I was brought into this house
Ordered from the local furniture shop
Made to order according to specifications
I am a wingback,
Upholstered in full-grain leather  
True to my rich heritage
I was placed in the library
Amongst the illustrious works of famous writers
Half- a - century have passed, providing support
To the backbone of the family
Although tired, he finds solace in my cozy embrace
I give him my wings to fly into the world of literature
Cervantes, Bunyan, Bacon, Goehte, Dostoevsky, Chekov, Tolstoy
Some of the names from the illustrious collection
Not all were privileged to have a seat here
He was transported to each era, savoring the rich legacy
Of literature down the centuries
I was privy to the mind-boggling debates
Which he conducted with himself
Trying to reason each work of literature
A mere wingback rose to be a companion
Providing sturdy support on the mahogany legs
One fine day the reading session ended in deep slumber
Five decades of bonding and companionship came to an end
Now, I stand here, forlorn, at the corner of the library
Reminiscing the reading sessions, and siesta
The wingback does not have the wings to fly away from this bond




© Amitav (Radiance)

.oh ****! now i remember, now i remember that other school of English thought... pragmatism! everything is so rational these days, no wonder that so many mental illness diagnoses exist... apparently every deviance of, "success" is, "magically" worthy of psychiatric scrutiny... but then you get psychopaths in the upper eschallance of society... and they're immune to psychiatric scrutiny... so much for pragmatism... whatever that means these days... what?! e-scha-llan-ce... usher-lance?! oh right, ****, i was going for an adjective... echelon... my adjective? feeling up to the level / rank within an organization, and subsequently, perfecting stated rank with robust, pompousness and erudition, matching up to a pedantic exercise within the confines of either, grammar, or, diction; my bad. see... i don't get it... i could somehow couple up the ancient Greek concept of the Stoic school, and the Epicurean school (of thought)... it became crystal clear... but... but when it comes to the English school of thought? i can't make the logical-leap of a worded multiplication concerning the schools of: egalitarianism, and... pragmatism... maybe i'm just *******... but i... i sometimes can't come at a worded equals sign, or at least: a mutually inclusive / mutually exclusive sharing processor of looking at both attempts to revise 1 + 1 = 2... then again, i'm not bothered... English liberalism doesn't bother me... the English were never libertarian in letting go... who are the English? they have their equivalence among the Prussians... but, yes... i was looking for this noun, this last remaining school of thought from the Anglophone world... i was thinking... what goes well with the cognitive spaghetti that exfoliates egalitarianism? ****... what else? pragmatism! so help me god, i can't concede making this dualism of ideas, perhaps contradictory, perhaps not, as i did with classical thinking... stoicism and Epicurean school i can justify... but the English, somehow complimenting within the realm of pragmatism, and egalitarianism?! good luck, i can't do it.

currently i only identify two schools
of thought in English...
i might change my opinion
in the future...

how, just how petrified people
are of exploring dialectics,
the fear stemming out
from... having opinions that
do not deserve questioning,
such blatant solipsism...

but i do identify two schools
of thought from the English
speaking world...
o.k. three... ****...
four...

egalitarianism...
egalitarian idealism...
unitarism...
utopian-ism...        

****... four, five...
how many in total?

scholasticism, in general...

  there's one more...
i'm sure there's one more...
it's related to egalitarianism...

what's the word i'm looking
for?
a morphed liberalism
of: one freedom can eventually
over-compensate
another statement of freedom
and deride the former liberty
with a... ore ******-up
liberty...

but there was another mode of thinking,
i'm sure of it...

you know that people
are afraid of experiencing dialectics,
when they have to phrase
their opinions:
but these are my personal
opinions...
   yep... stated in a public sphere...
why is it that i don't
make videos?
      your freedom of speech
is one thing...
mine? constricted to the comment
section...
   this? an extension of thought,
since i'm bashing a blank piece
of "paper"...

what was the other root of the English
school of thought?!
no... it wasn't universalism...
England, given the stated terms...
is a covert communist state...
a subdued communist state...
a dubiousness from the empirically
tested experiment...
where did Marx and Engels
concentrate their observational
capacities if not in England?
weird...

  communism originated in England
under, said, sociological observations,
was tested in Mongolia...
and then returned via Russia to
Eastern Europe...

*****... gets to my head...
it might come to be two days later,
but i'm sure i wanted
to work with another school of thought
from the English demand
for the egalitarian take on things...

looking at the English,
i see a people burdened by a desire
to make "things"... fair...
          i see people teasing Utopia...
a people who haven't experienced
a momentary transition period
of a quasi-Utopia of communism....
within the countries that
received the Bolshevik mantra
and not the Marshall Plan payout...
even Sweden (neutral, source of inspiration
for the Nazis) and Switzerland
received Marshall Plan funds...

       but the English...
              what an oddity...
oh i don't imply a demeaning
interpretation...
       but the English are teasing
a revival of socialism...
you know how many archetypical
human emotions socialism curbs?
you can't do it unless
subjected to foreign rule...
given the current Brexit agreements:
now's your chance...

but socialism really did originate
in this fine, fine land...
Marx didn't look alongside
Engels outside of England...
they looked at Liverpool...
and children being employed...
German children had Krampus...
English children had
work in the factories...

this probably is an over-simplification
of history, but all the details
are there...
personally?
i find English existentialism
(if there is such a "thing")
over-powered by Darwinism's
over-simplifications...
Darwinism, having killed modern
or pre-modern history,
having to expand beyond
our known, and kept history...

a big bang theory i can deal
with...
i can congest it into a subscript
of words, via a conceptualization
of atoms...
and bigger atoms,
suns... protons, neutrons,
planets...
and electrons...
lost in the realm of sub-atomic
particles and antimatter...

but when i go back to Poland?
you know what i don't hear much of?
overly simplified existential
explanations pivoting on
nothing, but Darwinism...
in England it's all Darwinism,
and not much more...
i guess when Einstein disproved
Newton,
the only thing motivating
English culture boiled down
to focusing and pivoting on Darwin...

outside of England?
you know how important Darwin
is?
          in Poland... Mickiewicz...
a poet...
                         Copernicus...
            a astronomer...
            and in Russia?
Dostoyevsky...
          Tolstoy...
                     Mendeleev,
Tchaikovsky,
Rasputin,
                      Prokofiev­,
Bulgakov...
        Kandinsky...
               Anna Andreyevna...
Chekov...
                      how much is
Michael Faraday worth these
days in England,
if you're going to celebrate
only the scientists
and shove every artist
into the shadow of Shakespeare?!

i really shouldn't drink
*****...
                       i go crazy crude,
mad and... it's *****!
       you can't mellow out like
you could mellow out with
ms. amber, of the Scottish highlands!

ICH RUF ZU DIR. . .
( for Mimi )

1.

brushes her hair in the mirror
she stares Death full in the face
the heart attack catching her off guard

11.

Dusk walks off
into the distance
Night speaks slowly….quietly

111.

Green shadows
lilac shadows
never just
black

1V.

gooseberries…geraniums…sherbet
those things of childhood
she both liked & didn’t

V.

I only half listen to them, smug in their snug, poets scoring points off each other over the odd pint or two or more. . .

“Ahhh now Jaysus...your oyster always gives me the collywobbles. Every time I encounter an oyster I think of Chekov’s corpse and sure the appetite goes off of me!”

“Is that right?”

“That’ right so it is!”

“Sure when poor Chekov became a corpse...he was kept on ice with the oysters and shipped to Moscow. So it’s always Chekov’s auld face I see( ya see )when I come face to face with an oyster. I think of him being extracted from his shell and slipping slowly down Death’s throat.

“Ahhh Jaysus...Jaysus sure isn’t Death a terrible man altogether for the poets and such like. But come here to me when I’m talking to ya...have ya ever heard tell of a fella called.. if memory serves me well. . .Qui ****-Haung-ti?”

“Qui ****-Haung-ti? Eh, let’s see now...ahh...no...now…I don’t believe I have had that pleasure? Who he? For God’s sake!

“ Sure wasn’t yer man only the first supreme ruler of China!”

“He wasn’t..!”

“He was...I declare to God!”

“And sure for 9 months, 9 months now I tell ya, after his death he continued to reign seated upon his throne...surrounded by fish!”

“Well, that’s as posthumous as ya can get! But, why...the fish?”

“To disguise the smell...ya ejit!”

“And that’s why I can’t stand either sight or sound of our scaly friends.  It gives me the creep I tell ya!”

“Fair enough!”

“Will ya have another?”

“Ahhh sure, I will so!”

V1.

bitter gooseberries

V11.

I pray to my granny’s apron full of stars and flowers…only a rag now for shining shoes; to my uncle’s auld hat that that sat for years and years on the brown dresser like a dried up soul.
To my other uncle’s battered boots still caked with mud from summer’s long long ago which now houses a kitten that can’t get out mewing pitifully its plight:

V111.

the gooseberry’s bitterness

Solaris...was it
floating in space
back to Bach...ich ruf zu dir...

1X.

she holds the gooseberry
between finger and thumb
her eyes devouring it

X.

the sun shone through it
a prism of living light

snow is falling
in the room

from which she first
saw snow
falling

she stands outside
falling through time

X1.

she listens to the wheat
the wheat listens to her listening
the wind moves them both

X11.

in the story of her
childhood there are
always gooseberries

X111.

the words dress themselves up
walk around in stories
showing off

X1V.

she prays to the green light
of the gooseberry that is
the God of living things

XV.
the mirror holds her reflection
even when she’s gone
Death hums its little tune

XV1.

“They’re better fed than read...”
as my grandmother said
about anyone other than our selves

XV11.

he thought the good idea...was his
she thought the good idea...was hers

XV111.

he said he will( but he won’t )
she said she won’t( but she will )

X1X.

the mirror can’t find her
anywhere
she’s fallen off the edge of a flat world

*

The title emerges from Bach's BWV 177 - "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ"

Cantata for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,
Ich bitt, erhör mein Klagen,
Verleih mir Gnad zu dieser Frist,
Laß mich doch nicht verzagen;

I call to You, Lord Jesus Christ,
I beg You, hear my cries,
grant me mercy at this time,
do not let me despair;

The soundtrack of SOLARIS features Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale prelude for *****, Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639, played by Leonid Roizman, and an electronic score by Eduard Artemyev. The prelude is the film's central musical theme.

Tarkovsky initially wanted the film to be devoid of music and asked composer Artemyev to orchestrate ambient sounds as a musical score. The latter proposed subtly introducing orchestral music. In counterpoint to classical music as Earth's theme is fluid electronic music as the theme for the planet Solaris.

The character of Hari has her own subtheme, a cantus firmus based upon J. S. Bach's music featuring Artemyev's composition atop it; it is heard at Hari's death and at story's end.

The memory of the movie...of the two drunks in the pub....of the music...her childhood memories of gooseberries all hail the prelude to her...death.... memories lie shattered and scattered like the hand mirror fallen from her hand...reflecting all and nothing.

A sequence poem that attempts to mimic the strands of the choral movements sustained by a single voice a la Mr. Bach.

Whatever is in the head when Mr. Death comes calling.

If a flower
appears
in the first act. The rule is
someone must use it
before
the whorls curtain off.

In the second act,
Lady Calyx
holds the flower
toward you
“Don’t come
any closer.”
Before looking
into the stamen,

bang.

The flower goes off.

ICH RUF ZU DIR. . .
( for Mimi )

1.

brushes her hair in the mirror
she stares Death full in the face
the heart attack catching her off guard

11.

Dusk walks off
into the distance
Night speaks slowly….quietly

111.

Green shadows
lilac shadows
never just
black

1V.

gooseberries…geraniums…sherbet
those things of childhood
she both liked & didn’t

V.

I only half listen to them, smug in their snug, poets scoring points off each other over the odd pint or two or more. . .

“Ahhh now Jaysus...your oyster always gives me the collywobbles. Every time I encounter an oyster I think of Chekov’s corpse and sure the appetite goes off of me!”

“Is that right?”

“That’ right so it is!”

“Sure when poor Chekov became a corpse...he was kept on ice with the oysters and shipped to Moscow. So it’s always Chekov’s auld face I see( ya see )when I come face to face with an oyster. I think of him being extracted from his shell and slipping slowly down Death’s throat.

“Ahhh Jaysus...Jaysus sure isn’t Death a terrible man altogether for the poets and such like. But come here to me when I’m talking to ya...have ya ever heard tell of a fella called.. if memory serves me well. . .Qui ****-Haung-ti?”

“Qui ****-Haung-ti? Eh, let’s see now...ahh...no...now…I don’t believe I have had that pleasure? Who he? For God’s sake!

“ Sure wasn’t yer man only the first supreme ruler of China!”

“He wasn’t..!”

“He was...I declare to God!”

“And sure for 9 months, 9 months now I tell ya, after his death he continued to reign seated upon his throne...surrounded by fish!”

“Well, that’s as posthumous as ya can get! But, why...the fish?”

“To disguise the smell...ya ejit!”

“And that’s why I can’t stand either sight or sound of our scaly friends.  It gives me the creep I tell ya!”

“Fair enough!”

“Will ya have another?”

“Ahhh sure, I will so!”

V1.

bitter gooseberries

V11.

I pray to my granny’s apron full of stars and flowers…only a rag now for shining shoes; to my uncle’s auld hat that that sat for years and years on the brown dresser like a dried up soul.
To my other uncle’s battered boots still caked with mud from summer’s long long ago which now houses a kitten that can’t get out mewing pitifully its plight:

V111.

the gooseberry’s bitterness

Solaris...was it
floating in space
back to Bach...ich ruf zu dir...

1X.

she holds the gooseberry
between finger and thumb
her eyes devouring it

X.

the sun shone through it
a prism of living light

snow is falling
in the room

from which she first
saw snow
falling

she stands outside
falling through time

X1.

she listens to the wheat
the wheat listens to her listening
the wind moves them both

X11.

in the story of her
childhood there are
always gooseberries

X111.

the words dress themselves up
walk around in stories
showing off

X1V.

she prays to the green light
of the gooseberry that is
the God of living things

XV.
the mirror holds her reflection
even when she’s gone
Death hums its little tune

XV1.

“They’re better fed than read...”
as my grandmother said
about anyone other than our selves

XV11.

he thought the good idea...was his
she thought the good idea...was hers

XV111.

he said he will( but he won’t )
she said she won’t( but she will )

X1X.

the mirror can’t find her
anywhere
she’s fallen off the edge of a flat world

A starship is in orbit, around an unknown planet.
Science officer Mr Spock, is just about to scan it.
Lieutenant Uhura's on the bridge, she's on communications.
Unscrambling the garbled messages, from different alien nations.

At the weapons station, Pavel Chekov's a good aim.
Birds of Prey and battle ships, torpedoes locked on again.
Helmsman Hikaru Sulu, he will take evasive action.
Avoiding fleets of enemy ships, with his fast reaction.

Bio beds are operational, report to the sick bay.
Doctor McCoy's ready to heal, with his hypospray.
Christine chapel will assist, she is the ships top nurse.
Helping with the medi scan, if anything gets worse.

Way down in engineering, you will find Montgomery Scott.
Tending to his engines, he's giving it all he's got.
The captains personal Yeoman, will always lend a hand.
She's versatile and beautiful, and known as Janice Rand.

A planets cultural Interference, this directive is our prime.
Is Kevin Reilly going to sing, "Kathleen" one more time.
This is Starfleet's finest crew, it comes as no surprise.
Captain James T Kirk's in command of the Enterprise.

Tricorders at the ready, step of the turbo lift.
The Galileo Seven needs Dilithium, the shuttle's set adrift.
Let's look in the engine room, there's an Enemy Within.
Transporters are malfunctioning, creating an evil twin.

The Changeling Nomad got destroyed, a classic computer error.
They matched the Romulans ship exact, in Balance Of Terror.
Tomorrow is Yesterday, with a sling shot around the sun.
Phantom bullets will not ****, The Spectre of the Gun.

A shape shifting monster is aboard, a Man Trap to revolt.
Just give it what it desires, a large amount of salt.
Young men like Mr Evans, shouldn't be all that complex.
He can **** with just a look, that's why he's Charlie X.

Wasn't it the Deadly Years, when the crew got old.
Jack the ripper then returned, in Wolf In The Fold.
Pon Far fighting to the death, this was a Time Amok.
Believing captain Kirk was dead, and killed by Mr Spock.

McCoy had to heal the creature, before they could Embark.
The Horter was protecting her young, in The Devil in the Dark.
Vampire clouds smell sickly sweet, It was a valuable lesson.
Firing sooner makes no difference, cos it was a pure Obsession.

Kirk used the Corbomite Manoeuvre, Balok was just a boy.
Captain Garf took over the asylum, in Whom Gods Destroy.
A parent's death, no remorse, And The Children Shall now Lead.
Kahn's a genetically engineered superman, found frozen in Space Seed.

They had Trouble with Tribbles, too fast in reproduction.
Light In Operation Annihilate, caused the parasites destruction.
Caught in the Tholian Web, lost in between dimensions.
Mudd's Women had an agenda, and their own hidden intentions.

An Arena was selected, so Kirk could fight the Gorn.
It's guaranteed when Kirk fights, his shirt is always torn.
On a Journey to Babel, Sarek hadn't seen his son for years.
Him and Spock are logical, and both have pointed ears.

What are Little Girls Made Of, was replaced by robotic law.
Three Witches sent a warning, to beware of the Catspaw.
You will be accelerated, within the Wink Of An Eye.
Doctor McCoy will say " he's dead Jim" if anyone should Die.

United planets quest for piece, the federations ultimate desire.
The Klingon war, a warriors way, to create their own empire.
Phasers charged and set to stun, grab your communicators.
Save the ship, protect the crew from all war instigators.

The final frontier is out there, turn over treks first page.
Captain Pike was in command, and captured in The Cage.
Number one was female, but she didn't take the glory.
Pike relived The Menagerie, but it's still the same first story.

We've scanned for alien life forms, and stepped through the Guardians door.
We have been to Vulcan, and Where No Man One Has Gone Before.
So live long and prosper, the captain is on deck.
Beam up the landing party, to continue our star trek.

I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.

And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I will."
So book by book they plead and sigh;
I pick and dip and scan;
Then put them back, distrest that I
Am such a busy man.

Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,
my Gibbon and Defoe;
To savour Swift I'll never learn,
Montaigne I may not know.
On Bacon I will never sup,
For Shakespeare I've no time;
Because I'm busy making up
These jingly bits of rhyme.

Chekov is caviare to me,
While Stendhal makes me snore;
Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,
And Balzac is a bore.
I have their books, I love their names,
And yet alas! they head,
With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,
My Roster of Unread.

I think it would be very well
If I commit a crime,
And get put in a prison cell
And not allowed to rhyme;
Yet given all these worthy books
According to my need,
I now caress with loving looks,
But never, never read.

Strange to be a few barstools down from you at O'Brien's. Yet, a decade away from you in time. Tim is handsome. I doubt that means anything coming from me, but I didn't exactly talk to him. Not much else I can say. You're still out of his league. Always dating down. Thank you.

When Tim went to the bathroom, I wanted to cut through the smoke and tell you I love you. Not in a gesture of romance. Not in an act of heartbreaking bravery. Really just to say it. I haven't said it to anyone in such a long time. I love you.

Before I saw you, I went to visit my sister at the hospital. Jessica switched to the night shift last week. She gets the pleasure of telling cranky old men no more Vicodin, and in act of mercy, God grants her a week of sunrises to be viewed from the wide windows of the 13th floor.

The nurse tending the desk told me Jess was making the rounds. I creeped into four or five dark rooms before I found her. Might've even woken a bald woman in an iron lung. Do they make iron lungs anymore? Looked like an iron lung.

Anyways, I found her in a room grabbing a meal tray and putting on its "kosher" lid to be trashed. "Hey, man. Henri, this is my brother Josh. Josh this is Henri," Jess introduced. I shook his hand.

He looked up at me through black, thick-framed glasses. Henri had one silvery capped tooth that became visible when he smiled. The smile crumpled and wrinkled his face like an old newspaper.

"If you want you can just stay in here," my sister said. "Henri's a cool guy and I need to go grab his sleeping medication."

I told her sure. Sat down next to Henri. He looked to be in his early sixties. Very lean. Sharp jaw. Large knuckles. If he ever stepped in a ring, I bet he made a hell of a fighter.

Henri removed his glasses. Placed them in his lap next to a collection of Chekov stories.  I told him I really liked Russian literature. No matter a person's class they always seem to have servants. A butler to tell them their molding slice of bread was ready, and a maid to serve it.

"I feel just as lucky. Your sister has treated me like I just walked in from Hollywood Boulevard." I asked him what he was in for -- like it was prison.

"Fractured hip. The most cliche of old-timer injuries. Not proud of it," he laughed softly. "I have been biking across the country and a little white sedan didn't take much notice of me -- well, until after they hit me."

****. I asked why he was making the journey. His wife died in the summer. His life stopped. "Life is measured in the stops," he told me. "When your job, your hobbies, sometimes even your friends all become irrelevant and time doesn't matter -- you've stopped. I locked myself in our house for a month. Told the kids I didn't want them to visit. I got the best woman on the planet. I don't feel guilty for taking her. Because believe me, I had to earn her," he looked to the side for a moment. Staring at the black television screen.

Then he told me that life may be measured in stops, but greatness is measured in starts. Journeys. I thought you'd like that, Ms. Anna. Henri then asked me that terrible question, "got a wife?" as if to make sure the conversation didn't center on him.

I told him I had gotten a divorce three years ago. He asked if I had moved on. I confessed, I've hobbled. His heavy brow grew heavier. His hands pulled the bed table to the middle. He asked me to hand him a pen off the dresser. He uncapped it. "What year were you born?" 1986.

"Okay, and you were divorced in 2009?" Yep. "And you haven't started over?" Nope. Henri wrote something on the napkin and pushed the bed table to me. With a shiver, a weight passed through me -- going upwards. The napkin read,

"Josh
1986-2009, 2012-"

"Don't waste three years of your life again."

I only went to the hospital because Jess has a friend she wanted to introduce me to. Her name is Macie, I think. Macie called in sick. I'll call it a fair trade. I've written too much again. I hope you read this late at night, and when you awake, I hope the coffee tastes new. Your newspaper isn't wet with rain. I hope your journey starts or restarts. You deserve the same unknown energy that seems to be coming from under the concrete.

Star Trekking is the hope of mankind,
We have Kirk's Bravery and his Honour to always try to do the right thing,
We have Spock's Logic and Reason to help the Captain in his mission,
We have Scotty and his love of the ship,
We have Uhura who tries to always get the message home,
We have Bones to say his dead Jim?
We have Chekov to remind everybody the USA and Russia can be friends one sunny day,
We have Sulu to show past human wars can be forgotten and new friendships made after darkened days, so Hikaru can be that light,
So Star Trekking is the hope of mankind,
So Star Trekking is the hope of mankind,
So Star Trekking is the hope of mankind.