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Matthew Harlovic Jun 2017
to the one who knows or examines his existence
explain the relativity of time and distance
from the instance of creation;
the expansion of self
to the bold bearing of a life lived well.
now picture the presence of a proclaimed faith
through the face of a Galilean reference frame
but refrain from the mention of preconceived notions
which pertain to gnomon-wise motion.

© Matthew Harlovic
kate cc Apr 2022
At the heights of a Surrey valley
is where I stand alone.
The clouds roll in with attempted suppression,
wuthering, as one may say.
Yet they succeed and I do not.

All this vacantness on the moors,
in turn: suffocation.
All this gale of violence and madness,
not a single shiver,
but a private, intense burning sensation.

Would it set fire to the moors, the libraries,
and the red curtain theatre?
Or would it melt the defendant themselves?
I wish for the former,
yet I am already melting.

I put my hand on the gnomon-less sundial,
and still I stand alone
drunk on the all-consuming emotions
inflicted by these brick walls
or rather the crowds of unpredictability within them.
much less thought put into this one than the previous. this one's more of a go-with-the-flow led by my emotions during my writing session.
The king of what was stands in silence
and surveys his sunsetted realm.
His spine is straight in stiff defiance
of the twilight of the kingdom he’d helmed.

On a plastered pedestal high he stands
surrounded by the waste of his times.
Carved into it, once acclaimed in his lands,
was his name, now covered by vines.

The pale sheen of low sun as winter nears
casts shadows across his etched face.
Its grooves grow deeper year after year —
he’s the gnomon whose shade this sundial has traced.

He takes no note of the thorny brambles
that have entangled his fixed stony feet.
With flinty gaze and wrapped in a mantle
of granite, he keeps watch through storms and sleet.

Now stripped of his titles and even his name,
the proud king of the ruin’s still there.
For while the long night has broken his fame,
still he stands, marked by his unbroken stare.
A “gnomon” is the marker on a sundial whose shadow marks the passage of time. Inspired by a statue of a former king in the Orangerie of Sanssouci Palace.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
i wake to a fetish of b.b.c. radio 4, i lie in bed for about two hours listening to it, makes me feel like i'm hovering in my bed through a busy street, all that talk talk talk; that radio station broadcast has all the perks of quirky things, only the english could have moulded such an organism, like today, listening to a play, with with bill nighy (the last remaining old **** with a really distinguishable voice) about an actor's career, i never experienced acting on the radio, that pure monologue where either rasp or slur or lisp of the actor's mouth -interior gave you more than ****** expressions akin to that farcical maxim: i cry but in secret laugh - i laugh but in secret i cry - look at the eyes. well he was in it, apart from geoffery rush ol' bill is the next in the line of distinguishable voices - distinguishable voices tend to have some distinguishing visage characteristic - the villain φ' - backward upsilon / the english y - φυωσις- / phuosis + -γνομον / gnomon - physiognomy - backward upsilon i.e. not a pigeon coo-coo likening, a dried out plateau of the mandible jaw droop stressing the larynx's counter-u expression - less kiss-kiss prune of the lips - physiognomy / φυωσιςγνομον - also not the theological megalomania of likening y with i as implying no distinguishing need for the study of the tetragrammaton - i have no phonetic unit to shot it, unless it be akin to: hydra - saying the word hydra without association the y with i, as in hi- -dra; i guess you'd have to learn polish pronunciation; oh yeah, and the news of the beatles' producer died today, dubbed the 5th next to john paul george and ringo, george the 2nd... and why did the greeks with their beautiful alphabet start using diacritic marks? i know the roman alphabet is ugly like 1 - 9 / too musically abstract and would require stress marks of accenting the symbols, but why would the greeks need that too?*

so that's the morning fetish done and dusted,
it used to be classic f.m. prior -
now it's talk talk talk -
then the metabolism counters of alcoholism,
diluting semi-skimmed milk with water,
**** won't stay down, jumps right up,
then the nicotine tuberculosis cough
of a nicotine hangover that's worse than
alcohol abuse dehydration -
cough cough - ah please just shut up!
then waiting for the faeces worm to poke
it's ugly head from my **** -
******* on the throne of thrones
to ease the pressure on the *****-duct muscle
because that's what stimulates it like
food entering the oesophagus -
and then abstracting while reading the sunday
newspaper magazines (it's wednesday today,
a lucky day to revise sunday prints of the fashion
magazine and book reviews - and that's the odd
thing, many reviews of books of fiction and non-
and no review of a book of poetry,
england and it's grand poetic history and no one
reviews poetry books, just a little poet's corner
in the news review section, a ******* in a dark
alley in the shadiest bit of the east end
somewhere near the docks on the isle of dogs) -
but straight to the point...
red hot chilli pepper's warm tape (album: by the way),
and ***, yeah, boy, lots of it running through it,
you put it on, and you're not expecting anything,
the verses are so-so, but then... boom! the chorus
strips you into O... i like songs like that, the hidden
chorus agenda, no over-burdening solos, clear funk
of the bass actually being heard unlike in metallica songs
(of course, exception, devil's dance, but then hushed
by too much rhythm guitar),
and it's not like a ****** loosing his / her virginity with
an immediate ****** akin to free's all right now -
poem done, heartburn already fuelling me with acids
of fasting... a day about to begin: at 6p.m. - running through
to ~5a.m.
Minimally impacts mine secluded lifestyle,
cuz yours truly came into this madcap world
approximately 534714.57958 times after
gnomon cast shadow across flat plate of sundial
ever since being a little boy, I throve while
existence kept me in solitude, thus isolation trial

directly linkedin with pandemic necessitates
sparse human contact, yea analogous to an exile
punishment far removed, quarantined, condemned...
and essentially metaphorically banished necessitating
befriending self as best beastie boy bad company
where madding crowd hashtagged insync existing

within territory hostile currying aversion to socialize
worse fate than being eaten
alive (with one chomp) savored
by token smiling crocodile
absentmindedly pitching
head over heels into... state of denial

after out running a tribe
of 10,000 aboriginal maniacs,
hence out distancing latter only to buzzfeed former
whose absence not noticed, until long in the tooth
(actually between 60 and 72 teeth) said reptile
captured and subsequently dissected (I'll)
spare telling thee gory details

though amazingly well preserved ****** profile
comprising fully intact features
exhibiting me eternally frozen cunning guile,
nevertheless greater excitement arose
at similarity between former poetaster
and La Brea Tar Pits fossilized dinosaur kin
especially their respective coat
of armor ironic steely iambic style.

— The End —