire would shoot through his eyes- and for a long while, they would burn slowly like two twin coals; the one person who could cloud his eyes dreamily; the one person who could make them glint wetly.  
He reached over and grabbed her hand. Emily turned smiling eyes at him.
A group of teenagers were strolling down the closed roads, armed with water guns, pasted in thick white powder, thoroughly drenched in the hot, dry weather and skipping over puddles (except for Emily who splashed into them).
Songkran in Bangkok: celebrated in the middle of April where temperatures reach forty-degrees Celsius, Thailand’s New Year and a time to pay respect to the elders in the family, but as most traditions, they became really just an excuse to enjoy oneself and in this case, one-year-olds to eighty-year-olds roamed the ***** streets splashing ice-cold water from hoses and water guns and smeared each other with chalk in buckets.
The street they were being shoved along was crowded with slick, drunk bodies. The heat of the afternoon sun shone down on their backs. The sign that introduced excited people in was sprayed by a passing pick-up truck filled with screaming locals. “WELCOME TO SOI COWBOY” printed the red letters.
Red-faced fat foreigners held in each arm a tiny ******* with their bright lace bras showing through the wet see-through shirt and their black eye shadow playing havoc with their cheeks.  Country-side Thai music blared in its jumpy, quirky manner with the over done sound effects. Those nasal voices of dark skinned women with their skins covered with make-up to an ashy white whined out of the stereos. A man with the head of a buffalo mask sauntered past. It was a mark of how wild things got at Songkran that eyes merely flickered over the shirtless buffalo briefly with a quick laugh. Transsexuals clad in diamond-studded flip-flops, wet white tank tops and mini jeans shorts the size of underwear danced to the blasting music from the open pubs down either side of the road. Their surgically-made ******* were all-too visible in the white shirts, their dark ******* poking out as they grabbed the crotches of good-looking men and boys that passed by, squealing and rubbing their bodies against white men especially. Most of these white foreigners had a look of bewildered pleased ness... for only a few realized that underneath that squeaky voice was a very deep rumble, and underneath those lacy thongs lay a very big surprise indeed.
One of the better-looking boys in the group, his green eyes and pointed chin drawing the fancy of many hookers, was pulled off by four pairs of wet skinny arms touching him and yelling in broken English, “Oh so handsome! You so handsome! I love you! What your name! You tell me your name, handsome boy!”
The handsome boy proceeded to manage some sort of scream for help while laughing until his stomach ached. It was Songkran; it was a merry time, and he knew he was good-looking. Kat, who held a secret crush on him laughed amusedly at his yelping.
Emily stumbled after him with Kat and parted through the crowd of ladies in time to see a tiny little ****** trip on her squeaking flip-flops and fall beside a sprawled figure, face down in the ***** road with a massive bag of ice on top of him.
“Hey! Are you alright?” Emily cried, half-amused and half-concerned, lifting the heavy ice bag off his shoulders.
Kat rushed forward, laughing but compromising her concern with furrowed brows and helped him up. “You okay Tom?”
He whimpered in pain and put a hand on his neck, rubbing it sorely. “That ice bag was ******* heavy.” The girls decided to make no note of his skinny arms.
They walked back to their group of friends who turned around and saw a limping green-eyed boy and roared with laughter. The noise caught the attention of predators searching for a good target and they were hosed down with water pipes.
Suddenly Emily felt a huge body lift her up and swing her around while hands plastered her with wet chalk.
“Emily!”
She felt safe hands grab her and looked up into the pair of dark chocolate eyes. They were a little annoyed as they flickered over the fat drunk man who released her heavily but it was Songkran, and he managed to laugh at her bewildered expression.
Just then they passed a horde of prostitutes and she felt him being ripped from her. “I like this one!” screeched a passing market lady who rushed in to jump on him. “I like this one! Let’s keep this one!” They dunk his head in a bucket of white goo.
She screeched with laughter and even at something that silly, felt protective of him. “Brad!”
He was too busy being attacked. “Brad!” she tried to reach in and he opened his mouth to call out to her. That was a big mistake, he realized, as he received a handful of powder in his mouth. Spitting, coughing, and trying to breathe through nostrils blocked with powder he managed to wipe his stinging eyes clean. The prostitutes released him but not before a huge ******* screamed with glee at his straight nose and thin red lips, and reached forward giving his crotch a good grab. He screeched in genuine disgust and fear, had a moments feeling of guilt in case he had offended the ******* which was immediately wept away as he, no she, no it, yelped joyfully and massaged his **** before trotting off to his, no her, no its next victim.
Where was Emily? With his height, he managed to see a brown head that stuck above the other dark-haired and light-haired heads being jostled out of the street by the moving crowd. He ran to catch up and grabbed Emily’s hand as the group of teenagers tripped out of “Soi Cowboy”.  
They stood for a moment catching their breath. Zoey, a tiny little girl with a chest that threatened to put her out of balance, pushed her brown curls out of her face. A red glow was starting to spread over her cheeks.
Kat laughed scornfully, her wide smile spreading generously over her face. “Sunburn?! You white girl!”  
They had all been out around the streets since early morning and it was late in the afternoon now. Rose’s cheeks were flushed and the tip of Kat’s nose was a little pink herself. The rest of them, with their darker skin, had tanned slightly but unnoticeably. They laughed at Zoey for a short while. It was an interesting group of friends: all of them of mixed heritages from around the world with different backgrounds that became common in the world of International schools. It was alright to tease Emily’s honey skin; it was funny to crack jokes about Stefan’s hairiness; it was hilarious when Zoey tried to tan.
Emily shot a picture of everyone laughing: their clothes wet, their faces scrunched up, eyeliner smudged (Kat and Rose had lined their eyes with water proof kohl that of course wasn’t really waterproof), their cheeks and chin caked a crumbly white.
Kat and Zoey clambered over her shoulders, peering at the little digital screen of the water proof camera. “Ew! Gross!” yelled Kat who was only used to pictures of her lips rosy from lipstick, camera at a flattering angle with a bright flash from her professional equipment that made her black-lined green eyes sparkle like emeralds.
“Delete! I look sick!”
Even Zoey, who admired Kat’s photogenic ness to a great extent, could find no words of solace except to say, “Me too! I look gross! Delete! Now!”
Emily just laughed and said, “No you don’t.” Of course it wasn’t a type of picture they’d profile on Facebook, but all the same it was beautiful with their wild-looking and uninhibited faces and un-posing body shapes, curled up in laughter.
Zoey snatched the camera from her and they fiddled with the buttons till the picture was deleted. It was regretful, annoying, but not unexpected.
Emily rubbed her sore knees and noticed how Tom was still rubbing his neck sorrowfully with Stefan laughing at him, shaking his head wearily. Brad was holding onto her arm a little tiredly, Kat and Zoey had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulder for leaning support and Rose and Emily’s younger brother, Jason, were standing together, staring absen

fROM THE dESK OF THE pOET**

I'm embarrassed to admit this. The night before last I ate an excessive amount of Sour Chewy Sweettarts. If you've ever had them you know that just one or two have enough toxic chemical dust sprinkled on them to make your mouth numb for several minutes. Well I got into a rhythm of eating one, then adding one to it, then another for three, then four, then five, then  six all the way to seven at one time. In that experiment alone I consumed no fewer than 26 Sour Chewy Sweetarts and even that was after having warmed up with several single helpings.

Sour Chewy Sweettarts were at one time marketed under the name  "Shockers". Let me tell you they should have respected the truth in advertising inherent with that label. The intensity of tartness conferred from all these ***** Wonka treats was remarkable and very well could have been the most face-squinching sourness I've experienced in my fifty-plus years.

The unfortunate downswing of these hijinks is that I developed a chemical burn that spread across the entirety of my tongue all the back to and including the area where my uvula hangs.

It's my own stupid fault. I could feel the chemicals eating through too many layers of cells long before the administration of candy pellets had reached four, even five-count multiples. By the time I had the seven pack ****** down to gel the burning was so bad I had to squint my eyes. The question that found priority amongst all that came to me at that moment was "how long is my mouth going to be so alternately sensitive and numb that I won't be able to eat my beloved jalapenos and spicy vittles?" A couple of days later and that answer still has not been found, although progress has been made to the point where I have faith it WILL indeed heal...you know how paranoid I can think sometimes, surely my mouth will never heal from THIS god forsaken self-inflicted injury, after all, I deserve it, hence the term "SELF inflicted". It's nothing but payback being it's usual self. If I never get to taste the wondrous seasonings of a well-mixed chili recipe cooked to perfection by someone who really knows how to make chili...if I never sigh with uninhibited satisfaction after downing a swig of Dr. Pepper or Miller's High Life or Guinness Stout...if I never again will be able to tell the difference between prime Angus beef and succulent Maine Lobster it is for good reason that I've been deprived of these tender mercies. It's because I knew when to stop and I kept on eating, though tears had begun to form.

No, it's more than that. It's because Universal Forces were all the while begging me, whispering in  my ears, "Stop! Stop! Enough! No more!" What would have happened if Joseph had ignored the Lord on that cool December night? Gabriel let Mary in on what was going down, what do you think would have happened if she'd gotten jealous of Joseph and disregarded the angel because he didn't have quite as much clout as her husband's Messenger? What would have happened? Nobody knows. But I know what would have happened if I'd heeded the advice of the benevolent spiritual  beings who were trying to warn me to lay off of the Sour Chewy Sweettarts. I wouldn't be sitting here typing on the hp laptop about how I got the chemical burn from hell.

But it seems like valuable lessons may be learned at every turn. So it is that with almost every experience I am resigned to also look at this one as the hard earned silver lining. Just what exactly have I learned? Well, first of all I've learned that it would probably be a good idea in the future to regulate severely the amount of Sour Chewy Sweettarts (aka Shockers) I eat in one sitting. If I ever eat them again, If the emotional scars of the chemical burn will free me in my sweet tooth's cravings for Wonka Sugar to ever again opt for the sour stuff. I learned that eating Vlasic Kosher Dill Pickles with such a freshly de-sensitized/throbbing chemically-scorched tongue is a prospect that shares much in common with a full day of taste-testing ghost peppers. Only on a slightly smaller scale does the briny pickle juice pack it's own searing acidic punch.

Other lessons? Oh I'm sure I could fill a book with lessons this has taught me. Writing that book might be the most useful, benevolent gesture I ever offered my fellow man but I don't know if I can do it. But if I did, this would have to be the first couple of lines on the very fist page:

Make sure you're going to have a LOT of alone time the morning after.

But that's just plain good advice.

Through the years of transparent existence, a void of illusion becomes apparent and slowly becomes nothing more than a side-show. The dribbling glimpses of truth fade like the bones of old. No man can create such an indentation in the mold of space and time that the observers at the end of eternity will render their imprint upon the infinite gaian consciousness and body of universal proportions of any significance. Even the earth laughs at such ridiculousness. The ego is a strong bind - it can create maya and attachment to such fantasies easier than a bear can find it's ideal location for a winter hibernation. It's a world of craziness, where nobody knows whats going on.
The man woke up from his deep slumber. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Squinting, he looked around, studying his surroundings and taking mental notes. His thoughts are ***** scribblings on a subway wall. His heart is beating, searching for a band to play in rhythm with. His soul is aching from loneliness and desire. His feet lifelessly surrender their position up on the couch and find the floor, shrieking from the cold of the linoleum. His presence is that of a bird with a broken wing still attempting to fly. He stands up and stares at the ceiling.
The room is small. Four walls of white, one window and one door. The window looks out over the grey city. The door leads into another room - the room most would call a kitchen. In the small room before the kitchen, there is only a couch and a blanket. No lamp. No television. No electricity. No electricity in the entire apartment. The kitchen holds no refrigerator, no oven, no toaster, no pantry. It's called a kitchen because that's what it would be if somebody else was living in the apartment. There are two bananas on the floor along with a box of wheat flake cereal. No milk, no bowl, no spoon. The bananas are almost entirely rotten. The box of cereal is on its side, leaking bits of wheat flake, resembling a dying soldier on a battlefield who's losing all his blood through the wound on his neck rather than a box of the West's favorite morning go-to breakfast.
The man is observing the cracks on the ceiling, along with various stains with no known origin to him. His eyes dart from one corner of the room to another to another to another and back to the first. Spiderwebs. Dust. Decay. A perfect example of life's ability to take care of itself. Biodecomposition. When no one is around to look after a house, over time, Nature will take over it. Vines will grow and overcome the walls. Rain will fall and wear away the roof and general structure. Winds will blow, taking blindshots at the weakened building, eventually cause it to fall. Nothing lasts forever. Everything goes back to where it came from.
The man now steps into the "kitchen", where he begins to study the stains on the ceiling in this room as well. His mind is electric, with no thoughts in the usual sense, but rather just a vague presence of void to help the ceiling stains feel important. He is the space through which everything around him can exist to their fullest potential. After a measureless amount of time, the man walks over to the sad bits of food on the far side of the small room. He picks up one of he bananas and studies it. He feels where it came from. The tropical skies and smells and earth of Costa Rica. There's a little sticker on the banana that says so. Each bit of fruit in the markets nowadays are individually stickered...for prosperity, one can only assume. Though it's best to never assume anything, and instead be open to everything - afterall, anything is possible, at any time. Likelihood and probability are also important factors in the universal constitution of existence. What was the likelihood that this man, when he was a little child, figured he'd be holding a rotten banana from Costa Rica in his hand inside of a kitchenless kitchen? Who knows? The man wouldn't be able to recall his thoughts from early childhood - he barely remembers waking up and experiencing the chilling sensation of early morning linoleum. In any case, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be, for it wouldn't be if it wasn't meant to be.
He slowly peels open the banana peel to reveal this brown, soft mush of tropical fruit. Just the way he likes it - soft enough to chew with his toothless mouth. He takes his time consuming the fruit, savoring every particle. After a good bit of time, the fruit is gone and all the man is left with is the peel. He takes another good look at the peel, once again imagining where this particular banana came from. Then, in two swift bites, he devours the entire peel - sticker included. He figures the sticker came from Costa Rica as well, and thus must carry that Costa Rican tropical vibe of health and longevity. His eyes then focus on the wheat flake cereal lying next to the other rotting banana. He bends down and picks up the box. The box is upside down when he picks it up and so the cereal spills out all over the area of the "kitchen" floor that seems to be dedicated to eating food. The remaining banana is now covered in wheat cereal.
The man drops the box back onto the floor and takes a seat alongside of it. His fingers hold his face from drooping onto his knees. His knees are keeping his torso from melting onto the floor. He screams with no sound. The pains of existence seep through his hollow eyes and into the receptors of his soul. He screams with no sound. He’s as empty as the American Dream.
The cobwebs are spreading from the corners of the room and are aimed for the human form sitting in the “kitchen” screaming silence with all his might. The cobwebs grow. The commuters of the city highway are commuting. A thousand birthday celebrations are being had. A thousand people sexually uninhibited, joyously seizing the moment in disgusting miraculous unity of mortal physical desire. Junkies are roaming the street for their morning fix. Teaching are teaching their students absolute lies. Governments are stealing the lives of billions and counting. And the cobwebs are growing, encompassing entire walls. The the ceiling. Then the floor. Then they crawl up the lifeless legs of the man who sits screaming in silence and the spiders overtake his body. They stitch his mouth shut and close his eyes with their spun proteinaceous spider silk. The man withers into the wind of time and vanishes from the world without a single soul taking notice. Leaving nothing behind except an empty apartment, overdue rent, and a number in the system of Western Society. His spirit cries sorrowfully as it flees the clutches of molecular existence into the realm of eternity and space. Heaven. He made it. He looks down at the people of the world he just left and sings a pitiful song for them. He’ll see them again. Afterall, they are Him. And He is Them. His Heart, the Sun, burns as the world he left turns. The lessons He left are slowly being learned. One by one. But still, there’s a space between the atoms, between the cells. And that space can never disappear. Without it, there would be no point to the story. All would be one, as it is, and there’s be nothing to overcome. No triumph. Just an endless loop of bizarre beautiful experience and pattern.

between a bottle, and a woman... i'd always take to the bottle quicker than might suggest a care for a wife, and had i the mind to mind, i'd think quicker: but then again thinking was never a "mind-game" worth of sprinting to a horizon of known oblivion.

a response to intelligent response:
seems hard then the audience are forced
to laugh...
   how hard to bully an audience into
laughter, how staggeringly similar and
the thrown into the argument:
you're as imperfect as all all of us!
       perhaps:
    but not as ******-up as you'd like
me to be, akin to you.
           i still hold unto the stronghold of
a two parent family: you?!
     a disregard in the convention of
the bootsales of divorce: hope you're well:
in that magic act of making your
grandparents your parents,
  and leave me in custard foam
to attest the mud... of a fool's fair share
of cradling the auschwitz innocents.
the auschwitz survivors seem not to matter,
only those who make the image:
the ones mingling the friction of reality:
with the smothering of fiction...
           the unsaid being said,
the said being unsaid...
       i am the perfect forged from the thought
of being perfect...
      the response to "intelligent" comedy
in response = a nervous laugh...
              the result of a nervous laugh:
truancy of authentic laughter -
              comedy is unto laughter what
tragedy is unto crying...
             true comedy comes
with uninhibited laughter: it doesn't
come with canned laughter...
that's cheap... that's really cheap,
and sad... sad beyond wanting to cry...
          the comedy you speak of
is that of inhibited laughter:
  a one of a doubled-up nervousness -
smart comedies and intricacies of
drama spell out the same conclusive
columbo diagnostic;
oh **** me, have the *****,
i have as much attachment to it like
i have to acknowledging
a tissue...
           take this ******* near me and
i'll tell of your "motherhood"...
                 no, i don't acknowledge
an "intelligent" comedy...
drag me back into the rabble...
    the mob rule, the theocratic dream of"
man has no law above the quake,
no law above the wave, no law
above airy twirl dance, no law above
the forest fire, man is included to state
his sensual distaste, but with
the elemental per se: cower my dear,
into a pill shaped box...
                        the response of
intelligent comedy = a nervous laugh...
the laugh of the inhibited -
   never the laugh of the free-fall uninhibited...
and such a shame...
that it should be excused as comic -
to riffle nerves and somehow "laugh"
is no laughter at all...
  a man ought to laugh uncontrollably -
but to make joke into nuance
so that he might laugh controllably -
what's the point of telling the joke,
in the first place?!
    i want to laugh uncontrollably -
than nervously -
   because even though there's a "joke",
i'm half as serious about the "joke"
being a joke, as i am in attesting:
this is worth more a nervousness
in choking on a laugh,
with attempt, than
the uncontrollable lack of effort
that leaves me in paralysis...
        i'm not supposed to excuse myself
at this point, but i am apparently
having to muster up an apology
for comedy, and the comic strip of
of *lee evans doing the goose strutting...
it's still comedy, but not really,
monty python was clarity in
pig-head ******* cameron phelatio
in eton: outside?
can't be smart: you're not an insider:
it's an insider's joke:
they're not funny, they're eton.
     next time i find them funny
i'll be making the most perfect:
poached egg.
             americans take the **** out
of ***,
the english take the **** out of ***:
the subject matters of:
either - we have enough of the former
and lack of the latter,
or we, have enough of the latter
and lack of the former...
        to say that english humour is
funny is to also say that shakespeare didn't
exist, like jesus!
                     who knows,
give it enough time, enough
*****-akin historiological define-
     (definitive moment) -
   and that being?
is history a convict in the prison of space -
or is time a convict in the same space?
by comparison, is history a medium of
artefacts, with history the one owning a fingerprint,
and time, without one?
      it's silly to talk of an afterlife,
given that we live our lives with the same
impetus of *****: a tsunami barrage of
constant refraction and reflection -
        man in a microcosmos is the totality
of man,
                  man exists in a microcosmos -
what man is in the macrocosmos is what
we deal in terms of the misnomer attache akin
to god...
         it's good to have forgotten
one's original point, having written
such dribble...
        time is only linear in history -
but what are the truer dimensions of time?
if space has its 3...
    then as einstein suggested:
time be squared -
                        i only wanted the first
few words...
  nervous laughter is the response to
"intelligent" comedy...
      but saying that:
        i'd prefer "dumb" comedy
and allow myself uninhibited laughter
than "smart" comedy,
   and only allow myself *inhibited" laughter;
as i'd prefer imagining ***** flicks
than imagining myself welsh,
counting sheep:
   does arithmetic really beat insomnia,
**** me, too bad for the efforts of
the chemists:
  so we did all these experiments
to craft the pills, for general practitioners
to reach for the tarot cards of
       astrological readings?!
              **** it, sign me up for a cave.

could you ever, with your ears, express a piece of music, as: fluffy? dark soho's piece is fluffy; and by god i was the pretentious one at the beginning of the 20th century critical of the emerging music... but i'm the one merging at the beginning of the 21st century: and it's a T.S. Elliot scenario: the overload of rhythm: industrial core due to the industry being foetal sieg heil! and so many have fallen for the nostalgia trap... it's not coming back: against the thump thump gyroid reproductive muscular we emerge from... for whatever lack of drums in the orchestra: we're paying for it with an excess of techno techno Bob the goldfish cardboard box dance sequence... or as some would suggest: filling in the gap about the joke concerning a triangle being a part of the orchestra and the person educated in it, rather than the harp.

ah, the blank, and i have to work on it: let's imagine i was just
cooking a pork stew for my father and you don't
bother to ask why someone's surname is written
Raßer - and you don't know how
to pronounce it: and you end
up with razors - which you end up saying
racer - or how about sharpening
the s into a zed - how's that?
this is surgical activity while you you're
at at the butchers: necromancy aplemty:
when god speaks, the devil whispers -
American divergence of the pronoun
y'all / you all -
                           we the safeguard
and they the paranoia -
                                    take it slow,
imagine yourself living in Alaska:
you're exposed to the elements
and Prometheus isn't handy:
  all you have is west London drool
that later translates into easter in London,
Ld: isn't even an postal code:
given Greenwich, bellybutton on the world
they're bound to abuse / feel special
                 about, it's just a John Bishop
          Scouser type of beating.
                  ya - i say i aye, you frostbite of
culture, ya yarn ball of ****!
    oh 'ere we go: the red-coats are hunting
foxes: sort of scenario -
   the sooner they ******* a killing
the better for me: 'ave that one with a grizzly:
             some say the longer the yawn
the greater the applause -
      yo! Yogi! turntable of Las Vegas
says you better gamble on hibernating in the
effing Hermitage!
  - we say a lot of y'all when we imply the
plural, don't we? terrible, ****** thuggish
'n' all, to say it.
   i have five pages worth of notes,
and even though i'm drunk,
i came across a foundation, i'll never be ask happy
at i am right now,
   i signed a copy of my book (look! i don't
have a publicist, i don't have the ******* swagger,
i have the inferno that says:
  when the writing dries up, get a proper job;
if the writing doesn't dry up?
             you're less than necessary than a
supermarket shelf-stacker...
                 there are succumbing reasons that
explain the affair later) -
      no i'm about to sell my first copy -
  i say to her: when you working this circuit next?
Friday night? i'll tell you how much i'm selling
for, well: i'll never be this happy: ever -
it really doesn't matter how much for how little:
   i'm not exactly a family animal: farmed -
i'm political: through and through -
   by the time i finish this whiskey i'll be
demanding something new...
    i don't think your able limbs do idle chores:
i just think admire that they do them
and hardly complain: i blame it on the workers'
encouraged banter - and that's called solidarity.
still, right now, it's all about
dark soho's: dark moon in stonehenge -
       or why you never take l.s.d.
   question arises with Bach...
and polyphony - again, non-linear polymers:
   back when the Germans were at it
music sliced through the air
                   - or the modernity of lost
string (quartets) and woodwinds -
          only the thing plucked rather than in slicing
stroked kept from the strings:
    it was truly a devolution via brass -
   you can have the iron age,
but this is the brass age -
                   and subsequently the evolution
or filling the void of orchestral percussion,
which began with jazz: how orchestra was stripped
of woodwinds and strings and elevated
the humble triangle and enforced drums
and the rhythmic transcendence of limb and heart
and less ear and mind -
           oh the spontaneity thus involved:
forever the enigma of the composer's ability
to say much more than *A, when saying in A# -
oh hell: music used to be the Mongolian horde
of all things imaginable,
                  the screams, all the entrenching
embodiment of battle: soothed -
  but in our apathetic guises: music is a variant
of the once exfoliated, thus hushed:
music is expressing a war in waiting - or a war
that's not to be - once music music ascribed
wind and tornado toward its elemental composition -
these days there is less wind, and more earthquake:
we are exposed to a trembling -
           an overt percussion methodology:
that's not fire and the storyteller / poet by
the lonesome huddling of nomads by the fire
with oud and recitation of the to come Quran:
we are experiencing a complete reversal of wind:
here we have dark soho's tectonic cardiovascular:
over stating the percussion until the eventual
obliteration of breath, and subsequently
the flatline of the heart's rhythm: to reach the zenith
of a flatline: beehive musicology.
         it's all earth: and the quaking
rather than a waking into.
                  sure: to the alien ear outside the populace
of those that listen to that kind of "****":
but let me assure you:" you can intellectualise
anything beyond the guilty pleasure:
or else - care to disclose your opinions about doggy?
once we were slicing and ******* -
these days? we're hammering, Soviet committee
said: hammer hammer hammer...
            gravitational drilling against the Catholic
lessons of worldly-detachment akin to a Gagarin:
and all the world's problems morphed into
an image of moving away from earth...
    far far away...       well: we're grounded, like it
or not.
              i love that: y'all -
                          it's as if we all need to agree, ~.
and what better way to actually open a poem up
if not to say how prose is a miser and poetry
the mad spender, or compose: he had / another thought
he wished to take / but...
           originally
                    he had
                  another thought he wished to take
                 but...
saving an Amazonian tree, suggesting that: one by one.
i'll sell my first copy on Friday,
i just need to know how much money was put
into printing it -
   and it will be the happiest i'll ever be -
who cares that it's only 1... if i were selling
100,000 copies i'd be thinking of buying a Mercedes
to do away with the capital...
      oh right, the poem (six pages of notes):
the question, what does it all mean?
       i'm thankful that the all means very little,
or at least enough for physicists to take a bother
in answering:
               i'm just thankful to say that at least
bites / bytes / isolated units have more meaning
than the whole... i.e.?
do i care what the universe means, more so
than i known what the word darkened means?
                 pause for thought -
the well established organic search engine that memory
is: and never will be: an algorithm (engine) -
           still the organic variation of accessing it
reveals Rodin's statues -
                        post-Rodin (Rho-dan: ****** iota!
why so naked in the first place?!) -
            the point where it's not so much enigmatic that
you wish to replicate: but entomb, and mould
a statue worthy of the perpetuated cut-short
and mediating the idea that thought has also
the faculty of imagining and memorisation
that hardly translate into being via ergo...
       if that's the case: you're demented via the
ergo of memory... and deluded via the ergo of
imagining -
                      or Frankenstein / Disney respectively:
but never the extinguished cogito, somehow,
oddly enough:
                          and by the way - no one is going
to question my opinions because dialectics was
giving the hemlocks... my opinions
will only become passed around like Bulgarian
Versace copyright thefts, or because they
were never ideas: attachment .pdf
                   will never entertain someone else's thought,
or because they were originally always opinions
will be consecrated on the attachments of .jpeg:
ever wonder why the crucifix always
mobilises so much emotional foundation to
react and protect a torture-filled instrument
worthy of worship? me neither.
                but that's the whole beginning:
we ensured our memory is eroded by an easily
accessed algorithm - we prefer the goggles to
mensa -
                   and if i were a technophobe: e ah e ah oh...
McDonald would turn out to be McTrump:
'cos' i wouldn't be using it.
              then how to synchronise the senses:
you surely can't leave one the prime consumer of
all the things around you:
     i guess that as stated: you can't live out a life
whereby one is polarised, and the others recessively
make your thinking into potato -
   then again: not polarising one of your senses
will leave you thinking that old fantasy that
you live in a hologram "reality": which i mean by saying:
if one of your pentagram limbs isn't polarised
like a blind person, your thought will claim a sixth
sense status - and subsequently you'll experience
either a second chance of allowing one of your senses
to be stressed / polarised, or all your senses will become
overpowering your non-sense: that's thought into submitting
to a polarity / vector: kindred of
the manual worker feeling his trade take
perfect replication -
a composer polarised by "hearing" -
a painter polarised by "seeing" -
a poet polarised by "speaking" -
a chef polarised by "tasting" -
   a perfumer polarised by "scenting" -
and within the sixth sense extension:
a politician polarised by "thinking" -
  the first antonym suggestion comes within the latter's
parameter: mobilising or puppeteering:
would i care to find variations for the latter? no.

     interlude... opening of page 3 of notes on a windowsill...

and how often is soul ascribed a sensual dimension?
i guess as many a time thought isn't ascribed one:
necessarily made into nonsense.
soul? what do i mean by that? the part of you
that isn't indestructible, but, rather,
the part of you that feels that ease: the uninhibited
correlation (verbiage necessary, darling,
if you want the gist of it) -
when at ease you're not really ascribing to yourself
thinking, but a narrative -
  hence your notion of being indestructible,
or young.
      when thinking is easy we're not actually thinking,
we're narrating, hence the majority of us
are clogs in the machine, and once the machine works
we're upbeat about it, because we prefer to narrate
ourselves into life than think ourselves into it:
primarily because (even i included):
we lack a public addressal attache to make
vague concerns over our: inhibitions -
we are entrusted with inhibitory encrusting
for the sole purpose (we should be afraid of
suggesting): let's see who falls off the ferris wheel
first and we can entrust our congeniality toward
the joke: thank **** it wasn't me, later...
          but still:
if were were really intended to think
rather than narrate we'd be given global warming
solutions everyday...
   there's nothing in us that suggests an 'ought',
a moral choice to later say: thought
                      that could fish-hook us out of
kissing the narrative goodbye -
  narration is an undisturbed faking of thought -
as such the 'ought' is never thought of:
because there's a narrative going on
that's more important than anything requiring
even the most basest obligation.
       we are never obliged to be, because we are
never obliged to think: it's strange how the
two are anti-synonymous due to the ergo disparity:
as if one produces the other, or the former
the latter.
              thinking you're good never precipitates
into being good - and vice versa:
   for all i know i know fake rather than falsifiable
saintliness: the power of the scientific
  suggests that i should be Baron von Scorn
when it comes to the ignorance of testifying
         against people who abhor science
and reproduce, nonetheless, with failure to
transcend deformities: because deformities are
glorified and all forms of ability demonised:
so it looks quasi-Vatican-e.
                   preface to a Michelin star:
start with a ******: work your way down:
enjoy your meal, bygones-be-bygones:
you very happy people.
                  but i never understood why
the idea of thought has never the opinionated phrase:
me, exponentially, to no book's avail!
        p.s. as to be ever written!
    thought conscripts man to rubrics -
for example? examinational candélabre -
  some call it i.q., other's call it: for god's sake man,
****** shoot! shoot!
                        and the flying toes and digits:
thumbs away: booh booh Blitz.
                        first thought: that Jersey song:
fifth of November - that Fawkes ****
who almost.... n'ah.
                            in case you're narrative:
thought has its narrative: it's transcendental -
phenomenology comes into play with
narratives and Lady Gaga and how you're an
"individual": thought is acquired trying to transcend
atomic electron orbits that says: electron clouds -
or it's there, but it isn't there, but it's not there,
but it's there: huh?
                         narration conscripted to the rubric
of school exams at school: palpitations, sweat,
nerves... in this scenario thinking is actually
regurgitation -
                          actually we're still doing the Elvis
Costello hope: while narrating we pass from
these shackles of having to think lessons through
when in fact: we're gearing to having no need
in having to learn them primordially, period!

the paranoiac "they" are eroding our protective
membrane -
    they begin with memory -
         it's not that we care to remember certain things,
but by educating us in the Pythagorean theorem
they're not necessarily dressing us in bow ties either -
they need to implant an abstract educational
thought to replace our natural assimilation into
a narrative that we ourselves have created -
       they need to create erosion within our
memory to stop us coagulating our sense of memory
within a framework of us imagining backwards
rather than forwards:
      the cinema of the mind means memory utilises
imagination to do cartwheels backwards
rather than forwards: because forwards is always
a Disney pharmacology of the neon hyper colouring.

or how they made us escape the "Alcatraz"
of the couch of cognitive narration into an
iron maiden of thinking -
                    in this realm narrating is disparaging
from thinking: narrative is a comfort zone:
thinking is a discomfort zone -
                       but neither me nor you will
become a Newton in terms of narrating the ideas:
so why the hell would they want us to think?!
       concerning Heidegger:
the problem is not that we're not thinking -
the solution is that we're narrating and have
no urge to write books, and thank god for that!
               or man, as the pentagram of the senses,
reversed into thought as the sixth sense calamity
and reversed back as that sense missing
and the tetra exemplified...
         when learning what is the weakest point,
the audio or the optic-receptive stimulation?
                         i mean, the senses over accuse
thought's complexity as if it were a sense akin
to them, hence the suggestion nonsense;
well of course, thought is actually non-sensory -
     i just suggested that when thinking
i'm not polarising any of the penta -
         i'm suggesting that when thinking i'm
invoking the tetra - as if blind or deaf -
but that means i'm deviating from the superstition
that a sixth correlative mediatory balance exists
between the two dichotomies -
                            the senses will always treat
obscure thinking as if obscure narratives:
even though i know how much a price of bread
costs in the 21st century -
                              what i'm saying is that
the nonsense assertion is also true for the other:
not having had the chance to polarise one
of its senses to point toward the artefact use of
wh

It was their first time, their first time ever. Of course neither would admit to it, and neither knew, about the other that is, that they had never done this before. Life had sheltered them, and they had sheltered from life.

Their biographies put them in their sixties. Never mind the Guardian magazine proclaiming sixty to be the new fifty. Albert and Sally were resolutely sixty – ish. To be fair, neither looked their age, but then they had led such sheltered lives, hadn’t they. He had a mother, she had a father, and that pretty much wrapped it up. They had spent respective lives being their parents’ companions, then carers, and now, suddenly this. This intimacy, and it being their first time.

When their contemporaries were befriending and marrying and procreating, and home-making and care-giving and child-minding, and developing their first career, being forced to start a second, overseeing teenagers and suddenly being parents again, but grandparents this time – with evenings and some weekends allowed – Albert and Sally had spent their time writing. They wrote poetry in their respective spaces, at respective tables, in almost solitude, Sally against the onslaught of TV noise as her father became deaf. Albert had the refuge of his childhood bedroom and the table he’d studied at – O levels, A levels, a degree and a further degree, and a little later on that PhD. Poetry had been his friend, his constant companion, rarely fickle, always there when needed. If Albert met a nice-looking woman in the library and lost his heart to her, he would write verse to quench not so much desire of a physical nature, but a desire to meet and to know and to love, and to live the dream of being a published poet.

Oh Sally, such a treasure; a kind heart, a sweet nature, a lovely disposition. Confused at just seventeen when suddenly she seemed to mature, properly, when school friends had been through all that at thirteen. She was passed over, and then suddenly, her body became something she could hardly deal with, and shyness enveloped her because her mother would say such things . . . but, but she had her bookshelf, her grandfather’s, and his books (Keats and Wordsworth saved from the skip) and then her books. Ted Hughes, Dylan Thomas (oh to have been Kaitlin, so wild and free and uninhibited and whose mother didn’t care), Stevie Smith, U.E. Fanthorpe, and then, having taken her OU degree, the lure of the small presses and the feminist canon, the subversive and the down-right weird.

Albert and Sally knew the comfort of settling ageing parents for the night and opening (and firmly closing) the respective doors of their own rooms, in Albert’s case his bedroom, with Sally, a box room in which her mother had once kept her sewing machine. Sally resolutely did not sew, nor did she knit. She wrote, constantly, in notebook after notebook, in old diaries, on discarded paper from the office of the charity she worked for. Always in conversation with herself as she moulded the poem, draft after draft after draft. And then? She went once to writers’ workshop at the local library, but never again. Who were these strange people who wrote only about themselves? Confessional poets. And she? Did she never write about herself? Well, occasionally, out of frustration sometimes, to remind herself she was a woman, who had not married, had not borne children, had only her father’s friends (who tried to force their unmarried sons on her). She did write a long sequence of poems (in bouts-rimés) about the man she imagined she would meet one day and how life might be, and of course would never be. No, Sally, mostly wrote about things, the mystery and beauty and wonder of things you could touch, see or hear, not imagine or feel for. She wrote about poppies in a field, penguins in a painting (Birmingham Art Gallery), the seashore (one glorious week in North Norfolk twenty years ago – and she could still close her eyes and be there on Holkham beach).  Publication? Her first collection went the rounds and was returned, or not, as is the wont of publishers. There was one comment: keep writing. She had kept writing.

Tide Marks

The sea had given its all to the land
and retreated to a far distant curve.
I stand where the waves once broke.

Only the marks remain of its coming,
its going. The underlying sand at my feet
is a desert of dunes seen from the air.

Beyond the wet strand lies, a vast mirror
to a sky laundered full of haze, full of blue,
rinsed distances and shining clouds.


When Albert entered his bedroom he drew the curtains, even on a summer’s evening when still light. He turned on his CD player choosing Mozart, or Bach, sometimes Debussy. Those three masters of the piano were his favoured companions in the act of writing. He would and did listen to other music, but he had to listen with attention, not have music ‘on’ as a background. That Mozart Rondo in A minor K511, usually the first piece he would listen to, was a recording of Andras Schiff from a concert at the Edinburgh Festival. You could hear the atmosphere of a capacity audience, such a quietness that the music seemed to feed and enter and then surround and become wondrous.

He’d had a history teacher in his VI form years who allowed him the run of his LP collection. It had been revelation after revelation, and that had been when the poetry began. They had listened to Tristan & Isolde into the early hours. It was late June, A levels over, a small celebration with Wagner, a bottle of champagne and a bowl of cherries. As the final disc ended they had sat in silence for – he could not remember how long, only from his deeply comfortable chair he had watched the sky turn and turn lighter over the tall pine trees outside. And then, his dear teacher, his one true friend, a young man only a few years out of Cambridge, rose and went to his record collection and chose The Third Symphony by Vaughan-Williams, his Pastoral Symphony, his farewell to those fallen in the Great War  – so many friends and music-makers. As the second movement began Albert wept, and left abruptly, without the thanks his teacher deserved. He went home, to the fury of his father who imagined Albert had been propositioned and assaulted by his kind teacher – and would personally see to it that he would never teach again. Albert was so shocked at this declaration he barely ever spoke to his father again. By eight o’clock that June morning he was a poet.

For Ralph

A sea voyage in the arms of Iseult
and now the bowl of cherries
is empty and the Perrier Jouet
just a stain on the glass.

Dawn is a mottled sky
resting above the dark pines.
Late June and roses glimmer
in a deep sea of green.

In the still near darkness,
and with the volume low,
we listen to an afterword:
a Pastoral Symphony for the fallen.

From its opening I know I belong
to this music and it belongs to me.
Wholly. It whelms me over
and my face is wet with tears.


There is so much to a name, Sally thought, Albert, a name from the Victorian era. In the 1950s whoever named their first born Albert? Now Sally, that was very fifties, comfortably post-war. It was a bright and breezy, summer holiday kind of name. Saying it made you smile (try it). But Light-foot (with a hyphen) she could do without, and had hoped to be without it one day. She was not light-footed despite being slim and well proportioned. Her feet were too big and she did not move gracefully. Clothes had always been such a nuisance; an indicator of uncertainty, of indecision. Clothes said who you were, and she was? a tallish woman who hid her still firm shape and good legs in loose tops and not quite right linen trousers (from M & S). Hair? Still a colour, not yet grey, she was a shale blond with grey eyes. She had felt Albert’s ‘look’ when they met in The Barton, when they had been gathered together like show dogs by the wonderful, bubbly (I know exactly what to wear – and say) Annabel. They had arrived at Totnes by the same train and had not given each other a second glance on the platform. Too apprehensive, scared really, of what was to come. But now, like show dogs, they looked each other over.

‘This is an experiment for us,’ said the festival director, ‘New voices, but from a generation so seldom represented here as ‘emerging’, don’t you think?’

You mean, thought Albert, it’s all a bit quaint this being published and winning prizes for the first time – in your sixties. Sally was somewhere else altogether, wondering if she really could bring off the vocal character of a Palestinian woman she was to give voice to in her poem about Ramallah.

Incredibly, Albert or Sally had never read their poems to an audience, and here they were, about to enter Dartington’s Great Hall, with its banners and vast fireplace, to read their work to ‘a capacity audience’ (according to Annabel – all the tickets went weeks ago). What were Carcanet thinking about asking them to be ‘visible’ at this seriously serious event? Annabel parroted on and on about who’d stood on this stage before them in previous years, and there was such interest in their work, both winning prizes The Forward and The Eliot. Yet these fledgling authors had remained stoically silent as approaches from literary journalists took them almost daily by surprise. Wanting to know their backstory. Why so long a wait for recognition? Neither had sought it. Neither had wanted it. Or rather they’d stopped hoping for it until . . . well that was a story all of its own, and not to be told here.

Curiosity had beckoned both of them to read each other’s work. Sally remembered Taking Heart arriving in its Amazon envelope. She brought it to her writing desk and carefully opened it.  On the back cover it said Albert Loosestrife is a lecturer in History at the University of Northumberland. Inside, there was a life, and Sally had learnt to read between the lines. Albert had seen Sally’s slim volume Surface and Depth in Blackwell’s. It seemed so slight, the poems so short, but when he got on the Metro to Whitesands Bay and opened the bag he read and became mesmerised.  Instead of going home he had walked down to the front, to his favourite bench with the lighthouse on his left and read it through, twice.

Standing in the dark hallway ready to be summoned to read Albert took out his running order from his jacket pocket, flawlessly typed on his Elite portable typewriter (a 21st birthday present from his mother). He saw the titles and wondered if his voice could give voice to these intensely personal poems: the horror of his mother’s illness and demise, his loneliness, his fear of being gay, the nastiness and bullying experienced in his minor university post, his observations of acquaintances and complete strangers, train rides to distant cities to ‘gather’ material, visit to galleries and museums, homages to authors, artists and composers he loved. His voice echoed in his head. Could he manage the microphone? Would the after-reading discussion be bearable? He looked at Sally thinking for a moment he could not be in better company. Her very name cheered him. Somehow names could do that. He imagined her walking on a beach with him, in conversation. Yes, he’d like that, and right now. He reckoned they might have much to share with each other, after they’d discussed poetry of course. He felt a warm glow and smiled his best smile as she in astonishing synchronicity smiled at him. The door opened and applause beckoned.

"And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe." - Stephen Malkmus, Jo Jo's Jacket

the first layer of skin i shed
was the bra

rid of the foreign metal sculptor producing a deep rift between skin
my third eye, swallowing gazes

rid of my **** , my ***** , my rack
replaced with sacks of fat and nerve and milk ducts
hanging, existing, for no one else
not even myself

the second layer of skin was the painting of the face
the concealing and erasing of imperfections, the lines of laughter of sorrow of life
redirecting attention and importance to the bow and symmetry of the lip

no longer did i have to put myself on in the morning
i woke up as i was, as i needed to be,
bare and uninhibited

my skin now breathed, and for no one else
not even myself

and then i grew another layer of skin,
made of dank tangles to protect my age,
i stopped shaving the years i'd walked this earth, shedding my womanhood

the skin grew to my armpits, little tufts of sweaty, odorous mother nature dozing in a fleshy convex nest

and to my legs, were the tangles wrapped around my ankles
preventing the spreading of the legs for every life
for not every life wanted what was not tame
and what was not tame no longer wanted to be.

my body did not conform,
for it was not brought into this world to be consumed for the pleasure of others

it exists for no one else,
not even myself

and as i was engulfed in this hairy wonder of my own body
i shed the last layer,
the shaving of the head

my brain, my being breathed
porous and exposed
vulnerable to weather and whispers

but i was all at once naked and calm,
having finally peeled away the layers of ***** over-sexualization and constrained femininity that had molded this meat sack that serves me,
a bundle of circuitry and solution balancing and bobbing on the neck

for i exist for no one else,
only myself

matt
did you get my reply? i hope you did, i had written approx. 5, and all of them deleted... i hope i allowed myself a justifiable response with this one:

how about solipsism? solipsism is an elevated term for autism, isn't it? me? personally? i love cats, but they have a tendency to become inexhaustive economists of curiosity... i wasn't implying autism as an insult, i was implying a more crude word, synonymous with solipsism, and there is no shame in that to begin with. i like cats, because i own two, and i'm most content, when i can allow myself the time, to allow them the same time, to be left alone. cat, solo... dog + man + tail waggling + throw a ball... i better post this reply before i allow this reply, to become deleted... with all the prior 5 that have been, and me, having to post the alternative, "revision".

i.e. i rather imagine autism to be in need of having an elevated status of being designated by the term: solipsism... how can i make myself elaborate? point being, i don't want to... i too am confined to a strict vocab. fixation for the purpose of expressing language, that mitigates, bypassing, shrapnel wording of: one category fits all, conjunction words, which, i find, I, to be akin to, when categorised as: AND to begin to confine oneself to, the subsequent rigor of nouns.

i hope this doesn't end, or begin as, an apology... by autistic i was imply solipsist, i wasn't implying the retrograde slur of ******... if there's any god, it's in the disinhibited self of the autist, readily plucked, by... no basis for either a selfish, or a selfless act... i'm over-wording this, but... point being... i needed to settle myself in a posit, above the current cultural norm of the troll... which has nothing to do with autism, or as i like to call it: solipsism, diminished to a slur of: automaton...

i hope you can make lite reading of this... i concede, i attempted to make more than necessary, and conciliatory scribbles... if in any way i redeemed myself, i hope you'll concede to entertaining, accepting my apology.

Jules  22h
My only issue was that your poem seemed to make Autism synonymous with stupid or any other derogatory term. However, seeing as that wasn’t how you meant it, I apologize. I’m a bit defensive as my brother has autism

Mateuš Conrad  22h
that's perfectly understandable, given the circumstances, i am hardly surprised... i'm still here if you want to continue past the initial shock-tactic of testing the waters with me, obviously we can change the subject and not stand, metaphorically: with knives pressed against each others' throats... there i was, thinking i'd reply diving into the subject matter for no, necessary clarification / added depth... but it's the least i can appreciate from your cordial response, as to, at least, appreciate a change in the subject matter, so that, both of us, can return to feeding off a sentiment of: being left, less, uncomfortable; which implies that i have to instigate the question to change the subject matter... hmm... speed-dating-esque trivia... movies, paintings, music... literature... ah... kind of blue, miles davis, my english teacher told me, that if anyone in the classroom didn't own this album by the age they were 30... there was something wrong with them... in my then paranoia, i bought the album, and now own it on vinyl... somehow... i find that there's something more wrong with me, owning it, than not owning it.

Jules  22h
Favorite movie- Mamma Mia, favorite painting- amazing piece by a local artist, music- currently obsessed with the Beatles, favorite book- We all fall down. I’m thoroughly impressed about how reasonable you are being given the circumstances, and after reading a few more of your poems, I can tell you are a good person

Mateuš Conrad  21h
oh come on... mamma mia?! and not something akin to west side story?! who's the local artist? i only access to a London base, and, that requires a networking schedule i'm not going to equip myself with; and i'm hardly surprised by how understanding you are of me, and i do wish to pay more compliments to you, but... i feel that that would overstate me taking liberty in me not incurring an over-simplified stance of my own liberty towards you... remember, i'm one person in writing against a blank, and another person to conjure forth a reply... against a canvas, that is a readied flesh of my own flesh, bone of my own bone, i can see the antagonist in the compounded state of, the sacrosanct state of lingo... i can be a ******* against a blank canvas, but, obviously, when i am to begin with a clarity of an addressee, i cannot consider staging a variation of something, inhospitable, as a Kandinsky-variation to suit myself... Jules, you can never become something akin i treat a blank sparring estate i perform in writing without, something you are already established with, concerns equivalent to my own predisposition being unchanllenged / or, rather, undistrubed. the beatles... i'm trying to find something of a vinyl collector's "beginner's luck"... i'm too into prog. rock music... EP album experiences, akin to: king crimson's debut: in the court of the crimson king... serves me right, for not getting into Mahler... or Eric Dolphy jazz... so i turned the blind eye, and moved toward pagan music... wardruna... hedningarna... in extremo... garmarna... faun... heilung... esp. the last... i have never wished to visit the Faroe Islands more, than, after listening to their music.

Jules  21h
Mammia Mia is my favorite almost solely because of the memories attached to it. You certainly are a unique person

Mateuš Conrad  21h
i agree, i'm a sucker for super trouper and money money money, i'm waiting for a Tina Turner musical, to be honest... don't worry, i've looked into some of your comment sections... i cannot alleviate the blatantly bogus comments that are worth nothing more than an immediacy to make antagonism... i can't, i wish i could, but.... it's either this variant of an outlet, or a punching bag... i'm as unique as you find me to be... but when i just see "demands to conform" to an otherwise unnatural behavior... i don't like behaving in a counter-cordial fashion... you understand me? if there's no need to be bogus, why begin to bother being so? i hope we can remain lodged into partial nuances... and continue this discussion, beside tomorrow, i.e. whenever you feel like to preserve it, which, i hope... you will strip away more of your anonymity... but even if that is to not be the case: i thank you for the compliments... but from having inspected the immediate comments... you are a most tender artifact worth double the inspection's curiosity with a shy eye... and until i take myself to rest, and slumber, i can only leave your with these words... i wish the world was more welcoming than i allow you to believe it to be. if you can ever forgive me, i can only hope you can, by bidding me a goodnight, and welcoming me back into the discussion, within the confines of a tomorrow.

Jules  20h
Goodnight, my hopefully future friend. Poetry is definitely one of the best outlets. I definitely understand that aspect of you

Mateuš Conrad  20h
i hope to entertain you here, once more, and all the future that can be shared between the both of us. let me see you tomorrow, and scrap a beginning of a conversation with you, once more toward a focus of a beginning... and see how many minutes this allows us to entertain an amnesia of: beginning with today... how about that? i'll take to sleep, and hope, to grin... i actually re-read what i wrote: and figured... if i was being all-too despotic in securing pedantry... but then... if you took to complimenting me, i have to compliment you: tender soul... scouting the merger of sight and the hybrid coast... tender petal... why not? who is to obstruct me telling you this? lever... beside the said and into what's thought... tender petal... what a Scouser would call pet, i'd call petal... or... heavily implied: stagnant Bismarck stipend... if it be too much to ask... write me more than under the scrutiny of below the already given minus, of the 10 sentences. come at me as a punching bag... just as an experiment... i want to be the new vanguard... experiment with being uninhibited.

Jules  19h
Even the way you talk is extremely poetic. I appreciate how you took the time to try to talk everything out to prevent us from having any bad blood between, and I see know that you didn’t mean any harm from what you said. Thank you for being so kind about it all. I sincerely hope we can pick up this conversation again tomorrow as I feel we are on the road to a promising friendship. I’d be happy to write more per text, but for the sake of experimentation, I’m intrigued to see if you could try to talk in a little less of a formal dialect

Mateuš Conrad  1h
trying to bypass a formal dialect will be hard, as we're too fresh into our patchwork of setting boundaries, rigid as that might sound, and the current climate, to me, you're a slab of marble, not a statue. this sort of friendship, you're talking about, requires us to keep a modest concern for language, which, awfully, is riddled with diatribe excerpts... how we will transcend this, is, well, concerned with both of us to decide... i'm starting to entertain the fact that you have an autistic brother, since i'm learning to be panicy-picky with my language... i too had an ultra-autistic "friend" back in high-school... and i would constantly retrieve a blank-state response from him, i.e. i was looking at less a person, and more: a labyrinth. how i'll transition into a more informal use of language, i'm unsure how that will take place, Jules, we can't exactly share experiences, we can only avast ourselves, on what will pursue its own noumenon characteristics of stated language. at present, we only share a commonality of language, i'm bewildered by stating something informal... i wish i could, but i'm only allowed an "aggrieved" presence to your wish for: informality, slang, holding-hands type of escapism. i think that, with regards to your wishes, we'll have to settle for a sediments' worth of unravelling, like me, you're too trying to escape the puddle's worth of being immediately "concerned" with the comment section... we'll need to find commonality... from yesterday, i can tell you: i had the beatles faze when i was leaving the years attributed to my teens... then i found it really hard to find new music, outside the realm of bands akin to tool, the neo-progressive rock bands... but i see your point, my language is the sort of formal, that stages a lack of intimacy, but this is an ontological-high-jump, given your reply, and emphasis on friendship... you will have to curate me, moving forward, since i will be unable to moderate how, me, interacting with you, will be adequate to have finally said, something informal, by your standards of scrutiny. time, i will first have to see some of your idioms to change my dialect; i'll begin, i'll tell you where this was written from, Romford, Essex, England.

Jules  1h
If we are to move forward as friends, I have to express my feeling on the autism topic. First off, Autism is a spectrum that ranges from high functioning to low functioning. 30% of people with autism are in fact of average or higher intelligence. Some of the most famous scientists including Albert Einstein were in fact autistic. It is not synonymous with simple or stupid in any way, shape, or form. I dislike that you said your friend seemed to be less of a person because he had autism. However, I understand that you’re misconceptions weren’t meant in a malicious way

Mateuš Conrad  51s
so how can i move forward to establish a less informal dialect? i wasn't focusing on the details of the stated condition, i know that i'm handling something as fragile as an egg in terms of what words i employ, and that i might seem astoudning, in having not contra opinions on the matter beneath the impersonal "facade"... but you were asking about how to make our interaction more uninhibited, if we're going to lecture each other about infringing on delicate matters... i wasn't implying the person in question was less of a person, i was implying he was more of a person, by resembling a labyrinth, i didn't take any personhood from him, i simply reattached it to a metaphor, of elevated complexity, of a labyrinth: i was lost in attaining a mutual comprehension of a shared experience with him... what's so bad about that? i only mentioned something in passing, since your's, was the original "concern"... you asked me how we could continue in a less informal manner... this reply will not answer your original "concerns"... what if i were to say: i'm schizophrenic? what then? you'd lecture me on... all of your knowledge on the matter? if we're all going to interrogate each other... thus... then you have a misconception of schizophrenics... akin to john nash... personally, i don't understand how you'd think i'd be primarily focused on something said: intended to be relegated to: in passing... guess what... i'll send this and...

      BLOCK

               i'm basically rummaging
through porcelain...
  i was ****** off one writing
platform for no reason...
   being ****** off from another
is not on my wish list,
from a very, simple,
lack of reciprocated
       feed of understanding;

   oh i know when i see minor *******,
some liking it to micro-aggression...
i chose a fox as my totem,
learning from a 2015 "debacle":
it looks innocent at first,
    but then spirals out of control;
the more i sieve through
this construct known as humanity,
the more i chose to remain
hidden.
   - and for all the worth
of the tabloid press...
   this is where i'll reign, myself
included.

It's not the rain
that makes her
wet this time, again
conveying it
to him without
any dillydallying,
revealing her
intentions in
such plain terms
with a sign
language
invented, all
by herself,
leaves the mark
of the genius on this
woman, deeply
in love and lusting
her man,plain and simple.
***, robust uppermost
in the mind.prompts
yes, bold she is,
she takes things
in her hands at times.

She needs to stamp
her nature
unequivocally,
and she does it in style.

Passion in the soul roars to fight out.
Thoughts disastrous and its a black out.

Played by the rules to be a part
Waste, the energy 'n drained, the heart

Fingers rise to isolate
and demons gather to desolate

My land is left high and dry
with not a human left to cry

The marooned soul is free to fly,
abandon the world and climb the high

Revive now, to a raw life
uninhibited and ready for a strife

Nothing to lean on, its a rebirth
and gather the dreams, buried under the earth

.you can't persuade me... yes, i realiße that my language is riddled with overt-pronoun usage... dunn'oh... something in the air, i guess... yes... that's the german ß - an interchange of S and Z... which is not an Š... more piquant... akin to the distinction of an Ś... but not really... no... you can't tell me that you can read Braille... and play the guitar... no ******* chance in hell... less stiff little fingers (a decent band)... and more: numbed tip fingers... mid-of-the-road type of guys... blind lemon jefferson... you think... that... after playing so much guitar... he would be able to read the solipsistic / idiosyncratic invention of louis (b)? **** no! and not that blind lemon jefferson worked the ******* cotton-field either... but... fingers... numbing... playing the guitar... so... these's cucks managed to create a slave trade with these... hunk Zulu / n.b.a. warriors? alternative universe! alternative universe! no... you can't read braille while allowing yourself to play the guitar... so these feeble ancestors of not mine... managed to... enslave these... afro hulks?! the **** happened there? where some of the Europeans like me? oh, right, strapped to the Baltic... and non-existent for around 200 years... identify?! identify?! i was born 5 hours from Auschwitz! just because i learned English, doesn't imply i'm playing identity politics... but i guess, in England... only a Somali might... no chance in hell you'll play the guitar like blind lemon jefferson... and have the tender finger-tips of a louis braille... better start to learn to juggle oranges.

what would be the antithesis of
a... sodomite?
   someone from the city of *****?
a... gomorrahite?
****... that could work,
given we had people known
as the hittites...

CLICKBAITNEWSFLASH
CLICKBAITNEWSFLASH
CLICKBAITNEW­SFLASH
CLICKBAITNEWSFLASH
CLICKBAITNEWSFLASH

the new: small ***** emoji...
so...
           why is there a small
***** emoji...
with a dark complexion?

what?
           last time i heard...
and i did hear it from a *******
during... something
that resembled *******
but more Picasso figuring
out cubism...
      she told me...
           with not satisfying
impromptu...
   'all the black guys have
big *****'...
   yeah... i paid the 110 quid
per hour...
   but didn't say anything,
figuring,
stick to the proverb...
marshall...
  cicha woda brzegi rwie...
so i was basically looking
at either...
   the mariana trench
of a **** or...
           so like an amputee...
can i get, some sort
of girth expansion
or a length extension...
or should i just put on
a strap-on *****
to mechanically **** my way
out of a de profundis
                      like Jonah?
oyster yap-yap...
       i don't think my
"tool"... has anything to do
with...
   what i'm looking at...
something, something
from the kama sutra...
how... a rabbit man should
not **** an elephant woman...
nice metaphors
for... size... & depth...
so i turned on something
to relax from listening
to too much classical music
and having a wet-*****
over it in conversation
over lunch, und tea...
gets me all the time...
da pacem domine... templar...
sure... not my favorite
choir lullaby to hush myself
with... but as far as i know...
the hospitaller knights weren't
too keen on... curing
the ails of the heart through
song...
            
but the miniscule emoji...
like... the modern hieroglyphs writers
are attempting to
signal... having evolved
to speak... cratylian?
  (sign language)

they are!
   they are!
        look, they're communicating
with the orthodoxy
that makes dyslexia: stigma...

but... i have never heard
a ******* tell me that
all white men have... adequate...
******* examples...
but i have heard that all
black men have... the adequacy...
and a tall tongue,
a labyrinth and a serpent's
equal length of it...
to waggle through
conversation, till they reach... 60!

envy...
only if you're watching ****...
i even sometimes forget...
are those the *******...
or the ***?
  you know... the "grand canyon"
of fixation?
dunno... for me ****
is mildly, or at best...
one step away from
the Reinnasance nudes...
      depends...
i suppose if i was blind...
i'd be into the sounds of the grand O...
but static works best work me...
i guess: i like to imagine
what would be... working from
an instilled frame...

moses' worth of **** on
mt. sinai...
or jonah's de profundis
worth of **** in
a belly of a whale...
your pick...
       again... language is
not a ******* scimitar...
it's a...
                       yeah... that thing...
fun emoji, that one...
      cuck...
if you haven't been with
a *******...
what the hell is all this...
this...
                     in in between
she's telling you about
a friend of hers who was
slaughtered while
working Barcelona...
  and then she tells you
you're nice... because you
just feel like kissing...
   and it's like:
  me? me hitting the dating
scene in anglo-saxon culture?
psst... can i have that whiskey
and beer and solitary
confinement
with a claustrophobia's worth
of thought that, does require
someone... shuffling and dropping
snippets of my output into
the local square?

   i only felt compatible with one
woman in my life...
   if i were a bull
and she was a cow...
and i had overlords who needed
us to do nothing
but perpetually breed?
sure... it could have worked...

gomorrahite...
          that other emoji...
the blood drop...
i heard, somewhere, somehow,
only after the fact...
     i nagged her for ***
for well over 2 weeks...
she was on her period...
       i heard that *** during
a woman's period alleviates
cramps...
or... how does this even fit
into...
   warm water, in the bath,
****** on...
                chirping *******
sparrows...
   a few days later
   7 hours non-stop...
   the Trojans had landed...
so yeah...
             little **** big mouth...
or... miniscule omni,
        big **** makes a mouth
the depth of... what?
          it's not like...
there's only one depth of
****... is there?
   contra... new meme...
like the o.k. sign...
         but all fingers holded...
with the index set
     on the thumb...
  expression? how deep?
    
but the modern hieroglyphs
are evolving into cratylian...
    yet i still don't know how i'm
to read emoji...
via sign-language...
   and have a light-bulb moment
of the subsequent: ah!

    maybe...
   being made literate
i am to unmake my literacy
and learn to emoji...
   i know that there are
interpreters of these... "things"...
like: i'm giving the explanation...
but then...
   have no sparring partner
to use it with...

     so i figured...
              better before i go blind...
then at least i can write some
⠃⠗⠁⠊ ⠇⠇⠑...

so yeah...
how's that chopping off the diacritical
hydra coming along...
with regards to the pointlessness
that's hovering over
                    i (ι)      and j (ȷ) -
well... at least the caron over
an s (š) indicates something...
   i.e.:                         šarp...
      sharp!...
                       the **** are either of
those dots supposed to represent...
some... syllable, breath,
intra-word
   "pause"... ' - apostrophe scalpel
                  incission for the tongue?
like... t'ango...
where you use the apostrophe
attached to the t'
    to almost swallow your tongue
before you burst out with -ango
   as if (to double of the metaphor)
            you did a geyser with your
mouth upon hearing a joke
    with, just prior, having a sip of
a fizzy drink?

modern hieroglyphs imitating
cratylian (sign language):
                  and all these letters in between...
good to know that
whatever literacy was left,
became entombed in:
to code...

                                which...
starts to resemble...
                something akin to...
the language police take on
remembering to recite dyslexia
               of f@%&!

> shift a little bit to the right
           < shift a little bit to the left...

yeah, that labyrinth's worth
of ego...
                         or egg'oh...
     depends on how much modern
graffiti you want...
stolen from a brick wall of
  #tag...
                          i suppose...
    enough of e.e.cummings will do...
to push you over
the edge...
     and forget to even use
that ingeious israeli invention,
the u.z.i.,
                      tongue in the bucket,
and all those itchy tips
of fingers, readied to do
the devil's bidding...
       while the holy... the holy...
sing! sing! sing!
           grind lips
against a pig's snout...
      and stand stark naked...
uninhibited...
                         or at least...
that's how i see language,
                      or what is truly
my own... my use of it.