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Lexander J Nov 2016
Herbert O' Doyle was a very simple man. Simplistic in his ways, simplistic in his tastes, he believed all good things in life were earned, rather than gained. You would think a rich man of his stature in his early 60's could sit back, put his feet up and relax. But Herbert despised the idea, for he was one to never be seen doing nothing - as he often quotes, doing nothing 'made his teeth itch'.

No, Herb was always doing something; from building new furniture to tending to the gardens, he was up and about 24/7. So much so, people who visited his Manor grounds surmised he ran on clockwork, an unfeeling machine unable to do nothing but grind on methodically through the day. Sadly, what the people didn't realise is that he was, in fact, at the mercy of his obsessive compulsive disorder - his own snarling little demon he'd had to live with for his whole life. If the hedges were not trimmed perfectly, the demon would snarl. If one of the visitor rooms looked too empty, the demon would snarl. If, goodness, a spoon was laid out of line, the demon would snarl, make his head whirl, only in correcting the anomaly would stop it gnawing at his stomach.

There was one advantage to having OCD, however, and that was he knew every corner and cranny of both the O' Doyle Mansion and the gardens outside. Well, that was what he'd thought, anyway.

For upon the morning of Saturday the 2nd August 2016, Herbert discovered a secret his predecessors had hidden, even from himself. A secret that defied common knowledge and that had probably brought about his late family's considerate wealth.

A secret that he would later come to wish he'd never known.

- - -

It was by sheer accident he'd discovered the shed. Upon clearing out the weeds and grasses that had started clogging the miniature river that ran through the gardens, he had slipped, tumbled into the water, and been left facing the back end of the river. The fall wasn't severe enough to hurt him, but enough to dislodge a few rocks in the river bank's side.

At first he saw nothing but dead leaves, mud and moss covered sandstone, but upon further inspection his eyes came across a sharp glint that caught in the sun's glare. To him it looked like a metal plate, or maybe a blade, rusted up and stained near beyond recognition. But, it was unmistakably metal. And whatever it was, it was horrifically out of place.

To say that it had been purely compulsion, not curiosity, that had led Herb to clear off the mud and rock from the bank could possibly be a lie - but to say that curiosity had not proceeded him to open the metal door behind definitely is. For as soon as Herb saw the sand chewn handle his mind immediately wanted to know what was beyond. And before he even knew what he was doing, the door was open and he was climbing inside.

- - -

It turned out the door led directly to a series of catacombs beneath the Manor grounds - something Herb had been completely oblivious to. Ever since a child he had lived here, brought up with his parents, shown the many secrets that hid within the grounds by his late father.

All apart from this one.

His father had disappeared long ago, his mother explaining that he'd found another woman and had left. Herb hadn't believed that, from the almost desperate plea in his mother's eyes to the fact he knew his father had loved his family, he couldn't help but think of it as a lie. And up until now, he had dismissed that thought - for if his father hadn't run away, where was he? But finding this cavern of wandering tunnels, he realised maybe his gut instinct had been right all along; could his father have got lost in these tunnels, unable to escape and subsequently died?

Or maybe he was still here, alive but not quite living.

Herb had shivered at that point. Thinking such thoughts in a dimly lit place like this would only cause his minds to play tricks. If he lost his head, or his way, he would never get back.

There was a very real danger he would suffer the same fate others down here probably had.

He shook his head, cleared the thoughts, and walked on - tirelessy trundling along until he finally came to a dead end where the rocky walls collided together.

- - -

What he'd found was far beyond amazing. Where the walls had closed together someone had crudely chiseled out a door way, 6ft high with a curved arch reminiscent of victorian architecture. The method was clumsy, the jagged stone sharp and even dangerously dagger-like in places. Just like teeth guarding a gaping mouth.

When Herb had finally gone through that doorway he had entered a vast hall, supported by limestone pillars, half eroded, and a floor lined with smooth granite slabs. The air inside was musky, almost miasmic, and stale. The very atmosphere itself was of death, as if the very oxygen that it consisted of had deceased. Even the stone walls resembled long abandoned corpses.

But these things Herb quickly disregarded, for lined in two perfect rows down both sides of the hall were twelve golden statues, sun-kissed and glinting amber in the light of his torch.

There were six on either side, some missing arms, other devoid of heads, but what tied all these masterpieces together was the deliberate attention to detail. And that they were all female.

He could pick out the minute hairs upon their bare arms, the slight bumps under the skin where the arteries knotted around their wrists. For those with heads, their hair flew out around them, as if caught in a summer breeze, and, most fascinatingly, Herb could gaze into their eyes and see the brushed lines of the iris and the miniscule veins around the edge of their sockets. The attention was precocious, compulsively perfect, and the result was dazzlingly beautiful.

When he'd eventually torn his eyes away from the statues, Herb's gaze fell upon the dankly lit shed sat right at the back of the hall. It was ugly, falling apart in places and obviously riddled with wood rot. Surrounded by the statues of gold, it looked sorely out of place, like a stray dog that's wandered onto a Crufts show.

Not even realising, he started towards it, by-passing the statues and their grimacing faces, instinctively seeking to open the shed door and peer inside. Why would this be down here? The sculptures are unexplainable but having a garden shed locked deep in some catacombs is even stranger. Maybe it's owner forgot about it... or wanted no one to ever find it.

And that's when he realised something was stuck to the bottom of his shoe, stopping him merely a few yards from the shed. Reaching down, he ripped it off and opened it up, the sprawling hand writing instantly denoting it was a note of some kind.

Ignorant to the sudden wind behind him that wheezed through the archway, Herbert started to read the final words of his long lost father.
- - -
1st story of my 'Tales from the Otherside' book - it's not finished yet.
Neha D Jul 2014
I watch the prom Dance,
In an awkward stance,
my friends walk in with dates,
and the excitement Abates.
Alone in a corner,
I mope like a mourner,
With no partner to dance with,
No gentleman to prance with.
Amidst the mirth and cheers,
My eyes fill up with tears.

I rush out into the open air,
And by Jove! I see Voltaire!
With his satirical charms,
He draws me in his arms.
As I sway to the beats,
I'm waltzing with Keats.
Causing my funny bone to arouse,
Enters P.G.  Wodehouse!
Using nonchalant wittiness,
He acknowledges my prettiness.
And then walks in Shakespeare,
Who  wipes away my tear,
And my senses curdle like curds,
As he showers me with words.
While I repress the excited child,
I'm swaying with Oscar Wilde.
I'm rendered helplessly mute,
With his phrases so astute.
With a proposal so verse-y,
I'm serenaded by Shelly  B. Percy.
And before this fantasy can spoil,
I fox trot with  Conan Doyle.

And thus literally seduced,
into putty I'm reduced.
I am platonic-ally smitten,
By the genius of what they've written.
The dating circus can’t make me cry,
because a host of paramours have I.
I've never been to prom. No one asked me to prom during High School or college. And while that saddened me, I found solace and acceptance in the arms of my Literary heroes.  
Here's to them :)
Andrew Switzer May 2013
The drunk chanting of "chug" has faded away. The liter of jäger is at war with my liver as I take another long drag of a Seneca Red.
Embers in the grill still smolder away, the taste of pork chops linger on my tongue. My stomach feels empty, although we've only just eaten. The hot dogs are gone. So are the hamburgers and chops. I can't just throw some food in the grill anymore. I must journey to the main campus and sate my hunger for heated meat, perhaps some wings.

I check my phone and see the time is eleven. Now is as good a time as any. I flick the **** into the cool spring night and cross the parking lot towards my Toyota. I grab the wallet from the glove compartment and place my headphones around my ears. Roger asks me if I've heard the news. I tell him I haven't. He says the Dogs are dead. I say that must be good news for the Sheep. My walk, or should I say incoherent stumble, from the town houses is accompanied by the sounds of Animals, a truly relaxing atmosphere.

As I progress down the road from town houses to the main campus, flanked on either by side by wooded areas, memories start coming to me through the darkness. I've walked this path almost daily for close to three years now. Sophomore year I'd walk to Francis from Doyle to get dinner, or hang out with friends who lived there. Junior year, it was from the Phase Twos to my classes and back. This year, it's from the coveted Phase Ones, which I don't truly understand. Phase Two and Three are so much better. Why does everyone want to live in Phase One?

These semi-joyful, or at least not totally depressing, memories flood my consciousness, and bring me back to easier, simpler times. I lack liquor, so I drink these memories down, savoring the sweet scents and full flavors my mind is so adept at bringing back to life. I smash the bottles which held them as I finish them, watching the drunken starlight shimmer and dance over the bits of shattered glass.

As I pass by Doyle and enter the main campus, the memories begin to change and shift. Instead of days which were laden with friendly laughter, I now begin to remember my freshman year, living in Shay Hall and having a whole new campus to discover. When I was forced from my shell and began to meet new people. One of those people would become my first real relationship, and would last all of nine months in my life. Her name was Gabby, and despite her undeniable insanity, was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen.

We did everything together, from eating and sleeping to going to our pals parties. She loved me, I loved her, and life was wonderful. Until it all, just, wasn't anymore. She grew demanding and distant, while at the same time requiring more and more attention from me, until one day the dam failed under pressure and let the reservoir flood the lands we'd been cultivating for nine months.

She cheated on me. While this was no new fact for me to deal with, looking back on my history with women, it was nonetheless still quite hard to face. She had the good grace to break it off face to face, but there was still a great deal I couldn't forgive her for. The constant demand she placed on every thing I did, no matter how minor or minuscule. The night she struck me for not putting my cell phone on vibrate. The words she would say, layered with condescension whenever I should fall short.

So I cursed her. Not in the typical sense one associates with curses, but more of a silent prayer that she would one day feel the pain that she subjected me to. I didn't have to wait long, though. The following year, she made her way to New Orleans to celebrate for Mardi Gras. Her new beau, the one she had left me for, stayed behind in New York, and put her rightly on the receiving end of the pain she brought me. While she enjoyed the festivities of Fat Tuesday, he enjoyed the carnal company of three seperate women. When she returned, she was heartbroken.

I never received a phone call. No apologies for what she did. No offer of kind words to soothe a soul which still had yet to recover from the blows it had been dealt. No lesson had been learned. No insight into her own actions taken away. No moment of clarity in which she realized the mistake she had made, or the pain she had caused with her selfish actions. The curse remains, hanging over her head like an everlasting storm cloud, dissipating only when she realizes what she has done to one man who enjoys nothing more than holding a well founded grudge.
Olivia Mercado Aug 2013
I will keep pushing myself.
Keep going.
I will read Edmund Spenser,
Shakespeare, Wilde,
Shelley, Doyle, and CS Lewis
By the end of the summer.
You laugh.
Two weeks, one book a day, it isn't hard.
I only have four chapters of chemistry to finish,
Two chapters of AP Physics,
Four chapters of AP US history,
My personal reading list,
Four debate cases,
And a little light reading
(Judith Butler and Ayn Rand).
I WILL finish everything I have to do.
Refill the coffee ***.
I'll use more eyedrops.
Two weeks.
I will finish my summer homework.
Maybe I shouldn't have procrastinated.
Tom Shields  Oct 2020
Lastday
Tom Shields Oct 2020
Where do you go to when you are caught?
The Sandmen will pursue in your dreams
Do you ever give that a second thought?
For he is dutiful and loyal while relentless
The Runner will scurry, even risk us
Putting so many people in the way, he tries to hide
They all clear the way to either side
Francis Seven makes the **** and takes no small amount of pride

The odds for renewal you deny
When you are caught, you die
This is what happens when you run
Francis holsters his gun
Emotionless in the revelry of a crowd
Dead in a fountain, black blossom revealed, his job there is done
Spectators cheer for the violence, so loud
He finds Logan, admiring his son,
And reminds his friend of the balance: “One for one.”

On the way to the Carrousel, to bear witness, they enter Arcade
Where the cabinets burst with all sorts of debauchery and debts to be played
And pass their hedonistic delights, ******, drugs and surgery
Logan all the while curious, Francis cautious of his curiosity
It seems he has doubts of the system, this itself is living dangerously

Donned in white robes and masks, flames crawling up the legs
They stand on the red flower and ascend,
Exploding into dust, with uproarious cheers
The deafening roar for renewal, a spectacle, the question it begs
Is this how we all must meet our end?
Contemplating, the celebration of execution, the last thing anyone hears-
Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal!

But they are called away again, and **** Doyle Ten
With his possessions, they return to headquarters, to report
The mastermind of all time,
The computer, infallible, whose Megalopolis is sublime
Does he care one bit?
These rebels threaten society
He clocks them out with apathy
A servant to civility
Idyllic, perfect, too perfect
A top secret mission, unusually
Called to locate the Runners who have escaped the city,
Confounded by the computer, every moment owed to technology
LOGAN FIVE, FIND AND DESTROY SANCTUARY

One thousand and fifty-six refugees purportedly escaped beyond the wall
Logan’s flower has been activated, his questions answered, there is no renewal,
He slips out to contact a rebel, who can help him escape the city and **** them all
Jessica, who posited this machine was malfunctioning; the object of Logan’s desire
They run together, Francis chases, unwilling to believe until he sees
The seeds of distrust sewn and falsely confirmed, the rebels believe Logan is a killer and a liar
Then their eyes meet, Francis Seven, the unrelenting predator
He hesitates, takes a shot at Jessica, but Logan saves her
In panic and fervor, the fox and the cat, certain they’re done for
Hunted in the ruins beyond the walls, the Sandman turned Runner

What evil irony the pair endure,
To have hope renewed in their travels
Only to find it frozen, killed by a broken machine
One thousand and fifty-six humans, stored in ice
Looking to add two more, before its store collapses
Amazed to be alive, they flee, meeting the old man and his cats
The only other human they’ve seen in their retreat
Better to be stored by Box or shot by Francis, who finds them,
Gone mad with his obsession, his grief and frustration, his desperation serves his defeat
Unwilling to listen to reason, to see through the lies and illusion, these two who were once like brothers now fight
All of the ******, the time and the ruthless, mindless divulgence of decadence, all comes to a head over a blinking light
Logan kills Francis, holding his head in his arms, fitfully delirious ramblings, Logan tries to keep him calm
When he starts up one last time, to say look at your palm
The blinking red and black now clear: “Logan you renewed!”

In the city he reveals the deception of their structure
You can live past thirty! The Carrousel is a lie! You can have a future!
Captured, confronted, questioned and caged, probing his mind
Six spinning heads anger the computer who demands, WHERE IS SANCTUARY, WHAT DID YOU FIND?
Six spinning heads all repeat, that one truth was always so near,
There is no sanctuary here!

The computer shorts out, and soon the Sandmen are destroyed, Logan shoots his way out, the city empties in chaos and fear
Standing on the steps of this erupted crater of truth, Logan and Jessica are looking out as a pair
All people are free, they gather around the old man, something they never imagined they would see
Some touch him, in awe, some simply stare
Sometimes there’s no time to run, no time to live; it all hardly seems fair
Something is certainly different when there is hope, there is a change in the air
Somehow alive, the Sandman who ran to the finish and managed to survive, Logan Five has time to spare.
write
please read and enjoy
DracoTalpus  Mar 2018
No Sweat
DracoTalpus Mar 2018
Phileas Fogg,
On a brigantine sledge,
Braved the Omaha wind
As it twirled.
So, Jules Verne might say
That a full eighty days
Is plenty to travel the world.

Amelia Earhart
Crossed the sea –
The quickliest feat
…For a girl –
In twelve hundred forty
Short minutes, you know:
Others failed, but gave it a whirl.

Rosemary Doyle,
Our wonderful mum,
Exceeded these
Feats of grand scale!
She has crossed oceans faster,
Breezed over Great Plains,
And – without perspiration – prevailed!

Carefully, casually,
She raised five kids:
‘Neath our burden
She never collapsed.
Loving and giving
Us lives we are living.
Have there – really – eight decades elapsed?

Octogenarian?
Silliest word:
It sounds like
A sea creature’s vet,
But if you want true fun,
Then just orbit the sun
Eighty times, like our mom:  It’s no sweat!


© 2Mar2018 DracoTalpus
For Rosemary N. Doyle
On the occasion of her 80th birthday
I love you, Mom.  Thank you for creating me.  Thank you for including me in your family.  Thank you for loving me right back!  <3  :D
As I left the house the other day I felt some eyes on me
But, I looked around both front and back and no one did I see
I had this funny feeling as I walked on down the street
They were hidden in the background and were being quite discreet
It really did unnerve me to be watched out in  the dark
But then  I found  my stalker when I walked down  by the park
I turned around so  quickly and looked up in the trees
And there it was ,   I saw it, sitting staring  back at me
A pair of eyes were  smiling, on a cat , the Cheshire kind
When I looked again, I knew again,   that this was just my mind
I'd had this feeling once before a year or so ago
But I'd looked around for someone and that someone didn't show
But here I was years later standing, looking in that tree
At a cat with eyes wide open, sitting, smiling back at me
I said "where did you come from?" and "what is it you want?"
"Why choose me to follow, why am I the one you haunt?"
He blinked and said "I'm sorry, it's is you that chose to choose"
"I'm just here to help your writing, you can say that I'm your Muse"
"You see I surface when you need me, to give your ideas a little push"
"I help filter out the voices, I'm the one that tells them shhhhhh"
"An artist has a model, Lautrec...he had his ******"
"Doyle had his ***** and you can say I'm yours"
"But why a cat?...of all the things there is for to be chosen"
"I don't know he said, maybe your mind was just  frozen!"
"You must like Lewis Carroll for I'm his , not yours, you know"
"And just like back in Wonderland, I know just when to go".
"I know when you are stuck on a word or on some prose"
"That's when I come and help you, come to help show how it goes"
"But, why do you stay hidden, come on  now and  tell me true"
"Who'd believe a tale of talking cats...not me...and I'm sure not you!"
"I'm near and then I'm not so close, I come just when I must"
"Usually, you're on your own, your thoughts you're best to trust"
"To write and share your stories, it takes a leap of faith"
"But who'd believe it if you said you  got your stories from a wraith?"
I thought a bit, and that made sense, there's no way to tell
Even though it's madness, they'd condemn me right to hell
A Cheshire cat who writes your poems and sits up in a tree
Now who would believe that fancy tale ?, certainly not me
He said my mind has many thoughts that should be put to paper
And his job was to come around when ideas began to  taper
Poems, and essays, stories, who knows even a book
I'd only have to dig deep down, and give my mind a look
Before he left I asked him why I'd not seen him before
He said to me "truth be told, you've never opened up that door"
"You've never crossed the threshold to where your mind gives birth"
"To the ideas for all your writing, your imagination hearth"
"But now you know I'm  here for you and here to help you write"
"I'll disappear just like before and I shall say goodnight"
"Before you leave I have to say, I'm glad that this was no ruse"
"And of the things there is around I'm glad it's you I chose to choose!"
Tony Luxton Oct 2015
An old curiosity shop
a lost world depository
dark dusty as pharaoh's tomb
worming squirming carefully through
where 'Breakages Must Be Paid For'.

Stopped clocks claiming time is up
sofas trailing their entrails
peeved pictures offered for their frames
and bureaux bursting with bumf.

Rummaging through dank passages
searching inner chamber book stocks
classic novels at six old pence
thumbed pages bought for improvement.

Nelson Collins Clear Type Press
Dent and Everyman in distress
Dumas Dickens and Conan Doyle
countless cultural references.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
i'm reaching my own very secondary hell...
this reach into... something of a nieche,
something of an echo chamber...
something of a jettison approach with regards
to almost everything...
the voice in my throat is no longer
necessary... some variation of:
this ethics and this "philosophy" is a bypass:
it's not a bypass...
i might just as well be "saying":
i haven't read a single book in my life...
which implies: i haven't read the required reading
either...
but i have read several books and...
among the contemporaries alongside
the shared breath... i have a library that's pretty
much a graveyard...
i'm hardly mastering some: in vogue...
old ideas come crashing down while
all the others are kept intact...
perhaps as honest as one can be...
i have... read... books... by... dead... people...
will alexander... a california poet is still
alive... i seem to have...
stuck to the living in the medium of cinema...
and music...
yet i still managed to balance it out
with a nostalgia for old cinema...
and old music, german, folk...
but i'm shy when it comes to:
darwinism explains everything right, and "wrong"...
i'm just practically tired
of being the turkey being shoved
darwinistic idea-stuffing down my throat...
i'm tired of darwinism...
long ago... a "philosopher" would be someone
who... overcame past mistakes...
or whatever...
one of my prime past mistakes?
taking a ****** relationship with frivolity...
if i wasn't using a ******:
she implored: don't use it...
god knows how she missed the *******
impediment to begin with...
i'll take contraceptive pills...
impregnation... phone-call...
i'm pregnant... well... you should get an abortion...
what were the chances that she moved
from novosibirsk to st. petersburg...
to edinburgh... that she would: settled for
moving to the outskirts of London and live...
with the parents of her would be:
father of the child...
and the supposed father being "merely" a roofer...
oh i've learned my lessons since being aged: 21...
the only honest **** these days
is with prostitutes... who are oh so careful about
contraception...
we would even talk about it...
since 21 and i'm nearing 34?
how many relationships apart from...
casually picking up a thai-surprise in a park etc.
how many? to be ensnared by:
a lasp in judgement with regards:
the ****** doesn't bother me...
the ******* does... but i can't be rid of it...
how many relationships?
0... i was given the moral scare from that
one... ahem... "relaxed" relationship...
pro-life implying: there's no guarantee...
this is already: a dollop of mustard on a spoon
as dessert if you please...
since 21 though?
it was always going to be a safe bet...
prostitutes...
hardly "*** slaves" as...
the women i know would not wish upon
themselves... a lottery of impregnation...
there could have been so many ways she could
have ensnared me...
pristine John i ain't...
but this period of time... nearing 13 ******* years...
wow...
wow... it tells you something...
because this pro-life contra pro-choice "debate"...
via: so while i *******... that's perfectly alright
in terms of: imagining a genocide with you?
because it's only life...
when coupled to a woman's body...
i don't like this pro-life argument...
not when there's "sensibility" concerning:
how far along?
contraception, yes...
but there has to be some time-reference
with regards... both parties can admit "oops"...
i don't see a point of:
i ******* there's no pro-life argument...
because i should be ******* "on a whim"...
since i... oh! this is the male argument...
i ******* into you... therefore you have something
of me... therefore you must have it...
oh... i see...
because i honestly don't get it...
if we made an honest mistake...
and you want to ******* into frivolity...
by all means... i'm no chain no baron and you're
no serf... matter of fact... this same girl is on
her third marriage... if i was her first and
we were engaged and she was 19 and i was 21
and, honestly... if you lived a life back in 2007...
it was ripe with magic...

but since then... that phonecall and: i'm pregnant...
and we were already beside being engaged prior...
and i was like: what?
it's not you're going to move down to London
from Edinburgh just for my looks...
she didn't say: i'll get it aborted...
i said: you should get an abortion...
a pro-choice man... at 21 and this litany of
excuses: mind one more?
to not have had ***... i proved that...
me and about 9 prostitutes proved that...
when there's a clarity of transaction...
there's no worry about contraception...
those precuations are prime...
the heart is a feeble liar when the *** is free...
imagine...
due for ***... but there's no...
"gifts"... there's no liar of the heart to mind
when... i have no excuses?
this happened 13 years ago!
i should have hoped to be freed from this...
"conundrum"...

scatological... william f. buckley jr. interviewing
allen ginsberg... and this word crops up...
it's somehow the covert expression fundamental
marker...
scatological... there's this avant garde of
poetics and how...
when poetry ascribes less images and...
teases philosophy...
that's no fair game...
but when philosophy employs short-cuts
with metaphor or imagery...
then words are no longer skeletons
and juiceless prunes... or whatever is demanded...

but that's the problem:
i only managed to love once...
or... rather... **** to the zenith of my efforts...
and bypass the goldberger skin-leash too...
because it was never about being satisfied...
but about seeing: satifaction...
and this old chestnut will haunt me
to the point where i will no longer be a chanced
ghost solo... but a ghost in a story...
and i don't mind the future...
i already know that i'm standing
a plateau plough moment of... resurrection...

for my time is no more linear than
the experience of gravity...
but... since i'm not falling...
and i'm either standing, walking, or sitting?
then time is not so much linear...
as it is circular...
after all: i am bound to a ******* carousel, aren't i
or aren't we all?
i was expecting circular time long
before people conjured up:
a pioneering linear "ontology" of time...
time moves "forward" without
the confines of history and within
the confines of technology!

after all: who to better the spoon!
the improved staff! a crutch!
the improved horse... a talking donkey!
but again and again:
why should my life be so precious
as to stand outside the circular nature
of time... to stand, alone...
in the prized linear...
from beginning middle and end...
why so?

of course the baggage and: if anyone, notably,
myself, should engage in any further
intimacy - beside the brothels' delights...
no... the money the clarity of transaction...
there are no flowers... no anniversaries...
i can't remember the last time i bothered
to celebrate my own birthday...
i tried that once...

what's pro-choice again, in terms of man
and responsibility or simply not *******?
13 years and that same cautionary tale...
i knew i wasn't going to make the same mistake
and relax myself into love...
because i don't think a woman should
be left barren with a pro-choice conundrum...
it's as if: you have to force the choice upon her...
otherwise it's called a golden ring...
and there's this whole flamboyant procession
in a church and two otherwise estranged families
come together and there's all this and that and
the other and afterwards the *****-licking
starts and blue and pink and a baby several months
later...

oh right... the argument it's a blessing
and that irish luck of a spontaneity should you...
when all the other couples are left
limping because of one wooden leg
among the four that should stand ***** and:
oh gaw on gaw on gaw on gaw on mrs doyle -esque?

imagine telling a woman: you should get an abortion...
because those contraceptive pills didn't
exactly do the magic...
and a ******* is already a discomfort when
you decided to learn from the Donatelos of
the boogie nights movie set that
peeling it back... for the aesthetics of a circumcision...
a ****** was the last of my worries...
well that's better than allowing a woman
to make that choice herself...
honest to god and st. patrick the gnostic gnat...

obviously i'm paying the moral consequences
of these words...
was it true is it true... it was a telephone call
and i was already busy trying to...
have to bother not... a chemistry degree is
worth as much as a humanities and this
bilingual status is not really anything
if it's not arabic or... otherwise...

why wouldn't i have made precautions in those
years?
if going to a brothel is a way to escape
the impregnation conundrum?
if for the sake of recreational ***...
*** without consequences... tennis ping-pong ***...
if that's what's being sold...
and not the monogomy quack-**** with
a boquet of moral verbiage...
yes... i made that mistake...
but why would i have a moral authority
over a woman's choice... she ghost jerks-me-off...
we perform genocide of ***** into
tissue... flush down the toilet with
crocodiles and we later baptise ourselves
as dove resurrected coming from the shower
having down the no. 1 no. 2 and no. 3
on the throne of thrones?

did i ask for my phallus to make
it into the ***** shortlist?!
i wouldn't think so either...
i'm no model with either a face or a little richard
for that matter...
perhaps men call it heart-break...
while women should call it...
fried-eggs...

a poultry abortion a day...
keeps the ****-of-cuckoldry away...
at least among professionals there's
never that: oh i like like likey...
let's have ourselves impregnated and then
kumbaya ourselves with: shtrong...

'cause if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it...

oh... i would have...
but... how does this contraceptive contract work?
'cause if you like it, then you shoulda
sly impregnate yourself or what the hell
am i talking about?!

ce-no-bite...
go figure...
because no ******* is some day-dream victim
of the feminist movement...
the ones that are killed, probably are...
if you had enough time to talk to any of them
without priest of psychiatrist nagging you...
lying naked... talking about a 15 minute quickie...
talk, lips, kisses of the eyelids...
inversion of sculpting a crude block of clay...
god's plagiarism etc. etc.,
is this even a celebration: oh yes it's a celebration
when two parties know the perils
and have contraception as their prime
concern...
not some loved-up happenstance
teenagers...
because wisdom is what supposedly happens
when you make a mistake aged 16 and
later, live to be 69 and utter some
*******-wanking's worth of a maxim!

and by god everyone who hasn't read
a philosophy book... thinks that philosophy
happens in old age... that philosophy is not
fashionable for the young... or the middle-aged...
how, old age, philosophy...
dementia... "wisdom"... it's also called
the optical illusion... or the detriment of youth...
since? at least a portion of the lessons
of life must be learned...
beside the technical relax of technical details...
the old lessons of life persist...
and these are always archetypical...
the archetype never dies...
that's its most demanding access...
to: if i currently had a 13 year old son
named... Isidore...

what? there was a Peaches Geldoff...
Isidore is an old name...

because what's the difference between
a pro-life man and a pro-choice man?
the pro-choice man sentences himself
for sisyphus with the claim of baggage...
i did not have the required
resources to claim a moral responsibility
for what would eventually become
an onomatopoeia of me talking to it...
that would transcend a more sorry
state that a new-born lamb...
that would learn to wipe its own ***...
that would not choke on peanuts...
that would learn to not be gullible...
not entertain friendship with good faith...
that would... at best...
become this shadow of solitude of its
father's own demise...
but i rather rob a woman of this choice...
that allow her to bask in it...
as it would be her, responsibility to undertake
such a choice...
again: if this irish reasoning stands...
this ****** reasoning stands...
me, tissue, toilet, flush + ******* = genocide!
but a woman oh a woman can
stream it! video it! she's shooting blanks!
so... a lapse... not until...
not until... is a ***-shot pregnancy readied?
how much can i own beside
these stones that i stack to fathom
a shadow and not a morality,
nor an architectural feat to overshadow
mountains using pyramids?!
well... among sand dunes you, you just might
figure out this wild dream,
this wild ambition!

i will still persist in lamenting that:
i own a private library that mostly constitutes
of death-ringers...
it's slyly called a necromancy...
they arrive in my lap as former living:
now ascribed to dead on paper...
and the dead that they are...
recoil from the ashes into the skeletons
of words: and they walk among
the living inside the horde that i am...

and as they roll in their ***** graves
to a dance most stupendous...
their eyes burning and their ears pricked
to attention over a raindrop
bound to savour the disgruntled sea...
in both the magnanimous effort
that pouring a liter of water overshadows
the raindrop... or pouring hot oil
and pork scratchings with onions
into a soup...
balloons perhaps pop! but that well-known
sizzle!

a body with the demand of
two shadows' worth of remark...
whether true, or fictional...
better my choice over her "choice"...
and the consequences?
both the realisation of responsibility
as the nagging curse of shying
away from them...
focused on? the lack of material
conventionality for:
the up-coming, better life...

hmm... learning from the past generation?
they managed to work hard
and sight the Maldives...
i? if i didn't travel solo?
would i have seen Paris?
Stockholm... Moscow and St. Petersburg
are not a given...
but perhaps this one last time:
before i go... to the Faroe Islands, one
day i might... i just might...

what gambit assurance?
the moral high-ground of pro-life...
for a child... that would live...
a life worse off than his father or mother?
the life-in-itself "argument"...
as far as i am concerned...
this verbiage should come to its own
conclusion any minute now...

it's almost strange to have to recount
something that's 13 years old...
lucky me, lucky year...
i'm still not convinced as to why
darwinism can be allowed to explain almost
everything in life these days,
esp. when mingling with sociological "issues"
and how everyone should be readied
for rubric testing their bible knowledge
as their knowledge of either Orwell or Huxley...

"philosophy" once the "love" of "wisdom"...
how does trivia come into all of this?
to have to amass an encyclopedic know-of...
i am, also, a trivia focused spew-recycle-machinery...
darwinism around every corner...
there's no scientific fact the public are exposed
to that doesn't have darwinism at its center...
nothing of scientific popularisation
is ever not about darwinism...

not even Einstein... once upon a time...
it has become so overtly: universally applicable...
in psychology... in...
yawn... if it doesn't have a darwinism patent...
it's either part of the dodo project or
an existentialist cul de sac...
and my god, this momentum...
oh it's certainly not wrong...
but it's always so right: so many times...

come to think of it...
i probably haven't read any books to begin with...
i shouldn't have...
all the ones that i have read...
are never going to be in vogue...
they were in vogue... 50 years ago...
60 years ago...
they're not in vogue now...
they might as well start yelling at me:
pretentious literary ***!
should have abandoned us in high-school!

oh right... there's till the living Knausård...
come to think of it...
who the hell discovered Stendhal in high-school
if it wasn't me?
come to think of it...
i took that ****** bus no. 86 every morning...
and i can only remember seeing myself
read...
back of the bus and that Montgomery boycot?
didn't really help...
the loudest always went to the back
of the bus... took some neo-**** blonde scalps
with them for ***** and screetching licks...
and... just ahead... a silence of reading
Taoist maxims...

nice to know... that i'm still able to write
such explosive spew...
counter inhibited and "thinking"...
this like any other...
mildly exagerrated with a whiskey stew;
rummaging and rummaging
over a brain-pickling!

— The End —