N.  N is for neurologist.  
What does the neurologist say?
“Nothing seems to be wrong.
Your net recall seems normal.
You seem to remember most nouns and the news.
Nothing serious,
No need to worry.”

I don’t quite remember driving here.
This is Bethesda, right?
And your name is…?

P.  P is for psychologist.
The P. is silent.
So is the psychologist.
I talk and talk.
My energy level is high today,
even though I got no sleep last night.  
I want to write a poem and run a partial marathon.
I love people.
People are so beautiful.
“Only connect,” said E.M. Forster.
Am I talking too much?
How does that make me feel?
Just great!  Not like yesterday,
when I wanted to jump into the Potomac
from Key Bridge.
P is also for Potomac.
The psychologist speaks.
I need a new pill.

E. E is for endocrinologist.
What does the endocrinologist say?
“Eat. You’re an enigma.
You are losing weight.
We don’t know why.
We’ve checked everything
and can’t find evidence
of enemies in your endocrine system.
Enjoy some eclairs, eggplant, eggs benedict.
Life is short, endulge!  
Hopefully not too short.

O. O is for oncologist.
Oh.
Oh oh.

i only started collecting a library, because, would you believe it, my local library was a pauper in rags and tatters; apologies for omitting necessary diacritic marks, the whiskey was ******* on icecubes to a shrivel.*

ernest hemingway, e.m. forster, mary shelley,
aesop, r. l. stevenson, jean-paul sartre,
jack kerouac, sylvia plath, evelyn waugh,
chekhov, cortazar, freud, virginia woolf,
philip k. ****, dostoyevsky, aleksandr solzhenitsyn,
oscar wilde, malcolm x, kafka, nabokov,
bukowski, sacher-masoch, thomas a kempis,
yevgeny zamyatin, alexandre dumas,
will self, j. r. r. tolkien, richard b. bentall,
james joyce, william burroughs, truman capote,
herman hesse, thomas mann, j. d. salinger,
nikos kazantzakis, george orwell,
philip roth, joseph roth, bulgakov, huxley,
marquis de sade, john milton, samuel beckett,
huysmans, michel de montaigne, walter benjamin,
sienkiewicz, rilke, lipton, harold norse,
alfred jarry, miguel de cervantes, von krafft-ebing,
kierkegaard, julian jaynes, bynum porter & shephred,
r. d. laing, c. g. jung, spinoza, hegel, kant, artistotle,
plato, josephus, korner, la rochefoucauld, stendhal,
nietzsche, bertrand russell, irwin edman,
faucault, anwicenna, descartes, voltaire, rousseau,
popper,  heidegger, tatarkiewicz, kolakowski,
seneca, cycero, milan kundera, g. j. warnock,
stefan zweig, the pre-socratics, julian tuwim,
ezra pound, gregory corso, ted hughes,
guiseppe gioacchino belli, dante, peshwari women,
e. e. cummings, ginsberg, will alexander, max jacob,
schwob, william blake, comte de lautreamont,
jack spicer, zbigniew herbert, frank o'hara,
richard brautigan, miroslav holub, al purdy,
tzara, ted berrigan, fady joudah, nikolai leskov,
anna kavan, jean genet, albert camus, gunter grass,
susan hill, katherine dunn, gil scott-heron,
kleist, irvine welsh, clarice lispector, hunter thompson,
machado de assisi, reymont, tolstoy, jim bradbury,
norman davies, shakespeare, balzac, dickens,
jasienica, mary fulbrook, stuart t. miller,
walter la feber, jan wimmer, terry jones & alan ereira,
kenneth clark, edward robinson, heinrich harrer,
gombrowicz, a. krawczuk, andrzej stasiuk, ivan bunin,
joseph heller, goethe, mcmurry, atkins & de paula,
bernard shaw, horace, ovid, virgil, aeschyles,
rumi, omar khayyam, humbert wolfe, e. h. bickersteth,
asnyk, witkacy, mickiewicz, slowacki, lesmian,
lechon, lep szarzynski, victor alexandrov, gogol,
william styron, krasznahorkai, robert graves,
defoe, tim burton, antoine de saint-exupery,
christiane f., salman rushdie, hazlitt, marcus aurelius,
nick hornby, emily bronte, walt whitman,
aryeh kaplan, rolf g. renner, j. p. hodin, tim hilton... etc.

Jou boodskappe die sonstrale
wat elke nou en dan my dag wil maak
en ook soms 8 minute vat om by my uit te kom
maar gee lig en lewe in my donker wereld

al is jy miljoene bietjies weg van my af
is jou liefde n warm drukkie wat ek
moeiteloos in elke donker nag
om my bang lyf kan vou

jy wat agter die horison jou eie horison sien
en dalk self die maan met my deel
,van n ander kant af,
dra ek na aan my hart...

soos n tietie sonder nippels
of n bangmaak boek sonder sy stippels....
is my lewe net plein
en puntloos sonder jou.

Jy is my duisend-myle-weg
, maar altyd daar,
chill-jou-guava maaitjie
wat my weghol hart bedaar.

Familie buite stam en bas
bloedloos dalk , maar hegte vas
grenslose vriende oor die wereld heen...
God se grootste seen.

- aan al my vriende wat ver weg bly , maar meer beteken as my eie asem en wat ek dierbaarder ag as my virginity ;) ek is so ongelooflik baie lief vir julle.

Carinda du Toit. Aldridt Koltzow. Marli Roux. Tarryn Forster. Frederik Rudolph van Dyk. en al die ander...

To be chanted whenever the O Machine 1 fails:

Rumor has it that the Enigma
Was to Churchill a foul stigma

And that the ancient, creaking Babbage
It was to him but so much cabbage

Colossus One and Colossus Two
Those gadgets too he began to rue

They say he let them rust and rot -
The pity is that he did not


(I checked with the Lizard People on this – Churchill’s secret Second World War computers, powered by a primordial Lemurian source of energy so dangerous that even speaking its name in the ancient language of the Atlanteans is said to be fatal, are secured in a locked vault on Oak Island and guarded around the clock (set to Martian time) by the Trilateral Masonic-Vatican Continuum of deadly albino flying fish.)

1 E.M. Forster, “The Machine Stops,” 1909, Much-anthologized

Gobbing and thrashing
       To Jello Biafra,
Before your damascene conversion into
        Something from Kafka,
The feminist utopia -
        A left wing theocracy,
You should have read Forster's
   Two Cheers for Democracy,
With red dead Cortez
      In her little white coat,
Where only lunatics and women
     Bother to vote.
The boys get a mantra
    A three syllable jingle,
The reason he topped himself?
    The reason you're single?

You were an actor and your death has caused remorse.
You starred in 'Me, Myself and Irene' and 'Delta Force'.
I became your fan at the age of eight when you starred in 'The Black Hole'.
Some people hated that movie but I like it and your death has taken its toll.
You guest starred in 'Magnum P.I., '******, She Wrote' and 'Walker, Texas Ranger'.
You had a  ton of fans who you never met but in their eyes, you weren't a stranger.
When you starred in 'Jackie Brown', you were nominated for an Oscar.
Because of your talent, you were destined to be a wonderful movie star.
You starred in the 1998 remake of '******' and 'Small Town Crime'.
Because of your charisma, you'll be remembered until the end of time.

Larkin
quoted Forster's
"Only connect..." at an
inept boxing match. Was either
correct?

Let's come together against CANCER!
Let there be a stand still
The world be rendered silent for a moment
Three second to fill
For a short kind benevolent
Because we really have to feel
Our fallen heroes to comment
Cancer brought this world a threat
That which is a not one man fight
It came in all filth
Pain untold
Torture and suffering
This ailment is poison
Whose antidote we fight to get
Let's join HANDS
Let's go firm together
We need a global unity
To aid Forster for one hidden secret
The secret to **** this enemy
This sole enemy we call it cancer
It has won over us for long
Enough is enough we say today
We are fed up
We are tired,aren't we?
We won't stand any lose again
We won't settle for less this time
We are up to fight
And we are fighting together as one
For in our might, we gonna defeat cancer
Whatever the kind or type
Known to us or unknown
Cancer's territories this time down we bring
And burning it to ashes a must.

Kirui Frank junior
Kenya,I am fighting cancer in my all might!
Join me please!

items

title - author - (read / unread)

songs of war
and peace -
afghan women's poetry
                                              edited by sayd bahodine majrouh
                                              (yes)
the cantos of
ezra pound
                                              ezra pound
                                              (pending)

th­e unbearable
lightness of being      
                                               milan kundera
                                               (yes, albeit
                                                given to someone)

the man in the
high castle
                                                philip k. ****
                                                (yes, "
                                                          " " ")

do androids dream
of electric sheep                            
                                                          "

men­ without women
                                                 ernest hemingway
                                                 (yes)

a moveable feast
                                                  ernest   ­      "
                                                  (yes)

for whom the bell tolls
                                                  ernest   ­       "
                                                  (parti­ally, university
                                                   assignment)

a passage to india
                                                   e. m. forster
                                                   (no, i prefer the actual cuisine,
                                                    dash­ of cinnamon, cumin
                                                    cloves, cardamon and i just
                                                    read: a short-cut to india)

the outsider
                                                    albert camus
                                                    (yes, lost the book somewhere)

frankenstein
                                                    mary shelley
                                                    (yes)

aesop­'s fables
                                                     aesop
                                                     (yes, good enough
                                                      for zeno to
                                                      paradox achilles
                                                      with the turtle, i.e.
                                                      aesop'­s fables
                                                      were primarily based
                                                      on the behaviour of animals)

dr. jeckyl & mr. hyde
                                                      r. l. stevenson
                                                      (­no, a literary
                                                       version of the beatles'
                                                       yesterday, conjuring
                                                       for money anyway)

iron in the soul
                                                        jean­-paul sartre
                                                        (t­he other two titles
                                                         of the human comedy
                                                         i don't remember;
                                                       ­  i have all respect for
                                                         sartre the novelist -
                                                         but none as a philosopher)

treasure island
                                                          r. l. stevenson
                                                       ­   (yes)

i'm the king of the castle
                                                          ­susan hill
                                                          (y­es)

jane eyre
                                                           charlotte brontë
                                                          ­ (yes)

on the road
                                                           jack kerouac
                                                         ­  (yes)

the bell jar
                                                           sylvia plath
                                                           (yes)

fiesta: the sun also rises
                                                           ernest hemingway
                                                           (yes)

the ordeal of gilbert pinfold
                                                           evelyn waugh
                                                           (yes)

five plays
                                                           chekov
                                                           (stuck to shakespeare
                                                            and russian
                                                            existential macabre)

the existential imagination
                                                            edited by frederick
                                                            r. karl & leo hamalian
                                                            (yes, esp. the extract
                                                             about socrates)