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Nandini  Jul 2014
Blackjack
Nandini Jul 2014
today words don't play
the hearts game .
feelings my ace
to play blackjack..
they say words
and words are all the same
you gambled
I'm dealing my broken heart

playing a Switch
you emptied my hand
foolish ! merely did I
trusting my cards
that's how you won
leaving the game bland
you gambled
making me your trump card .
Ah! I remember you played
a
Blackjack
Blackjack the player must compete with the dealer .
life's not a game , loves not a card.
just thought of the game and penned it.
The best mistake I ever made
Was opening that tattered black book

There I sat in a pub
On a mission to forget the world

6 or 7 drinks in
and a bartender all to happy
To pour what ever the roulette produced

thumb, thumb, flip
flip flip

Stop

Category is shots

To the new friend next to me
"why yes, I am to get **** faced"

"oh, you came here for just an occasion"
"well dear sir if you are brave enough next ones on me"

"Hot ****!" he exclaimed

As I close my eyes and say a silent prayer

I slowly count 4 pages
and place my finger on the page

I call Gwendolyn over and request
With eyes closed the item of my demise

"***!"
She cried

"I love ya but I won't do that to you"

I slurily open my eyes and focus

MEXICAN BLACK JACK

1 part tequila
2 parts whiskey
151 floater

"Double Shot"

I think out loud

whats a lil' ta'****-ya?

vhiskey? bah.

151 it's just a floater ppppssssshhhhhhh

After a few minutes of convincing
With many a hoot and holler
From my new friends

She takes my keys and reluctantly agrees
Even kindly offers me a chaser and some limes

I will not forsake the liquor gods

Ever get a whiff of turpentine and diesel?
Well that could be gardenias compared to this.

I sit in silence sniffing it
eyes closed lapping at it with my nostrils

I look over at my new buddy
"well chuckles it's now or never ready for this lil' endeavor?"

"Well ****" he muttered "I'm a man of my word"

"to life" I exclaimed

head back as that little bit of ******
started it's course
over my tongue into the throat
(why are my sinus' burning?)
don't breath boy
(you know better)
don't
you

eyes pop
and just on cue
flame ever rendering flames

I'm not blind
I'm not blind
I'm not blind

ok I was just squinting
really hard

I look over and my new friend
is now drinking my free chaser.

my game my pain...

Hey Sven leh's go again...

It's a good thing she loves me
I complain to no one

if she hated me I don't think I'd drink here.

2
hours and
4
shots later

I needed a nap good thing the loo was warm

I salute you Sir BlackJack and when I call your name
It's never in vain
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2022
precursor - title correlation
body -

mind of:

C                oh

    oh                      Ri

n'ah.   (half an hour fiddling with a 502 bad
gateway; traffic these days! jeez!)

I.

it don't know what's more frustrating for the reasons that it's so good... i can't choose... it's a close call... either listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers' B-sides from By The Way... ugh! why didn't they release that as a double album! Stadium Arcadium was not that good as a double-album... all the prior albums are MAGIC... literally... for ****'s sake: GOLDMINE is literally just that... there's that... i can't concentrate on making my own translation of Ovid... i'm yet to scribble down the translation i have... i can't even drink my whiskey properly... the other frustrating focus? watching Armand Duplantis break his own world record of 6.21metres... the ****** has still at least 10cm in him! a record that will have to stand-still for the next 20+ years... i'll be dead before this record is broken... Сергій Бубка best be sleeping... i'm listening to the music, reliving the end of the World Athletics and trying to heel-myself-in-the-buttocks: better get a move on boy... hmm! "trying"... i'm actually heeling myself in the buttocks: no time to wait... one can wait for a bus... one cannot for one's own incentive... ol' Lizzy is coming up the mountain... she's coming with the proper closure of the 20th century... however many popes she outlived... however many prime ministers and american presidents... come on Lizzie... just one more year... i'm actually dying to spend money with whittle Charlie printed on the notes... my fingers are itching... but **** me... music so good By The Way should have been a double-album... no! Stadium Arcadium was not the salvagable double-album worth session... i'm getting "schizophrenic" vibes... i know that poetry is not an entertaining medium: it's a complacent self-congratulatory, thereupeutic load of *******... it's obnixious when staged: the exasperated art of speaking with speed... today i realised that i much prefer drinking to having ***... i like the preservation of my brain with a hard-on of itchy fingers than any actual ******* hard-ons... the knife opening oysters or plucking out the eyes of deer... best the eyes be gauged out... than having deer stare into car lights... hybrid confusions of static, motivated to move... frozen in a make-shift imitation of root and clay and copper: bam! one more statue down...

II.

it's no wonder why i'm not looking for a girlfriend, it's no longer bewildering why i'm not looking for a wife, at best i'm looking out for that ancient custom of Roman emperors: to become a foster father, a surrogate - i'm yet to find a match-up... i almost did, but she undermined my chances by undermining her own seriousness in such affairs... but clarity does come... as much as i might be a surrogate father to her son or daughter: i wouldn't be faithful to her... i would steal the night and run away into a brothel... but there's something else... the whole dynamic of publishing has changed... the whole idea of a library has also changed... i own more valuable books in my private collection than the public library of Romford... which is me peering at the dire straits of what the public is fed... i know why i don't aspire for pair-bonding... perhaps man so levelled aspired toward the imitation of birds a long time ago... perhaps swans are truly noble creatures: for one hears of widow and widower swans... perhaps parrots: born from those monstrous beasts that were the dinosaurs can imitate our talk... all that's this reality within the confines of "perhaps": nonetheless, it's all true... but perhaps being the mammal that i am... i moved from a community of chimpanzees into a solo-ride of imitation-bear... perhaps i only entertain the opposite *** on the encounter of ***... i couldn't land a conversation with a woman outside the constrictive-framework of work, so much so: i would abhor the mindset of men that go on dates with women: buy them food and then EXPECT... i leave that ******* out in my interactions... pay-up-front for what you're about to receive otherwise don't play cat while the woman plays mouse... or rather... a rat in cat's clothing: the woman therefore becoming a rat-trap... mind you: i can't think of a more terrible idea than the modern version of: eat first, **** later... at the old ****** proverb states: a hungry ****** is angry... a filled ****** is lazy... god forbid i ever become tempted by those dating sites... i'm currently looking for the original Latin text of Ovid's the Amores book 2 poem 6... why? what i have in my hand... and what i'm finding... it's like what Robert Pinsky remarked about once: TRANSLATIONS differ so much from one translator to another...

they have done it... UEFA are mad... just to get my
accreditation for the women's Euros final
at Wembley they're asking me to bring my passport
with me... so is Wembley the JFK of Florida
          space-shuttle launch? Houston? am i leaving
the country?
                but the girls have done it...
funny: some other people are still complaining:
IT'S TOO WHITE!
   there's not enough diversity in the team...
          that's me also planning to go and live
in Kenya and become a model for toilet paper...
i'm sure i could replace that known Koala bear /
golden retriever or perhaps i could go there
and model for soap adverts...
it just so happened that racial tensions (only football
could create them) rose up for a little:
just one night the day England lost to Italy
on penalty shootouts... because... 3 black guys
were playing a rigged roulette...
            then again? me? and the African heat?
fat chance...

find me the original Elegy VI: the death of Corinna's
pet parrot...
oh man... and her name was Polly...
i sat up late last night trying to find something
interest on the television...
bam! thank you ma'am...
                       kurt cobain: montage of heck...
sort of reminded me of...
                           a SCANNER DARKLY...
                           mind you: i sometimes do enjoy
a one-man show... or at least two...
there was this brilliant show in the West End...
Stones in his Pockets...
       two actors... sharing the roles of...
                  about 15 people each...
but it was back in circa 2001...
so... maybe it was Louis Dempsey
                                                        & Sean Sloan...
mind you... i'd still love to see Samuel Beckett's
             NOT I...

Jack Trades says: i'm about to a heap
of hay of hate...
                                i'm everywhere sometimes...
if it's not music, then its visual arts,
then it's philosophy, then fine literature...
then something "oriental" in thinking...
then its coupling my fetish for Deutsche as:
father to the English zunge...
then it's back east to rummage in some Katakana...

i know why i'm single, Roger Moore remained
a bachelor until his death...
  courteous: as ever as forever always...
i'd be a terrible match-up... i've given pair-bonding
a chance: i can't bemoan why X is not Y...
the sort of men that pair-bond are claustrophilic...
they love the company of a mate...
each time i was ever in a "relationship" i already
had one foot dangling: tapping an imaginary
drum set...
recently i discovered the B-side of the Red Hot Chilli
Peppers... so for me it's a version
of keeping the 20th century alive with
the "dichotomy" of the Rolling Stones vs.
the Beatles... i'm more... R.H.C.P.'s A-sides
of R.H.C.P.'s B-sides?
                                        i'm busy...
                i'm always busy... i don't want to relax...
i want a Turkish barber to suggest that
i need  hot-towel and an arm massage after
my beard is trimmed and... i'm still going to state:
getting a Turk to trim my beard is a close
contender to oral *** from a Turkish *******...

but try finding me that original Latin of Ovid's...
ah! found it! let's see if i can compete with
my own translation... the one i originally read
and the one i found finding the original Latin
were so disparaging...

**** yes! well... there was Ted Hughes writing
about the Crow... poor ******...
should have killed himself: might have competed
with his terribly-wonderful wife of a poet...
i give her that: what noose?
best head in an oven...
and you want a shovel with that?
but this is Ovid... "complaining" about
the death of his lover's parrot...
immediately i jumped to conclusions:
not enough crackers...

(A) the Original:

Psittacus, Eois imitatrix ales ab Indis,
    occidit—exequias ite frequenter, aves!
ite, piae volucres, et plangite pectora pinnis
    et rigido teneras ungue notate genas;
horrida pro maestis lanietur pluma capillis,
    pro longa resonent carmina vestra tuba!
quod scelus Ismarii quereris, Philomela, tyranni,
    expleta est annis ista querela suis;
alitis in rarae miserum devertere funus—
    magna, sed antiqua est causa doloris Itys.
Omnes, quae liquido libratis in aere cursus,
    tu tamen ante alios, turtur amice, dole!
plena fuit vobis omni concordia vita,
    et stetit ad finem longa tenaxque fides.
quod fuit Argolico iuvenis Phoceus Orestae,
    hoc tibi, dum licuit, psittace, turtur erat.
Quid tamen ista fides, quid rari forma coloris,
    quid vox mutandis ingeniosa sonis,
quid iuvat, ut datus es, nostrae placuisse puellae?—
    infelix, avium gloria, nempe iaces!
tu poteras fragiles pinnis hebetare zmaragdos
    tincta gerens rubro Punica rostra croco.
non fuit in terris vocum simulantior ales—
    reddebas blaeso tam bene verba sono!
Raptus es invidia—non tu fera bella movebas;
    garrulus et placidae pacis amator eras.
ecce, coturnices inter sua proelia vivunt;
    forsitan et fiunt inde frequenter ****.
plenus eras minimo, nec prae sermonis amore
    in multos poteras ora vacare cibos.
nux erat esca tibi, causaeque papavera somni,
    pellebatque sitim simplicis umor aquae.
vivit edax vultur ducensque per aera gyros
    miluus et pluviae graculus auctor aquae;
vivit et armiferae cornix invisa Minervae—
    illa quidem saeclis vix moritura novem;
occidit illa loquax humanae vocis imago,
    psittacus, extremo munus ab orbe datum!
optima prima fere manibus rapiuntur avaris;
    inplentur numeris deteriora suis.
tristia Phylacidae Thersites funera vidit,
    iamque cinis vivis fratribus Hector erat.
Quid referam timidae pro te pia vota puellae—
    vota procelloso per mare rapta Noto?
septima lux venit non exhibitura sequentem,
    et stabat vacuo iam tibi Parca colo.
nec tamen ignavo stupuerunt verba palato;
    clamavit moriens lingua: 'Corinna, vale!'
Colle sub Elysio nigra nemus ilice frondet,
    udaque perpetuo gramine terra viret.
siqua fides dubiis, volucrum locus ille piarum
    dicitur, obscenae quo prohibentur aves.
illic innocui late pascuntur olores
    et vivax phoenix, unica semper avis;
explicat ipsa suas ales Iunonia pinnas,
    oscula dat cupido blanda columba mari.
psittacus has inter nemorali sede receptus
    convertit volucres in sua verba pias.
Ossa tegit tumulus—tumulus pro corpore magnus—
    quo lapis exiguus par sibi carmen habet:
"colligor ex ipso dominae placuisse sepulcro;
    ora fuere mihi plus ave docta loqui".

mein gott... in English it reads so smoothly reading
it while listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers'
B-sides... quixoticelixer...
teatra jam (short)... and then thinking about it...
through to and through Going Li coupled
with trouble in the pub (instrumental version)...

i will never own a car...
              mind you: i already secretely own a house...
if i keep appeasing my mother and my father:
when reality kicks in and they're dead and i'm
project solo... it's not like i'm waiting for the day...
they are hoarders of shoes and screws...
literally... no metaphor...
  on my own: i will have to recycle so much ****
before i will put the house on the market...
and? i never pledged any allegiance to Essex...
England... i have: pledged an allegiance
to the English tongue...
                 but if not the Shetland Islands...
north... "god" send me north! even as far as
Greenland!
                i'm not willing to die in a place where
villages are flaring up in a July heat...

i can't bemoan what i honestly couldn't keep...
i sometimes get mad at my father for being
so submissive to my mother...
i sometimes get so mad at my mother for only
being able to talk about her chronic pains:
i'm alligned with my grandmother
who once said: she's just like your paternal
great-grandmother... every itch and scratch...
it's like writing with chalk on a blackboard...
hey presto! ruptures of the Grand Canyon...
that ******* bollocking of: ooh! ah!
           me? i don't understand people with tattoos...
me? i collect scars...
these two fading ones on my face are a disappointment...
i thought something more pronounced
could be kept from that bicycle-crach Francis Bacon
esque imitation of painting:
   the sort of painting where you can still revel
in brush-strokes being visible...
   because it's not rigid: Renaissance form painting...

now: i can sort of imagine what men couple up...
those who fear being alone...
those not interested in art...
those mostly interested in sport... but not all sport...
just some sports...
sports that they support "passing their lineage"
with according to the cult of football teams...
not all-sports... i.e. not an interest in fencing...
swimming... certainly guys who thought:
wow! tennis is great to watch!
   but squash is so much more fun to play!
cycling... well... if you love cycling per se:
watching other people cycle is a bit: BOO-RING...
what sort of other men get married?
probably those not interested in risque ***
with prostitutes...
ones interested in making money for a woman
to spend...
me? i'm not interested in money...
                       in terms of money:
i'm more likely to spend £30 on a book than
think about a dinner date...
                      
is that...   ??? i'm not even going to ask myself
that question that begins with a buzz-word
and the letters Mmmm... miso...
                             well... what is a boy to do...
figure out what to do with his spare time...
               i don't mind cleaning the house:
who ever said that it's the duty of a woman to keep
the house clean? i like living in a household in order...
i love cooking: it's like chemistry 2.0...
                      give me a bag of Indian spices and i'll
cook up a perfect storm of a curry...
but then again: i'm not work-shy when it comes
to using heavy-duty tools akin to the KANGO...
which... i later found out was a Japanese word for
Chinese in general... or the other way round...
i'd hate to be one of those Phil Collins types of
forgetting how many hands i have
by changing gloves like i might be an octopus...

and when it comes to children?
eh... it's enough for a boy in a buggy in a supermarket
pointing his finger at me as i walk past
making that chimpanzee face of OOH at me...
or a fist-bump with some teenagers at the London
Stadium... that's enough... i'm happy to play
the "secret uncle" role...
while women remain women: as fickle as the wind...
i've learned to live with that reality...
i scratch my beard and pretend that i'm playing
a violin...

plus, i'm a terrible drinker... i'm a loving-drunk...
i'm drunk right now...
if a litre of whiskey per night satisfies
my libido shortages i'm happy:
it implies i can write... i stop drinking and start
*******: alles goot...
                           today i was visited by a wasp...
i was visited by a bee before...
oh man... it was heart-breaking...
he was dying... i had to help him...
   i poured some honey onto the pave-,
and moved him towards the puddle...
he stuck his mighty Gene Simmons sucker out
and started to perform an OD on sugar...
i was glad... watching him die from a sugar-overdose...
it was: rather pleasant to watch...

TERROR! mix JAINISM with TAOISM
and fuse that in an European mind...
               but i'll still eat meat...
                        it's a parody of what's to be expected:
i prefer life with the possibilities of change...
with... curiosities of: extensive ulterior
possibilities that run counter to estblished norms
of expectations of a RIGID MIND...
i water: i flow...
      i fire: i dance...
i air: i whirl...
i earth: i rumble...
i lightning: i blink...
hey presto! the five elements!

in another language close to my heart:
since i was born with it...
the pronoun disappears:
ja woda: płyne
ja ogien: tańcze...
   ja powietrze: kręce się (odd)
ja ziemia: trzęse się (also "odd")
ja grzmot: mrygam

there are languages in existence where pronouns
hide... to be honest...
in ******? the pronouns are rarely used...
oh mein gott... when they're used in a sentence:
esp. the I... it's like... wow! i just found
a "nugget of gold"!
seriously... that how my mother-tongue
is structured: on English is the current
prounoun-circus available to watch...
i'm siding with the Somali pirates having
a giggle... playing blackjack with either Greeks
or some other Africans...

there are languages in English that cannot: will not,
succumb to the current Marxist onslight
happening in this tongue...
not because these languages will not:
they CANNOT...
mind you... it's such an intellectual low-bar
of achievement... but since it's piggy-pop...
it must be slaughtered on an individual level
before this DISEASE is allowed to spread...
thank heavens that English is only my second
language... how that allows me to bypass
buying into any sort of propaganda...
   my lingua Ingelese... my tongue for spreading
ideas...
    oh: and thank **** i' expressing in a medium
desecrated by the same people pushing these
sordid ideas... post-humous fame! 'ere i come!
obviously! who's in it for the "real" and immediate
if one isn't... fabricating a pickling of a shark
in plastic.... who? who?! woof!
   a-woooooo"

            my heart has shrunk and hardened to
the size and hardness of a pebble...
    i wish i could entertain cosy nights with a woman
watching some pointless movie about
the stereotypes of love... then again: no...
i'd rather not...
drinking alone: who the hell said i was alone?
i sometimes "hallucinate" someone crying:
of late... i'm like: this isn't Aud Lang Syne...
this isn't Shakespear...
then again i love the idea that my true readers
are yet to be born...
i'm happy, happy-bear-alone...
                       a Maine **** is sleeping in my
bed... i'll join him come the right hour...
but he's not looking at me... he's looking above me...
only yesterday i started to paparazzi
a wasp that flew into my bedroom...
          what the **** do i have above me?
please say letters... i will not do alright with a halo...
i'm not going to join that
archangel one minute... saint the next...
clip my ******* wings for a get-through-easy
card: no!
          
it became finalized today... i'm literally tired
of ***... i'm tired of *** when it's equivalent to not...
being tired of eating food... drinking water...
it's unnecessarily-necessary... *** as golf...
per say...
                2 months of delay in payment...
i'm thinking about rekindling my affair with that mountain
bike... i have to forget the streets...
i need the woods again... but for that i need new tires...
oh... hell... i no longer have anything
to prove in the brothel... blah blah whatever...
threesomes look great: LOOk...
like a block of cheddar looks great...
when shredded...
and then melting...
perhaps in pornographic flicks...
but in reality? the changing of condoms
from one mouth to another...
from one ****** to another...
                          
what?! peiple are having unprotected ***?
vermin ****?!
   **** me... well... at least i'm obnoxiously savvy
in that regard...
no no... it's too disappointing...
you have to split your attention up...
there's nothing good about a *******...
why? because, usually... of the two girls...
there's one you really want to be a screwdriver to...
while the other is just being a, *******...
a ******* bandwagon... leftovers...
a pair of **** you get to imitate ****** with...
it's a bit like:
coupling an elephant with a giraffe...
but i want to ride the elephant!
but i want to stroke the giraffe's neck!
but  i want to pretend the elephants's tusk...
no! not tusk! TRUNK....
that rectangular bit of ******* you shovel
your clothes in when travelling...
TRUNK... or a TRAMPOLINE!
no... not the bouncy layer...
TRUNK... sneeze! trambone! jazz! ******* Miles Daisies!
Davis!  trumpet *******!
no... don't get me started on the sax...

then again: i want a rhino's horn! ram-jam...
Black Betty Bam B'eh Lam!

- oh no... i moved along... R.H.C.P.'s: thanks for the t-shirt...
Big Bukowski style:
i hate the eagles... run through the jungle...
run Forrest! whun!
WHUN!
  and that's me... hardly a LAMNTIA of the Beatniks
tripping... me? enough whiskey
and the right song... and i'm grooving beside
an imaginary drum-kit...
in that: once upon a time...
when men grew their hair long...
they were the barbarians knocking
on the gates of Rome... rather than being
the implosion of Rome within with
all of Rome's degeneracy of transgender gimmicks...

mind you: i've given it some thought...
i broke it down toward the following schematic:

anonymous audience, commenting,
video making blah blah...
****** "schematic": if you can call it that...
mind you: the VAR in WIETNAM
had the best soundtrack...
just saying: hey! her?! hey! don't shoot
the messanger!
i'd rather work the Fulham opening night
with the new stand: Thames-side being opened
than attend Wembley for a Westwood...
Westworld... Westlife concert,
i'm all up for handling those Scousers:
northern monkeys?
southern fairies...
let's just call them for what they are...
northern TOURISTS...

but the dynamic of publishing has changed:
i already know the criterium first...
women and children first...
THIRST beccause water matters...
i'm thirsty too... one litre of whiskey and
i'm still typing like a machine...
i'll box my liver and kidneys
as long as i keep my brain and eyes happy...

but it's just a different dynamic...
the internet experience...
i know a lot of people miss it...
i can't force people to read my bollocking-riddles...
ergo? i don't stagnate into celebrating it
or therefore advertising it...
i'm either read or i'm STAUB...
   dust...
                
i can't! i'm only making something available...
i can't force people out of their democratic "wedlock"...
you like it? great! you don't? great!
but the psychology of those video creators that
mind how many views they receive and
how many comments they: likewise receive...
"false hits" with the number of hits of viewership?

me? i'm not bothered... i've been watching
the female Euro finals...
i was almost scared... what if the female England team
don't make it to the finals?!
me? i'm gearing up...
any rowdy hooligans up to speed?!
as much as i hate women not trying toi compete
in sports that are sexually-exclusive...
there's this... THIS... i watch the games because
the Colleseum is burning...
i'm only watching the fire...
    and i'm watching the women i'd love to ****...
this never would have happened if watching
tennis...

    the crisp biting attache of a sharpshooter
WONG sort of mixer-mix-up with a whiskey
and a pepssi...
me... reaching for a second glass
with one already filled like: *******... RAINMAN...

keep your horses!
i'm gearing up to a translation!
wait, the, ****, up! keep it cool in Doob-Lyn!
oh no... you don't get to tell me
i use too many vowels without me showing
you... you mishandled the vowel-to-consonant
dynamic... Doob-Lyn is Dublin: tow me...
no: not to me? tow me... now you're dragging me
along the snail-trail...

the disparaging translations:

(B) the A. S. Kline translation

Parrot, the mimic, the winged one from India’s Orient,
is dead – Go, birds, in a flock and follow him to the grave!
Go, pious feathered ones, beat your ******* with your wings
and mark your delicate cheeks with hard talons:
tear out your shaggy plumage, instead of hair, n mourning:
sound out your songs with long piping!
Philomela , mourning the crime of the Thracian tyrant,
the years of your mourning are complete:
divert your lament to the death of a rare bird –
Itys is a great but ancient reason for grief.
All who balance in flight in the flowing air,
and you, above others, his friend the turtle-dove, grieve!
All your lives you were in perfect concord,
and held firm in your faithfulness to the end.
What the youth from Phocis was to Orestes of Argos,
while she could be, Parrot, turtle-dove was to you.
What worth now your loyalty, your rare form and colour,
the clever way you altered the sound of your voice,
what joy in the pleasure given you by our mistress? –
Unhappy one, glory of birds, you’re certainly dead!
You could dim emeralds matched to your fragile feathers,
wearing a beak dyed scarlet spotted with saffron.
No bird on earth could better copy a voice –
or reply so well with words in a lisping tone!
You were snatched by Envy – you who never made war:
you were garrulous and a lover of gentle peace.
Behold, quails live fighting amongst themselves:
perhaps that’s why they frequently reach old age.
Your food was little, compared with your love of talking
you could never free your beak much for eating.
Nuts were his diet, and poppy-seed made him sleep,
and he drove away thirst with simple draughts of water.
Gluttonous vultures may live and kites, tracing spirals
in air, and jackdaws, informants of rain to come:
and the raven detested by armed Minerva lives too –
he whose strength can last out nine generations:
but that loquacious mimic of the human voice,
Parrot, the gift from the end of the earth, is dead
The best are always taken first by greedy hands:
the worse make up a full span of years.
Thersites saw Protesilaus’s sad funeral,
and Hector was ashes while his brothers lived.
Why recall the pious prayers of my frightened girl for you –
prayers that a stormy south wind blew out to sea?
The seventh dawn came with nothing there beyond,
and Fate held an empty spool of thread for you.
Yet still the words from his listless beak astonished:
dying his tongue cried: ‘Corinna, farewell!’
A grove of dark holm oaks leafs beneath an Elysian *****,
the damp earth green with everlasting grass.
If you can believe it, they say there’s a place there
for pious birds, from which ominous ones are barred.
There innocuous swans browse far and wide
and the phoenix lives there, unique immortal bird:
There Juno’s peacock displays his tail-feathers,
and the dove lovingly bills and coos.
Parrot gaining a place among those trees
translates the pious birds in his own words.
A tumulus holds his bones – a tumulus fitting his size –
whose little stone carries lines appropriate for him:
‘His grave holds one who pleased his mistress:
his speech to me was cleverer than other birds’.

(C) the  P. Green translation

parrot, that feathered mimic from India's dawlands,
is dead. come flocking, birds, to his funeral:
come, all you godfearing airborne creatures,
beat ******* with wings,
   mourn, claw your polls, tear out soft feathers
(your hair), and pipe high your sad lament.
Philomela, nightingale, the ancient crimes of Tereus
which you lament is long past -
    divert your grief to the obsequies of a rare and modern
bird: poor Itylus' case was tragic, but antique.
all wind-borne voyagers through the clear empyrean
lament now, and above all his friend the turtle-dove
they lived in complete agreement,
    their bond of faith held firm to the end.
what Pylades was to Orestes or Argos, that Parrot,
turtle-dove was to you - while fate allowed.
yet of no avail your devotion, your rare and beautiful
plumage,
your adaptable mimic's voice;
    not even the care that my darling lavished on you -
poor Polly, paragon of birdhood, is dead.
so gree his feathers, they dimmed the cut emerald;
scarlet his beak, with saffron spots.
no bird on earth could copy a voice more closely
or sound so articulate.
fate, jealous, removed him - that unaggressive creature,
that talktative devotee of peace,
with his tiny appetite , whose love of conversation
left him little leisure for food,
who lived on a diet of nuts, used poppy-seed to encourage
sound sleep: kept his thirst at bay with nothing but water.
quails spend their whole life fighting -
maybe that's how they reach a ripe old age.
carnivorous vultures, kites gyring high in the heavens,
weather-wise jackdaws, prophets of rain to come,
are all long-lived - while Minerva's bête noire, the raven,
can outlast nine generations. yet Parrot is dead,
that loquacious parody of human utterance,, that bonanza
from the eastern edge of the world,
greedy death almost always pickss off the best ones early -
it's the third-raters who reach a ripe old age.
Thersites attended the funeral of Protesilaus;
Hector was ashes while his brothers still lived.
what point is recalling the desperate prayers my sweetheart
uttered?
some stormy sirocco blew them out to sea.
six days he survived, and then, at dawn on the seventh,
his thread of destiny ran out.
yet somehow, though dying, he could still find utterance,
and the last words he ever spoke were: 'Corinna, farewell!'
beneath a hill in Elyium, where dark ilex clussters
and the moist earth is for ever green,
there exists - or so i have heard - the pious fowls' heaven
(all ill-omened predators barred).
harmless swaans roam after foot there, there dwells
the phoenix, that long-lived, ever-solitary bird;
there Juno's peacock spreads out his splendid fantail
amid the billing and cooing of amorous doves;
and there, in this woodland haven, the feathered faithful
welcome Parrot, flock round to hear him talk.
his bones lie buried under a parrot-sized tumulus
with a tiny headstone bearing these words:
r.i.p. Polly: this tribute from his loving mistress:
articulate beyond a common bird

the thought of LEMONS or perhaps
the IDEA of lemon...
then again: i can't refrain from
ORANGES and LIMES...
and the shy-sunlight of autumn
and the blooming of apples...
and operas...
             "someone"...
                              what pretty pies of
unfuckable wonders await...

divert your grief to the obsequeies of a rare and modern
bird: poor Itylus' case was tragic, but antique
(antiquated?).
all wind-borne voyagers through tge clear empyrean
lament nowm abd above all
his friend the turtle-dove, they lived in complete
agreement
   their bond of faith held firm to the end.
what Pylades was to Orestes of Argos, that, Parrot,
turtle-dove was to you - while Fate allowed,

i'm not even going to bother with a "bananna C"...
i woke up wild-awake with ideas...
brimming with Tao...
"non-doing" id est: point PROVEN
or rather point SERVED?!

Russia and China are clashing...
or rather sparring...
they're having their civilization-state
agenda being put in place...
while there's a "culture-war" in the "west"...
right... James Bond...
so we're refrrering to nation-stattes
as post-nationhood...
  "states"...
                    precursors to the globalist agenda
of fake space exploration via the ******* telescope...
if Russia and China are civivilasation-states...
then... whatever culture "war" is investing in:
or rather: digressing into... impliies
the FSA (federal states of america)
             is a culture-state...
                                                ­                 no?

personally? i don't like the current h'American culture...
it's absolute *******...
no! i'm not going to translate any more of Ovid...
i already read the better translation...
i found out only two minites ago that
i prefer drinking to having ***...
and keeping an eye on cats is just as rewarding
as rearing children: if you allow yourself
to give them a personality...

           so Russia is a civilisation-state...
while America is a culture-state...
                    well... no wonder...
                                            America is the zenith
that could be: but doesn't have to be
preserved...
the culture-state-of-the-sand-*******...
i wish: the Arabs clocked in lucky...
sitting on so much raw ill of oil...
bounce bounce libido bounce bounce...

hmm... "inner monologue"... i had that "thing"
once... i kost it... turning psychotic...
then again: within the confines of having
an internal monologue? i was passive...
       i was a passive agent...
                         upon losing it: having my soul
evaporate: becoming an "N.P.C."...
i became an active agent...
i opened my eyes a second time...

           i think my inner monolpogue became blocked
by:
został wyciszony... bo zaczoł być cykliczny,
tzn. nie po prostej:
       wymarł według koncepcji
sprawiedliwości...

even i know: the gods uttered the words:
shut the **** up! we know you're right!
but we're playing roulette!
shut the ******! we're playing cards!
shut up!
wait! wait your turn!
**** me, given the prowess at attaing
a concept of the differential of space comparing
time... i.e. speed... i'll be karma-happy
once i die...

i'm not translating the rest of that Ovid...
a girl's parraot died... great!
now i'm thinking about:
a bicyckle is a terrible idea... to ride...
on the roads towards St. Paul's... i think i might
require a horse!
i need a horse! bring me a hood, a hoof,
an apple and a toothbrush!
the last place i'm thinking about moving
to is California...
   and thank no god for that...
just the people who already live there.

III.

i sooner discovered the rare B-sides of Red Hot Chilli
Peppers than having realised... oh right...
they release two albums after By the Way...
i completely forgot about those two...
               guess i'm not as big a fan as i thought i was...
Go Robot... it's not oh so wo terrible now, or anymore...
oh woah woe... what a whale to ride into the night...

sometimes it just happens, a sort of blend of an Ezrra Pound
and a Charles Olson moment, poem, moment-poem...
it stretches for three days and you just don't want
to finish it... you kept repeating yourself writing seemingly
aimlessly with no focus...
at this point writing becomes theraputic...
by the simple act of writing: not theraputic regarding
what you're writing about: memories of frustration and
complications having finished Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus...
unlike those joyous frustrations with Samuel Beckett's
Watt...
                  and on the third day "he" finished painting
four metal chairs a new colour of copperhead...
a copperneck painting chairs copperhead...
to me the colour of copper is more appealing than
that of gold...

if i still had that inner-monologue people speak of
i wouldn't be writing this,
that inner-monologue fantasy i once was a proud owner
of: i.e. the closest "thing" to the idea of soul
was also filled with so many doubts...
i simply don't care what the supposed benefits
of it were... that whole no-inner-monologue ergo
one's an NPC (non-playable character)...
    i remember that that when my first psychotic episode
slammed me on a rampage i started to see DIFFERENTLY...
it was as if a veil was lifted from my eyes...
if i didn't write terrible poetry back then...
i most certainly wrote very little...
             the inner-monologue doubts... a plethora of them...
no? psychosis = the osmosis of soul...
   the body has remained... the devils said:
but these idle hands and this idle intellect have to stay...
we'll pass on the message with your soul
as it leaves your body...
call it whatever you want:
   res vanus or the silence of the "mind"...
that's how you become more of an active agent...
it might be called writing but i call it digging...
a tunnel toward some variaton of: marrying Hades
with Tartarus...
                after all... Venus is the daughter of titans...
and she's the only Titan among the Olympian gods:
such is her perfection... almost on par with
   the patron of philosophers that's Sacred Sophia:
who entertains the foolishness of elder men
without being able to tell them apart from boys...

IV. if i were to translate Amores II. XI

would i be willing to add a D in the translation sequence?
i don't think so
there's no need... i like comparing the two i already
made available...
i just wanted to stress how unbelievable Latin is...
compared to the modern tongue, for example English...
how compact it is!
- and course, i prefer the second translation...
     it... exfoliates!
                     this is the point for me where i truly appreciate
Ovid to be on par with Horace...

side by side walking through the zenith-nadir of
man...

   i'm finally come across a sequence of events that
make me unwilling to stop typing: perhaps if i get
drunk enough and stumble on my first typo
perhaps a series of typos would end my ambition...

do i think men in the west are living
in a land of libido-insomnia? i think they are...
whoever said that watching one type of pornogrphy
soon spirals out of control and men start
scouting for more extreme *******:
hello outlier A! hello outlier B!
where's outlier C? oh... he's coming...
at a time when women are supposed to be these
sexually liberated creatures while men
are either STAGS with harems or limp biscuit *****...
thank god i managed to catch the train
of having the ***** of walking into a newsagent
and buying a pornographic magazine to ******* to...
stashed about six in a folder behind
the radiator in the bathroom at 21B Beehive Lane,
Gants Hill...
                         mind you: i started prematurely...
8?
     i switch off with western ****** antics:
people are either having too much ***: ergo the kinks
or not enough of it...
outlier in the middle: when it's too hot
i leave the insects to do their lineage pride...
cooler temperatures: *** like rubbing sand-paper
on a ****** paint-job...

                         makeshift boney **** of the hand...
well: at least ******* makes me more interested in
the **** than **** ***...
but i did the opposite... i need to keep a sack-of-sanity
atop my head...
beside adoring the Katakana...
i very much adore Japanese tamed sexuality...
     グラビア アイドル (gurabia aidoru)...
back in the day when the English tabloid newspaper
the Sun had a page 3 girl...
back to basics... a show of *******...
    a show of cleavage... perhaps even the breast
like the eye... the sclera of the rounded breast...
the darkened skin at the iris and then the pupil
as the ******...
  floral patterns of the *******...
                  back to basics...
                           a photograph of a naked woman
and all the imagination at work: what wouldn't
i want to do with her?

well... if you begin pleasing yourself while concentrating
on the kiss between Venus and Cupid
in one of Bronzino's beauties of paint-strokes...
you're hardly going to go down a rabbit-hole
of "hide and hide": wihtout seeking it out...
people and thier kinks...
while a minority: dodo-project sexuality of
homosexuality is celebrated: garnerded unto the guise
of "pride": i can't stomach shame...
but hey: look at me! i'm about to parade my sexuality
like and ******* latex-clad gimp readied
for being given ***-favour-orders...

outlandish! god-forgiving god-fearing...
  hardly every god-loving...
           a settling in of a blue that's not the sky
but a melancholy... i'm finally willing to end this
"diatribe"... to start afresh... again and again...
like mixing: Dreams of a Samurai with
Hans Zimmer's spectres in the fog...

                      my ***: going back to figuring out
the premature adventures into ***...
one boy passing on the secrets of *******
to another while sharing a bath:
the cruel curiosity of the circumcision:
in a secular environment: without the kippah
or the niqab: the submission of the women...
i will not give up the "sheath" to my "sword"...
i will keep my teeth with my twirling tongue...
if ever an improvement on the aesthetics?
clipping the ears of Dobberman dogs...
banning clipping the clipping of their tails...
but still: the preserved atrocity of male circumcision...
i could agree...
once a woman is devoted to her man...
a circumcision like putting on a wedding ring...
noble swans... oh noble swans...

a melancholy that's sort of azure...
amass enough water and you will see blue...
amass "too little": freeze it...
a paleness somewhat grey...
but then the icebergs roaming that are
the Cistercians...
            all i need right now is for some lonely
dog to start barking into the night...
or the cackling "laughter" of a fox...
    
    but all those sexless lives...
            "lucky" me for taming my consumption down...
where would i be without it?
i didn't ask for a *******...
i wa offered it... i will never forget how she clamoured
for the opportunity...
she couldn't stomach being rejected twice...
she just had to clamour like a crab in a crab bucket...
even if she thought she thought she succeeded:
she was the spare wheel...
what i've learned... i prefer one-on-one interactions...
but i gave in...
   it would have never worked out:
not like it "works out" in pornographic flicks...
the sharing of saliva and other juices...
we're responsible adults...
unlike in the pornographic flicks...
          two women: one man...
the changing of condoms...
                           i had to think quick:
there's only one way i will not be undermined...
snuggling up to the one i really wanted
to spend an hour with...
                       kissing neck and cheek...
while she did a hand-job...
   the other just sat there sort of idle...
                          until i figured out... those *******
could be of some use...

- i couldn't pull off a Jesus look...
long hair and a beard is not my "thing"...
even with a sly undercut...
i chose the better option.... short hair, a beard, yes,
but a "fu manchu": an elongated love-spot...
competing with the length of the beard...
i really "don't understand" why i have no memory
of my chin and neck...
it's like there was never the idea of using
water as a mirror... perhaps poor Xerxes lashed
at the Aegean for hiding his reflection
when he had one of those Narcisstic moments
of anguish: he forgot how he looked like...
but then the sides of the moustasche also drooping:
elongated... that work much better than
a beard and long hair...
it's so unfashionable these days...
i don't get why men think beards and long hair
"work"....

then again i never figured out why Khadira
wanted to have unprotected ***...
  how she insisted that it was just plain o.k.
for me to ******* into her...
how i snapped and dived in into her pandamonium
of multiples springs of irritated ****...
all slobbering with oyster-tongue
and knose...
                               all that informed me...

companionship? what a rare commodity...
it's enough to have a mother to know
how a woman's company can quickly sour
the already sweet grapes...
one word: tell a man he's LAZY...
while he's just tired of being pushed and shoved...
if a mother can do that to a son?
what could a wife do?
                          and i'm come across curiosities of
men who waged wars with their mothers...
at the Tyson Fury boxing match...
i was trying to calm the **** down a guy
who was having a panic attack after being
"abandoned" by his mother...
who bought the tickets... and drinks...
i squeezed him hard... told him: but i'm here for free!
nay! i'm here and getting paid for it!
blah blah...
               i hate seeing panic attacks in men...
it makes me either feel like
more than a man or less of a man...
it makes me think of the men prior
with shell-shocks... or women exploiting
the challenges of p.t.s.d.

                                    i've seen so many people fake
a mental illness... i've spoken at length
to them... how easily open up to their own struggles...
while i'm left alone with whatever ones
i have...
                   maybe because my "mental health issues"
have morphed into philosophical caviats
implies that i'm immune to outright sharing
the details... and boring people to death...
so i listen...
        i listen...
                            in one ear out the other...

i remember days in high school when we would love
to change the subject, create a game:
SLAP-BALL... imitation of Tsar Peter III prior
to tennis... an imitation court... with a fence between us...
or just playing BLACKJACK...
cards... that was big... we understood that ignoring
women was best done with / by playing cards...
at one point: i remember it to this day...
Samuel Richards grabbed Ian Goodman's neck
and pinned him to the floor...
we tried to intervene...
i don't know whether it was about the actual
game of cards or whether it was about
Sam bailing out... he was about to move to France...
and ****** off from pur in-group...
started playing basketball with the black-boys...
forgot he was supposedly the "PUNK" in the school...
i remember skateboarding with him...
he actually stole his mother's credit card and bought
a skateboard for me...
but his ******* MOHICAN was ****...
it didn't entertain the entire length of his skull
meeting his spine...
but we did walk back from Romford
toward Ilford this one night...
underage drinking... singing Backstreet Boys songs...

ha ha...
         time is a museum of melancholy...
while space is a museum of furthering whatever is left
of leftover potential...

i'm so despondent about this life having to end...
today i cycled up to the traffic lights
on my ******... ******?! £125 viking road bike... say the word
****** one more time... what was i facing?
a solitary man in an Aston Martin...
behind him? some solitary guy in a Porsche...
right... "alphas"...
i'm on my bicycle... but these two guys
in those choicest of motor-examples?
that's the thing with "competing" in life rather than
sport...
     i like my bicycle... i love my bicycle...
i am yet to wash away the blood from my head
from the crash...
i don't have a broken leg: i just have an outgrowth of bone
on my shin where my bone should have cracked:
i love milk...

competing with these men... **** me...
i was thinking about the Porsche guy...
nice game... but it's not playing cards...
i taart myself up: compete...
what do i get? i get a Porsche...
     but then ahead of me there's this guy
in an Aston Martin: mate! i'm ******!
oh blue blue Hue... the Aston Martin looked like
the bomb that is already was...
the Porsche? the Porsche looked like
a ******* Ford Mondeo by comparison...
Civic Extra... if that's even a car...
i was sort of happy to by cycling...
i figured... well: i'm not using my legs...
to walk... i'm peddling...

ever heard the expression "push-bike"?
i heard that only recently... what a werid coupling
of words... a motorcycle is distinguished from
a a bicycle by the term: "push-bike"
this half-brain-dead coworker...
what the **** am i pushing?!
it's just as weird as calling it a peddling-bicycle, no?
eh?
but what am i pushing? a bicycle is a bicycle
a turtle is a turtle... i still have to figure out
what's being pushed...
what comes first? the donkey, the carrot, or the stick?!

mawn the lawn: sieve the sand...
mawn the lawn: sieve the sand...
keep nurturing the spacing between numbers
but also keep lost track of the alphebticaal
queue...
never the type to rehash a refurbishment
of SPAWN...

           i simply don't want this day-dream to end...
around me people cowering into sleep...
i'm left in limbo...
            between consetllations and the scythe
of the moon... dearest: moooooon...
i'm itching to break the silence with a howl...
but first: the thirst of a dog barking...
i hear a dog barking i'll start to howl!

aren't we simply becoming the same
tired people of old?
              more impetus...
more gravity! more fire! more tides!
more the quaking of the earth!
more whirlwinds! more! more!
one Pompeii is not enough!

                       almost one litre of whiskey
into the session and i'm sober-tense...
i'm starting to think that entertaining
hell is not a bad "gimmick"...
                  there's the imaginary hell-crowd
and there' some also doubly-imaginary
crowd of people that yet to be bound to imitation-migration
focus...
           next time you ask me:
i'd rather be eating ice: crunching on
ice than drinking water...
i want to burn my tongue...
licking ice...l i want to burn my tongue
licking ice: but first i want to be dipping
it in coridnader-cumin-chilli-turmeric mix-up
of spiders...

i want to first bruise my knees before
i lick them clean...
i want the strict juices of: not tomatoes?
red is red: ergo blood is blood...
vulture ****...
there's an open window:
there's an evaporating night too...

best refrain: 6 by 6s refrain on 9s...
since? there's plenty of 0s / oopses...
by this "flesh and blood"...
i heave this sand and timer
like: i was sadly woken up with
an inheritance of salt...
boiling blue bloods and boiling gravy...
a smile that reads: clenched teeth...
a smile so awkward that
it make^ a parrot think twice about
imitating human speech.

^a notable typo, i think i might require an editor
(insert a snigger); two alternatives:
1. it might make a parrot think twice,
2. a smile so awkward that it makes a parrot think twince...
all depending on the tense.
Emma Liang Apr 2011
he is
not the kind of guy you would imagine growing old with,
not because he wouldn't make a good father,
quite the contrary,
but because it's hard to wrap your mind around him
not
being
young

he smiles strangely sometimes, kind of an awkward perfect U shape, but it makes me laugh and sometimes I wonder if he does it on purpose
his freckles are like stars, and sometimes I wish I could trace them with a soft finger, just to see if Orion or the Little Dipper will appear in the folds of his cheeks when he laughs, or remain hidden in the creases in his eyes
and he'll say the strangest things, like he's got nothing to lose
he gets passionate about things I don't give a **** about
like calculus, permutations and ****, as if he could calculate Life

strap Life to a chair and torture out its confessions, brandishing a TI-Inspire
his eyes glow sometimes, and he doesn't believe in oxymorons or paradoxes
he counts cards at Blackjack, but he'll let me win because he knows how much of a sore loser I am, and he
gives the best hugs in the world

not because they're warm and make me feel like I'm flying
but because of how awkward and gangly his arms feel,
and how reluctant the embrace is, like he's holding something back
and its the promise and awkwardness and

realness

of the hug that
makes them so

great.
Cathyy  Feb 2016
Flashback
Cathyy Feb 2016
Flashback,
To that time we played blackjack
I was impressed by your ability to shuffle all the cards just like that,
&then; you showed me a magic trick with pistachio shells
Oh what a friendship it is when someone buys you peanuts and opens all the shells

Yeah confession;
You're in my sci fi screenplay
I think I wrote about you in the most innocent way
And theres a song that,
I currently have on replay...
And a smile that can't help but shine when I see your face
What a moment it is when you're sitting there on the bus and you just want to photograph it

Life's a chess game, and now its your move..
I'm standing on the front line,
I'm giving my horsey to you (haha)
Oh this life's a chess game,
One wrong move and I'll lose....
But here right now we're at a stalemate
All my pieces were going but the piece that remains, patiently waits
For you..
Oh with you I never want the game to end so soon

And I know that we can't fall in love
Cause we've got different ones for us
But what a friendship it is when none of that matters no more..
You're the chess opponent I've been waiting for,
You are.
Really like this one, its one of my best from this year in my opinion! Really personal references..
Judy Ponceby Apr 2014
blackjack
a cat in fact
travels far and wide.

he cries and cries
for years it seems
following the tides.

he wanders
near and wanders far
searching for his pride.

sets up shop
on our step
and in our hearts abide.

he stays a day
maybe two
then hits the road astride.

where he wanders
we know not
we just enjoy the ride.
To our Nomad Friend  Blackjack.  A superb specimen of catliness.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2022
that's the beauty of music: music will never lie to you... music can't lie to you... when Thundercat was supporting Red Hot Chilly Peppers i tried to think: please make this sound as vanguard as Miles Davis' ******* Brew... please please... nope... can't stomach this stuff... music can't lie to you... just like today... i was surrounded by people who genuinely enjoyed Ed Sheeran... me? i tried not to yawn... but i was... yawning with my mouth closed... i could only pick out two songs i really liked... SHIVERS and... before today: i wouldn't have guessed it... but Ed started explaining that his first success was more as a song-writer than a musician / entertainer... i would have never guessed that he wrote the song LOVE YOURSELF for Justin Bieber... maybe that's what was so weird... because i love the song... maybe that's why i didn't mind Justin Bieber singing it... because it was actually written by Ed... but that's it... two songs... music will never lie to you... music is the highest authenticity know to man... thank god i'm not a musician... but i was just standing there... indifferent... a fellow steward looked at me and tried to make me smile by putting his fingers into his cheeks and create a pristine imitation Joker... no... i'm not going to smile... so i stood there... buried my face in my folded hand as if to recreate an imitation of awe: pretending to smile with my eyes... music can't lie to you... it's a one man show... i'm more of a band guy... i like a lot more commotion on stage... the backwards and forwards between, say... Flea... Mr. Frusciante and Chuck... i love the idea of sharing a "burden"... music will never lie to you... that's why i'm not sitting down and trying to enjoy at least two hours of music i really like... KORTEZ... because i hate the idea of being indifferent to music...

sitting here at 2am, drinking the finest bourbon and
looking for the moon...
left the house at 9am and only got back home
after 1am:

i was so lucky getting back... caught the Metropolitan
line to Liverpool St and was sitting on
a train on platform 7 trying to understand my luck:

the 12:15am train to Southend Victoria...
    wow! it's stopping at Romford... usually these trains
only stop at Shenfield...
i usually have to slug it on a train that stops
on all the stops in between Liverpool St. and Romford:
Maryland, Forrest Gate, Manor Park,
Ilford, Seven Kings, Goodmayes... Chadwell Heath...
15 minutes later and i was eating a chicken wrap
and drinking a can of 7up... having to only wait
5 minutes for the 175 bus home...

now i need to relax after all the thrills of working
the Ed Sheeran gig...
      i need something completely different musically...
i don't regret choosing to do the London Stadium
shifts... with the Red Hot Chilly Peppers...
   hmm... Ed Sheeran live...
                  one man on a rotating stage in the middle
of the Wembley pitch...
    one man on stage...
                  you could say Pavarotti was also but a single
man on stage...

i don't know... oh sure: he was amazing...
   a sort of jack-in-a-box... but...
                        i don't think a single man can generate
the same sort of energy as a band...
it's a sort of yes and no answer... it's just so different
and it's so not so different...
                          
any diaspora of people around the world:
whether these be Somalis in England...
      Italians in England and America...
           the Hebrews pretty much everywhere...
i don't know how i managed to keep with
the cultural output from Poland...
           but there's a very decent alternative to someone
like Ed Sheeren: after all... he can be exported
to places like Poland... France...
     English universalism...
                       which is very real...
  
but? someone like KORTEZ? he couldn't be exported
out of Poland and become popular in England:
as much as there is an English universalism:
all other cultures are particular: there's a particularism
about them...
    i'm guessing of the language:
                        the Lingua Franca of the medieval
times Lingua Inglese of the modern times...

but songs by KORTEZ like: Z IMBIREM (with ginger)
   LUDZIE Z LODU (people from ice)...
BUMERANG (boomerang)...
HEJ WY (hey you)...
                              KOMINY (chimneys)...
                  
and all these songs live...

to be honest: the lyricism of the former is something for
teenager girls... maybe that's why i was sort of put off...
i need smart lyrics as i need good music:
but lyricism in English will hardly convey complexity
that a man could appreciate:
beside Peter Sinfield...

well... i might be living in Poland but i'm still
trying to keep up with the culture...
       because the politics doesn't interest me as much:
i know pretty much that there's an aspect of
a Japanese isolationism...
                     although: like the Mandarin Wall
of ideograms... the accurate phonetic-cutting
                          of words in ****** or the English
joke: too many consonants...

ha... szczerość... honestly...
                 Щero-
                       fair enough... i could almost create
a letter out of -ść since enough words end with these
two letters... like plenty begin with SZCZ (SHCH): Щ...
              
well... i'm not going to invest the equivalent Cyrillic:
impasse...

what made the shift a bit easier was having spent
most of it: up to 9pm talking and joking with a Somali...
women, life, drugs, work...
      work, drug, life, women...
ideas such as: i couldn't a Somali woman living
in England... that's why i married a traditional woman
in Somalia... she's living there with my two daughters...
Somali men who marry Somali women living
in the West: 5 years! 7! they're divorced...
because the women want to go out and party...
he's thinking about bringing her over...
       i think he's waiting for the 7 year itch to be
perfectly established...
******* Somali pirate... but i have to admit...
Somalis have the most infectious smiles...
the whole lot of them...
     a Muslim who used to drink and do drugs in
his youth and went off them after finding
his religion...
                again: even i'm tempted by the Shahadah...
but i'm a Qabbalistic mongrel of sorts...
when he was talking about Somalia being split
into three... hmm... that's interesting...
the English part, the French part and the Italian part...
post-colonial politics...
    but even he was saying things like:
but i hate the Somalis that collaborated...
    the Europeans came offered money and there
were some willing Somalis to sell their neighbours...

minerals... i allowed this conversation up to a point
before i revealed to him:
listen... i'm of a people that don't have a colonial past...
we didn't exist for well over 200 years...
we were carved up by the Russians, the Prussians
and the Austro-Hungarians...
        
i thought you were English?!
            yeah... i thought so too...
i'm neu-Englisch...
                        and when the Somali girls working in
the kiosk noticed me getting along with the Somali...
i managed to brag my way into getting a free
hot-dog...
   while the Somali... caged in the turnstiles
asked me to keep a look out for any supervisors while
he smoked a cigarette...  
    **** me... it's truly advantageous not being English
in London: but at the same time
having people think you are...

in the end we only had a few issues...
unlike a football event: when even vaping is forbidden
we were being kept being asked whether
people could leave the venue to smoke and be
readmitted... we kept tell them:
wink wink... nudge nudge...
   when enough people come... and the stewards
can't see you... ahem... ahem...
most people got the idea...

but some of the women didn't...
   no one checks the toilets... wink wink.... nudge nudge...
until i started talking to this:
she made it adamant that she was a law postgraduate...
good that i didn't tell her that i was a chemistry
postgraduate...
                 impress me: yawn...
we were disputing whether to be a law-breaker...
listen: i'm not telling you can smoke...
i'm just telling you that no one checks the toilets...

but this one scared me and Ishmael... the Somali...
she asked to be let out...
she was told no... but then i initiated the finger
on the lips as if to imply: shh... i'm going you in on a little
secret... she was genuinely offended
that i used this cue... DON'T HUSH ME!
i'm not hushing you...
        all ******* glassy-wild eyed...
defensive & neurotic...
              white... blonde... kept in a cage for the past
three years... i was surprised she wasn't
wearing a face mask...
                  
i don't want to break the law!
you want me to break the law?!
who do you work for?! the event or the stadium?!
oh ****... ladies and gentlemen! we have a sinker!

you're asking me to let you out to smoke:
i'm telling you i can but i can't let you back in...
but... i'm also telling you
that this is not a football event...
the rules are relaxed...
                     she gave me a proper fright...
i thought she was going to grass me and Ishmael up...
luckily she ****** off...

these two other bubbly girls approached us...
this was the first time i was told i looked ****
outside of a brothel...
we let them out... one "medical" grounds...
but we served them up a plan A (medical grounds
reasons, to have a smoke)
or plan B... crowd-build up... no one checks the toilets...

then this one guy with crowd anxiety...
agoraphobia+,
                       charged me with tears in his eyes...
Wembley policy is that not all disabilities are visible...
i had to let him out... he did return...
i have to explain to my supervisor that
the guy had psychological demons haunting him...
you can't just tell me that i can't let him back
in when he's obviously distressed...
thankfully that went down as a treat...

i'm starting to realise that people are dim when it
come to someone insinuating that: rules
can be broken... i know that a high-viz. jacket is no
symbol of the sort of authority associated with
a police uniform... but we were telling people:
it's the concert season... you're not football hooligans...
it's a music concert...
it's not a football match... there are no two opposing sides...
with that comes some leniency...
you want to enjoy it? or you want to make our
lives more difficult?!

wink wink: nudge nudge...
  
oh man... listening to KORTEZ right now...
what a welcome relief from the ordeal of being indifferent
to Ed Sheeran...
i have this co-worker who's dreading working
the London Stadium when Chelsea will play West Ham...
i was the same today...
being indifferent to Ed Sheeran being surrounded
by Ed Sheeran fans is sort of a ******...
i can't fake smiles... i rather hide my mouth in my hand
and look pensively lost in "admiration"
and pretend to smile with my eyes
than fake a smile...

      music will never lie to you...
                      i didn't hate it... but i didn't love it either...
there's nothing worse than apathy:
i've been told...
but then there's a play on words:
apathy breeds no pathologies...
   since? it's a pathology in itself... funny how that works...
it's almost 4am and i think...
thank god i'm not working tomorrow...
i'll get at painting the garden fence...
i'll vacuum the house... i'll go on a bicycle ride...
i'll stack up on *****...
    i'll make my father lunch... then i'll think about
making dinner...
    
hell... what a summer: what a summer without
a girlfriend...
Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Green Day...
Red Hot Chilli Peppers... Ed Sheeran...
    Walter Sickert...
oh right... ha ha... an hour into the event and this
guy walks up to me...
LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!
what's the problem?!
       i'm leaving! i'm leaving!
   why?!
              my wife is being a complete *****!
she's being an idiot!
i'm leaving... i'm going home...
   you do know that when you leave...
i can't... yes yes... I'M LEAVING!
   wow!              

thank god i didn't invest myself in the culture
of free ***... of hook-up culture...
thank god i went down the route: money on the table...
i can't imagine anything good being for free...
nothing good ever is...
   i would never invest myself in the hook up culture...
if it was ever going to be casual ***...
i'd need the sultry / shady avenues of nights
in a brothel...
         no...

oh... ****! i almost forgot!
while we were waiting for our shift to begin...
i spotted these four guys in the distance
playing cards...
i walked up and asked: so... what are you guys playing?!
blackjack... ooh...
can i join in?
sure thing bro...
        oh man... i almost cried... memories flooded in...
i remember sixth form... lunch breaks...
that's all we ever did... played blackjack...
reminiscent of Ernest Hemmingway's novella
Men without Women... men playing cards...
i forgot some of the basic rules
but i watched one round before joining in
and it was: yachts... wind and yachts...
and smooth sailing...
    i missed playing cards with guys so much...
the banter and the teasing...
the manly stuff of men... men without women...
******* utopia...
an eternity spent playing cards with guys...
women complicate matter...
they have this knack of isolating men
and turning men against men
because: in the end... it's women against women...
take women out of the equation
and when men come together...
they're playing cards and drinking beer together...

it's such a fun game...
much better than poker...
what are the rules? ha ha...
2s: pick up 2...
blackjacks: pick up 5...
red jacks neutralize...
kings reverse order of play
8 skip a go...
queens are slags...
aces change from either ***** to diamond...
and you can't finish on a power card...

i love this game! i was a teenager for a while
again!
oh man... i've written so many pointless details from today...
MUSIC DOESN'T LIE TO YOU... blah blah etc...
the highpoint was this ******* card-game!
maybe that's why i never became a gamer...
why i stopped on PS1... final fantasy VII,
metal gear solid...
         some beers, cards: ***** 'n' giggles...
parallel words...
    a man has... when it comes to his fellow men
and individually: with women...
playing cards or... going shoe-shopping with her?
playing cards... every single time...
even if it means not fathering a child
and not ******* on a regular basis;
   i like to keep my mind in order...

even the Somali said: you look young for a 36 year old...
even with the beard...
and we joked: you know why?
i don't have a woman... and that massive crescent
moon of a Somali smile conjured itself on his face...
yeah... we're relatable... laughter and the day
passed with a peace that might have made
angels jealous, if not the gods themselves;

**** me... even i sometimes find myself profound...
in a recent comment i wrote
about someone's concern for mortality
and enligthment:

deus in machina in perfect ratio to **** ex machina,
my frailty... against the infallibility
of trains or architecture...
the god inside the machinery...
compensated with the man outside of machinery...
and this backwards and forwards:
deus ex machina and **** in machina...
deus ex machina being the genius-ingenuity
of man... while **** ex machina being his...
stupendous dumbness when obliterated
by the artifacts of his fellow creature...
that's **** ex machina:
          the labourer is not the architect...
the nurse is not the heart surgeon...
              
               there's such a perfect harmony
to sharing toils... responsibilities...
just as long as the libido is managed and we
don't over-**** to create pointless middle-management
roles for people with little-****** complexes of
authority investment... we should be good...
but that's truly dependent on orientating ourselves
around what best way to fulfill our libido:
not careless *******...
    more people requires more jobs...
and that also demands scrutiny on a lack
of metallurgy in Europe...
                     etc.

             me and my new found Somali friend agreed:
neither of us could understand Western atheism...
i'm a Qabbalistic mongrel looking for a second schism
in Islam spearheaded by the Turks...
i'm not getting on my knees...
in a church... to give a ******* to a demigod...
after all... even Achilles could be equated on equal
footing... but he fought his way toward the zenith...
this pacifying of man with the suffering of but one
with shady dealings: arguments of "innocence"...
of course i'm inclined to the simplicity of Islam...
but also inclined to the complexity of Judaism...

but if i argue my case for blood in beef...
but if i argue my case for pork...
but if i argue my case for alcohol among these
two tribes...
blood in beef is healthy: iron...
pork? why be critical of god's creation?
you tend to sheep in deserts...
but when you're going to tame the boars...
you can eat everything from a pig...
alcohol? keeps you warm in cold climates...
but if i can have Somalis who drank and did drugs
on board... who found religion
after getting married and having children...

Christianity is a polytheism by this point:
due to its poly-schism...
i can't be a Christian... i toy with the idea
that i'm the reincarnation of Konrad von Wallenrode...
i can't defend what's already rotten...
mind you: i find the idea of reincarnation
repulsive... i.e. there's only a fixed number of souls /
individuals... that pass through zombie bodies...
that's... harsh... elitist...

thank god i can't go back to the gynocentric Christianity...
just read some Jung on the whole myth of
Jesus returning and ******* his mother
in the bridal chamber of the "uncircumcised"...
complications that don't require complications...
no... i wouldn't circumcise anyone...

best me: that last "leftover".
JL Feb 2012
Twisted up in thread
Cobweb train tracks
From the window
You waved back
Handkerchief
In your hand
Bye bye to the moonlight
I'll close your eyes
Good... Good.... Come on sleep
I've spent so many nights
Up wide and awake
In a lab coat
Lookin for some answers
But all the test tubes are broken
The white rats have run away
So come on sleep
Take me
Punch my ticket
On the goodnight express
Train tracks on the cobwebs
And you lean out the window
To wave and ******* kisses
*Goodnight!
Goodnight, darling!
Derek Wings  Nov 2014
BlackJack
Derek Wings Nov 2014
I need help
i'm stuck in a place with no time
there are no clocks on the wall
phones arnt allowed
and im appalled
cause i just put up my very last dollar
my rent is sitting on the table
Jack of spades
and a 6 of hearts
seriously is this the **** i get
as my life is picked apart
Why have i worked so hard
just to throw it all way on the flip of a card
yet i cling to this like this is the answer
this is whats going to save me
but im digging a grave
im buried in debt
the dealer has BlackJack
and i have nothing left
#gambling #addiction
Dreams of Sepia Jul 2015
She chases the white rabbit
in the afternoons

plays blackjack
with the doves of youth

her innocence
is colored Pink

her queer dreams
are made of silk

she is the Queen
of sunny afternoons

her heart
is like stained glass

through
which the light appears

and fades


*blackjack - is a card game played in American casinos
Megan Sherman Mar 2017
I'm sat here playing cosmic blackjack
Devil thought I didn't have the knack
But I've just dealt a lucky flush
And the vindication through me rush
Devil's wits do lack

He plays the game and plays it well
He cut his teeth in the circles of hell
He lies because the truth doesn't sell
He does things you never want to tell

His evil music has over earth knelled
And spirits he have hurt and felled
But bards can play the beautiful game
And set all hearts ablaze, aflame
When the score is settled and told

— The End —