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eccedentesiast
17/Non-binary/with my good friend, Grim    I'm breathing but not alive
Eccedentesiast
Philippines    Broken but undefeated. Email: rainbowcolouredotaku@gmail.com
Josias Barrios
New York City    Josias is a Guatemalan writer, raised in New York City and lived in San Diego, California for the past decade.

Poems

unnamed Oct 2019
Ó Deusa vestida de espumas
cuja pele traz a leveza de plumas
transbordando pelos poros cas-
catas e inundas de prazer

Ó Afrodite de múltipla alma e ser
és teu parecer a explosão calma
quando teu corpo naufraga mare-
sias ao entardecer

Devotos entregam maçãs e ostras
conchas, flores tantas nos votos
eternos epítetos e formas canta-
rolam ao mar teus fogos

Ó amor que aceita a todos
seja nos ritos, mortais ou monstros
de mulheres e homens lava os cora-
ções aflitos e mudos

Ó Cípria e Safo, elevarão o amor que há em tudo


[inspirada na métrica do fragmento 2d. de Sappho]
it was around 2001, i.e. circa 2001 (tautology,
but not for rhetorical purposes, not as tool of the sophists)
when the mad cow disease spread across
England: that beef and hoof and moo genocide
when the cows got their "geriatric" wobblies
their Parkinson's shake-a-doodle-do's -
frenzied like Elvis finding gravity in the knees
and the pelvis with suede and blue dogs...
music before drug affirmative mantras...
yes... then... around that time...
i was still one year short of sitting my GCSEs...
me and this rascal, Peter, Richardson(?) -
we used to roam the streets on the weekend...
climbing trees, throwing glass bottles into the air
waiting for them to shatter... going up multistorey
car parks and spitting on people...
well... i did have an agenda about spitting on people:
another time when i was much younger
i was taken to Chessington World of Adventures
theme park by my father... there we were minding
our own business watching seals
when a ride passed us... one of those train rides on
stilts - a group of boys in a carriage decided it was
fun to spit on people... one massive phlegm landed
on my father's head... i was furious!
i wanted to get my own back... as it happens...
karma can be blind... there are always collaterals,
innocent bystanders while karma is allowed to sentence
some sort of compensation...
karma is hardly personal: or rather people THINK
that karma obeys personal qualms,
you can't harness karma for your own sake...
but people always cite karma like so, especially in the west...
well i did get my own back...
i managed to land a juicy phlegm hark on a collateral's
head from about 20m high up in a parking lot
with Peter one beautiful Saturday afternoon in Ilford...
so i was supposed to go to this outdoors resort
centre for "poor" and "disadvantaged" kids in Wales,
Glasbury (see it? now say it... the Welsh say it
as Glaze-Bury: it's not Glass-Bury, more on that in
a minute)...
          i didn't go with Peter that year because said X...
bad moo moo...
          but the P.E. (physical education) teacher was kind
enough to offer me a chance to go again
two years later... but then i was sitting my A-levels
but by then Peter was long gone:
deciding to finish his education at 16 and go into tattooing,
getting his teeth knocked out in pub brawls,
ending up working in a carpet retailer
(although, much later i found him shacked up with
this honey and i thought to myself: ****...)
so i went to this retreat...
                    we did horse-riding, caving,
canoeing...
                         but one day we were told to do this exercise...
split into two groups...
one group: older boys with younger girls...
group two: older girls with younger boys...
   we were given a map (topographic to be more exact)...
we were driven out into the countryside away
from the resort...
group two (older girls with younger boys) was
dropped off first...
we were explicitly told... you can follow the road
from where you came... or...
so the first group was dropped off first...
our lot (older boys with younger girls) was dropped
off way way further afield...
to this day i'm wondering if i cheated...
when our lot were dropped off... map in hand...
i asked the driver... so... where are we?
a creazione di adamo finger hovered over the map
and pinpointed our starting position
(don't all public maps ref WHERE YOU ARE
on a map? YOU ARE HERE... so i wasn't cheating,
was i? you need to know where you are on
a map before you can start reading it and then
translating it onto the environment, no?)
so as Michelangelo pointed and then drove off
i took charge... ah! i spotted a short-cut through
a little grove, forest(?) and a cow field...
so as the boys in the group were busy trying to chat
up the girls i ended up (unconsciously or otherwise)
the leader of the group, taking responsibility,
being accountable (**** me, this NVQ3 in spectator
safety is really brainwashing me into being an upstanding
citizen)...
          and so... we managed to beat the other
group... so much so that once we reached the retreat
house we were already busy doing physical exercises
in the yard to **** time while the bewildered group
were coming down the hill with that HUH?! expression...
point being:
now i find myself in a similar situation...
if not a physical intervention dynamic then at least
an insinuation at... dialectical-sophistry...
because you don't have time you don't have
a Platonic leisurely for dialectics per se...
therefore in conflict situations you need
a dialectical-sophistry dynamic: to become quickly
persuasive...
like in my last shift at Tottenham Hotspur...
operating a human cordon at the entrance of
the Seven Sisters tube station entrance...
           the Pareto Principle:
        in terms of crowd control...
         20% of people will cause you 80% of problems...
how did i manage the massive queue of people
with only 6 SIAs (security industry authority operatives)?
i left them to it while i studied the crowd
and listened to their complaints
in order to spread my point of view INTO the crowd
for the crowd to hear my own constraints...
constipations... concerns... whatever...
talk to one person and then word-of-mouth
will do your bidding...
"yes sir, i agree with you, but it is not the football
club's fault, Enfield council should have started
making logistical improvements to the area,
they knew for well over 5 years that
the original stadium would be demolished,
from a 30,000 capacity to a 60,000 capacity...
the infrastructure of the area should have been
updated to accommodate for a strain in egress..."
boom bara boom... talk to one person and then
that person talks to another person in the queue
and you contain the disgruntlement...
you also add the empathetic:
"well sir, every single shift i finish as Wembley,
even though the staff leave at least 2h after an
event, i still have to end up queueing with the spectators,
yes, i too feel like i'm cattle and i'm being herded,
but please appreciate the fact that
when these transport hubs, stations, were built,
there was no incentive for a coliseum culture
revitalisation, football stadiums weren't even remotely
near the capacities they are at the moment,
so how would you begin to increase train station
capacities, would you think that double-decker
trains could be envisioned to accommodate more
people in transit?"
i might not be a police officer... but i'm second best...
my mother always wanted me to be:
either a police officer or a teacher...
well **** that... but it turns out: if i do this security
job and write sly poems on the side...
i might have eventually become both... in an informal
sense of the word...
not that i'm thinking about pleasing my mother's
ambitions for me...
i have my own ambitions... or call them dreams...
only today i sent a picture of a note i crafted
upon waking... first thing that popped into my head...
to my girlfriend... in ******* Hawaii...
go figure... but technology has made such relationships
possible, bearable even...
yes i'm going to have hiccups: i'm a man in my
30s... i wasn't a flirt in my teen years or my 20s...
now i'm a natural flirt... and that's my bad...
i've gained enough confidence over the years that
it's hard for me to not be a flirt...
but a flirt is a game without actually wanting women
a flirt is a way of studying women...
i have one i don't need a harem...
    if girls used to tease boys in their teens...
see... girls play a game of tease...
boys play a game of flirt...
tease for flirt... tease for flirt...
but only once you reach a certain age can you start
to flirt proper... and it's usually with the younger
girls in their 20s... who you have absolutely...
respect(?) - no... interest for...
         but then again: is that neurotypical given how
many instances there are of clucky men
wanting to settle down with younger women?
me... ha ha... am i neurotypical?
                    so i woke up... wrote a note...
took a picture... sent it to HER...
and it read as follows:

                        Groß = Groz
                                         (the same Z in Polish and English)
                 Since Zeit = Cajt (not z'igh 't
                                                 but (tseit - in English
                                                   of ****** phoneticism
                                                as above, cajt)
                ∴ - the one time that Braille influenced
          mathematics, not really, but that's
            therefore:
                      ß = Z                 not Ś or Š
              ß = Z (proper, the Polish and English Z,
          which is not the Deutsche Z which is
           the Polish C and the English TSE)
          
obviously i could have looked this up in a dictionary:
but it's so much more rewarding
when you wake up and have an epiphany...
it's better than waking up with a memory
of a dream... because you wake up with a memory
of a dream rather than the dream itself... no?
well that's what memory is to begin with:
the blurred line with the unconscious
and dreaming... obviously when memory is stripped
of this airy fairy day-dreaming construct
of relaxation and utilised proper for: arithmetic
and spelling... well... that's another matter...

scharf: spitz (spits slavic C)...
Aglican X - kss...
sharf Es stumpf Zee             dead Ed... living Dee
for the three K'appa sounds:
                                "
Cat Quip K' (potassium)         'alium

i had this Spaniard called Jorge... everyone
English called him just that... George (not gorge)
Joerge...
so when i asked him i sort of knew what
he would say: written Jorge...
but in Spanish... d'uh J and G are... H...
Horhe...
                        and yes i could have learned this
from books...
but then... people write books...
so...          why not skip the books and read people?
the darkness of the hour
the minute
and the day
now the second
and the universe has come

i have unplugged my 3rd pair
of eyes
from my constipation
and now as my mind
relaxes
i see her and i

don't see her
and i'm not going to advantage
myself a card of James
Joyce
and Finnegans Wake
and the daughter's premature
dementia
perhaps the ill fates
of those who begin to write
and write with meaning
rather than journalistic
mumbo jumbo
let's ***** a statue
of a writer like
Sienkiewicz at the end
of that long straight street
of Kielce

siala baba mak
nie wiedziala jak
chlop powiedziel
a reszte to bylo tak...

missing like
i was missing at Wembley
yesterday
and through most of today

i'm living an organic life
i overheard
the news i wanted to hear
on the radio today...
at 4pm
just as about the serpents
were uncoiling from
the suntans... freckled ginger
nightmares...

only 56 arrested...
plenty of IC3 Black Hitlers
making fun of Asians
in turbans
notably the Sikhs
it's like you
invited one sort in
and another sort appear
and...

i wouldn't be drinking
but let's face it...
the literary genius of Bukowski
as a... as a... ******* postman
and the genius of me
well... perhaps a Miroslav Holub
the benchmark of writing and
science
but then there's too much Greek
referential in it...

MONEY IS LOGIC
i said those words with love in love
and when i tell her
this isn't going to work
life became gravity
and my heart became hardened
she still doesn't believe me
like now
i'm matching her pound for pound
and i'm shrinking to the pride
of a Dwarf living among
Men and Elves
but i'm becoming a cunning fox of a peddle
no stool... a hobbit
a sort of Irishman
of Europe
naive but still persuasively accurate
in my reading of reality:
now becoming abstract
now not so abstract
now becoming abstract
now not so...

      and this life and breadth of losing breath
on speaking come and hount
me
imagine someone: also writing
while doing their "supposed"
wage labor... enslavement
well what is to allow differentiation
between en masse dictatorial of
a tiny minority to another tiny minority
to another one
form Poutin through to Twump
and to no who in Damascus

because looking into those eyes
of CP (close protection)
former Deutsche police officers
those chauffeurs
of the "stars"
where one looked like Roberto Martínez
so i asked: is... is there anyone important
making arguments here
for a discounted entry, i.e. for free?

well i was mapping and mapping
my supposed schizoid hemispheres
onto the schematics
and drawings...
i was allocated the supposedly
deafening of defeat placement
at the Spanish Steps where the infamous
Wembley breach happened back
in 2020...
but that was on a national level
with a national interest in bread
some circus
perhaps football
but who can tell given that most football
fans are not opera fans
and i could indulge drinking heavily
before going to the opera
but going to a football match
i don't understand why or how
a sport is to be enjoyed intoxicated
rather than sober...
drink too much and instead
of 22 wankers with 20 running
and... one shift
i was left mesmerized just watching
the officials
notably the sideline priests

MONEY IS LOGIC
and sometimes i shift from watching a game
to watching the crowd
to watching the grass
to watching the floodlights
to watching the sideline referees
and that's that
and i'm no more happy than discontent
than less happy than discontent
and i ponder Hemmingway's simplification
and then i just allow things
to flow
without haiku interruptions

and i was so gearing up to being on the Dortmund
side for the event
i was so shy in jokingly choking
on spewing out, in a shout

words much ascribed to the fetish of:

ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG!
ARBEIT MACHT FREI!
ARBEIT MACHT FREI!
ABLENKUNG MACHT ZIEGELNAGEL...

ZIEGELNAGEL:
******* doft dorft ooze SCHTOOPI'D!
some "things" need reworking
and revision

i much preferred the Deutsche fan demure
and i'm Catholic
as ******
and the French are Catholic
and the Spanish are Catholic
and so much ethnocentric scribblies
in America from Hin Land
and Cha -
   i mean: what's a ****** to do
if not swerve: entertain...
ride rollerblades round and round
on a roundabout: backwards
listening to Mario and Luigi's cassette
seriously dude, seriously GANDU...
gandu gandu...
no joke

that's me Wallace and Gromit
i call Warren
and Ahmed Ahmed and Uzeer the ****-
-stani
joking about putting wooden knives
in each other's pockets
to have to peer at and through 90K people
congregating to have
run

so there was this Muhammad Muhammad
who felt ill and decided to go home...
i stood there among charging police
horses and barking police dogs
while about 300 people ran across the cement
while i was holding a freebie
worth circa £1000...

steward accreditation and a high viz jackets
and you think i was stopped?
you think i was stopped?
i'm experiencing a hyper reverse engineering
of voyeurism
on my skin
like this skin has become leather...

beside from Hamza and Sikander
i was not exactly given a hot take on staff
and it turns out as
the cordon was put in place and about 30
papa echoes stood in front of
about 40+ stewards and SIAs
i was standing in front of the cordon
ensuring legitimate customers
were ushered in
while the pranksters were being
pranked
because the UEFA tickets were interactive
and required special pen UV or not
just PINK with dotted lines

well to one argument i said:
but i know you're lying
by the face you used to lie...
and the argument counter
said: but this is my face...
to which i replied:
honestly: this is my face too...
a joyful attention to detail
and to think that drinking is a good excuse
but i drink to excuse flourishing
in a heightened environment for
stress hormones to exfoliated
and drip-feed-me
this inexhaustible feeling of furor...

i drink to excuse myself
even today while i settled down
to an afternoon with father
and we talked about Martin
and that bewilderment:
but i drink a liter of whiskey
and what... beer killed him?
ten bottles that's 5 liters of beer killed
him, every day for 2 years
well by that account i ought to be
dead
and i know my head is hurting
not because of a dehydrated brain
i say the brain bleeds
and the brain sweats
but i'm constipated hence the nail
in the head

        so i made us a halloumi (grilled)
entree on a salad
of cucumber, pepper, plum cherries (tomatoes)
salad greens,
radishes... and roasted pecans and hazelnuts
with a dressing
of oyster sauce,
yogurt, chili infused olive oil
blah blah
ouzo - citrus infused soya sauce blah blah
we had a beer and we talked
and i was just wondering:
am i just tired...
no i haven't had anything to drink
but at least he understands
and will know: he's tired...

and i was tired
and blah blah blah...
well if i were to have my last days spent
in the presence of my father
cooking him dinner
having had an adventure
at Wembley
and exchange that
for ****** favors for about a year
with Edie...
conversation-wise
can she even hear me?
i wonder...
even Reyla wonders whether she's heard
i too wonder:
i don't think i am heard
i don't think Edie hears me
i talk to her and it's as if she's the one wanting
to talk talk talk talk chalk
talk talk chalk chalk talk chalk...

MONEY IS LOGIC

that's the words i sent her
when i contemplated going to visit
a brothel
last night
it became painfully stupid once
i was on the N128 on Cranbrook Rd
heading toward Romford
that i was in no mood
for ***
or for that matter paid for ***
and with no fear of a libido:
maybe if i had a ****-ring on me
i would have
but that's my and Edie's discover
but i didn't bring the right sort
of rubber with me
i had already withdrawn
         over £700 and i told her

but if i can't sleep on your lanai
like a dog

but if i can't sleep on your lanai
like a dog?!

           dogs... who cannot sweat
but excessively salivate...
well: so much for the purpose of mascara
of the camel lashes
of your young girls walking about
like miasmas of ghosts of beauty
that once was
that i almost had a dream of women
who would slice rotting onions
in half and then smear their bodies
with to imitate getting a suntan
in winter...

             yes: i am yet to undertake
the task of learning from hallucinogenic au naturale...
from fungi
from LSD papercuts on the brain...           (papper?)
it figured... all that potential, wasted,
on those happy-go-****-me hippies from the 1960s
so much potential squandered
there was no gearing up to something
rightwing
coherent,
when exploring these territories for a flavour
of what only was a timidity of an Huxley...
(payper - paper - papper - patting - pet hates
no bounce bounce in titter - tittering -
no giggle in ****** - just a word, a spelling
accuracy - get away with Saka and inking
someone darker
and we have colts with Spanish fans
returning from the match on the Metropolitan
Line-Z_

                    whoops!               )

and i did walk into my room stark naked
with all the constellations
when Reyla was sleeping in it
a 13 year old girl
and i laid by the bed
like a guard, dog
and i was rudely woken up
and told to move
because somehow nakedness outside
of the hyper-context of ***
is not simply birth
and death and all beside
the supposed thrills of taboo...

well it's not like i was starstruck either
i saw Jamie Redknapp (i didn't know
there was a silent K in that surname)
at Fulham once
but yesterday i saw him twice
or rather the first time i didn't see him
but was merely giving him directions
and what disappointed me
was rules being broken
for a familiarity contest
because a somewhat some-what-may
of having previous affiliations of
"guarding" poo-poo-puppy of a son
that Quadrant that "frenchie"
oh jeez...

          well i too performed a Hajj
to the innermost residing place
of the visage and i too
found Jesus to be misguiding
with that affair of long hair and bearded
that look is so...
so...
so ******* outdated...
it should be made... illegal...

not that i am: drunk, or high...
i'll leave that scrutiny of "policing"
to the federalists on sleep patrol...
because i don't know why...
somehow this separation of church-
-from- -state
while this nagging insistence
on no separation of...
LANGUAGE from STATE...
it's as if we're living in a time
a wasted time
a waiting upon time no time no waiting
to begin with
a time of a LANGUAGE-STATE...

echoes of interpretation from the East
i hear rumors...
a CIVILIZATION-STATE
equivalent of Rome
Russia
China...

so what? now we're all literate
yet illiterate in coding?
not able to use chatGPT
i was having a conversation with a girl
of my dreams
face unveiled yet hair covered
like i abhor hair
like i love flies in champagne in flutes
of glass
like this doesn't really matter anyway
like i want a late Monday
while the cats keep coming
uncircumcised because
you can't circumcise a cat's phallus
but instead castrate them
why not then castrate the Semites
and call them the ****** breed of intellect
just shying from the joke
of circumcision?!

         SARDAUKAR...
and what are not the Mongol chants
in Dune?

SARDAUKAR...
and what are not the Mongol chants
in Dune?

plagiarism, cultural appropriation?
you tell me...
the Mongols came to Poland
the Mongols didn't reach England
the Mongols didn't reach England...

SARDAUKAR
i can sing like a Mongol hunger-strike
protest...
HUMUMGUNGUNGOON
SUMBOONKAKOOMAMOON

SARD­AUKAR...

with all the bowels and stomach
and no eyes and no mind
all bowels and heart
and echo
and no breath.

the 56 sardaukarii.