the proust edition of la recherche i had, which i gave away to a charity shop; if you could stitch or strap the edition to my hands clenched into a fist (it was, after all a cheap 2 vol. edition), i could have knocked you out. no, i didn't read it, which is why many people never bother to use the dictionary, because it's always a one volume edition.

it became so haunting to have sang with david
with the lyre the lyrics:

             i'm happy, hope you're happy too...
             ashes to ashes, funk to funky
             we know major tom's a *****
             strung out in heaven's high
             hitting an all time low

it was so eerie i felt goose bump hoofs on my
cheeks adding for extra five o'clock shadow
that i never knew i had.

that's the thing about having european editors,
the ****** day, the whole theatrical approach,
it's just a ****** book of poetry,
it's not exactly an atom bomb,
but they sent the draft which i'm hoping to add
to with my *hoc erat in votis to armenia,
Armenia, yes, once an incorporation of
the soviet rather than tsar's empire:
so jui-seph shtalin involved himself with the russians
from georgia, and my first idea sparklers will
come from armenia - good place to ask napoleon
to escape elba, i say, ol' chap.

and after the teenage girl hype period of an artist,
ziggy, you know what i'm talking about,
you get a process where an artist matures,
becomes prone to criticism, has no hype factor,
has no real monetary appeal to the less
hyped-up juice-of-genitalia army,
has to become a sensible economist -
there! catch him! that's where an artist
translates to other mediums his actual worth,
i feel privileged to have lived at a time
when david bowie released his heathen album,
one critic pointed that it was his best album
since the 1980 release of scary monsters,
so then i bought scary monsters...
i worked backwards...
i didn't feed the ziggy & space spiders from mars
gimmick / egoism, or even the rebel, rebel choir
of cult followers, and you know what?

              i'm happy, hope you're happy too...

it worked, now i can listen to the music like a distraction
tool, refrigerator buzz, ambiance, the freelance
artistry of it all, less care for kids, more care for
the insolent kids that aged and donned their employment
qualifications as 'art critics.'

but what i listen to isn't exactly what i write with,
it would plagiarise the thought process
so much that it would destroy it - the moment's gone,
the ingrained concept of time has allowed
for the same space of the origin of the narrative
to look different, even though nothing was moved.

so with this anglo renaissance circa 1950s -
1990s (nietzsche was critical of the reformation
when martin luther attacked the renaissance creativity,
no great composer in the counter-reformation,
just ignatius layola and the jesuits),
with the beat generation poets (preceding them,
the spirit of influence that was ezra pound
and no other i dare to admit, a seal-off point,
built a hydroelectric dam in nevada f. d. r. did)
you then had the explosion, and i mean it,
the EXPLOSION! 1960s psychedelia,
1970s ******* infused black sabbath etc.,
depressive 1980s with depeche mode iconoclasm
and the cure's slit your lips if not wrists,
the great digging of ***** duran duran,
scandinavian love hopes of a-ha, etc.,
then the shift back to the geographic place of origin,
seattle, grunge, rekindling of thinking man's
rock amiss the ******* fuel of the decade
with prog rock bands, i.e. tool;
and then of course the brit pop decade
(oasis, blur, the stone roses, the la's among many,
bands that still invoked a sing-along even
in such odd places like taizé in burgundy
for the wonderwall chorus)
and then... the death of it all...
artists getting rich, flamboyant, eccentric,
and the people seeing how they were "duped"
deciding enough was enough...
came napster, came pirate - ye har me mateys! -
and the death of the anglo renaissance
with kareoke culture - indeed if
the germans never conquered england,
and that book man in the high castle
by philip k. **** isn't true...
why did we allow the japanese to conquer
our culture? huh?!

p.s. when you realise all those 5.5K reads,
all those so called morale boosters... on websites
such as these, don't have a £ / $ in front of them;
and as i learned, after being reported to a website
similar to this accused of being a troll
for simply asking the long-ago standard
a.s.l. (age, ***, location) but only sticking to location,
losing some of the haul i'd liked to keep,
i realised i can lose that, no problem,
i rather lose that than lose what i have inside of me.

Five four three two one,
Fire spews,
Flames violently shoot out of the golden boosters,
Cold ice breaking off the shell,
The white noise fills the air,
The ground shakes with panic,
And liftoff,
The manmade seraph lifts into the sky,
The Golden Flame forcing it further up,
We watch not with excited eyes,
But with sad hearts and long faces,
We know,
We know today is the last day this bird will fly,
We have slain an angel,
We have slain American Patriotism,
We have slain ourselves,
The Space Shuttle may just have been a chemical reaction lifting mass into the sky,
But it let us explore,
It let us discover space,
The bitter, beautiful darkness that surrounds and blankets the planet,
And now we have told her she must die,
Regressive politics turning into a malignancy against mankind,
Killing the Human spirit,
Spreading,
Cancerous tumors mark landforms on the map,
Goodbye,
My Dear Space Shuttle,
My technological love,
You always inspired me,
It's my turn now.

PLAY it across the table.
What if we steal this city blind?
If they want any thing let 'em nail it down.
  
Harness bulls, *****, front office men,
And the high goats up on the bench,
Ain't they all in cahoots?
Ain't it fifty-fifty all down the line,
Petemen, dips, boosters, stick-ups and guns-what's to hinder?
  
  Go fifty-fifty.
If they nail you call in a mouthpiece.
Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it.
  Feed 'em ...
  
Nothin' ever sticks to my fingers, nah, nah, nothin' like that,
But there ain't no law we got to wear mittens-huh-is there?
Mittens, that's a good one-mittens!
There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens.

Dearest Victoria ,

you enquired so, we have:

Listing the problems from her front teeth to the back molars, Winston sat with her back to the mirror

She had bad eyesight so couldn’t really see the contours of her face but was comforted by the fact that there was another person in the room ,

Down stairs Q was making cakes ,

the outfit she wore had enough diamonds to drown a drag queen , some ended up in the cake , along with the usual ingredients : ***** , fluff from under the stairs , a pinch of cremation dust from her Pa’s last fake funeral , the end of a shoelace that had begun to fray and very good quality butter Hard to find in these parts, Most the butter was mixed in with genetically modified jaguar pelt,

modified to grow their pelt as butter, the farmers would attach buckets to their bodies and collect as they malted

This was the latest trend, Q despised it , she made cakes for the café up the road , a dingy old shack with only four stools and one type of coffee, sludge

Out in the garden Sarah Whitely grew her carrots, alongside her parsnips and next to that stood an oak tree who rained down her wisdom onto the veg ,

this made sure that everyone in the house was stocked up with their daily doses of Wisdom ,

Otherwise they were sure to get sick without it ,

I believe in your world , you’d call it something a bit like vitamins ,

Only as one ate the carrots their eyesight into other universes would develop

And the parsnips helped them with their imagination,

I like eating mine with thai tea caramel sauce, shipped in from the faraway land of JAUL , there I hear they don’t need to eat anything but pastries and pizza to keep up their health , they live in amongst wise trees with wise people and wise mountains , thus their capacity for wise is already overflowing, they keep it in jars under the stairs and gift their visitors with at least 3 jars before they depart ,

From across the valley I can see the Snarls house, they are friendly enough and pretty decent fellows but quite honestly they must learn to be a little more understanding and a little less demanding ,

they keep on borrowing all of our rolling pins and never give any back , and the ones they do give back are the ones I don’t really mind them having , it’s that silver one with the flecks of gold dust I really want to use, the gold flakes onto the pastry , that

my dear friend, is the secret to a good quiche, gold dust

The market is 19 kl away , john the Baptist is often the first up , so he goes out there on the solar bike ,

his name isn’t really john the Baptist but ever since he had that motorbike accident he , firstly , switched to solar bikes , and secondly decided that he wouldn’t live any more of his precious life being called Barry McWetsulf ,

anyway, so John does all the shopping but seems to almost always forget the washing powder that doesn’t foam , ergh , the foaming ones contain maggot eggs that burrow into your clothes and before you know it , the foam is all maggots and you’ve got to buy a new cloak ,

that’s a pain you know ,

they aren’t easy to come by anymore Since the hobbits passed through and bought all of he stockpiles up ,

no one thought to make any more

We heard they were dead

(sigh)

supply and demand eh?

Who am i? Ah I forgot, I am the local fortune teller ( that’s what is written on my business card ) but I really I trained in mechanics and have a knack for fixing jumbo jets , sadly the last one I fixed did crash into the Indian Ocean ,

killing all passengers but the dog survived, turns out I had left the last piece of the engine at home, I thought we just didn’t need it anymore

but ya live and ya learn old chap!

So dear, you didn’t put a return address on your letter asking who I was and where I live , so I wrote you one anyway , we do have signal boosters here , maybe I’ll catch you on the airwaves?

Your Friend , Trustee , Peaceful Neighbour , World dweller , Life consumer , time creator , music maker , nebula fornicator

HaHa

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Ozymandias

I.
O wait for us, Colossus

as we wait - and throw you
to earth: from heaven’s gates judge you
unworthy - to hades’ lands assign,
where your iron limbs make mincemeat out
of anguished homes - by tyrants
you were thrown but floated aimless past

the drifting realms where once lay hell,
and fired you your rocket boosters - apollo’s gift

blinding still your eyes -

II.
next, awake: the visage of the Child
in your face - languishing, affronted:
two vast and trunkless legs of iron glare, only to grow
rigid still - slumping at His feet: with heart-engine smoking,

eyes hollowed-black,
lying in slumber with giant's knees bent,
in grasslands rest and where hearkens the plain - He cries out:
’tis you!

though dwarf, He is - he kneads your iron
by grass, and your wounded legs the earth
now christens, snd blesses still your sleep.

III.
He moves forth with grass blades and twigs,
crown you a nest; and bear stones unrolled to where

your feet first kisses ground.

-2.17.16

I like when you lean on MY shoulder
Not always the supporter, I enjoy supporting you too
You can cry around me
It's okay to be scared, vulnerable
These shoulders are not just ball-and-socket joints of attachment
They act as tear collectors, and confidence boosters
They're always here, unless for some reason I lose them
But until then, know they are at your disposal
Here whenever need be

Right here, right now?  The kitchen?  On the table!?
Why not? The curtain's drawn, the dishes done...
That's not the point - we might be seen: the cats!

A smiling silence marks the code for 'Yes'!

They haven't any cats.


With shaking hands the breakfast things are cleared.
Before the final tetris slot of dish to stack
Is final launch commit: they've cleared the tower
The boosters lit,  the fuel is rushing to the fires
Already burning
Bloom in crimson waves around them both.  

- Can we agree on one thing first my Friend?

This is

The heaviest, lightest thing that you can do.  
To live these silvery liquid chains of breath
And blood.
And sky and air and

Falls calling to each other and winging to the heights...

And she says

Look at me.

Brandy *** Pig, Slough Companion you'll make
To prize your Aura for his Demands cope
Though Breathe you not; Life does succumb your Shape
Still ignite his Prayers for some Soft Hope
With such Stale Breath his Mind condones still
His Method-of-Tribbles well he can bundle
Such Pampered Master does rub your fur until
The Silver-Saned Eye calls for his Handle
And like his Child the Monkey witnessed made
Hung by his Closet for his Devotions barred
To lift your snout and wiggle his Escapade
Realise his Youth just Subscribed too Hard.
Perhaps your Counsel, plaster Fines therein
Need no Forced Receipts; Or Boosters wherein.

"DONALL DEMPSEY INDEED!"

'LLANOD YESPMED?"
he squinted at my driver's licence.

"It's pronounced CLANOD!"
I said with extreme exasperation.

"Y'are not from these here parts
. . .are ya fella?"
he drawled dryly

squinting closer firstly at me then
back again to my !D.

"I'm of Welsh/Turkish extraction
but I was born on Venus!"

I explained as if to
a little kid.

"Ha ha...haha!" he snorted
a tiny trickle of snot

yo-yoing up and down
his hairy left nostril.

"Ha ha...if you were to
spell yer name backwards
it would spell:

Donall Dempsey!"

I was not amused.

"Ya know...that crazy hairy
Irish earthling poet dude!"

"I'm not him!"
I fumed.

"Alright...alright...keep yer
antenas on...geeeez!"

He handed me back
my Id ID.

Tipped his hat.
Wiped his nose across his sleeve.

"Welcome to Mars.
You drive carefully now!"

I stepped on the rocket boosters.

Left him eating my stardust.

"****** customs!"
I yelled to myself.

"Huh...Donall Dempsey
...indeed!"

You strip away the trimmings and then trim off all the fat and at fifty years of age when you think you look 'all that' you're off to buy that sports car and the wig to hide your bald patch,
catch the drift?
tuck your stomach in, get botox or a face lift, you're looking saggy but you'll get there and the girl you winked at works there.

I wanted to write lots more but he shot me full of secrecy for secreting what is his story in the backyard of a pharmacy so I swallowed down some linctus from a bottle marked as dangerous,
(I do stupid things like that)

Twenty four miles further down the range,
rocket boosters aren't they strange?
but not as strange as that man in the sports car who
took the botox thing a little too far.

I disengage from time to time to feel the words in what the rhyme is and have never had the ***** to have a bald patch,
'Catch 22'.