“Say to my friends, when they look upon me, dead,

Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow,

‘Do not believe that this corpse you see is myself,

In the name of God, I tell you, it is not I,

I am a spirit, and this is naught but flesh,

It was my abode and my garment for a time.

I am a treasure, by a talisman kept hid,

Fashioned of dust, which served me as a shrine,

I am a pearl, which has left it’s shell deserted,

I am a bird, and this body was my cage,

Whence I have now flown forth and it is left as a token,

Praise to God, who hath now set me free,

And prepared for me my place in the highest of the Heavens,

Until today I was dead, though alive in your midst.

Now I live in truth, with the grave – clothes discarded.

Today I hold converse with the Saints above,

With no veil between, I see God face to face.

I look upon “Loh-i-Mahfuz” and there in I read,

Whatever was and is, and all that is to be.

Let my house fall in ruins, lay my cage in the ground,

Cast away the talisman, it is a token no more,

Lay aside my cloak, it was but my outer garment.

Place them all in the grave, let them be forgotten,

I have passed on my way and you are left behind,

Your place of abode was no dwelling place for me.

Think not that death is death, nay, it is life,

A life that surpasses all we could dream of here,

While in this world, here we are granted sleep,

Death is but sleep, sleep that shall be prolonged

Be not frightened when death draweth nigh,

It is but the departure for this blessed home,

Think of the mercy and love of your Lord,

Give thanks for His Grace and come without fear.

What I am now, even so shall you be,

For I know that you are even as I am,

The souls of all men come forth from God,

The bodies of all are compounded alike,

Good and evil, alike it was ours.

I give you now a message of good cheer

May God’s peace and joy forever more be yours.”

i consider the new year very much like that of the Chinese... in that: why become so craving uplifting from the gloom so early in the months of winter? only now winter is biting, gnashing its teeth and riddling man: only now can man truly sense a revival, or what came to pass and what it to come... thankfuly the myth of the Dragon of Vavel involves a wise little kid, a sheep stuffed with sulphur: and an alcoholic dragon: who drank half the Vistula before having its stomach ruptured; for now comes the zenith of winter - December was such a mild month... who would have man is supposed to have the fuzziest of feelings beset by St. Valentine's? what? now?! when winter is: hardly mattering to make a case for love?!*

frankly - i thought it would have started sooner,
but after a month or so on this
island of trees and nightmares i could not
find my own feet, let alone the tongue
that: instead of being an icarus:
         was somehow shell-shocked in
the trenches at Ypres -
                                  almost a month upon
returning to this land of trees and nightmares
and nothing:
                       budding within me: utter
          despair -
                          a month wandering a labyrinth
fearful of the minotaur: without a minotaur
in sight - and still wandering until i met
my own shadow: fearful of it -
               it started to dawn me:
        were i not alone in the labyrinth to begin
with? so what minotaur was i actually looking
for? so i chanced upon hades and his
   centry cerberus and asked:
   to which he replied: have you forgotten
your own centry: the chimera?
                       it was plain to see that i was
actually readjusting to this land once more:
as i once did, so long ago:
        count to this a circa of twenty-three years...
some i am glad to remember
  others i am convinced have more to
glitches in the development of the frontal
cortex than can actually be ascribed:
          authentic misery...
but it had to happen at some point:
          in the lowest ebbs of hell known
to arab folk as zamharīr i found a mollusk
in a frozen tree: which showed me a pearl...
    and the mollusk said: i am your tongue
take it from me and be revived...
    of any days, but considering i was awake
from yesterday just three hours prior
to this hour upon which i write woken -
i can't remember whether last night
   had any meaning:
  but meaning there was -
               a feeble animal like creature -
scuttling in the night, fasting by day:
          possessing a ferocious appetite for
thai cuisine by night...
          who was that creature:
         who only said but one word upon
encountering earthly folk as a greeting:
ha-yah?
             seems the young swan has shed
its young feathers and allowed new feathers
to grow: sterner and worthy of
a new year: and a new flight.
for what did exactly pass through this day?
the man arose with the dawn
   and said: bid me well, bind me to your
motion and pull me as i can speak of
a goodnight...
         the man decided what best to concern
himself with regards to running a household...
   first he put on the washing...
       then he cleaned the house
   including his stench-filled murk of the previous
year...
          after all: what is a year if not
     a room uncleaned for about a month?
         same as the last year,
       and the year before that, and the year before...
having neglected his hygiene he then
   decided to baptise himself...
           because: after all?
                 what is hygiene if not sometimes
neglected?
               it sometimes means nothing
of a ritiualistic drama of army rigour to
constantly wash, as to say
   of the taoist and the mirror: or was
that al-Ghazzali: but i digress for one speaks
of the mind while the other of heart -
so to whom am i to ascribe the quote
that i can't cite verbatim:
           stop polishing the mirror of your
         mind all the time -
                     you'll frighten all the much
     necessary guests from murking
   it once in a while -
     for they must come, but they must
also leave: or rather: remember -
        you too are obliged to leave -
   sooner or later...
                 i guess i can only ascribe
that to myself...
                        given how the day unfolded...
so after having baptised myself:
    i wasn't any more cleaner nor dirtier
as before:
                     the body was "washed":
but rather the mind revived...
        soon the nearing 15th, 16th, 17th
hour of being awake didn't matter...
               i started my work in gehenna:
but instead of sacrificing children to the fire:
it was 5 chicken thighs:
     first fried for a crisp skin,
    later drenched in apple cider -
   to which onion garlic and mushrooms were
added -
       and then into a casserole dish
   and into the oven of Moloch (with thyme
   and a bay leaf)...
      an hour or so later: making the final touches
to the cider sauce:
      double cream and Norwich mustard
(4:1) - mash & veg on the side...
      and then antics with the four legs of
a chair: two un-even - four chairs in total -
yet two chairs with two un-even legs...
    followed by un-******* the legs
and ******* them back on...
      followed by:
                      well don't worry:
    where's the health and safety of these people
so "principled" when i am told to
***** the bolts back on tight with you
sitting on the ****** chair with my head
beneath it?!
                           but i said to him:
   listen, this is the schematic i'm seeing:
  
    |          /

    |          |

       one pair of legs allign, the other pair don't...
maybe you mixed up
       putting together the two chairs?
what i wasn't told was that they
were put up in a private manner:
           no i didn't ask for how much
you bought them for...
                i'm a taurus, he's an aries...
he wouldn't budge...
    he tried to "convince" me that the legs
somehow didn't match up when placed
side by side:
      so i said to him:
    but come look at my perspective
i'm telling you: this chair looks
   like this:

    |          /

    |          |

   just put the leg of the other chair in
the place where       /   is
      and let's see if they allign?
   you think he budged?
    of course not:
                  i have a witness for who
i had to write a reply to the chair company:
yes i tried what you suggested
  (but it was really a ****** suggestion)
considering that you were implying
one person should sit on the chair
  while the other had his head under
the chair and was tightening bolts back
onto the legs...
       so i had to write a reply:
  listen - (a) i don't like waiting for
replies concerning the exchange of goods...
   (b) your solution was *******
  (c) i can send you photographic
evidence: that you're selling wonky products
and (d) please reply to this
   without trying to figure out a way
to save the postal service by reverting
back to carrier pigeons...
   yours sincerely: a still unsatisfied
                              customer...

i get the stubborn part:
     **** it - i paid for it i want a decent product:
IKEA doesn't fester such problems...
Lego... that's a danish company, right?
   so if Lego can be put together
    IKEA can be put together...
                 Danes, Swedes... what's
the difference? they're not exactly referred
to as western europe.

- oh, the man from last year stopped drinking?
like hell he did...
                    he's wearing a new pair of shoes...
  and he's using a fancy new glass that
looks like a sputnik...
          i could never suffocate people with
the airy fairy...
                 honest to god...
       i'm still wondering what the german
sadists did to sven hannawald while
watching RACIST SPORTS of the winter
Olympics...
                     ah: funny how we have
to compete with the Japanese et al.
           i swear i didn't come from Africa
but out of an Eskimo's *******... igloo igloo...
EXCEPT THE SPORTS ON KILIMANJARO
can't really qualify, for the Mongol said:
building a ******* snowman
   belongs in art-class...
         while throwing a snow-ball
belongs in the jungle-target-practice
               using a heavier object,
                                                i.e. a rock;
and the young ones were taken to
   the KILIMANJARO arena to practice
with lighter objects, but in harsher conditions...
having returned to using heavier
objects, but in more advantegous conditions
when running ****-naked...
         i've heard the anglican version of:
all from africa we came...
            i'm not buying it:
           i'm wondering what the *******
squint is all about, rather than **** myself
over melanin:
     sun cream and the sun for me -
  or what i call vitamin D...
                  devil vitamin!
                    
post-scriptum:
       once upon a time i met a Mongolian
in a coach station in Amsterdam -
  and the look he gave me was a look of:
you are my son... what on earth has happened
to you? and he wasn't much older than me,
but the same pair of eyes tell the same
story: or the eyes that once were and have
become so other...
            
                 can you imagine that all these
words could only be spewed from listening
to Scandinavian folk music?
                                     now you can.