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Bathsheba  Dec 2010
Snow
Bathsheba Dec 2010
I cautiously peep out the bedroom window and immediately spy snow.

More snow!

****!

I have already been trapped inside this house for five days now and I am beginning to get serious cabin fever. Something has to break and it has to break soon. As I stand here I am strangely mesmerised by these fanciful flakes as they fall seductively over a garden that has long since been abandoned.

The garden itself is actually heaving a huge collective sigh of relief at all this unwanted attention. Someone or something has finally acknowledged its hidden existence after so many many long years of neglect. The garden is stirring; there is a new vibrancy in the air, an unknown quality has begun to tease and tantalise the remains of a life once lived.

It’s funny the things that you notice when you have too much time on your hands. The old derelict outhouse, for instance, forsaken since Freddie left back in ‘72 takes on an almost ethereal quality. Gossamer threads subtly woven together now delicately frame and highlight his old stomping ground with a wicked wildness and urgency.

I must close the curtains and return.
Return to what?  

“Right …. stop your maudlin girl, time is only relevant now, remember that, always.”

I slowly walk through to the front parlour and collapse into the battered old fireside chair. It stills my beating heart. I so love to read and interpret the intricate patterns stitched so expertly into the very fabric of its soul. I have a very vivid imagination and can spend hours recreating different scenarios courtesy of my patterns.

My patterns.

Sometimes for example I imagine a paddock full to bursting point of millions and millions of tiny black spiders. Each one hell bent on weaving the perfect and foolproof web. Millions of eyes darting here and darting there. Cautious of their peers. Always cautious. Consumed and driven with the need to spin. Their seedy beady eyes are very dark and very seductive. It is a rather a frantic scenario, I grant you, but it does sort of lend itself a certain amusement.
Honest!

Another one that amuses me is the one that involves ‘The Butcher’, should I go on? Ok I will. Well, initially I was unsure until that one bright spring morning when it finally showed itself. Cheeky really! Actually, funnily enough it was just after the last heavy snowfall, what some three years back now. I was sitting down eating a particularly nice plate of kippers when it just jumped out at me. I can honestly say that I do not know where it appeared from but appeared it did none the less.
Quite shook me up really.

There he stood (The Butcher) in all his glory, in all his garb, with the biggest meat cleaver this side of the county. There was blood a plenty. Dripping of his face. Dripping of his hands. Dripping of his arms. I guess you get the picture. I laugh now, off course, but not initially. He also has these big huge bulbous eyes and a squashed boxer’s nose. And if this is not scary enough, at his feet are the remains of the entire cemetery of Standfield. All in various different stages of putrification.
Nice!
Bones and flesh merge and spurge forming a sea of rotting corpses. One huge heaving mass writhing at the filthy ***** feet of The Butcher. It makes me smirk!

I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. That can’t be right. It says that it’s nearly 2pm. How can that be?  I have only just sat down and I know that when I woke up and peeped out of the window it was just after 5am. Strange! Still, I guess the clock has simply stopped and maybe needs re-winding, that’s all. I’ll sort it out later. These things are sent to test us, aren’t they?  
Been happening a lot of late.
Bless.

“Oh, that’s right listen to Freddie and not me. What’s new? This is all so ****** pointless. How dare you ask me my opinion if you are not actually interested in the response? Why bother? Look Freddie, I know it’s not your fault but you do so enable the old fool. How about supporting ME for a **** change? Look at me Freddie, not HIM, look, what do you see? It’s ME Freddie, open up those blind eyes of yours. I am here. I am real. Touch me Freddie. Please, please ….”

The clock strikes six times. Six! Does that mean that it is now six in the evening or is it six in the morning? I feel confused. I don’t like the snow. It scares me. Reminds me. I do not want to be reminded because I live in the here and the now. Now is all that is relevant to me. Time is only relevant now, see I remembered!

I attempt to stand up from the battered old chair but immediately collapse back down into it. Defeated. The curtains have not been drawn correctly in the front parlour and I can see through the tiny gap straight into the garden. A winter wonderland assaults my eyes. I try to shut it out. It is bearing down on me. I am struggling. I am struggling to breathe now. My heart is pounding and desperately trying to escape from my body.  What shall I do?  Help me? What, you think that this is funny. How? What part of a fellow human being having breathing problems is actually funny, prey tell? That’s right then, pretend it’s not happening. Maybe it will go away ….. just like Freddie did.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
that depiction of  a scene in Marie-Antoinette...
between
Louis-Stanislas, Comte de Provence -
brother to Louis XVI...
    who would become Louis XVIII
and his wife...
        Princess Maria Giuseppina of Savoy...
where she nagging him to provide
her with a child to stop pestering him
from doing... whatever it was that he was
doing... him remarking...
get your ugly face out of my moon light!

whether it is true via a fictional depiction:
never mind that!
i can trace back to the scene where
both of them are lying in bed
and he's trying to get a *******:
god, that face, there is nothing worse
than an ugly smile on a woman
and i have seen some ugly smiles on women:
beautiful women with ugly smiles...
ugly women with very beautiful
smiles, the paradox...

so he's jerking off while she interrupts
him implying: a man beating a dead horse...
checks under the cover:
well... a dead mouse...
woman's violence thus worded...
subtle, cunning, satanic -
grown-women and the supposed forever-infantile
state of man's mind:
to hunt, to explore to merely exist
by the sustenance of thought alone...
well... she did arrive from Savoy:
which i finally found out was part of Italy
with a Frida Kahlo monobrow and
a 9am moustache shadow beneath her nose...
***-fluff... well... no wonder:
i don't expect Elizabeth I of England
was much to look at...
    perhaps if Picasso hid her in his cubistic
monstrosities of fake-geometry handling...

in which direction?
only last Sunday... what a shift!
i was escorting about 8 police officers
to these two disgruntled women...
woman and daughter...
apparently these two "gangsters" were
threatening them... threatened them with knives...
with balaclava gang-members coming
to the ice-rink to "sort them out"...
something was fishy...
the daughter looked alright...
almost perfect physiognomy...
but the mother's ears... wonky...
i'd be more proud to have the ears of a rugby
player than those ears...
myopic... sickly looking...

me and the police officers managed to find them
bring them down for questioning /
give incident reports...

prior to these two gangsters, "gangsters"
came up to me asking: 'are you the security guard?'
yup... they started chatting to me
before the two women launched at me
with criteria unheard of...
i'm final on this point...
women to me are semi-solipsistic...
they don't even know it...
they don't know it when they wear a mask
of pretending but as quick as honestly
comes unapologetic and demands
impartial equilibration of getting to know
the situation: the mask... sort of... slips...
a lying woman is hardly an architect...
there's only the initial shock of a lie that
she figures will pass-on and through
and will be believed when she makes
a sloppy second stab on any given matter
in the vicinity of the original (lie)...

      this duo should have been ashamed!
truly! a mother and daughter double act
is the worst kind... a father could never persuade
a son to follow suit... but a mother can always
(seemingly) persuade her daughter to replicate
terrible behaviour...

in this instance? the "gangsters"...
when the police officers were questioning the women
i went up back to the ice rink to pick them out...
they were sitting in the polar opposite location
to the women...
"gangsters"...
      as i extended my index finger and asked
them to come with me downstairs
(tugging at an invisible fish-line)
i told them they were not in trouble...
the worst that might happen to them was...
they might get a free police escort home...
a free ride home...
names? Freddie and Georgie...

      turns out these "gangsters" were two
13 year old boys... 13 they said: they looked more
like 8... then again... at least one came from
a single-mother household and had
two older brothers and a younger sister...
under-nourished kid... i looked 13 when i was
8 looking at them...

the women were questioned giving fictional
statements: most probably...
i just sat down with Freddie and Georgie
and talked... this, that... and the other...
Georgie was named Georgie because he was
born on St. George's Day...
Freddie? that's short for Fredrick...
my "supervisor" interrupted me:
no! no one calls their children Fredrick...
it's Freddie...
then Freddie jumped in: i'm sometimes called
Frederico! hey presto!
that's not Friedrich... it's Frederick in Spanish...

huh? what's this? English language trying
to attempt the diminutive form of endearment
by shortening a person's name?
Fredrick becomes Freddie...
Edith becomes Edie...
Matthew becomes Matt
Peter becomes Pete
Samuel becomes Sam
Alexander becomes Alex?!
that's not a diminutive form... nor is it some
variation of endearment that diminutive form
exacts...

zdrobnienie...
        and if this supposed "diminutive" exists
in English... English is too rigid in its form of words...
attache of suffixes -less and -ness and -lessness...
as if something is missing rather than merely shrunk...

in ****** it's thoroughly apparent among nouns,
not merely in given names of people...
e.g. it's not simply Matthew becomes Matt...
i.e. where's the door, door prior...
to wipe my shoes on, i.e. the doormat?
it's ugly! it's horribly self-assured in faking
the diminutive approach...

spread across all, ALL nouns...
sun: słońce
little sun: słoneczko
river: rzeka
little river: rzeczka...

oh! ah ha ha! today i heard the car manufacturer
correct its pronunciation of a letter...
the Czech manufacturer SKODA
actually bothered to stress the Jan Huss'
demand for caron (crown) atop the S...
i actually heard SHKODA...
            crown in Czech... a rugby goalpost
in English... one arm of the Tetragrammaton...
otherwise a: H = Z in ******...
  ŠKODA = szkoda (pity) = oh well...
  oh well = pity... oh well ≠ oops...

and what has English to give "us" when it comes
to the diminutive form? ugliness...
ugliness of names...
Frankie, this lesbian coworker of mine
who, oddly enough has a child... a daughter:
so she wasn't a lesbian all along...
but now she's a butch lesbian...
muscular, i asked her how long it took her to
get a six-pack... 3 months...
she's looking for a gym-rat buddy...
she was thinking of me...
a mohawk haircut... not terribly attractive...
but... what, a, gorgeous, smile!
my "supervisor" giggled about gay-conversion
therapy with her...
Frankie = Francesca... now... correct me if i'm wrong...
Francesca sounds ace of spades ****...
Frankie... gender-neutral is...
like the rest of a gender-neutral world-view...
thing thing thing thing thing thing thing nothing
nothing thing thing thing thing thing thing
anemia
thing thing thing thing anemic thing(s): nothing
thing cube *** asexuality thing thing thing
black thing thing thing thing white thing thing
thing, thing thing thing, nothing, thinking thing
thinking nothing (god); thing thing thing -
but that's English for you... other European
languages have the masculine and the feminine
form... you couldn't get away with transgenderism
in any other language: except for English...
the grammar allows for this phenomenon to take
place! thing thing thing thing...
i know that the French would agree with me...
the Moon is male... the Sun is female...
in English there's a forced-vagueness associated
with gendering "things"... nouns...
loosely, borrowing from Latin:
Luna is a girl's name... alias of the Moon...
and Sol is a boy's name... alias of the Sun...

    the words themselves have a trickle of hope
for gendering objects according to ***...
the Moon in the English instance is a male...
even though he was given a female name prior
and the Sun is a female even though she was
given a male name prior, prior id est in Latin...

i don't think it's enough to simply speak a language:
a parrot can speak a language of human "concerns"
if the precursor of women talking all giddy to an AI
chat bot in the form of SIRI is anything to go by
the engineers must have thought of a parrot...
Hello Polly... Polly wants a *******...
that's how the advent of "intelligence" probably
emerged: simulation of the marriage of
a parrot and an echo...

        it's not enough to speak a language...
there's more to language than simply speaking it:
there's also the aspect of: knowing it...
digging trenches... i don't want to require of myself
to know the grammatical-categorical beside
the clarifying distinctions of what a noun is:
what a verb is... adverb... but then i gloss over
and forget the categorisation of words...
i know what a locksmith knows:
I = key
      O = keyhole
        Φ = I + O = i put a key into a keyhole
i turn the key:
                  I + / + O = Θ
upon turning the key the door U opens:
  Ψ! whether that's Poseidon's trident
or whether that's what psychologists
of today spew: the non-existence of god
and the self: "self" riddled by some
variation of Damocleses' sword...
      authority of thought within the confines
of: ought-i?!

      i walk through... i doubt i will have any serious
readers in this language...
it will take me... at least a bout of gangrene
of blue mingling with green and gold
to arrive at my resting plateau of hope that's
Paris... my love for Paris...
my love of being a stupid 18 year old...
  
wouldn't you believe: i think it was forever a
stupid affair to translate Finnegans Wake into
any language beside the original:
which is literally not so much original as:
originally muddled... since how many languages
are borrowed?

i sat with the "gangsters" until the end: beginning
of their ordeal... i too was given the police-taxi
back home once upon a time...
but then again that time i was given a free-ride
home... some clever ****** thought it was absolutely
necessary that i get alcohol poisoning
in a Seven King's nightclub by the roundabout...
with the floor... sickly sweet covered by carpets...
warm ***** and orange juice... ugh...
i stepped off the bus and collapsed
onto the pavement... i was woken up by
a helpless bystander and a police-officer...
subsequently taken home in a cage...

shameless women... mother & daughter...
but here i was, the "security guard"... trying to explain
to the boys: i know its not fair...
i know... i know... the women will be believed first...
Sally Challen - walked free after killing her
"abusive" husband with a hammer-blow
to the head... i wish Richard (Challen)
was bitten by a hammerhead shark...
  i truly do...
        at least the shark would have been hungry...
**** knows what Sally's inferno of thinking
conjured up prior... it's hardly decent to believe
women... these days... i'd rather play a poker
face gambit on the truthfulness of children...
at least with children there's no ****** inference
bias up to... well... that "bias" ends once they
(the girls) enter a medieval plump *** distinction...
14... maybe 13...
          
      confirmed though...
  once the boys were sent home this other woman
approached me and my "supervisor" and mentioned
an ongoing scenario with the "inbreds"...
a female ******* ring? hmm... maybe...
      Freddie! i know it's unfair... i know...
ladies first... i know she has chicken-nugget looking
ears... she looks like she was born from
a lust of her uncle for her mother and yet
her daughter is some random quickie-fix
while she banked on pure luck... i know, i know...
i'll sit this one out with you...

Frankie in the meantime was planning a date with her
new found ****-loves-**** relationship...
her girlfriend from... near Oxford(?)
was supposed to come down to see the ice hockey match...
already booked a room in the hotel...
but then apparently the girlfriend's car started leaking oil...
so Frankie was left walking alone to an alone-hotel-room
while the gay-conversion jokes rained...
butch *****: but a smile that could melt
any ****-disciple...
              i said my bye-byes and pretended to go home,
early...
did i? nope..

i decided to test my limp-biscuit "problem"...
i went to the brothel...
who was available? only one... the girl with the first
letter: L... not Linda...
i asked for her description: the blonde one...
ah... that one... the one that thinks she ultra-SPAZ
SPACE-X "special"... i'm spezial *** too!
the one into body augmentation...
first her **** wouldn't fit... too small...
prior to the first: 0... i.e. her lips weren't purse enough...
pout not enough bloom of a baboon's ***...
fine fine...

oh i hate pretending to be a Catholic priest
in a brothel... do i have a rubber ear or something?
are these confessions?!
i must be a Catholic priest of sorts: of imitation....
do you know a Catholic "priest"
that doesn't ask for a confession from a *******
after she performs oral *** on him...
and subsequently spews all that "life is crap"
*******?
      last time i heard Catholic priests were ferocious
anti-*** pro-*** with the choir boys...
one **** in one ear one **** out the other...
there are at least three avenues of the "tested"
woman... the vaginal approach...
the **** and the oral... hey presto! your *******
"trinity"... i'm not going to stop *******:
what i didn't receive in my glorified youth
i will not spare in my old age...
beat the child who discovered self-pleasuring
aged 8... before the production of *****
with what he said: "that funny sensation":
not, NOT: feeling... sensation... the tingling
of the choir of Eunuchs...
before the production of ***** arrived...
to squirt...

i write in English... i might have English readers...
me? i'm waiting for French translators...
i don't care one iota over a fabric of fractions
of I/O = an iota over a omicron:
joke in Latin: what's an Ψ without an iota?
an Upsilon or an Omega?
watch the curvatures...
and the sinking ship of a ship that was
never supposed to sail... Ω + I = bow down...
exfoliate: psychology:
logic of soul & the non-existence of god
or soul...
Enlightenment? Renaissance or:
Re-convalescence?
                oh... right... right... this be the first?
the times of the first illness of
post-colonial capitalistic restructuring having
defeated the "ancient" enemy of the communist
harpie-up: rouse-down...
    
solo-project "detail-lost detail-friendly"
advertisements... must be a island-dwelling folk
"thing"... hence the persistent writing of English history:
the Norman invasion: must be celebrated!
the Anglo-Saxon lineage must be celebrated!
via pity, pillage, **** and... unwanted women!
i don't want to mingle with these native women!
i'm here like a kindred hope of:
sending a postcard from Hawaii...
thinking about a beauty from Grenoble...
while at the same time having a burning effigy
of a girl from St. Petersburg...
but rather succumbing to the magnet of a pair
of eyes from the Carpathian region of Moldova...

me? i just landed the prize of writing within the confines
of the Medieval version of the Lingua Franca...
English is the language of commerce...
i know it tries to: in vain... to be this insomnia tongue
of the former British Empire...
spoken "elsewhere": everywhere...
but no... pockets of resistance...
Kashmir... teach those sieving through
poppy-mud the artefacts of Braille in Arabic
concerning the region having giving
Alexander the Great the grand limp **** of
a sword with a sheaf of Afghanistan...
how those men must have loved those women...
terribly not surprised that i don't love
those in my vicinity...

                expandable in times of war...
now? expandable in times of peace...
                if not turning one's bright cheeks for
some **** slapping: turning into a quasi-celibate monster
listening to prostitutes telling me of their woes...
thanking me for listening to them...
with L: her ******* done, her lips done...
next? her liposuction belly and arms...
not the effort of exercise in sight...
the quickie monstrosity...
then her teeth: i showed her my clearly aligned teeth
like the stampede of the Polish-Lithuanian
hussars before the siege of Vienna...
      smile: clearly aligned constellation of stars...

two women in the past have revealed dreams about
me they had that came true:
Ilona - she actually sketched it...
and showed it to me...
i was standing in a Judas' pose with my back turned
before her kneeling: arms outstretched
as if to be crucified...
long hair... naked upper body...
holding a sword in my right hand:
that's before the Russian invasion
    of Ukraine... before i wandered into the forest
and found my Cossack shashka...

another dream: displaying photographs of girls
before Danielle... apparently i was happy...
that last email i received from Danielle was
almost 7 years ago...
i think i'll send her a reply...
          
          it might be almost a decade apart...
compliment? hardly...
          but i guess that's how we always were:
why oh why Disney took the reins on
the imagination of youngsters and not
something from Studio Ghibli...
  America is decadent: pederastic...
America was a borrowed civilisation:
hence? its short-lived stature of a status of
faking civilisation: via: "culture"...
its culture is parasitic...
          America has no civilisational focus...
its an extension of Europe...
in times when Europe doesn't appreciate
"said" extensions...
China is a civilisation...
Russia and India are civilisations...
America is a culture...
it's not a civilisation...
              
          America is a culture-state
whereas China is a civilisation-state...
power-hungry-mongrels... god help us if they become
fiendish pseudo-Mongols!
America would require for Europe to
disappear: and for that to be the case:
it must... Europe must burden itself
with an ethnic anemia for America
for "become" a civilisation...
      
              whatever the "Jew" failed to employ
in his exile in Europe will not:
doubly will not achieve in North America...
Marcus Garvey or H. P. Lovecraft bedbug-love-buddies
aligned...
              struck by the wave of heightened:
wow! the Arabs joked about Moses and the 40
years in the desert... no wonder the camel-jockeys
never left... waiting for dragons of myth
to turn into dinosaur sludge post-locomotive
crescendo of wealth!

      my ***** your ***** anyone's AI bore...
that's globalism: the free-market free-world
enterprise... except for:
what's outside the realm of orbits...
in the vacuum: in the unknown:
clearly now known:
there are foundations: there are restrictions...
there are forests worth of the impaled that
suffered worse fates than the "supposed"
ultimatums of gods unto men with those
that were crucified... please! spare me!

boo! who?! boo! who?!
i might write in English...
but i'm not English...
i'm not exactly happy about an English speaking
audience... i'm waiting for the translators...
i'll be dead before my wishes come
true...and all the better... given
the climate of the currency of these times:
i.e. wasting each and each other's time...
while solidifying an abstraction
of prisoner enactment of "safe" space!
bah!

oh woo woo... quote me a sea that didn't woo
a river into its basin of:
the challenge of horizon:
how does the water of the sea disparage itself
from the water of the river:
and: with those floating cauliflowers of
clouds... allow for the reign of rain
to come and give man of the land
the beauty of spring and the harvest of summer
and of autumn... and the melancholy of
the darkened nights of winter
where the libido is so frail?
What if......two musicians sub-consciously were synchronized in time?
An epiphany they experienced but to us was sublime
Did Freddie know while he was composing Bohemian Rhapsody?
That Marvin Gaye was recovering from a personal tradegy
Marvin was compelled to write about the signs of the times
He began with mother, mother and then asked the questions why
Freddie wrote "mama I don't want to die"
Each calling out to mother but with a different cry
Freddie's words reflected self-acceptance and self-conflicted war
But Marvin realized the war related conflicts, the world chose to ignore
Freddie wanted us to"open our eyes and see"
While Marvin sang " talk to me so you can see," that was his plea
The harmonization between the two revealed the torments of conflict and pain
Each reasoned within their hearts the complexities of change
Marvin expressed his desire for the world to see " what's going on?"
Freddie in his operatic vibrato sang " nothing really matters to me"
"Anywhere the Wind Blows"
Najwa Kareem Apr 2023
Would you have guessed you’d be next?
Perhaps you said so to someone close once in a text. Your suspicions concerning the police kept you running.
Did you ever consider that maybe you were too stunning?
That maybe your continuous smile was too bright.
That maybe your face was filled with too much light.
That maybe your comings and goings, your daily visits to Mom were too much.
That perhaps your happy, cheerful, respectful demeanor could reach out and touch.
That maybe a look into your eyes, they were blinded by the sun.
That surely at the ripe age of 25, your life would be done.
An act of racism I ask?
An act of brutality I ask?
An act of inhumanity I ask?
An act of injustice I ask?
Where in police school does one learn that a young black man standing on the street makes him a suspect?
Where in police school does one learn wearing Prada makes you a
prospective criminal?
Where in police school does one learn that having a nickname Pepper
makes one a target?
Where in police school does one learn that a citizen’s lead
poisoning makes him a magnet for a 6 police officer raid?
Where in police school does one learn that having no knowledge of a
man carrying a knife makes him the next chase?
Where in police school does one learn that being a human officer
entitles one to act unjustly against a human person?
Who are you or I to say because he couldn’t read as well as you or I his life didn’t matter?
Who are you or I to say because Freddie lived like many in low-income housing he didn’t deserve a chance at a better life?
Who are you or I to say because he had been arrested for drug
possession in the past he didn’t deserve to live out his dream?
Who are you or I to say because he liked to sing and make others laugh he didn’t deserve a life of dignity?
Who are you or I to say he didn’t have the right to continue
visiting his dear Mother, Mrs. Gloria Darden?
Who are you or I to say he shouldn’t have had the privilege to
continue walking Baltimore’s streets?
Now Freddie our hearts grieve your loss.
Now Freddie my heart grieves your uncalled-for death.
Now Freddie your prideful city has simmered down but it still feels
the pain.
Now Freddie my warmest sympathy to you, your family, your friends,
your supporters, and the city of Baltimore.
This poem of mine was originally published on 4/20/16 on www.socialjusticepoetry.com after submitting it for publishing on 4/19/16, one year following the death of Freddie Gray.
On 3/20/21, my poem was published on this site (without my having submitted it here for publishing) - www.bestpoetryonline.com/4682/baltimores-son-freddie-gray-najwa-kareem
MERCURYS'   BID   WITH ETERNITY
lately queen a bid with eternity a humble plea
to stand in ovation amidst an earnest vacation
1986 the sorrowful fix a man and his gun unleak his ***
serving ditches ignoring all those *******
Freddie Mercury bid with eternity
Bohemian Rap you see..,
although he had many loves the tender look at loves ovation
knock on the door where he was ready to go
"WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS"....,

all his thoughts were putting him further and further away from God
wanted to instead go to P town on the banks of Cape Cod
like a flock of seagulls there the wind blows
nurse the rhyme to begin to fly
Mercury lives out the lie

that says I am what I do
bit off more then he could chew
Freddie you see..,
painful to see

a vision of trans between his blended humanity
some friends to see below the breeze
Freddie you see was getting lost into a fixed reality
smoke of the gun between a rise in his jeans,

Although for some he was a slave to sin
here is where I humbly begin deep from within again
learning a little bit as he was coming along
I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride it well...,

for some he was a nobody in their minds but was hidden behind
a surplus to learn how to manage he comes as a slave next turn to believe
Freddie to stay Mercury the purpose of his winning
the end from the truest beginning

Freddie came to believe a bit of a mystery
his weakness and his strength would rise
the develop of a following dig deeper to remember
every time we are tempted about something

there always comes an opportunity
although he thought he had every thing he is thrown into a prison of curtains
pay no attention to his that is behind the curtain,
yet it payed to be the one the only Freddie M ercury

The devil came to Freddie and he answered its call
then we hear he melodies lurking at your neighborhood mall
on the banks of the roller rink so many years ago master the flow
dreams of recaping what one was basking,

Freddie will have to stand before his maker
not to which sprayed a get together as a singer
he stood for power in a quaint reserve,
balanced power relieved

Only God Knows !

Queen, engulfed their intact wizardry across the world...,
a cool breeze blowing on their adoring fans we hear,
out on a mission he reigned through a magic current
turning each page with guidance amidst inner violence;
Although he died of Aids his legacy lingers on within song
Magic Mercury very theatrical boom...,

English bred his soul monumental glimpse
historic torn magestic feeling
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way...

exploring the last remains of thought -
well then... suit and boot me up for some "thinking"
as i extend it into writing...

if i were of the native stock... "elsewhere":
most probably h'america or australia... even in italy
having tea with mussolini i'd be:
an expat... as an outsider among outsiders
but among my sameness-namesakes of surnames
akin to jones and smith:

i will never be an "immigrant" among...
it's not even a voice of cocern, this little voice of
mine...
an englishman who decides to move
to h'america is an expatriate for the native
englishman who stayed behind...
he's never an immigrant...

perhaps other nations view the people that left
them in such a positive light?
where else to emigrate to that doesn't
speak basic english with a tinge of
a "welcoming" plethora of accents?

proudly having expatriated...
or having to have had to humbly emigrated...
bark bite and tail in tow...
my the luck of being an expatriate...
readily prepared with a francophile basis...
e.g., or some other: less frost-bitten
idealism as the work ethic of:
work work work...

we know the english immigrants
as expatriates... but i doubt that people
from where i from would call me...
an expatriate... they'd call me...
eh... hangman noose... a deserter...
god forbid the fact that i somehow managed
to integrate... but then found myself wondering...

have, have integrated into... "what"?!
today i was truly astounded...
after all... Romford, Essex... England...
can boast about a few things...
notably? it's the past place you can buy vinyl
without amazon.co.uk...
you can actually play the buyer and the person
that loiters with his shadow...
flicking through a dictionary of sorts...
finding a record...

i actually left the house for ulterior motives...
but i succumbed to the allure...
and as i walked the January 2nd 2020 highstreet
in Romford...
i heard english... as a spoken language...
twice in the pedestrian commute...
and of course when it came to a lingua franca
scenario of buying or selling something...
otherwise:

perhaps i retained my primitive instincts
and the tongue and should have left it with a ghost
of me back in the clarifying vicinity of
an airport 50 miles from Warsaw...
i have bigger things to worry about though:
how i should start learning Romanian...
even though: i thought bilingualism was a good
idea?
it's not?

not among the natives could i ever be
an expatriate...
an ever: never... like any more thesaurus
sharpening would do the trick to balance
the optics of "perspective"...

if it wasn't a mistake...
it has still been a purchase:
freddie hubbard on the trumpet,
jackie mclean on the alto sax,
kenny drew on piano,
doug watkins on bass
and pete la roca on drums...

the only reason as to why i bought
a gramaphone was to buy the only cheap vinyl
there is... jazz...
to escape the earphones...
to find the complete volume of space
that would later be deemed:
confined to a room... cell... or some alternative
variation: but... oh jeez...
how wrong it was of me...

make a note: alto sax jazz is not for you...
remember: alto sax jazz is not for you...

a sensation of being a foreigner in
an already double-dutch foreign sense of land...
anything that drops from clinching
to the London transport system
with the trains and the tubes and buses
is: england...
the england of my youth where i remained
like that... dunce in the ****** tunes cartoons
interlude...

and what of my citizenship on paper?
wave a passport around
like a benchmark or an otherwise easy
accent-identifier?
perhaps i don't even know:
Bristolian - my best guess with this acquired
tongue...

but at least buying jazz is getting easier...
freddie hubbard a known name...
but... no... alto sax jazz is not for me...
now it figures...
i can get away on a whim when
a trumpet solos... but not when an alto sax
solos... i really can't stomach it...
will i give this Bluesnik record back?
no, i need a testament -
i have bought something
but the self-reflection is free...

there's only so much classical music escapism
you can try -
before long you realise that the people
listening to classical music...
mostly... when they make requests...
want "something soothing"...
want "something jovial"...
or usually it's a piece of music that has
been attached to a movie...
classical music - apparently doesn't feed
people a subtle stream of images...
and it's obvious: those requests are not phoned
in on by blind people...

imagine... the ****** of F... when you have ⠋
to work with...
what is an sunrise... a sunset but a dash
of colour... a spring of the heavens
an autumn of the heavens...
but my my... in this inverted listening of jazz...
⠙⠑⠑⠏
⠃⠇⠥ ⠑    DEEP BLUE...

if i were blind: and came to the pearly gates...
i'd ask for letters: primo pronto!
later i'd worry about colours and shapes...
as i'd probably stick to my first passion
and hearing this fathomless shapeless
sounds that... abide to no lineage with a recant
of a triangle's use of 90°...

otherwise... what if you've been fed
the: classical music when listened to when a child
will increase your i.q. -
but what are the chances that you will:
"regress" from listening to classical
music and take to jazz?
perhaps because jazz has to be felt,
it has to be heard, first,
rather than... the silence and scribbles
of a composer at his desk -
where a classical music composition
is very much like writing:
that whole a prior shabang!
none of the a posteriori zigzagging
of impromptu and jazz?

one thing is certain... i'm not going to
be a fan of alto sax jazz...
sonny clark on piano - yes...
art blakey on drums - yes...
kenny burrell on guitar - yes...
alto sax no... ah... but give me tenor sax
and... no please no big bang jazz
equivalent to thelonious monk...
at least jazz gives you pedestrian tastes
and whims...
nothing akin to bowing at the altar
of a Beethoven: or talking lightly of
the man - "the man"...

and who the hell said that being
objectivity "works all the time"
that objectivity "runs the marathon"...
alto sax jazz is pedestrian music...
don't get me wrong...
you want to walk down a busy street
and you want to drown the sounds
of progress: no horses sneezing,
no horses' hooves playing tic-tac-toe
chess on cobweb stones...
alto sax jazz is your take-out
walk-through...
but when you're hunched in a chair
and pecking at a keyboard with
ten good beaks of the tips of your fingers...

again: how do the hands rest before
the keyboard?
the right hand:
index middle, pinky and thumb...
the ring finger is used for the: delete button...
a revision - the pinky does the enter -
and the cascade follows...
the left hand?

primarily the index and *******...
the thumb is always attached to space...
shared with the right hand's *******
to space,
i can't remember if i ever used my ring
or pinky finger of my left arm...

so much for inverted chiromancy...
the polacks will never give me the wings
to be an expatriate...
i will be forever: he who abandoned
that land running with milk and honey...
but... look at how they stand behind those
from england that decided to go "elsewhere"...
they are not immigrants...
they are... expatriates...
have nothing filthy them it comes to
the connotation...
it's not sad it's not funny it's: somewhere
"in between"...

because we know that the only russians
that ever make it out of russia
are the oligarchs... and by that standard
of "sentiment": they're always welcome...
who wouldn't welcome the pharaohs without
giza pyramid ambitions of construction?!
passing chalk as cheese -
and passing... ink for blood...
perhaps i haven't sweated enough to be allowed
to write but as little as this...

there's always this sense of alienation
among the germanic tribes of "israel":
europe... even if they are the scots or the welsh
suckling at the teats of romulus & remus' lupa...
as the old saying goes among the slavic people
when "integrating" into a germanic-esque society -
by the time you have integrated...
there's this dog-**** pile of Babylon left...
and the germans are: "nowhere"!

the saying goes via:
if you go among the crows...
you must croak their croak...

here's to flying high as an imitation seagull!
brazen: into this arable land...
that's being teased by the Thames estuary...

passing through a Warsaw train station
i noticed the immigrants / the expatriates
on the eastern front...
mostly mongols...
notably the ukrainians...
but now in england i'm starting to think
in concrete terms... better start learning
Romanians...
and on the street: you can't see a focus of
who's here and who isn't here...
back east the Roma people stood out
like a sore thumb or a voodoo plum and...
that didn't bother the locals since they were
meshed like glue...
but, here, in england?
everyone's a sore thumb a voodoo plum...
because the natives,
the blessed idiosyncratic professional
eccentrics have left and...
i'm not going to be the first chasing them down...

London the only and last bastion is
overrun with the whole lot of us...
well: the "us" vs. "them" mentality...
don't get me wrong... i'll still listen to the concerns
of the peripheries... in this cest pool
of immigrants, degenerates...
old people who "forgot" to move...
the lunatics the in-betweeners and the old guard
clinging on...
perhaps, after all... english was a very
accomodating language...
it wouldn't take a genius to learn it from scratch
being thrown into the deep end of the pool
aged 8...
who was mute aged 8 going to school
being moved from "east" europe to this island
with... no prior to linguistic connection?
moi...

and now look at me... i'm teasing myself
with... sordid welsh as if i were ever the posterboy
for welsh nationalism...
scottish nationalism? eh... if they were to retain
their gaellic roots...

expansion:
the longing for those who have left:
in the anglo-sphere - expatriate...
the abhoring sense of those who arrive -
immigrant...
otherwise... the english are always
and everywhere: welcome...
hence the expatriate status of those
who have left their native land...
even in h'america: a shared language:
to be an immigrant... while speaking
the same language?! how preposterous!

the difference between eastern style
comedy presentation and western style
comedy presentation: on stage...

the eastern folk prefer cabaret: theatre dialogue
montages...
the western folk prefer stand-up:
monologue samuel beckett esque
performances...
'woe i... stand alone in this infinite
space and... find others to laugh with...'

- perhaps we're not being less funny because
we're lowering our "i.q.": yes, the we are...
we are... lowering...
i find lee evans to be funny...
a laurel and hardy weren't exactly funny
by modern comedy standards that:
it's only funny if it's intelligent...
if there's a crossword puzzle at the end of "it"...

perhaps pride is the shackle...
and ham... what ever happened to self-depreciating
humor that managed to somehow
elevate you as also having a sense
of humor:
do intelligent men even laugh
at something that isn't a word-play or
a corset of wit?
perhaps we're experiencing a drying of wip...
perhaps the jokes are only supposed
to come: days after as a form of
reflection on the sigma canvas:
the joke has to exist outside the performer
and the stage... it needs to be: a live-experience...
it has to take on DASEIN qualities?
it has to be internalised?

that: oh yeah... that's funny...
perhaps the same thing has to be observed
and it can't be retold in an impromptu
fashion shackled to a stage?
the stage is the new camp-fire?
i thought so too... about the television...

as: here's to slagging off everything that's
being published online bypassing
the editorial process of selection...
well... if it weren't for all the seriousness
surrounding internet banking...
and internet shopping...
pen to paper...
******* clinching a ripped roll
of cushioning paper
and a pseudo-***** imitation
for a wipe while massaging my prostate
over the enlightened prospect
of dropping the blitzkrieg plump-dump-plum
into an echoing lake in the ceramic basin...
otherwise...

a seanse with that moment of realisation:
"something is happening to us
collectively"... it's as if: we're under a spell...
oh i was under a spell today...
watching alec guinness in the fall of the roman
empire...
and as coming from a people
that were never conquered by rome?
on this fine fine island that was...
well... my hopes were also high for
the conquests of the mongol empire...
and the remains of it in the form of the tatars
in crimea...

here are my tattoos... it's hard to break from them,
it's hard to wash them away...
but at least i can attest:
my brain might be all fat and sponge and
electricity... but there's some skull and skin
to be had of it...
otherwise... why would the year 1066
be important for me... why would the magna carta
be important for me?
i too have my years in tattoos on this big brian
of mine...

otherwise there's that copernico-darwinian
surge of: journalistic science...
i still find it staggering that darwinism continues
to capture the imagination of people...
"of people"... only in Wittgenstein was left
alone in finding that Copernicus did something
astounding... this surge of "awakening"
via darwinism: this statistical bombardment
like it was some tabloid journalism:
throwing a pebble at a mountain while
also ushering in a mantra: grow by
a poppy's seed added height! grow!

perhaps i'm just jealous...
among the polacks i will never be an expatriate...
what a jealous people...
an englishman who moves to france...
comes 20 year later...
he will have never experienced
the mark of cain: immigration "humphrey bogart"...
he or she moved to france...
perhaps to italy...
i remember being in greece and...
i was nothing when i said i was ******:
but with british citizenship! to add...
so what?
well... so what greece...
i latched onto some north africans
and went to **** away the night
in some strip-bar where i had
two strippers either head o' mine...
and it was constellations galore...
grandmother Etna said:
rest here, among the smooches poor child...

i borrowed Etna from when Aeneas
"left off"...
****'s sake... this is the Meditarrean
and not the Baltic? where is the amber
the whiskey and the leverage of gratations
of time?!

i will agree. Macedonia come night traffic
of quicksilver tinging?
if the metal is cheap and you douse it in some gold?
a mountain dripping fresh from some quicksilver
from the moon peering at it?
objectivity what?

the finite plateau of snow-riddled Serbia...
and perhaps that's because these people
speak their own language...
and have so... and i'm just the next
"english" tourist...
a jack kerouac americanism and:
oh sure! sure!
spectacular fly-over country tourism!
everything's so so different!
and yet all so oh so much the same!

darwinism was going to run the 5000 meter
race... it's currently running the 10000 meter
race... god help it in running the marathon
of still pretending: old news is new news...
i can't distinguish between darwinism
and copernican discovery...
only in the english-speaking world
would this discovery not escape a criticism
from ancient greece and some, some predecesor!

wouldn't anyone just bore of darwinism
if they were told: over and over again:
the copernican "reality"?
a scientific fact is... akin to a religious dogma...
until... it becomes regurgitated with
enough time, with enough journalism and...
tabloid wind... and after a while...
it's only worthwhile to be spoken to
amnesia peoples of the world: unite!
it's hardly "stupid" or "intelligent"...
more or less overlooked...
because a pebble thrown at a mountain:
is... no added mountain to behold...
conventional wisdom is the only wisdom
that there ever was made to be made:
available...

nonetheless, the circumstance stands...
unless from the slavic hemisphere
of europe...
unlike any other circumstance: other than
the one given, among islanders...
among continent builders akin
to australia and h'america...
the post-racial societies of post-colonial
spain in south america?
ever wonder why the brazillians don't
look for inspiration from the portugese
when it comes to football?
you'd think: those yanks better have
the best football team in the world...
they haven't exactly looked back...
back at "us": oh god... tea afternoon and cricket...
baseball wha'?
basketball? "football"?
why are "we" looking forward and "they're"
looking back?
perhaps i should learn some spanish and
get some insinuation about:
the argentinian sense of lack when looking
back into spain...

or what else is there to be had?
move to Greenland... admire Denmark...
**** it: do the whole stretch and find
some locals on the Faroe Islands...
perhaps i too will find a tomorrow...
but tomorrow i will find: sobering up
and having to deal with: everything beside jazz...

mmm... "delayed gratification" prospects...
seven kings: canon palmer catholic school...
when boys are educated alongside girls...
what if i went to Ilford County High?
what if i were born to immigrant parents
and wasn't an 8 year old immigrant?
what if i went to the Ilford Ursulines?
the all-girls school... the former, Ilford County High?
what chances of me being an intellectual
******?

what, oh the chances!
perhaps praying: segregated... is a tad extreme?
but perhaps ******-exclusion policies:
teaching boys throughout their puberty
as segregated from girls in the same hormonal
development "range" is...
well! how else! you take a boy and girl
and you put them into the hormonal cocktail!
just because it's in a shared educational
environment... why these teenage pregnacies
you ask?
i wouldn't ask such blunt questions...
not since the genius of Copernicus
couldn't attract these...
psychological left-over intelligenstia clingers...
that darwinism has allowed...
what it darwinism and journalism?
everything! the ant as the ego
inside the mind of an ape...
the dormant tapeworm embryo
inside the mind of an ant:
with siesmic consequence of a disturbance
of the collective hive network...

borrow too much from an ape...
borrowing from an ape is one thing...
it's the borrowing from all other
animals: with the ape as the backdrop
that's truly bothersome!
at least religious spew the same facts
over and over again...
scientific dogma? who keeps track?
tomorrow might be the next:
butter vs. margarine controversy!
what sort of "religion" is science
(it's not a religion... if it's not...
why does it have to cohabit a bed
with journalism then, to spew "new",
"improved" facts, then?!)
when... it's so ******* finicky!

look via the ape long enough:
it won't matter whether it's a geocentric
of a heliocentric system that
reigns above your head, no torso,
a pickled spine...
legs and arms floating about like:
an octopus experiencing spasms
pickled in brine...

perhaps these are the zenith years of
darwinistic popularity...
perhaps like the copernican popularity...
there will come a time of:
fatalism... that somehow all of this
is... inevitable...

i see one answer: this cage of grammar
this cage of whatever this god made human
pressures me into complying to...
to the last typo! i will stand against it!
without caging me into a use of emoji or
some other hieroglyphic purse of:
shortened "thinking"...

the "seven silences" might have passed
around my presence that i dare not
call it: in concrete - figure...
and still my eigth silence to unmask
nothing more than a mask...

who are these immigrants, these tight brewed
broods, these furrow brows
representing the native pensive "squint":
of anything beside the eyes and a thought
of h. p. lovecraft?
perhaps inside of europe:
but as ever... without a russian passport...
without a russophobia that's
a tickling hard-on... the "in-between-land"...
perhaps the balkans...
who are we... to these germans and quasi-germans?

we use their tongue, their zunge...
their everything they will otherwise allow themselves
to deny: perhaps this is not Dublin,
this is not Glasgow this is not Cardiff...
perhaps this is not Italy,
this is not France...
perhaps this is "europe" as long as
Scandinavia is involved...

woe a we unto us: the viking Rus...
or some lent word of lost vogue...
last time i heard:
these northern ******* are in no favour
of treating the Spaniards or the Greeks
as their equals...
as long as they have rich arab pimps
race their lamborghini brute ******
down... knightsbridge...

then! and only then! iz ist europa "reconquista"!
"reconquista"... i'll defend these poor polacks
that didn't think it...
"necessary" to only learn english in order
to comply to the global dictum of neu-communist
internationalism...
- what, they didn't teach you you stupid
**** that it only took to learn from english?!
- last time i heard... not teachings polish
to a canape of anything beside the french,
the spanish... also worked!

english as a language is oh so accomodating...
the people will react like antibiotics,
naturally... enough of darwinism and you'll
be found, bound, to having to reference it...
past a de facto menu:
and more like a subjectivity...
there's only so much truth that can be stated...
before fiction has to reply...
because... how many regurgitated facts
can be regurgitated...
before the desert of fiction and...
there's only the fact of a bottle of water...
that remains...
and there's not impetus to walk toward
an oasis...
a fata morgana is hardly a scientific experience...
when experienced...
it's something associated with
a desert and within the desert must either:
live... or die...

what if etymology was to become the new
standard for journalism...
what if one were to escape this contant
bombardment of darwinism...
like it wasn't the next new vogue akin
to the copernican "revolution"?

is that even possible?
whenever i return to Poland...
esp. in Warsaw... i'm a deserter...
i'm not an expatriate...
the native english call those who left
with a sense of longing...
somehow: or at least that's the leftover...
the expatriates from the inside-out
perspective... never the immigrants...

i'm an immigrant and...
a paper citizenship is: no citizenship at all...
a passport is only worth a passport
at a border crossing...
in between the everyday daily affairs?
'where are you from?'
****... 'Bristol?!'...
i'm hardly going to speak
the cockney cockers or an essex schlang...
am i? ***!
all but ******* plumbers and church pulpit
mongers... and some over-ripe
riddle fruits: if not simply left
bottles of wine for the bears...

the first part though, bothers me...

someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way... in mere thinking...
and a dog barking...

the natives will only have a freedom of speech...
what if an immigrant becomes a citizen?
just asking...
what if an immigrant is granted a citizen
status?
well then... i am your humble example
of a civic nationalist...
such a confusing term...
it must be: for the natives...

oh ****... what language am i using?
the language of the... natives!
rubric civitas!
civic nationalism is reserved for:
those that came from abroad...
i guess the ethno-nationalists never made
this distinction clear:
watching their contemporaries leave their
native pit of woe...
and they would never call them:
deserters... only... only... expatriates...
after all... aren't we in the postmortem of ancient Rome?!
isn't this the time when the remnant
english come out and glorify being
the conquered people of this: lettering?

what is civic nationalism?
what is learnt, integrated nationalism...
this is civic nationalism...
how about the english forget about something,
like solving crosswords...
esp. among the middle-classes...
and let's envision their globalist dream!
let them learn a second language
and let us all become bilingual!
oh no... not polyglots... just bilingual!

i can't be an ethno-nationalist...
em... because (a) (b) and (c)?
aren't the post-colonial commonwealth
remnants of the empire the sort
civic-nationalists there's talk of?
what language am i writing in?
hebrew?! mandarin?!

ethno-natioanlism and its tribalism...
civic-nationalism and its state...
where does the church fit into all of this?
it's like not being an amuptee but
nonetheless being prescribed a "missing limb"...
the **** would i need a third arm for?
wilt the third leg allow me to run faster?!

i guess the term ethno-nationalist is
conflated with civic-nationalist in the ethno-nationalist
realm of "debate"...
a civic-nationalist is your casual parlance
h'american patriot...
patriotism in h'america: nationalism (still)...
in europe...
if we have to: hello, my name is: bob
do it all over again with the squares
and dictum assertions and what not attached...
between the ethno-nationalists and
the civic-nationalists...
the inter-nationalists...

i'm a civic-nationalist because:
i fear people need concrete examples...
i will not move back to Poland...
except on the holidays...
to visit my grandparents...
which is why i have retained the labour
of a native tongue... and "identity"...
i will remain in England...
until England becomes: Alle-Land...
and even when all these
ethno-nationalists ******* to Australia...
and become civic-nationalists over there...
well: over there good luck!

why would anyone ask an ethno-nationalist
the question: are you a civic-nationalist or?
civic- implies:
i'm a Brit from a grand "beyond":
circa 3000km away...
civic is a bewildering prefix for the nationalist
of a ethno- persuasion...
it really is... esp. when this ethno-nationalist
doesn't believe in the existence of
expatriates... that he would remain... "stuck"...
and that somehow... ethno-kin could come
and replace... those kin that left: "in good faith"...

savvy?!
A hippie hocked a louie on Sammy
when he landed in San Francisco.

Sammy didn't respond;
he just wanted to make
his connecting flight home.

Sammy wasn't proud about
some of things he did in the war;
so he figured he probably
deserved the garlands of disdain
an ungrateful nation bestows
upon itself in fits of self contempt.

Sammy shut down and tuned out,
soon his heart was as dead
as a tombstone until he visited
the monument.  

He would often recall the story
that as he approached the darkened
wall he could sense ghosts loosening
themselves from the black granite.   

Sammy swore that Jimmy Lynch
who went MIA on the final week of his tour
gave him a bear hug and told him
as long as the beer stays cold
and he don’t lose the church key,
everything's groovy and he’s
hanging tough until the rest
of the guys show up.

Jimmy pointed to the Lincoln Memorial
at one end of the mall and to the
Washington Monument at the other,
emphatically stating that our monument
was forever linked with the greatest Americans.

Yeah meeting up with Jimmy
helped Sammy to start shaken
off some real bad stuff.

Mazie knew her husband for a
month before they got married.
A week later Freddie was off to Vietnam.

Freddie was KIA during the Tet Offensive
and his repatriated remains are peacefully
at rest in the red clay of Georgia.

An always faithful Mazie
came to the monument
a few years after it was dedicated.  
She was struck by all the keepsakes
people left at the base of the wall;  
Zippos, baby pictures, a copy of
The Catcher in the Rye, a fifth
of Makers Mark, Pink Teddy Bears,
votive lights, a red 57 Chevy model,
a left handed catchers mitt, and
a pack of Lucky Strikes.

She palmed rosaries and
crucifixes that salved sore
running wounds and David’s
interlaced Star sounding a Shofar
pleading a case for peace.

Mazie is most moved by the names.  
Rows and rows of names. The scroll
begins in a modest manner and
as the wall climbs the names
of a country's vigilant sons and
daughters tower over her head.  
So much living history; spoken
in the unique accent of a country’s
diverse plethora of luminous tongues.

The stories written into the black granite
tell a tale from every state; claiming
the ears, heart and mind of every citizen. 
Each chiseled letter captures every bit
of sun and deep creeping shadow
inching across a great nation.

“I’m  71” says Mazie.  “When I look
upon the wall I see my 21 year old
Freddie as he looked on the finest
day of his life.  He will never look
any other way to me.”
  
“I didn't want to go to see it,” Franny said,
“a cold piece of stone won’t bring my son back.”

Franny did finally go...

When it rains the wall weeps.  
The wall wept all day,
the first time Franny went.

Many were rubbing
the impressions of
dearly departed names.

Franny too, kneels to the
presence of her son’s name.

With a mother's
grateful fingers,
she touches the wall's
damp surface; wiping
the drizzle from her
child's sodden face.

Kneeling before his semblance,
she rubs his etched edges
onto tiny bits of paper.

She sees him,
made manifest in the stone.
As if through a glass darkly,
a found son looks back,
onto the face of a caring mother.

Franny hangs onto the quiet
memory of his voice,
shimmering in the soft lilt
of a warm dark stone.

This deep core Vulcan gneiss,
at last emerged from the hardest stuff,
sculpts a perfect likeness of a tear stained nation.

The Harmonizing Four: Rock of Ages

In Honor of
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Washington DC

Oakland
Veterans Day
2013
There's a guy dressed up as Freddie Kruger for Halloween
Freddie Kruger can't sing the high part during Eye Of The Tiger
I murmur something to my friend
Me: Freddie Crooner
My friend laughs more than he needs to
We aren't sure whose whiskey sour is whose anymore
My roommate doesn't want to sing in front of people
She'd rather hide in her glass and mingle with the ice
But I make her duet a Nirvana song with me
Which we scream and she starts having fun
The crowd claps with relief when we're done
Freddie Kruger offers me a fist bump
A group of sweet plump ladies takes turns singing love ballads
They all have pretty voices and work at Bubba Gump on the pier
The one that sang the Adele song is studying business
She tells me while we smoke outside during Wonder Wall
I sing nine minutes of Meatloaf
My voice cracks and growls like feedback
This guy buys me a shot afterwards
My throat is so dry that I have to drink it in tiny sips
This guy thinks me and my friends are fun
I duet Desperado with him and we knock over stools and laugh
He has clearly never heard the song Desperado before
Me and my friends invite the whole bar to sing an Aerosmith song together
I think that this may be the only way to really appreciate Aerosmith
I drive my roommate and my self back to our apartment
I'm drunk but I pretend I'm sober so she won't get scared
Then sometimes I laugh bizarrely to scare her a little bit
But always end up lying and reassuring her that I'm sober
We start talking about Lou Reed because he had died that day
I guess Lou Reed didn't like when people said RIP
Which I had written in my facebook status about him dying
I don't really care much because Lou Reed wasn't really a friend of mine
I just liked his music
And he never mentions in any of his songs anything
About people saying RIP
When we got to the bar the first thing I did
Was to look for a Lou Reed song to sing
But there weren't any
So I sang other songs instead
Cedric McClester May 2015
By: Cedric McClester

Justice delayed is justice denied
A familiar credo rarely applied
So the call for it is a rising tide
They’re only trying to close the divide
It came so quickly in Baltimore
Like nothing that they had ever seen before
The young prosecutor was so able and sure
Though she never tried a case like it before

This time a rookie would light the fuse
People rejoiced once given the news
The laws don’t exist for police to abuse
Responsible parties have to pay some dues
She laid the facts out chapter and verse
Starting with what she said occurred first
It began to appear that Freddie was cursed
As she laid out the charges it looked even worst

Although color only tends to distract
If you must keep track as a matter of fact
Out of the six cops three were black
Which doesn’t suggest that they knew how to act
Cops bleed blue whether black or white
The uniform’s the same am I wrong or right?
Either or they’ll put out your light
Then say you resisted and put up a fight

People were asking how Freddie died
Some rightly suspected from a bumpy ride
And now that those facts have been verified
It’s more than a theory that will get tried
Just as if Freddie was sending a sign
His broken neck and a badly cracked spine
Wasn’t self-inflicted we got to find
Did they really think that we’d lost our minds



© Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied was inspired by events in Baltimore in the wake of the Freddie Gray ****** that allegedly was committed by six Baltimore police officers.
itsall iwrite Jun 2018
freddie is the 80's storm 19.06.18

you are beautiful
tuesday was cannabis green
camden had a storm that's colourful
rocking like a true queen.
perfect was the tash
and the jacket that's iconic
spreading round camden like a rash
freddie is more addictive then kronic.
suspicious of whats occurring
to many things are ringing
trying to stop the blurring
made in heaven won't be  singing.
80's is the best decade
its when queen were top form
the ballet will never fade
just like freddie who was infarct storm.
hate to explain poetry
Cedric McClester Apr 2015
By: Cedric McClester

It isn’t about Freddie Gray
According to what local residents say
It clearly goes much deeper than that
For us to find ourselves where we’re at
How did things get this far gone
And how are we going to go on
When our social fabric is clearly torn
Can we at least take pause to morn

Our legitimacy can be deleted
When acts of violence are repeated
Lawlessness needs to be defeated
Even though our grievances are deep seated
As I’ve indicated before
It doesn’t call for a state of war
The rule of law we can’t ignore
Without a doubt that is for sure

It isn’t about Freddie Gray
Nor merely ignorance as some will say
And while ignorance may come into play
It’s about more than that anyway
Is it an organize insurrection
Beyond the naked eye’s detection
Like Cointelpro at the governments direction
While real estate interests have an errection

On the same day Mr. Gray was interred
And the lines of decorum clearly blurred
The police’s non-response was absurd
Because protecting the people was deferred
So there’s enough guilt to pass around
From the mayor , city council and police on down
Now it’s gonna take decades to come around
Because the after affects are that profound
It Isn't About Freddie Gray was yet another poem inspired by the volence that erupted in the wake of Freddie Gray's funcral.

— The End —