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Mateuš Conrad Nov 2021
oh winter sun, how benevolent you are,
how tenderly you peer into the realm
of what once had is now finally losing colour,
on the realm of hibernating insects
bound to hardened cocoons...
           of flowers that only remain root strong...
oh winter sun, how benevolent you are,
work slows down, people become bearable:
less arrogant in their attire...
finally these women can put on clothes that
scream: decorum!
finally my libido can rest...
finally no more inverted, imploded niqab for
the eyes... still the sunglasses but finally...
my libido can rest...
but of course, it happens... there will be some
idiotic ***** who will entertain a Saturday
night out by wearing miniskirts & exposing
their bare legs to the elements of December,
January... years later, most probably:
pokraki... i.e. legs mangled from exposure to
the cold, the wind...
it happened once that i sat outside a nightclub
fully attired... warm cotton trousers...
a t-shirt, a shirt, a hoodie & an flimsy army shirt...
                hood, beneath the hood
a wooly hat...
there they stood... the goosebumps worth
of geese... standing there: chattering a strange tongue
that only teeth understand via Morse code...
silly little imp-girls...
warm up on the parquet of the nightclub,
drop a few ***** shots, yes?
oh sure... that will warm you up...
         silly little imp-girls... who goes clubbing
in winter wearing nothing but a mini-skirt...
the whole lot of them... hugging themselves...
trying to jump up & down in stilettos:
but not actually jumping...
                    it was a beautiful sight...
a man supremely cuddled by the clothes he was
wearing, gloves & scarf too...
drinking a beer & smoking a cigarette...
sitting on a bench outside a nightclub...
as a line of geese that had their feathers plucked
while still breathing were gaining entry to,
probably... the worst *** they'd get in their lifetime...
drunk ***...
      a little bit of alcohol... but too much is:
too much...
- yes... finally my libido is at rest...
no more libido insomnia...
   for the most part they started to dress like grannies...
of course some pull off the classy granny look,
the: mah-tue-rrr look (trill the R, please,
i know the French hark theirs but that's no excuse
to: tarantula bit my tongue when it's an R
in syllables, stressed, sure... forget the trill in words...
no one wants to sound like count Dracula:
blah blah blah...)

O benevolent winter sun... how you grace my skin...
how much brighter you seem than in summer...
since there are so few hours of you throughout the day...
come 3pm when you begin your weary descent
how blinding you are...
yet how you also do not scorch the skin
to make the golden serpent wake...
   how in a month or so i will loose the copper-neck
& the copper-sleeves on my forearms...
back to my white, vampiric, anaemic...
Hyperborean look...
        
O winter sun, i thank you for your retreat,
i thank you for your retreat with
such gleeful bliss...
i thank winter itself too: for pushing you away
(my my, is that a heliocentric or a geocentric
formulation? does it matter...
to read a map, to get from A to B...
a round earth perspective doesn't do ****...
the earth need to be flat in order
to read a map, esp. when standing on the fore
of a group of unruly teenagers,
when... the team at the Glasbury House
for Outdoor Education Centre split the participants
into two groups...
the older boys doing their A-levels
with the younger girls doing their AS-levels...
the older girls doing their A-levels
with the colts doing their AS-levels...
being of the former group...
the latter group was dropped off closer to the return-to-point,
they only had to walk back directly...
perhaps there were some shortcuts...
but could any of the girls read a map?
or, rather... would any of the colts
unloosen their imaginary head that might be
their phallus from imagining potential
suitors... not a chance...
- now, i have to write about this,
i need to discard this memory... i need new
memories... this one cameo cinema is
fudging up my uptake of new memories:
the hope is... if i write it down...
         i'll be released from it...
i was in the group that was dropped off...
**** knows' where, but certainly further afield
than the first group...
someone gave me the map of the vicinity:
i don't know why they handed the map to me...
so... i just asked: where are we?
cheat? every single ******* map in any urban
information point has a map & an indicator
that states, quite (not quiet), quiet plainly:
YOU ARE HERE... a bit like sticking one of those
HELLO MY NAME IS "X" at a speed-dating
event (mein gott, i've been to one of those
when at university, horrible event,
i don't remember it)...
so i asked, where are we? again: cheating?!
what's a ******* point of a map when you don't
know where you're starting from?
sure... you have to find where you're going from
the map... but what's the point of not knowing
where you're starting from?
like... Christopher Columbus didn't know
where Lisbon was... when he set off to find...
the Americas... sure... but this was also an experiment...
i knew what place i was leaving: Glasbury House...
& i was being dropped into an unknown location...
well i need to know at least one thing,
i can't navigate with two unknowns...
that sort of scenario would invoke... being...
rafted... on the seas... a quote comes to mind...
Coleridge:
  water, water, everywhere
And all the boards did shrink;
water, water, everywhere,
   nor any drop to drink...
                         point being...
a phantasmagorical finger "levitated" over me
then... like... ugh... faux pas...
like like the depiction bound to those *******
*******: perhaps Adam ought to have made
a circle with his index and thumb?
when the depiction of God extended his
in that Michelangelo depiction...
mind you... look how weak, how feminine Adam's
hand "posture" is...
he should have been firm... "God's" finger is coming...
to hell with touching phalluses with
a nail's bite worth of scribble on flesh...
here! here's my index curled up with my thumb
slightly curled: O my ****'s worth of interactions
with you! that hand posture is feminine...
on Adam's behalf... God the protruding agent of
the index... Adam the: oh! ah! kiss my hand will you!
*******... ugh...
and look at the statue of David... anything... ahem...
"weird" about? it's disproportionate...
the head is too big for the body!
a massive ******* head on a body that would see
the head topple it like lumberjacking at some pristine
******* pines...
Titian's Paul III...
                  Perronneau's Madame de Sorquainville...
look at the smirk on her...
Mona Lisa can hide in shame...
or rather: her "smile"... is a... HANS! GOTTFRIED!
OTTO! CONRAD!
encore: ein wachslächeln (a wax smile)...
Rembrandt: a precursor to Turner...
almost the same Parkinson's disease...
but at least Turner conveyed landscapes... not portraits /
scenes...
something's blurry about Rembrandt...
like i already knew...
the people of the past weren't exactly
****** or deformed, or ugly...
****** artists, that's all...
well if someone like a Helen could: muster...
a 1000 ships...
she must have been a stunner!
a tenner for every penny saved...
         hmm... i'm still rummaging...Kenneth Clark's
Civilisation.... i'm looking for the antithesis of
Michelangelo' David...
oh i'll ******* find what i'm looking for...
even if i have to stay up to 5am to find it!
ah!   'ere we go!
    Riemenschneider's Adam...
          now that's an "Adam"... one i'd want to ****...
where was i...
oh ****... too many plotlines: ergo no plot...
it's like ***** Burroughs took at interest in
my writing from beyond the grave,
the whole Beat Hotel from Paris woke up &
brought back Tristan Tzara to decipher...
no cut-up methodology here...
i was just reading some Rousseau & thought
the language... eh... slightly "constipated"...
congested... on point... rigorous as one might expect
1 + 1 = 2 to be...
unless...
well no one ever said that a consonant must precede
a vowel... that there must be clear syllables...
that you can't allow two vowels or two consonants
to interact... on rare occasion you might end with
a specified consonant: an N...
or that vowels can exist alone... & that they can break
the rule of crafting syllables: & can meet...
ah... but they can't... i was wrong...
青 "=" アオ
               AO... blue...
but the meaning blue is an ideogram "concept"....
it's not a meaning that can be translated phonetically...
****'s sake... even in Japanese two vowels cannot meet,
nor two consonants...
although: they can... when as something
akin to a grapheme / a Chinese ideogram...
what would manner (NN) look like...
or... chatter (TT) should the Siamese Æ (sorry,
not grapheme, a grapheme would be the greek theta:
for th-ought) diphthong...
call an apple an apple... there are too many technical
terms ruining the narrative...
i'm bound to make one correct noun into
a disaster of a misnomer...

- thank you, winter sun, for receding to the point where
the moon can finally reclaim the night sky
and borrow something from the day,
no longer are the nights so ugly without him,
glaring in the sky, ever mindful cyclops
compared to the beauty of seeing very visibly
with almost two eyes, both the body & the shadow...
myopic moon... obstructed by clouds...

- back to the Glasbury event... we were dropped off
further down the road... i was given a map,
so i implored, were are we?
a finger descended onto the page & indicated:
YOU ARE HERE...
i took charge... mind you... it wasn't easy...
i had a popularity complex in high school...
it wasn't a "popularity" complex when it came
to entertaining the company of the "popular" kids...
the black boys were popular with the white girls,
the white boys were popular with, saic X...
i was leveraging the ******* nerds
playing video games, collecting Pokemon cards...
then again: with the ruffians...
spending Saturday afternoons in car parks...
trying lady luck by spitting down on them from
four stories up...

Peter Richardson... Kieran O'Mahoney...
endless Saturday afternoons...
cheap white lightning cider,
a youth club once existed in a church where
we played snooker where now,
most probably a mosque now stands...
blah blah...
we were once tricked by two girls...
before a wave of rowdy boys came up to
give us a beating... they oddly enough didn't
while Kieran lay on the ground crying...
semi-kicks & me imploring the bunch:
he has my walk-man! i need my music back!
Peter's younger brother was also there
but he did a runner... so, **** me...
3 against... 10, if not more?
those two ***** that enticed us...

well... we managed to escape the scene seemingly untouched...
ha ha...
Kieran did more damage to himself:
by himself when we overstayed out welcome in
South Park & had to climb over the fence...
me & Peter clamoured over... jumping onto our
feet as if we had four...
came the turn for Kieran...
standing on the top of the fence... jump! jump!
so he jumped... & managed to lodge his
underwear in one of the spikes...
for a millisecond we watched him dangle
quasi-impaled by his underwear...
laughter... well... i couldn't imagine it might have been
a particularly enjoyable ****... *******...
i came to my senses, Peter synonymous...
we lifted the poor ****** up & then down
from his predicament...

Glasbury... YOU ARE HERE... again... that's not cheating,
asking where you are, is it?
a benevolent finger descended on the map
and i was off... we took a shortcut through a road
that led into a little wood... we passed the wood
& emerged onto a pasture field...
some cows were grazing... the guys thought it might
be funny to push a cow over,
i advised them against it...

summa summarum: we ended up "beating" the other "team"...
clear as daylight...
i remember we were asked: since there was some spare
time... to exercise in the yard...
clear as daylight... we're exercising...
30 minutes if not more...
while the defeated team descends from around
the bend... all the girls, my peers with an expression
that could only be best read as: HUH?!
paint that... paint HUH?!
can anyone paint me: HUH?! on a woman's face,
can anyone?

i'm looking for a painting of woman, or several
women that reads the meaning of: HUH?!

oh **** me, i know i was spinning some other plate...
i hope i find it...

as usual Peter & Kieran got in the way...
perhaps Samuel might have joined the memory reel...
but Samuel is an altogether different matter...
almost a sacred memory...
that's for me to disclose when ready:
i'm not ready...

done, memory: begone!
fickle creature... of course it will remain...
but i hope it will be less prominent...
after all: i was almost 18 back then...
such memories are building blocks...
i managed to... read a map... guide a group of unruly peers
to success, "success"...
we just arrived early & our reward was some more
exercise... no... the reward was mine...
i managed to read the map & discovered shortcuts
in the make-up of the land...
to be told that you are at a disadvantage because
you are dropped off further away from group A:
while you're the disadvantaged group B...
well... placebo effect? i don't even know the correct naming
of this psychological experiment...

pair up older girls with younger boys
vs. pairing up older boys with younger girls...
only one year apart...
what the hell is pedagogy? eventually: at best...
a cocktail art... hey! let's see what happens!
esp. outside the classroom: in the outdoors!
as much as i'd love to dabble in the chemistry of
the inter & intra-man...
at a distance... i'd rather concern myself with
things that do not speak, pretend to listen,
pretend to see... pretend to feel:
or rather... i pretend for them... most certainly:
do not speak... zilch!

i couldn't possibly want the responsibility
surrounding the moulding of man
should "said" man not become... the ambition
worth of a statue in a public sq.
if i can't be an Aristotle shaping an Alexander...
i see a hammer: i see a nail...
oh... right... "of some use": no... pristine use...
the extant pivot!
beer is an extant pivot too, mind you...
what better way to "drown one's miseries"?
i was thinking of a make-up word...
exactant... EXACTANT...
                   out of: acting upon stasis: loosely...

i'm so almost content in stating:
whiskey first, the cider second that i can't finish a cigarette
having to subsequently write this...
not that there's much to write,
leave me: strain... i would very much so like
to watch some t.v., some movie...
some sport's & Sparta...
no... these toils with letters & memories...

Rousseau & the social contract...
even the name alone... Row-Sow...
look at it in Katakana: impossible...
snippets.... ロ
                             ウ        セ
                                             ウ...
or rather... Row-Sue!

i was wondering... what album did i hear, first?
Tool's aenima or tools lateralus?!

well me & Samuel would head over to
Romford... RM1 was a club... once upon a time...
where teenagers could enter & enjoy under-age drinking...
not that i was unfamiliar with the "practices"...
me & Samuel would walk back from Romford to
Ilford singing Backstreet Boys songs...
while the whole time we were 'ard-up punks /
metal heads... skateboards:
he stole his mother's credit card to pay for "my"
skateboard... he was later found out: fined...
i cowered like a leech when the pogrom on his ethics came...
what was her sisters' name...
Isa... Jessica! one of the Ursuline corpus!
oh i remember the Ursuline girls...
not that i had a hard-on for them:
i learned to ******* early... aged 8 i was doing the Onan
pledge... no... it was more about... RHO-MAN-Sssssss...
paid of like investing in... Sony's mini-disk "ingenuity"...
but every single morning...
those Ursuline girls on the bus...
beside the perfume of the morning... nothing worthwhile
mentioning... Samuels older sister Jessica
& Alex's older sister Samantha...
i remember one sleepover when
i purposively ****** on the toilet seat & one of them
noticed it... i was scolded (obviously)...
but the "matter" was quickly laid to rest...
on a bunch of nothing...

i scratched this CD so much: how?
from over playing it!
i wondered... when did i first hear of tool?
when i was a ****** 16 year old teenager...
how? Kerrang!
                                                my now estranged
uncle used to buy the magazine...
maybe...
(god, let me finish... i want to relax by
listening to some political "dialectic"...
opinion spewing... garbage... ditto-head echoes)...

i'm reading some Rousseau and listening to tool's
aenima...  i ought to hae a stipend for
makings "****" chronological...
in common parlance: **** = thing should a philosopher
ask... thing, nothing... blah blah...
lost appreciation for nouns...
or none to begin with...
i must have listened to aenima prior to lateralus...
i must have put down my homework
& be like: what the ****'s this?!
from stinkfist...
  i never heard anything like it!

it must have been aenima... i remember that summer
back in Poland when i started & finished reaading
the Three Musketeers... long before
Stendhal arrived on the scene with the Red & the Black...
one of those few adaptations on screen
(Ewan McGregor & Rachel Weisz)
of a book that might want you to read the book...
all of Sienkiewicz worked in reverse...
lucky me...

all ******* Celts though, Peter, Kieran, Samuel...
well... perhaps not Peter...
perhaps write an ode to... Alex... Martin:
the crooked teeth so crooked it felt uncomfortable
to bite a sandwich by him?
friendships... oh thank you professionalism...
i don't want to come too close...
friends once were:
now?
      oh forget about... to hell with "adoring" fans too...
someone's interested: fine...
they're not... to the pedestrian line with "you"!
i can allow myself the luxury...
it is a luxury... pass enough distance... animate
objects take on an inanimate object tinge...
hue... hue of... blurry... forgettable...
point of interest at a specified crux via transit...
but... otherwise... a celebratory forgetfulness surrounds
them... not out of spite... or my self-importance as
somehow superior to their: existence...
a shared value... they value their own freedoms
as i value mine...  it's strange: therefore...
how fame arrives at the fore... not posthumously:
yet when the said famous person is still alive...
fame as a reiteration of "fame"?
the hyper-reality of Baudrillard?
sounds like... the overhyped-hyper-reality of... "X"...

but i finally solved the "debacle"... did i listen
to tool's aenima or tool's lateralus first?
aenima... i'm listening to it right now...
i'm getting flashbacks... of the one club we used to go to,
when i still lived in Gants Hill & Romford was
this sacred place... for underage drinking...
**** me... the club didn't have a hard floor...
sickly sweet carpet underlying...
some other club...
     the DJ played STINKFIST...
     ooh... i'm gonna: stinkenfaust!
  i lost my head... i danced like a berserker...
what?
  on the same night i had my second kiss...
what could that kiss taste like: should memory be judged
the proper authority before the court?!
numb-cherry / ox--sweat...
  
that tool's aenima is an eulogy to bill hicks...
bill hicks... a very painful introspective on...
the stereotype of H'americans...
stereotyping themselves...

for me the greatest bill hicks moment came,
not telling a ****** joke...
undermining the concept of metaphor
with the reality of time...
sure... the bible didn't mention dinosaurs...
but sure as **** we were drawing fire breathing
lizards before the discovery of dinosaur bones...
lizards like makeshift "skyscrapers"...
undermine the metaphors of Moses...
such a finite little... loot...
new, "new" poetry "borrowed" from the old....
never undermine what Moses ought not or ought...

no, his greatest moment didn't come
from telling a joke,
it's his look of concern when...
he was asked to share the same interviewee
posit with, a very much drunken
Oliver Reed... no one could have played
Athos... like Oliver Reed did!
no one!
there was Bill Hicks... comedy extraordinaire
reduced to... perhaps tears...
laughing at a drunk... like that...
oh god... it hit: him: hard...
Oliver Reed: Athos! dinosaurs not in the bible:
ha ha... so what's up with humanity conjuring up
dragons?! ***** of fire... who said where
that... astronaut hit earth while the moon was
yawning: the what if: the moon was on its guard...
& the astronaut hit the moon...
earth with a ring of shrapnel like Saturn?!

perhaps i could remember the names of
the women i once loved... Promis... Priya...
Isabella... Ilona... n'ah.... what love i already gave
has now probably become an elephant's graveyard...
it's better to have memory of friendships in one's
progressive years...
i better retain Peter, Kieran, Samuel, Martin, Alex...
ought, within the confines of these times: be deemed
worthy to explore: the unknown...

tool's aenima: a priori...
tool's lateralus: a posteriori...

such sweetened acidity governing this cider...
i want to drink liters of it,
this gods' **** juice!
mehr! mehr! mehr!

proto-german then...
   mer! mer! mer!

proto-german, i.e. not Finnish...
lisää! o.k. that's ****** up...
doubled-up on the umlaut...
so whst's that? lisaaaa?!
                               my ******* arithmetic "wrong"?
is there a transvestite raeding this?
i can stomach a transvestite...
i was once, one, drunk...
trans- "****": the world of
popularity contests can stomach that....
digest it... just as wel: i want to forget about it...
the world can *******: with these "regards"...

i must have missed something...
yes, me & some ivory beautifies,
living it up in the safeguards of Kenya...
my god... some of these Kenyan girls...
past burnt mahogany...
past auburn... past autumn's flares...
i somehow almost forgot about my...
oriental fetish... of petite "things"...
geishas... what not...

             if i'm not being scrutinised...
i'm worried... i scrutize others:
eh... not so worried.
Victoria Kiely Nov 2013
The less-than-tepid air stirred as Kieran walked the streets of his town, passing familiar shops and people all the while. He felt as though nothing held the ability to surprise him anymore. Each day seemed the same: he awoke with a heavy and slow start, went about his errands and studies, finished his tasks and went to the coffee shop on the corner of Adelaide and First Street, where he would take his usual seat by the window.
Today seemed to be no different. He entered the Red Brick Café, moving through the stiff door. He ordered his usual black coffee and placed his things on the table nearest to the window.
His load was slightly heavier today, large textbooks and journals weighing him down. Though he was only sixteen, he had already begun showing interest in studies far surpassing the average teenage parameters of notice. Before him lay the studies of Nietzsche and Marx, as well as several sheets of paper with his own scrawled handwriting, denoting his findings.  Kieran had surpassed the term “average” years ago, even if his father had failed to notice it.
       “Maybe if you would stop asking so many questions and started doing the crap they asked you to in school, you would pass your **** classes” he could recall his father saying to him after the last term.
Even still, he had not been the type to feel the need to please others. Kieran had always been focused on satisfying himself, his questions and his hunger for knowledge. He stopped at nothing to satisfy these basic needs.
        “Medium Black?” the woman had called after preparing his coffee. He retrieved the cup, mismatched and morphed, as they all were in this store. It was part of what he had liked most about it – the mugs served in late summer with the Christmas patterns, the coarse orange glasses that stood on the same shelf. None of the dish wear matched, and he thought this was exactly what gave the shop its character.
         He walked to the single leather couch pulled in front of the table overlooking the window. Through said window laid a perfect view of the people walking past on Adelaide Street. Often times, he had sat in this spot for hours simply watching people milling through the lives they wish they did not live, wondering all along whether they would decide to change.
He opened his new copy of The Introduction to Karl Marx, the crisp cover yielding to his rough hands. The smell wafted from the fresh paper – he had only bought this book a few days ago down the street at the bookstore. Kieran always enjoyed the smell of fresh parchment.
         His coffee had grown cold by the time his wandering eyes had bothered to look up from the page.          Outside the window, the street had grown quite dark, dark enough for the street lamps to have turned on. In the light below the nearest lamp, it had become evident that the first snow had begun to fall softly, slowly, and silently outside of his attention.
Then he saw her. Her auburn hair had been victim to the winter winds and lay on her shoulders unevenly, glistening with new snow. Her tall boots fell above her knees, her jacket cinched just below her waist line. She smiled and looked at the lantern overhead, laughing, admiring. The lines around her eyes creased as she playfully pouted and straightened her scarf, slanted in the cold. She pointed to the door of the café as she approached with her friends.
        She entered and he continued to watch as she striped her gloved fingers, exposing each finger with remarkable delicacy. The light did her a terrible favour and made her already notable features more prominent. Her previously dainty expression held a note of subtle seduction that Kieran doubted that she knew she possessed.
        She stood in front of the counter waiting to order.  “Grab me a seat?” she asked her friend as they slipped into the back room. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled pleadingly at the others.
        “But of course, my lady Briardale”, the other replied mockingly with an equal smile.
         Kieran caught himself before she turned her head further, before she could catch him eyeing her. He quickly flipped the page of his book to look occupied, and she shifted her glance. He raised his eyes, peeking through his lashes at her once more.
         *Briardale.
Victoria Kiely Nov 2013
The wind blew through hollowed out buildings like lungs taking in air in shallow breaths, rattling through the skeletons of forgotten structures. A gust kicked up loosened dirt from the path beneath his feet.  Alone and desolate, the streets of this lost town looked as though they had not been traveled upon for many years now, but still they managed to look almost full – like the space could not contain the contents of what it used to be.
Here stood the ruins, a place Kieran had come to know quite well since his discovery of it in his first year of high school. Though it meant something different to him now than it had then, he still kept quiet of its whereabouts to many.
He used to come to stop feeling, to stop thinking of the things he was surrounded by each day. Now, some days, he had trouble remembering how to feel at all. To him, this place was the only way he could feel what it was like to be himself, or to remember the things that had comprised who he had been in the past years.
Things had changed now, of course. The years had crawled past, many without making very much of an impact on anybody or anything. He felt that the only thing that had gotten him through the tougher times was his first love, Briardale. Briar had been the only person he had shown this place.
He could still remember it now, the first time he had brought her here. He remembered seeing her while she took it in for the first time, wondering what she was seeing; how the ruins had looked through her eyes. Unlike most people who he had known to have seen such a dead place, Briar had surprised him.
“I like it,” she had said, with a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. “It’s as though nothing outside of this is real. It’s like a dream”. Her dark hair bled into the still darker scenery, her composite disappearing into the outlines of the tall building. He knew then that she had understood.
“I like it, too” Kieran replied, watching her without shame as she admired the look of the skyline in the late day. He knew she was completely alone in her eyes, and that she probably didn’t hear his response, that she was hardly listening.
Finally, she turned to him. She opened her mouth to speak, and time slowed. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked, still smiling with wonder.
He knew that he had to tell her, that she probably already knew of his feelings towards her. She was toying with this thought – perhaps even considering it.
He moved closer to her, pacing slowly, intentions clear. He licked his lips. He swallowed audibly, the nerves defacing the moment and nearly spoiling it. He drank her beauty in, allowing his eyes to wander greedily over what he wanted but did not yet have. He wanted her, but it was more than that. He needed her. He realized then –
“I love you”, he whispered almost inaudibly, sharing another secret with her, the woman he had watched grow since they were but youthful and naïve children. “I brought you here because I love you”.
She replied by taking his hand and leading him closer, pushing her into the frame of the broken building behind them. He inched closer, looking at her, beginning with her eyes and slowly moving towards her lips. Their noses brushed and he smelt what he knew to be her scent: burnt cigarettes and pine, a winters evening.
She stared just as intensely at his lips. She had inclined her head so as to become closer still. Kieran could feel her soft breath on his chin. She raised her eyes to meet his and whispered “I love you, too”, and finally, their lips met and crossed the line between friends and lovers.
Kieran steadied himself, reminiscing on the moment, but reminding himself that things had changed. He began walking towards what used to be the old school, the flag still billowing in the autumn wind. He traveled up the stairs, creaking under his every step.
Finally he had reached the top. Standing on what passed as a roof, he looked down onto the desolate town. He watched the dust overturn and fall, the unstable buildings sway. He edged closer to the verge of the building, all the while still watching. Kieran looked directly below, wondering what it would be like if he jumped, wondering if he would survive the fall. Wondering how anybody had survived, and weather anybody lived in this life at all.


Melanie Flowers Nov 2011
PleaseListen,
FIRST OF SEPTEMBER ...
I was taken to a room
Where the hour is always bright
The panorama is always wall
And the look of it is white

I was trapped in there
Dying slowly for weeks
Or was it hours?
Or was it days?

I fear
I cannot bring myself to care
For all the useless time
That I was left in there

It was interesting to see
What the others had left behind
I spy my Blackbirds feathers
I spy the Demons eyes

I spy a Soldiers tears
Swearing they aren’t mine
I spy the Singers ears
I spy the Liars chimes

So this IS the plan!
To dissemble us all by hand
To pull us at the seams
So that we become bad dreams

Sudden revelation,
Rebellions true form
Made me think I’d stuff my pockets
And take those pieces to their homes

I spy a meal that belongs
To a tiny Porcelain Doll
I spy a book that is for
The Boy who just wanted a home

I spy a box with a puzzle inside
For the Quiet Lad who solves them all
I spy a flower of wondrous design
To blind the Girl who sees only flaw

But when I went to reach for these
I found I could not move
My arms were caught in binding
Those vultures are not fools

It was when they let me out
That I realized I’d left some things as well
I turned about to save them
While I was being dragged to hell

In that room
Of torturous peace
I forgot her white dress
And I lost my wings

That's all I have to say
NowTake me away, KIERAN J. CROW
Kieran's account of being kept in solitary confinement for the first time.
Melanie Flowers Nov 2011
PleaseListen,

TWELFTH OF AUGUST ...
Slipped into my hideout she did
They get to wear shoes because they work
But no one said they weren't of odd tendency
A swan, a vulture, a fox, or a dog
I do not know what she was
But she was on her way out

She came into my room, wasn't odd
But then she said that the all seeing were dead
'I've switched the cameras off Kier
Now do as lovers do dear friend
And this here lover will bring you a pen'

Really didn't want to
If nothing else, crayons are okay
Have no need for lovers or friends
But she insisted, offered again
'Do as lovers do dear friend
And this here lover will bring you a pen'

So I held her hand

But no
She was not satisfied
So she insisted, tried again
'Do as lovers do dear friend
And this here lover will bring you a book
A blank book, a notebook
For the thoughts in your head'

I really didn't want to
I have no need for lovers
I have no need for friends
But wouldn't that be lovely?
A notebook and pen?

So I wrapped my arms around her waist

But, Oh.
She was not sated
And demanded more again
'Do as lovers do dear friend
And this here lover will bring you a key
A key to the door that keeps you in dreams'

I really didn't have to
I don't want lovers and friends
My freedom has been taken from me
But then again...
Wouldn't a key bring that back?

So I kissed her lips

My what surprise
It only deepened her thirst
Then and there
She begged of me more
'Do as lovers do dear friend
And this here lover will bring you a pet
Some pretty little shears
To drag across your pretty, pallid skin'

Really shouldn't
But lovers and friends,
They're far between these days
Didn't really want to
But scissors...really?
How did you know my dear?
That I've been dying
To drop my hide into someone elses hands

So I did as lovers do...

Lovers touch did nothing to fill me
Lovers kiss brought very little joy
But maybe. Maybe lovers gifts
Will help me out of this hole

That's all I have to say
NowTake me away, KIERAN J. CROW
Kieran's account of being bribed with gifts by a nurse who wanted something from him in return.
Victoria Kiely Nov 2013
The house dwarfed everything on the street. It was evidently quite old, but in good condition. The once white bricks were stained with years beating from the rain and wind, the windows unclear. Ebony frames supported the doors and glass windows, complete with matching shutters. A wrap-around porch hugged the left side of the house’s structure tightly. The house had a classical type of beauty. In its stupor from the long years, it still stood strong; still, it had intimidated nearly everybody in the small town that encompassed it.
        The first car parked on the driveway said enough; it was an Oldsmobile, a strong, classic car – the type of car you really only see in movies anymore. The others that followed were all newer, luxury cars. Each looked to be worth more than Kieran might ever have to his name. This was more than a guess.
He had walked past this house many times, almost always curiously peering in through the windows. He wondered sometimes what the people inside were like, what they did with their spare time, whether or not they had secret lives that they kept from one another. The term ‘enigma’ came to mind when he tried to fill the blank silhouettes he had seen in the window with pictures. He had never quite been able to get that image right. He had only found out how wrong he had been about the owners of the place once he had met her.
He waded through the deep snow surrounding the path he had known to be apparent on warmer days. Approaching the light steps vacating the doorway, he noticed that a flickering light had been emitting itself from the uppermost window adjacent to the balcony.
In the letter that he had found under the slip of his door frame earlier that day, Kieran had been instructed to enter the house without bothering to knock at precisely quarter past the hour of eight. He had found the request to be odd, but he had been victim to curiosity, as he always was when it came to Briardale.
He turned the **** of the dark oak door before him. The step below him gave an alarming creak as he shifted his weight forward, making him stop. Again, he began to pass the cusp between her world and his own. He padded forward and headed towards the stairs. His heavy boots thudded on the floor beneath and left a rather hollow noise that echoed through the large expanse.
As he crept up the stairs, his curiosity and excitement heightened. The top of the staircase seemed both close and far away as the space between him and the flickering light dwindled. He heard the sound of contemporary music flowing in the dark. It curled into his ears and under his flesh; he felt a chill in the air as his senses began to tingle.
Finally he had reached the top of the staircase. He paused for a minute, allowing the moment to sink in. He stared at the door, ajar and alluring, as she and all she did always were.
“Why the hesitation?” she asked, almost inaudibly between the music and her soft spoken voice.
He parted his lips ever so slightly and licked the dry edges. He swallowed and hoped that she had not heard. He continued forward and pushed open the door tentatively.
She lifted her eyes to his in the mirror before her. “I’ve been waiting”
He looked at Briardale’s sketched figure, outlined by what looked to be decades of lit candles. Her dark hair shone brilliantly in their wake. A deep red robe encircled her, wrapping her like a present. Her bare legs were tucked under the vanity daintily.
“Come closer” she whispered. She turned down the music.
Kieran traveled the short distance between them and allowed for a small smile to take his lips. “You look beautiful” he said.
“Thank you”
He placed his weathered hands on her soft shoulders and felt the difference between the two. He looked deeply in her eyes in the vanity mirror. She put the brush she had been holding down. She turned to meet his gaze.
She glanced up at him subtly, almost bashfully. She stood and walked towards the bed. Her robe fell, and decidedly she had neglected to wear anything but.  He followed.
Together they sunk into the bed, the scent of clean linen surrounding the two of them. She took his hand, and innocently guided it towards her face. She brought her own fingers to touch his slight beard that had developed fully and fruitfully. She kissed him lightly on the lips.
He knew then that no other person could make him feel the way that he did. She comprised of a thousand shades and colours, and he wanted to learn each one by title. He wanted to know each part of her. She had gained the ability to grasp his life in the palm of her hand; to make him feel as though he was the one who was vulnerable and needed protecting. Loving her was like standing at the top of a cliff and leaping, the free-falling feeling encompassing and grand. Loving her was like waiting for a the subway train to take away your sorrows as you walk purposefully towards its oncoming traffic, and it stopping before you have a chance to jump. Briardale was his split-second happiness after the fall, his second chance in an unforgiving world.
Your Mom Jun 2014
Kieran is really awesome beacuse he is cool and andrew is not because and andrew is a loner
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
an entire day of abstaining from "syringe",
whoever said it was:
the perfect dis-satisfaction -
supposedly it passes as quick as someone
puffing on crack...
                well...
                      the first cigarette...
when "quitting"... after years of 20 a day...
and this quitting: because no cheap
ciagarettes on the horizon from moldova...
or bulgaria...

    the first hit... feels like electricity...
i can feel it from my head...
right down to my toes...
          in my heels...
the tingling at first... then it all subsides...
into a sensation of a thrown stone
into the stomach:
like a nun jumping a bungee...
i feel like a teenager... who first sipped
alcohol...
the carousel of intoxication -
yet: so contained...
        there's the thrill and an
insurmountable number of adjectives
to the sensation:
face like a sponge head like blitzkrieg
theatre...
         i'm "quitting"...
well... 10 years exposed to the numbing...
perfect the ritual:
i guess i must...
    how long will it last... long enough:
to base the drinking on what becomes
the cigarette: on the peripheries:
and closure...

must i take any more revelation drugs...
apart from what's taxed and legal...
a solipsistic cigarette and some
gomme syrope: putting ms. amber
into the refrigerator...
              
i can feel the horde the tsunami from
a fat head through
a whirlwind dropped into my stomach...
and then the magic toes: tingling...
of course: i'm "quitting"...
quitting as much as...
mellow lou reed contra iggy pop
when bowie was with him in berlin...

"quitting"... the initial hit is over...
the first impressions...
the formality is thrilling...
then comes the diffusion:
the informality of fractions and percentages...
from the brain... the nerves...
perhaps the heart...
and the last place to look into:
the liver...

         and other... soft-tissue glue parts...
and the ritual:
a packet of benson & hedges...
wrapped up with about 10 rubber bands...
it has been waiting for me
for the entire day...
and now that the night is here...
a day when an apple tree was planted
along with a cherry tree...

the garden is looking more and more
presentable for sale...
but before the sale: it must be enjoyed...
i never thought that...
a cigarette: after... this short prospect
of abstinance...
is almost like the first...
but when coupled with the whiskey...
hell... i can't remember the last
time i drank and it felt like...
i was a teenager: under-age drinking
in one of those ****** clubs that
high-school girls go to find boys
with cars... out of school without
a-levels...
and boys go... to find... ms. ambers...
and jazzy gits of mr. fuzzy mr. funny...
the bavarian brothers: the weisers...

please! please! more...
these days of "quitting"...
             because what could be fun
about an absolute cold-turkey...
when you have a stash of...
  600 cigarettes... and... if the math is
about right...
and since the free movement of
people is a rapunzel dream off-the-cuff...

600 cigarettes... if i get it right...
move from 2 per ritual of going to bed...
into 1... that's... either a year
with missing 56 days somewhere...
no rolling tobacco though...
look m'ah! no bongs no syringes!
look p'ah! no snorting bleeding nose...
no... plum bruises from...

as long as there's an inhibition period...
a period of: i wish i could send
a postcard from... Basildon, Essex...
to... someone obliterated by a craze-maze
of lights... like... whatever...

i just heard stories...
                  about the effects of other drugs...
but... it's not like they come back...
with straitjackets to rekindle old flames
of "crossing the threshold" within
the confines of tobacco and alcohol...
moderately: well: not to quote the ideal
units consumed...
     i'm pretty sure i read some pickwick papers
today and... dickens "forgot" some...
conjunction words...
unless of course: his style...
                    -open            
                          to question-
                        esp. adjectives that...
or is it... nouns that act like this that and the other:
as if verbs...
            
    roughly half an hour... the full extent of
a cigarette...
the very first is probably the same
as the "very first" when you're "quitting"...
from circa 20 per day...
to 2-a-day...
                      "quitting" and first getting
hooked...
           the whiskers and fire fathers
                                   of the apache
              are a balancing act that follows...
oh sure... i'll quit smoking...
when the ritual is over...
i have left the casual smoker behind...
somewhere... over coffee...
over the tradition of that cigarette after
a meal: the digestifs smoke-up...
i left these smokers behind...
the nervous smokers...
the waiting at a bus-stop smokers...
the after *** smokers...

          the day is coming to an end...
i'm going to enjoy some music...
drink a little... i'll start calling this smoking
cigarette pattern... what? what else?!
my tobacco ramadam!
chances are... i'll still be unable
to appreciate roxy music...
   and the english dandy...
                       the music is here...
the little bit of *****... and the "pipe"!
here comes my face...
here comes the zoo...
            
             but i'm quitting... "quitting"...
the wolf of wall st. -
                      drug addict... that all depends
on how you treat tobacco...
the cigarette... abstaining for a day...
after a "hiatus" from healthy breathing...
viruses and car zinc and lead exhausts...
cow farts...
                  
    a terrible way to treat tobacco...
i find... is the casual... informal way...
a bit like... internet access...
whoever grew up with it being stationary...
like... a telephone... or a phonebox...
it was never carried:
always a returned to:
like a swizz safety-deposit box
in a bank... that could...
bypass tax regulations and subpoenas...

the good old days...
saturdays the park... the high street...
the car park... climbing to the top
and spitting phlegm bombs at people...
peter ******* richardson...
and kieran o'mahoney...
samuel richards...
         a ****** among the irish...
in england...
then again: richardson...
eh...
                                   ascot?
      i.e. a shcoot?!
                    the break between my first
ritual cigarette...
         and my closing affair for the night...
whether i drink less or not...
in the middle of the night
i wake up on the floor...
         i sleep on the floor for about
an hour... two demons want to ****
in my bed... then i'm thrown back into
the bed of cushions and mattress...
  only yesterday i killed someone in my dream...
and i was... like the zodiac killer...
anonymous...
i heard hook & sinker teases of:
the crime scene read like a crime thriller...
to appease the ego...

two days running thrown out of bed...
this is a terribly composed...
it is... "quarantine" poetics...
i'm "quitting" smoking...
                   i'm making tobacco...
i'm giving tobacco ritual rites...
                   no lazy tobacco smoking...
end of the day... ms. amber in hand...
maxing out on 2!
the next two? the next day...
              the same packet of cigarettes...
2 inside with a lighter...
wrapped up using about 10 rubber bands...
a like-for-like replica of
pin-heads "tattoo geography"...

       yes... because... someone's nearing
the snorting olympics?!
           if all you were given...
was tobacco and alcohol...
             the first one... oh! mein! gott!
it feels like being a teenager... once more...
and experiencing the alcohol carousel
for the very first time...
tobacco? that came later...
after the alcohol... after the ****...
the **** came in age 21...
the tobacco came in... age 21.09...
whatever that implies...

                      it's nice... though...
absitance... you wait for the entire day...
by the of it... some variant of... tourette's kicks
in... it's all very nice asking for
cupcakes and bagels...
scones and daffodils:
or... suicide by: lily-of-the-valley...
i.e. room filled with them...
and no ventilation...
talk about... no hanging... projects...
of Seneca cutting wrists in a bath...
just... getting drunk...
and being allowed to fall asleep
in a vacuous room filled with
lily-of-the-valley bouquets...

             we can talk about suicide... no?
when... it's... beautiful? no? ha!
how was the hemlock... prescribed?
as a drink?
             i... it's almost irritating that...
i will not write anything more sensible
after i take the 2 cigarette to the grave of sleep...
no matter...
i wasn't hoping to invest in much:
today gave me enough.
It's you. Just you. Only you*

It's been you for the past couple of years.
Ever since the moment you said, "Hi!"
It's you even while I toss and turn or
I lie awake at 3 in the morning
Or even when I open my eyes at half-past 11

It's you when I eat, sleep,
and drink cheap bottles of *****.

You are everywhere I go.
You are always on my mind
That no matter how far apart we are - your existence is in contiguity of my being

So you have asked me a question.
Who do you love?

R H E T O R I C*

It's you. Just you. Only you.
Serena Lee  Mar 2015
kieran
Serena Lee Mar 2015
I love, I love , I love you
There is not one single day I do not think, love, lust, dream of you
I lost you a while ago yet I still hear the gentle stroke of you
I dream someday we'll be reunited then nightmare that you've forgotten me
I may not rhyme, this may not be the time, but I love you
pure and true
I love you
XOXOXOX
Copyright ©  2015 Serena Lee
All Rights Reserved
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2021
we did it in the bath, we did it before a mirror... i guess we only didn't do it outdoors - only because... a swan at Loch Lomond turned us off...

that these have to be little autobiographical
sketches: for starters...

a life of no real consequence:
if i were magically thrown back in time
and allowed to bring
with me a book of plagiarisms
i.e. - so that i might be ascribed
the penmanship of a Descartes... etc.


i think i'd still only (bring): avec et seul moi...
i sometimes wish i bothered
to learn Fwench...
since Italian and Spanish were
never too much appealing to begin
with... only the deutschezunge could
have harrowed me more for
an impetus to learn...

acquisition of English was what it was...
thrown into the deep end...
learn the language, ******... or sink...
some prior knowledge via
cartoon network...
but not enough to have to remember...
the "joke" on my way
to the local swimming pool...
how puma: wasn't 'poo-mah'
but somehow 'pew-mah'...
****'s sake... if i wrote down phonetically
how i said something "wrong"...
the it would look like: pjuma...

i can't escape some escapades of life
so daft that i do remember me,
Peter Richardson, Kieran O'Mahoney
and what Ilford & South Park were like
come Saturday's afternoons...
like... having to hold your breath
when walking in between
the "batty man's legs"...
a road sign with two stilts...

most people don't have the energy to
write about such trivial matters...
i'm holding back a few details with
regards to Peter and Kieran...
as you do: for the cinema of memory
has served me well and enough: truly...
the time South Park closed and we were
rummaging in it after hours
like dwarfs of sort
and had to climb over the fence...
Kieran being overweight...
me and Peter managed as i remember
my youth was spent climbing trees...
but Kieran of course had to
mistime jumping over the fence
and managed to almost impale himself
on the fence... lucky for him it was by his
underwear...

truly life is too sweet to write about
such things...
best reserved for memory:
the cinema -esqueness of the project...
  
- i like the clarity presented after
the most timid resort to exercise...
making a journey that would otherwise
take 30 minutes +
via walking for a bottle of whiskey
in a peacock's tail sort of... enterprise
of running, walking fast...
gurgling excess phlegm... spitting it out...
harking aback... almost barking...

i abhor running... a pointless task...
no wonder i started to yawn
from walking... the initial project
dealt with... from circa 120kg down to 104kg
in under circa 3 months...
no more weight loss...
something more was required to push
the weight down to under 100kg...
so i could... remember how it felt
to walk down the road and
have eyes of the opposite ***
insinuate: fuckable...
i wouldn't really demand the 3-dimensional
version of the other traits
that come, necessarily with the load:

a life that's nothing more than
time loaned...
  once i spent ~£400 in a brothel...
     over 3 hours having asked a bank manager
for an increase in my overdraft limit...
faking a funeral... extra expenses: no one died...
so much so that at one point
i was asked whether or not i'd like
a ******* because i already exhausted
three... and maybe ******* twice:
but you never know when
you pull back your *******
and the "helmet" is purple-gleeful
like a bishops' parade blah blah
because that's all that love isn't
which is no bees, no butterflies...
just oysters, flowers... bourbon... octopus /
Hindu deities...
- and to think... the day my libido dies
and the day it dies and it wasn't...
mummified in something monogamous...
it wasn't trialled...
best of all... jazz hands...
executed by an imitation 'gina
       ever since one side: that did all the *******
would bellow: oh no... the women don't...
deer in headlights...
well if it is all "there" but there's no...
outlet...

- 3 to 7 working days for the delivery
of a...
    Trek Marlin 5 hardtail...
       and i guess i don't want to sleep because...
exciting thoughts...
a clarity of placing the body
on the rack of exertion...
or rather a change in perspective...
the distance covered via walking...
a marathon in under 7 hours...
from somewhere in the vicinity of
the greater london outstretch nibbling at Essex...
toward St. Paul's cathedral... and back...
but done... from the perspective of a bicycle...
or from said starter coordinates
toward Epping...

no point keeping this imagination timid...
a thought concerning...
Canvey Island... apparently anything on
a bicycle is... doable...
most certainly... yes... doubly doable...
the image strikes me
from the perspective of walking...
the great involvement of the dimension
of speed... which... in all honesty...
doesn't exist within the confines
of walking... unless of course days turn
into weeks and weeks into months
but man, not this man...
has that many allowances for leisure
of that sort...

some impeding "doom": or rather...
a trial of the wait per se...
even though: no clue as to why i'd wait
for the otherwise inevitable...

conversations in the night:
protection via the sphinxes...
toothless head turned into bull horns
chisel, ram, chisel...
that bonsai tigers have pupils
that have serpentine qualities...

oh to own a bicycle...
is almost like having authority of wind...
and all the flutes of the world...
my self-propelled mechanisation
of horse...
i sometimes wonder whether or not
horses are as friendly as people say they
are... after all...
a cat's bite or scratch is mostly self-invoked...
and thoroughly mea culpa proof...
but being thrown off
a horse's hind into a wheelchair...

paraplegic or whatever...
how friendly, how anything...
more care bound to befriending acorns...
clots of cloud... vinyl mistaken for
liquorice...
the whole shindig bedazzle frothing
at the mouth coup...

but a bicycle is remedy...
i can fathom it more than i'd ever want
to find use for a car...
perhaps a motorbike and all the zest of Zen...
but then from: wriggle worm
into a galloping gazelle
i'm a man that apparently walked...
will now have a second spine...
a variable of prosthetic extension
with no ghost limbs to mind...

well ******* on a whim wasn't readily available...
however much i tried not being
this: son of a mother
but in the grand scheme of things...
a detail of what's otherwise an abortion...
roulette femme...
by chance, by thieving...
by ******, alone...
by a butting in by some marker of solipsism...
by not appreciating anything
from orators akin to Seneca or Cicero...

one glorious **** and then i was out...
like a colt armed (with a) sharpshooter...
circa the months when i was 21...
****... now i'm coming to 35
and life... is still a stampede away
from Pompeii...
wasted or rather stalled...
i'm reaching into the depth
of shadow to find both dog and leash...
and all the other ***** toys...

****** and bicycles...
now it becomes self-evident... only now...
wish upon a star of lefty liberalism:
how does that comatose
spew of strict linear vocab-ulary go...
how everything is authentic... clarity prone...
locally sourced: teeming with
angel dust but never, at any posit of
required introspection... burdened by leeches
or mosquitos of the Christ metaphor
of slurping a bloodied loaf of: bwa...
of bread...

o.k. for now... marriage of oops
and bootlicking flukes...
dirt cradle and a hinterland of a hinterland...
hope for not having fake a day:
i.e. earned that deserving pause
of sleep: no dreams please... no dreams...
too many faces prop themselves up in
the juxtaposition of clouds
come the serenities of the night
that dreams... once cryptic...
by some standards of those who claim
to have found a new-architecture within them...

best without them...
        i would abhor waking up riddled...
i'll find something greying in obsolete come 4pm...
just after the children have made their route
sublime for an ease of breath...
from the school
of a posteriori and into the labyrinth
of a priori of home...
of inheritance "tax"...
              
yes... then and a somewhat stressed "now".
S Mia  Jun 2015
Kieran
S Mia Jun 2015
With you, I feel.
Without you, my pen would not move.
                          - S. Mia
                        June 30, 2015

— The End —