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j carroll Feb 2013
these days i fill my lungs with smoke
to insulate my brain
and consider the londoners
who i haven't seen in far too long.
michael with his spitting essex accent
and juliet who michael says 'sounz welfee'
telling me to put a kettle on and then
complaining when
i leave the tea bag in the mug.
"i like it strong to the last drop" i insist
and they call me a 'daft ****'
and michael says that if all yanks made tea
like i do
then it's no wonder we were willing
to throw it in the harbor.
we all take our tea in different shades.
and they can tell just glancing at the cup
that i've over-poured the milk.
they seem to always consider hue
those londoners
who know their nuances.
                                               afterall
they were raised beneath shades of grey.

perhaps i see more delicately,
too.
Terry Collett Sep 2013
The road up from the farm
the smell of cattle
the sound of them
calling across the fields

and you and Jane
having helped
weigh milk
and feed the cows

took a steady walk
up towards the Downs
the sky blue
the clouds white

the trees
above your heads
crows and rooks
calling downwards

you are doing well
Jane said
for a London boy
anyone would have thought

you've been a country boy
all your life
you smiled
well I just get stuck in

you said
when you haven't got
any cinemas or shops
near by you have to find

some way
to occupy your brain
I've even taken up
bird watching

with a cheap book
I picked up in town
when the bus
took us there last week

she looked happy
her dark eyes
lit up by
the sunlight

her dark hair
well brushed
reflected
the light of sun

she wore that blue dress
with the solitary flower
(the one her gran
had bought)

you liked the way
she walked beside you
the calm manner
as if she'd known you

all her life
I heard you got in a fight
at school on your first day
she said out of the blue

yes
you said
in the greenhouse
with Nigel

he said he didn't like Londoners
and I said too bad
he pushed me
and I socked him

and there it was
but you're friends now?
she asked
o yes after that

we got along ok
you said
what didn't he like
about Londoners?

she asked
he said his parents
said Londoners smelt
and had fleas

and so forth
she frowned  
where did they get
that idea?

they had evacuees
during the War apparently
you said
you reached the hollow tree

by the side
of the track
up the Downs
and entered in

and sat on the ledge
this she called
her secret hideout
few people know it's here

she said
I used to come here
and sit and think
she added

you thought
of the last time
you'd come here
it had rained

and you had run in
out of the downpour
and she had kissed you
and then sat back

surprised by what
she had done
and you both sat there
in silence

until she spoke casually
about the church nearby
and how small it was
and how you both must

go there sometime
there was no rain this time
she sat there
next to you

looking at you uncertain
can I kiss you?
you asked
she looked away

and downwards
then nodded
and lifted her face to you
your lips touched

and you kissed
it was a long kiss
eyes closed
hands touching

bodies near
then you both
broke away
we mustn't tell anyone

she said
we're only 13
and they wouldn't understand
of course not

you said
my lips are sealed
she smelt of apples
her eyes

were searching you
her hand
still touched yours
I'll show you

where the sheep wool
gets stuck
on the barbed wire
at the top

she said
and so you climbed
out the hollow tree
back on the dry

mud track
the rooks above you
the sunlight
on your back.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2022
title: loop
body:
or holes or days
and oh: or months...
let's pretend years
never existed.

sometimes, it's truly weird... but i'm not English... or British... sure... for convenience's sake, when asked by officials in the NHS... put me down at white British... once was the case of the Anglo-Saxons... well... at best i'm an Anglo-Slav... but i can't allow all these racial "minorities" residing in England to label with me... "reparations"... a "colonial-past"... or... post-colonialism, or whatever the fetish is... i just belong to a people without a colonial past... sorry... that's racist... to be unable to differentiate people ethnically... it simply is... that's how H'america rots... it has no ethnicity distinction... it's either all RACE or ***... can't tell apart the Serb fascists from the Ukrainian fascists?! i can't buy into this whole: i'm white therefore i'm somehow also the inheritor of post-colonialism... i'm on side with the Russians given this argument... sorry... i'm not having it... that's ******* racist: just because i'm white is somehow indicative of me receiving the minority sadism against the British in the realm of post-colonialism... **** no... **** never...you will not put other people's history onto other people: because you're ethnically-blind... just because i'm as white as a Brit doesn't imply we share a shared history... ****-off cupper-neck... come come... milk me the golden **** of Moloch! right now... i'm loving the Russian attitude of... *******... or we'll **** with you...because it simply doesn't make sense for certain ethnicities of the white race to... capitulate to the "racial minorities" of a post-colonial argumentation of: new schematics of how society's to be orientated... nicely... just nicely... i'm seriously thinking about ******* off to Liverpool... the women seem nicer... less paranoid... less-stuck... less... ugh... yucky... itchy... whatever it is with having... over-value delusions of... obviously having bypassed the safety-net of becoming a nun...

the day started well enough... i must have drunk about half
a litre of whiskey: forgetting to take some naproxen
to ease me into sleep.. woke up with cold sweats
at: some time just past 5am...
some nightmare... Holocaust related? i don't remember...
but if you're waking up sweating and shivering
at the same time... lucky for me... i meditated on this towards
work: well... the horrifying has already happened...
i never understood the argument that 6 millions Jews
died in the Holocaust... technically... those were 6 million
Polacks... while France capitulated to **** Germany
in whatever span of time...
  it took longer for Poland to capitulate to both:
**** Germany and Soviet Russia... and we're talking:
a nation that only recently emerged after being non-existent
given the partitions... while France... a colonial power...
anyway... had two coffees... a precursor of a bad idea:
showered... applied 7 different "beautifying" products
to my hair, beard, face... armpits... collar bones and neck
and hands...
   ****** off... as ever... one hour early:
why do i mismatch my timing whenever travelling to
Wembley... if i catch the fast (Southend Victoria train)
i can get from Romford to Liverpool Street in under 20 minutes...
since... the train doesn't stop at: Chadwell Heath,
Goodmayes, Seven Kings, Ilford, Manor Park, Forest Gate...
Maryland... straight onto Stratford...
and then Liverpool Street... and then that's another
20 or so minutes on the Metropolitan Line to Wembley Park...
well... nice weather... spring is in full swing...
another two coffees from McDonald's... sitting on a bench
on the Olympic route...
eating an almond croissant... oh looky-looky...
company... starlings...
                        i was surprised: where did the pigeons *******
to? so i'm going to be sitting on this bench
by myself... drinking a 4th coffee... eating an almond
croissant... smoking a cigarette after the "feast" while
having this troop of 4 or 5 starling beg me to pinch
of my croissant... ****'s sake: the day is starting to look
beautiful... i couldn't resit...
plus... there's that added bonus of looking mythical...
eh? even mystical... since a few coworkers already spotted
you and you're not some old man in a park
throwing breadcrumbs to pigeons...
you're throwing pinches of an almond croissant to starlings...
i always said: better a soul of an old man
in a young body than... the complete ******* opposite
of... whatever leads to dementia: lax...
old men having tantrums of teenagers...
                       just looks silly... and it was sort of like
that today... with the Scousers... Scouse...
   i was expecting such a lively, lovely atmosphere...
i swear... the further north you go... the lovelier people
become... my heart poured out at the Liverpool fans...
the Manchester fans? eh... not so much...
they're sort of like Londoners... stiff-upper lip: tense...
paranoid... i don't know how to describe them:
proper... after today i'm thinking about visiting Liverpool...
******* for the weekend... maybe book a ticket
at Anfield... but just go and see the city... wander...
get lost... find myself...
        i'm tired of continental Europe... then again:
i'm also tired of the south of England...
           4th coffee in... i thought i was going to die...
a thumping in my forehead... i already have high blood pressure
issues... four coffees in... almost zero food:
calorie intake: for someone 6ft2 and 98kg... it's not 2000kcal...
for the first time on a shift
i had to do my jacket up so that my neck would
be covered... the tie was suffocating me...
with ideas of dropping dead from a heart-attack...
thrice prone to *****... the one time i did i enacted
being a cow... i swallowed it back down... crummy...
eh... flakey... sort of like when you...
bring back milk that's half digested: when it splits...
into cheese and lactose juice... acid...
on my way back home: a most glorious full moon...
cider... sweaty shirt...
and this... fiddly ******* the Metrpolitan line...
mixed-race... sort of reminded of Harley Dean...
fiddling with her blonde-tinged curly hair...
i always found curly hair... um... hmm...
too infatuating... she does her make-up...
her lips with a crayon and then some quasi-lipstick...
cute nose, cute forehead...
and she just keeps looking at me...
with the most doe-esque intimidation of:
          why don't you react to me?! why?! why?!
she's so ******* blatant: she can't hide it...
i'm sitting there with my shirt undone...
   oh right... hairy chest of a pirate... thick bulging neck...
babe... i'm tired... i've been up since 5am...
started the shift at 9m... just finished come 6:30pm...
of course i'm *****... ever time i become tired
i need to relax: since i've been keeping this hardened
**** in my ****-pocket since this morning...
i'll get back home... sit on the thrones
and do the no. 1, 2 and 3... which is **** while sitting
down... relaxing my ****... taking a ****
and subsequently jerking off...
but she was so blatant... d'uh... pretending to look
into the glass behind me for her reflection...
checking her phone without taking a selfie...
how her hair would look better arranged if she
has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head...
truly... a pretty little number...
but i was already coming down from a high of:
Scouser women... are all the English girls so pretty
up north? like i said: i think i need to take a weekend
trip to Liverpool... or Newcastle...
i was taking aback when a married woman
approach me... started talking... gripped my hand and
then proceeded to kiss my cheek...
infatuated by the beard...
  that's nice... that's why life is worth living...
random strangers... coming up to you: infatuated
by your presence... having no reservations:
no inhibitions... needing to kiss you... touch you...
always with the northern types...
and i'd agree... southerners: the fairies...
Londoners... so ******* Victorian: reserved...
it's like playing poker 24/7...
   most of the time i find myself of keeping a trustworthy
line of conversation... i just become mute:
bored... i don't like the nitty-gritty of small talk...
what the **** do we have in common?!
absolutely nothing... beside... what?
trying to keep each other comfortable?
no... i'll use my silence to strain the fact that:
we're not friend in school playground... we're not...
but it's different with northeners...
i witnessed two grown men... cry... because they
were refused entry for being sick... puking...
grown men crying... because they couldn't be part
of the Liverpool choir of: you're never stand alone...
mind you... coworkers getting ****...
deservedly: too eager... too eager... push and shove...
can't we just talk? once you get that *******'s worth
of an SIA license you start losing the plot...
machismo... ugh... talking about people who can't
tell the difference from judo from throwing
watermelons...
oh but these northern girls... a married woman
just walk up to you... tipsy... tipsy as:
custard is most definitely pale, high noon sun
yellow... grabs your hand and kisses your cheek...
times like this: i feel... gratefully alive...
it's so very little but at the same time: so much...
i can forget the 5am wake up call...
of the nightmare that stirred me...
i couldn't possibly cry over football...
something beautiful, like Prokofiev? sure...
lucky for me we managed to seize about 10 cans of beer
from someone... who managed to bring those cans
of beer home? moi...
beer... relaxing to some Type O Negative...
i'm pretty sure there was this other woman
on the train: fixated on playing with her...
she kept stroking it... stroking it...
some other day...
like a cat with an itchy scalp... what the **** do they call them?
archetypical clues?
i heard that once... if a woman in your vicinity is
fiddling with her hair... she's into you...
i seriously want to forget these stereotypes...
i prefer the more direct approach...
she comes up to you: a complete stranger
and kisses your on your furry cheek...
it might have been sunny... it might have been warm
today... but the tenderness of those lips...
i need to book a weekend break to Liverpool...
seriously... i need to visit Liverpool...
those woman are insatiable! i need to ******* to Liverpool!
i already can't stand the claustrophobically
constipated London girls...
   it does my head in!
            what happened to: perchance: some... foon?!
on a *****-nilly... what the **** is this?
the ******* Black Dahlia... no... wait...
the Black Narcissus nunnery? the ******* hills are full
of music?! or is that... filled, with?!
this is a trajectory toward a death-cult...
o.k. whatever... i'm getting slowly more drunk
and relaxed and... not in the mood of...

whatever... i just can't face up to having to faces...
it's enough that i already juggle two tongues...
but i can't face up to having two faces;
i see people taking themselves overtly seriously
and i'm thinking about... puking:
and then swallowing the puke that doesn't leave
my mouth... like a cow's digestive schematic.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
i only noticed it today - from the wide opening spaces,
the scarce forests and horses grazing -
where everyone around here looks very much feral -
and even behaves feral - it's sometimes eye-opening
seeing the big city - the rat channels - the avoidance
of staring each other in the eyes -
the number of mobile phones in almost constant use -
a grant antopia that London and other cities have
become - behemoths in their own right -
but what's most eye-opening is the perfect skin
of the populace - i can almost claim a Joseph Merrick
appearance - relativity has nothing to do with it -
the 21st century and the Victorian era are completely
two different swarms of fish - Londoners' perfect skin,
with mine like fields of Ypres during world war two -
or quiet simply: mine the moon-face - littered with
tiny bullet incisions - even if i wanted, on this
basis i wouldn't land an executive job - an office job -
these people look for pampered - so docile even -
busy docile, but so docile - and once in a while you
see a glimmer of what it's all about - a public show
of affection - a couple lost in a moment between one
underground train and the next on the tube platform -
it's mesmerising seeing such moments, such is
their rarity - for you know judging by the overall
consensus - that so too is rare an old couple - as also
a family outing - the consensus speaks a different urbanity -
not such Edenic delights in the firestorm of concrete
and sweat and fast-food outlets, overpriced beer and overpriced
coffee - priced according to the postcode and the view.

but enough of that... the ballet! the first time i went
to a ballet it was to see *swan lake
-
i was put off - a sour taste on my tongue, i thought
i'd give all future ballets a pass -
then Bolshoi came along out of the blue -
i had someone else's ticket, so i went for free -
i could be all hot-air ponce puffing that it's Bolshoi -
and as if by miracle... i fell in love -
the main reason? when i went to see the swan lake
it was like watching an enlarged centipede
stomping on the stage - it was staged in the Royal
Albert Hall... they also play tennis in the Royal Albert...
the ground is too hard... when the swan lake
ballerinas pranced en pointe the centipede was out...
it even managed to overpower the orchestra -
the great en pointe centipede of royal albert hall -
the difference! the difference! when ballet becomes
silent - effortless - as it was today at the royal opera
house with a softer stage - given the play, i was
expecting the ballet dancers to imitate a bull's hoof
hitting the ground before charging - that came,
since we had matadors on stage - Don Quixote was
there too (obviously), but more in a comic role
as sheer presence - if the character danced, the whole
adaptation would have been a complete failure -
ballet and romance - who would Don Quixote dance
with, a ******* windmill? he's cameo compared
to the dancers - and all the more effective, since the
opening scene is wholly dedicated to him,
when he decides to go on his quest - Sancho runs into
his house with stolen meat, three women are after him,
so Sancho decides to hide under Don Quixoté's table  
(yes, they pronounced it with an acute e, otherwise
tongue-waggling business-as-usual); but to be honest
act i through to half of act ii doesn't feel like ballet at
all - not like swan lake felt like by comparison,
there are accents of ballet - accents as in that soloists
performing with what would otherwise be a bubonic
plague of other ballerinas missing - not to mention
that some of the soloist feats are done with the legs
being kept a secret / i.e. hidden - we get flamenco
dancers, not ballerinas - i came here to see Bolshoi
flamenco? well that's the good part - then all the
Spanish allure vanishes - phoom! puff! it's gone -
Don Quixote is taken ill and collapses in a forest -
loses consciousness and wakes into a dream -
boom! 30 odd ballerinas on stage dressed in tutus
of light azure - out of nowhere in the middle of act ii
and all the way through to the end of act iii we have
pure ballet - all the techniques, from
a (pirouette) à la second - a brisé - a fouetté -
a male grand jeté - everything you can imagine basically.
thank god Don Quixote doesn't dance but is the cameo
vehicle moving things along - fighting with windmills
or dancing ballet with windmills? i'm not too sure now,
it's more fun i suppose having actually read the book -
in the ballet the windmills' debacle comes much later
than in the book - it's like this two part story -
just before Don Quixote collapses in the forest and
the ballet begins - we have three giants swirling on stage.
on a less gratifying note though - so many Russians
in the house - i guess paying to see Bolshoi in Moscow
must be expensive, cheaper to fly to London and
see it here - but then again... why am i surprised or remotely
bothered? i could have been as level headed in my
analysis as Kierkegaard at the theatre - but i can't -
the music is too intoxicating, the body language too
architecturally sound and impenetrable -
all i can say with an honest heart:
DON'T GO TO SEE BALLET AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL
(you'll be watching a centipede dance),
SEE IT AT THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE -
can't get a better summary than that.
Terry Collett  Jan 2014
NEW LIFE.
Terry Collett Jan 2014
You walked with Jane
as you passed by
the water tower
she talked

of the various breeds
of cattle
there were some
for meat

others for milk
some for both
she pointed out
some cows

in a field nearby
and told you
their breed
have you ever seen

a calf born?
she said
no
you said

not seen anything
like that
let's go to the farm
I think they have a cow

that is due to drop
she said
so you turned up
the drive

that led to the farm
where you worked
some evenings
after school

or at weekends
she walked and talked
you listened
looking at her

dark hair tied back
with a green ribbon
her dark eyes shone
with sunlight

you looked away
at that moment
watching the farm dog
pass by

with its one good eye
(it had bitten you once
and you were wary of it)
a cowman

was at the side
of a shed
clearing out
has the new calf

been born yet?
she asked
he looked at her
then at you

no not yet
he said
but should be soon
want to watch then?

he said
gazing at you
kind of grinning
yes

Jane said
Benedict here
hasn't seen a birth
oh of course

these Londoners
haven't nought
he said
hang about a moment

and we'll go across
he said
you looked at Jane
she was silent

looking around the farm
have you seen
a calf being born?
you asked

many times
she said
ever since
I could stand

I’ve been near
cattle and sheep
I know most breeds
of both

she added softly
after a few minutes
the cowman walked
you both over to the cowshed

over the yard
and opened up
the half door
there she is

he said
waiting to drop
you and Jane
peered over

the half door
at a cow by the wall
looking at you
disinterestedly

her tail flapping
away flies
shouldn't be long now
the cowman said

never seen
a calf born then?
he said to you
no not yet

you said
don't suppose
you Londoners
see much of cows

he said smiling
no not at all in London
you said
he looked at Jane

then at the cow
which was standing still
making noises
then moving

then standing still again
I was about 5
when my old dad
took me to see

a calf born
the cowman said
all that blood and stuff
near made me

want to puke
first time
you looked at Jane
her hands

on the door top
her eyes focused
on the cow
she had on blue jeans

and boots
and a yellowy top
with small bulges
of *******

there she goes
the cowman said
and you gazed
at the cow

and a head appeared
as if by magic
out of the rear
of the cow

and it hung there
momentarily
then it slid out
and dropped

to the straw filled floor
covered in blood
and stuff
and the cow

licked the calf
and you watched
fascinated
at the new life

laying there
moving
the cow licking
the legs moving

the head turning
that's how it is
the cowman said
easy one that

and you moved closer
to Jane
smelling her scent
her warmth near you

her arm next to yours
what will you call it?
Jane asked
don't know yet

the cowman said
might call it Benedict
if it's a bull calf
and Jane

if it's a heifer
he smiled at you both
and opened up
the lower door

and went in
then closed it up again
there you are
she said

now you've seen
a calf born
you nodded
and you walked back

out of the yard
and up the drive
let's go back to my house
she said

Mum'll give us
tea and cake
and we can tell her
about the calf  

ok
you said
walking beside her
sensing her nearness

her hand close to yours
you wanting to hold it
but not doing so
walking there

beneath the sun's
warmth and glow.
A BOY AND GIRL IN THE COUNTRYSIDE IN 1961.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
only today i felt this strange fear from boredom, i don't expect housewives to feel it, although i'm certain they do, brain-draining watching some Jurassic adaptation where man's imagination really did a runner - not into the fantastical but into the absurd - like in science fiction, did a runner, completely off the mark given chemists making shampoos and toothpastes and fertilisers... ethically-free science fiction - but this housebound fear from boredom, greater than a fear of death it seized me and rattled me, i had to go out to buy a few beers; just like it happens to really rich people, they make their homes into micro-units of what's out there, in society, a swimming pool when there's a communal one elsewhere, a massive library of unread books, when there are plenty of those elsewhere, home cinema, snooker table... it's the entire spectrum of social pastimes condensed into a single household... anyway, i got hot and bothered, i'm starting to think it was not a fear of boredom, but what to do with the piri-piri chicken i was marinating: tomato puree, 1tbsp balsamic vinegar, half a large lemon squeezed, 1sp sugar, 1tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp cajun pepper, 14g of parsley, mint, oil, 2 chillies, 2 tsp of garlic puree, salt to taste - whisked in a food processor; ~1kg of chicken - because i thought whether i should shove the chicken marinate in an oven bag and cook it for a while, or whether to take the chicken out from the marinate and place it on a baking tray... ****!

poems and book reviews these days, nothing more,
get someone else to do the legwork -
a thoroughly modern malaise -
social anthropology - titled *tribe
-
the pros and cons of modern life and our
search for tribal mythology -
the 8x more chance of depression and
other mental deviations in wealthier
societies than poorer ones -
once it was called adventure, now
it's called tourism - after a while you sort
of get bored of the naked ego
and the clothing range your thought
provides you - unless you keep thinking
out the same thing, over and over again,
dressed like Armani, all black, nothing else -
odd, isn't it? they're playing the cat game,
cat wakes up, same ****, different cover,
well, the same cover - same fur - can't
change - the paradox or parody of
the fashion industry, i.e. that the designers
wear the same thing over and over again
and insist people require a spring collection,
the latest autumn trend.... parody.
so back to this piri-piri chicken      n'ah, not really,
i was thinking about what we already did,
this anti-tribalism, to have given ourselves
the opportunity to experience the least
amount of pain, the anaesthetic, sleep inducing
on the butcher's table more or less -
but we also created another anaesthetic,
this anaesthetic is not so subtle - it concerns beauty -
ever see it? ever walk into Tate Modern and
think about Raphael or Michelangelo?
you could tell me i'm overly nostalgic -
but what i see in plain sight is an anaesthetic in place,
against beauty, esp. in architecture -
who'd think of building a new Coliseum or
a St. Paul's - the Tate Modern (as you might
or might not know) is inside a power station,
big massive chimney - would have worked
better in the Battersea (Pink Floyd's Animals
album sleeve), but then St. Paul's is right opposite
and what a staggering dichotomy it is -
i'm sure that's what you call an anaesthetic in art,
the sort of art you have to get or not get
because, frankly, admiring a tin-can of tomato soup
even by Warhol's standards isn't exactly appetising -
i know, conveyor belt necessity and all, once
artists painted on commission for some duke or
duchess, or king to be adorning lavish palaces,
but as according to Walter Benjamin - the work
of art in the age of mechanical reproduction
-
some could once claim the original to be worth
a stupendous amount of dosh, but with the above
mentioned essay, the original is worth diddly-squat,
because there is no actual original these days,
because artists don't necessarily have to invest
in raw materials - and the copying process is 100%
perfect, what with photocopying and all...
but **** me over once more, how am i going
to cook this piri-piri chicken?
the few beers took the problem off my hands,
i ended up marinating the chicken in a bag
but then shoved it into a baking tray
an covered with aluminium foil, forty odd
minutes and the chicken was tender - ~5 minutes
without the aluminium foil covering while
the oven was switched off and the temperature
was descending - the carbs? couscous -
alt. North African semolina - and extra cucumber
in tzatziki - a few hours later and i'm a little
buddha not thinking an ounce or a continent's worth
of suggestion... one of those rare albums
salmonella dub's  inside the dub plates,
i'm a real provincial with this album,
tumble **** here, tumble **** there,
never settling for a ****-garden -
i told you i'm just borrowing the language, in fact,
given my alcoholic and status as vermin among
the bulldog rigid British (Londoners can have
their little gay pride parade, whatever, they
better give me up for surgery to a veterinarian than
a human doctor, after all, i'm all ******* gerbil from
now on in, it doesn't take enough pacifists to turn
my attitude into a Neo-**** and bulldozer the Union
Jack into a shallow grave, i don't expect the Caribbeans
and the Pakistanis to usher words of: it's how it is,
a rite of passage, **** your cumin and your ****,
battle of Britain, who among the R.A.F. flew and spat fire?
us) i'm more Apache in a bigger zoo than the one in
Reagents Park, i'm in a conservation zoone -
i'm Aboriginal - shaman of the fire water -
i'll be as ******* ridiculous as i want - go chant
you little kirtan get together mantras going,
i'm sure you'll *****-fight-those-pigeons dead without
a single coo being ushered in - and your little yoga stints
asking questions about the flexibility of the skeleton
not pulverised by scientific eyes for a schematic and
a schooling rubric to domino up the cranium with mandible,
ulna and radius etc. -
but at least i know what sort of country i live in,
and what country is wandering into political apology that's
too late, in ratio 27:1, soon to be Turkey + the Yugoslavian
gape, Albanian and Macedonia by 2020 -
>30:1 - great Welsh ratio that is, oh ****, wait, Scotland too?
i never thought about it coming - there's my 2 cents
on the topic, and that England is becoming more American
by the day? that's good? really?! i thought the
aim of England was to inspire America rather than
vice versa... what a ****-storm these few days ended
up being; ol' McDonald didn't have a farm, but
had the slogan - *i'm lovin' it!
"Young Man found Murdered in East End. Police believe that in the early hours of Tuesday morning a young man who hasn’t been named  was tragically killed. His body was found the following morning by his cleaning lady. There has been much speculation linking this latest death to the series of murders that has happened in the capital over the past two weeks."

The headline news at the moment, yes another ******. This time another man killed, the ever changing result at the moment is now two men and three young women. It seems the killer prefers severing the femoral artery of his victim, thus securing a fast and ****** end to their poor pathetic lives.

I read intently, the pure supposition by law enforcement officials that seems to me to be almost comical in nature. They bandy words like Serial Killer and Maniac across the pages of every news paper.
I smile, as I fold it in half, placing it neatly on the table next to my breakfast things, for I know that tonight another ****** will occur. First things first though, I have to go and earn my keep.

I work as an investment banker in the cities renown square mile. Yes I am one of those so called pariahs who is happy to receive the extortionate bonuses that the majority of Londoners and the rest of the country, I might add, are all so busy complaining about. I must concede to the fact that I totally deserve every penny I get but I suppose I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Pariah, yes that’s me pretty much to a tee.

Pariah: definition, outcast: somebody who is despised and avoided. Yes that sums me up perfectly even if I do say so myself. Of course most of my friends and colleagues would not be of that opinion at this moment in time but I do believe that they will come to this decision soon enough. As I have already stated, I have a crust to earn so I had better start to make a move, the rent won’t pay its self you know. I won’t bore you with the daily working life of an investment banker, the majority of you idiots wouldn’t understand me even if I did, so I will fast forward ten hours and once more speak to you from more comfortable surroundings, this time in the guise of a well frequented public ale house in the East end of London.

As my night progresses I see her across the now bustling and noisy lounge area and yes, she is something to behold. God has been very kind to this young lady. Her name is Petunia and a more than willing victim one will never meet. She is perfectly formed and voluptuous in every way you can imagine. Just what I am looking for on this lovely summers evening. Over the course of the evening the charm flourishes and Petunia and I laugh, chat and drink our way through it, getting even closer as the night closes in. This is working lovely, that flash of thigh as she rubs her leg along my own. The glint in her eyes tells me that this young woman has succumbed, hook line and sinker to my charms.

Not one of those to big myself up but this is of no surprise to me, as I do believe I have everything almost every woman would ever want. The looks, personality and money, with this in mind, she never stood a chance really. We leave the pub arm in arm, she looks a little unsteady due to the drink.

Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly and she is so prone to take that first step. Our destination, her flat just a stones throw away. My mind racing, excitement so enthused within my cool and calm exterior.

If you have been following the events of the last few weeks you will know that the past five Murders were all committed with a short sharp blade entering into the groin area. I am so aware of that silken metal that the steel presents to my leg. I feel it intently even through the leather sheath that is bound so securely below my trouser leg. I am so aroused at this moment in time.

Inside Petunia’s flat we waste no time getting close as I push my quarry back onto the divan. After the initial fumbling we are almost there. As we taste each others tongues my left hand reaches down to select my weapon from its casing. I feel its coldness in my hand, raising it to the desired position. All I have to do now is slide it forward and penetrate.

My hands are sweating. As we feed on each other with our mouths I feel my hand shaking. I try to shut off the emotions now running through my mind but I cannot do it. I pull my mouth away from her succulent lips and realize that this is just not going to happen. It felt like such a good idea until now, I was so motivated before this but I just haven’t got it in me to **** this beautiful woman.

A sharp pain brings me to my senses as the blade slides into my groin. The pumping coldness that is now soaking through the material of my Armani trousers. I am shaking so much, in Hemorrhagic shock, as my life’s blood pumps from my femoral artery. She pushes me onto my back, as I fight to keep breathing, Petunia looks down at me smiling.

“Thank you for a lovely night -- Number Six.”
2013
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
after acquiring the english language,
and synthesising it for twenty years...
ugh... breakfast that is but a cup of water
and immediately feeling bloated...
or just imagining that you can live
on food and alcohol... like a diesel engine....
comes to just as much
     trying to catch butterflies akin to
nabokov, or thoughts...
      and are either, so trully necessary?
well... unless you take to calling it
the only relative opposite of picking up
a gun and shooting someone for no reason
other than a per se reason, which
subsequently has to be reasoned with -
akin to this...
  or, dare i say, picking up a philosophy book
and seeing how there is clearly
a child in there, esp. in english -
how each philosophy book seems to be
avoiding the pronoun i -
such is the nature of these books,
    a lot of hide & seek happening -
with the basic formula of: being yourself,
to avoid, your self.
then again as this french girlfriend told
me when she was staying in edinburgh
for a year to complete her erasmus program
from the university of grenòble
and she was doing this psychology experiment
and she needed native speakers...
  and i was given the stick for trying to
fake her science by suggesting that i'd do it...
yeah...
           well i really did hook up with her when
an american was about to court her,
and that's the only time i played the huinter-gatherer
role, or was motivated to do so,
when we went bar crawling and i pulled her
from the crowd and we stayed behind while
the group moved to another pub...
that was the only time i felt a need to do the "chase",
later this thing called the categorical imperative
came along, and i subsequently lost the impetus
to compete...
being a gladiator could have been greater,
what with the hardships of life...
but you can watch these gladiators fall...
quiet easily, buying groceries in a supermarket,
or opening a fridge door...
it's this return to the mundane, the household
environment can really beat a man,
if his life is lived to sample the ancient
field of danger...
   so when i did get the schtick of her empiricism
i decided: well... i'm no native....
and aren't we all so puritan about science
when some of it can't be falsified,
which it can:
        never too fond of accents myself...
native or alien...
               some people have a fetish for
feet or a french accent...
                        but that ***** essex slur...
or however you'd like to put it,
  it's not even cockney, but you get to hear
something quasi-cockney around these parts
more often, given that a lot of londoners
are moving away to these parts...
cockney meets essex county...
or meats it... yep: beats it silly with squalor
and at the same time: sophistication of living
in cement graveyards of an international city...
then again, you walk into a forest at night
during the summer, wearing only a t-shirt...
and it's freezing!
   you can actually hear Gaia breathing...
and then out of the woods and onto the cement...
that rush of feeling a complete change
of temperature... well... that's something.
          oh it wasn't me, i didn't dump that
french bird, she dumped me,
       as an experienced woman in her early
twenties would, to a ****** (who lost it with her),
18 year old.
    memories and all, what a grand cinema,
sipping absinthe on the streets of athens,
the athenian strip-club...
                sitting on a stool looking at a stripper
while holding two women in my arms
and kissing that sweet, sweet tender *****...
what happened after?
   drank all my money away,
                was escorted by a bouncer to a cash
machine... ****** myself
           and scuttled away back to the hostel....
and then took the bus from athens to katowice...
macedonia? beautiful, very hilly...
       serbia though... a plataeu of snow...
and i admit, belgrade from the distance
looked stunnig... esp. because of the snow.
oh right, i was supposed to insert a          )
having begun it with a     (      of an original prompt...
english really does have this natural
basis to invoke a self-conscious pronoun base of i,
it's like there's this need for a double-certainty
of the speaker stating that: it really is that person
speaking... or even thinking...
     polish        as a language? it rarely uses
the pronoun ja, i.e. i,
                          it's just certain -
english has to overtly use the pronoun -
      and it would be certainly pointless to ditto it
out... like some careless selfish womanisers
by the name of sartre...
                   that's the one thing i don't understand
about sartre, how it could ever be, something
about "ego"... more like Igor and doctor frankenstein...
i find that expression, yes, that alone
   " e g o " to be akin to pontius pilate washing his hands:
for whather transgression: i can't be to blame...
and then comes that ****** mantra
of mea culpa... and it just goes on and on...
to be frank, the whole point of mea culpa
is to transcend any invocation of self-pity...
      it's probably the foremost notion of transcendentalism,
well given that self-pity exists in people,
and some people would rather take blame;
indeed, it is my fault that i once had a heart
to feel intimate with someone, or even entertain
the idea of a fwend...
                            if anyone asks, i'll just be
a hermit, in my little cave.
London is an onion.
Not one of those big, brown juicy globes
you can buy in packs of three, from Tesco,
No, an earthy, shrivelled relic from an old geezer's allotment,
With trailing fronds and a few infestations.
If you were to take a bite, your eyes would smart and your body rebel with a cough, a shudder and a wheeze,
But moments later, a smile would be playing round your lips,
Such a sensory adventure, though not exactly pleasant, can still be savoured,
And you'll remember the taste forever.

Londoners are weevils, hiding in the layers.
Outer, inner, some of us worm our way between them all.
Me, I tend to head for the heart of the thing,
Soho, Southwark, the inner sanctums.
I sometimes venture nearer the surface, the outer edges,
But too close to the unknown, and unfamiliar air,
And I start to pine for the centre.
You can work between the layers,
But the many skins are tougher than you'd think,
Better to burrow down, find a place to sustain
The appetite of a hungry little grub.
Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And stedfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look would say,
"We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."

    Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard:
"What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.
Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I stept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
it has been exactly since ~3p.m.
                                                            yesterday...
                                       through to
3p.m. today: that's 24 hours +
                                      4 o'clock, 5 o'clock rock,
          6 o'clock,
                                          7, 8, 9
                     10, 11 and the upcoming twelve
         24 + 9 + excess passing the 36th hour...
oh this is just target practice -
                  what used to be
   serotonin has become adrenaline:
   spawning cobweb shadows with
   a mere arm-hair aligned with an itch:
i say to my cohabitants -
        i'm too poor to rent an apartment
with my contemporaries,
         and i can't be bothered to look cool
for 10 years... before the money starts
coming in... a day before a tongue spoke:
and see you in 20 years...
         and see you in 30 years...
the people born prior to 1975
       and after 1969 came out to earn
£57,000 a year... while those born
after 1979 and before 1985 had a wealth
*** of £27,000...
                            who are the landlords?
quick digression, i love how the idea
of exiting the bloc (it used to be designated
to the eastern bloc, now anything east of Calais
if a bloc... the European bloc -
        my my... ain't it love-ly?
   they wanted an Australian points system,
so first came the Australian plastic currency,
boy, i was happy, cashing in my first Churchill
miniature that i could dip in baked beans
and use as a spoon) spread beyond the old
stereotype... and the points system?
you know who's smoking the hookah of
panic here?            
                            the freelancers of nationality...
   they haven't fitted in...
don't worry... they'll keep you,
but after seeing you they just thought:
once the cheeky chappy, now a chavvy chappy...
  we love the E2 dialect, it's hardly Coccers
or bonkers... but after my day
(i'll relate to it in a moment)
       i heard to prop'ah Cockneys giving it
all the guv' and n'ah and
        what's Kilimanjaro in Cockney slang?
all the Cockneys are living in Essex,
   Romford, Chelms and the Essex lads
from Ireland are a bit shy, never talk to
the old people who used to live on
the Isle of Dogs or the Wharf -
              East London moved, and i'm in
the thick o' it... you ***...
                       i'm here,
open ******* spaces and hedgehog counts
to mind... never the next Susie from
Whitechapel doing the runner from Jackie,
             and funny that,
the day began during the night,
sober, i tested the idea: if you gonna go
nocturnal, stay sober...
                  fast... drink coffee in the morning,
and what some proper bollocking
        on the box...
                               i say: revivals never
sounded more like bells, the 1970s
had Patois... the old parle with dread-lock Sam...
             i squeeze in a bit of Norse
and hey presto... Ahmed's your uncle...
                     'cos we all like a bit of
way-hey banter, the: back in the day
   when the 1966 squad was best known
for West 'am...
                               am i sensing the idea that
i'm licking off the prop'ah beef burger 'ere?
                    what the **** rhymes
with Kilimanjaro?
                                wait! got this one:
apples & pears - stairs...
                          you gyro?
                        no! wait... the two Cockneys
weren't from south London,
this ain't Peck'am talk... this is proper grub...
         jar squared: verb, meaning?
     i know my neighbour, heard him
lecturing his wife over the wall about
the diminishing concept of family in the "west",
           to me that's
the Cockneys meant by guv'nah:
                           aw right der geezer,
   stop that fidgety: don't be late tomorrow,
let a man eat his plums and wear his trousers...
       i swear: the only good cinema these days
is English cinema...
                                 i said! the only good cinema
these days is English cinema...
               if i didn't watch
       we **** the old way during the night,
after spending my day as i did (i'll get onto it,
hold your submarines)
                               i would have pricked my ears
on the two Cockneys next door
   at 4p.m.                  finishing some job...
but given the "guv'nah's" attitude: 'aving
a laugh at coming early tomorrow, if at all.
     my day?
                 i wished i could say i woke up
early...
                            the entire spectrum
of sunrise...
                            epileptic shock from the sun
after smoking a cigarette at 5a.m. when
all the constellations where out...
                          not enough sleep,
as the Russians say: no good to live but to
not have seen snow.
                               it shivers with enough
hours under your belt...
                                      i'd love those
Soviet torture chambers of sleep malnutrition...
gents? when the ***** and the cards and cigarettes?
    i'm currently the most loathed
  person in America... which technically makes me
more than simply unemployed...
        anyway...
cut my hair... two millimetres off the helmet...
off the cranium... not crew cut, not skin on side
and some ***-fluff on top...
in the night, when the moon is bright,
   my two millimetres of hair look like skin...
oi! Skinners! the shame would have really been
to have protruding ears...
                                    come to think of it,
i love the contorts of my shadow more than
the body my shadow disdains...
                  i decided to visit my old school
after that...
                     ...............................
do you know the feeling of getting onto a bus
when you having been on any other form
of transportation (other than your legs)
for a few months?             surreal...
                   and even that's a bad way to describe it...
this is where words simply fizzle out...
                            they just did the white rabbit
trick and you're felt with nothing else to
do but squeeze into the top-hat and hope
that some other magician will pull you out
rather than another: white rabbit.
                          so the 499 from my house
up to Romford (sunny! glorious day!
   shirt, sleeves rolled up,
           denim trousers, navy suede shoes,
azure shirt, headphones, bus ticket,
wallet, packet of smokes, and the ride -
smile all you want - when you smash a sports
car you don't have the view of a dozen
horrified passengers there with you
to practice your ultimate Buddha gimmick -
Ching-Chong Eyed and smiling)
                oh yeah, the insurance... huh?
   off at Romford central, and onto the 86
courier from Bangladesh to Ilford...
                    what did i miss in the list above?
ah... three copies of poetic optometry...
written by? moi, n'est pas? oh come on,
let's not get the ruler out: mangetout and manage trois...
                           (only fuel is horses)
           the 86 is a double decker, the 499 isn't...
sun in my eyes behind the glass the enhanced star
gleamed: what privilege -
               by day the star
                                           by night the star in
   a mirror that's the moon -
                                         selfish helium
giggling into a hydrogen Hindenburg fury!
                 or that's what the scientists say...
how they worked it out, i'll never know...
                            but apparently the sun
is a H-He           something or other...
            H because of atom bombs,
   and He because we giggle like idiots when we see
it: never the thirsty horse in cowboy movies.
   got off at Seven Kings...
in between school girls eyeing everyone and everything...
just my luck... schoolchildren...
                               everywhere on the bus...
just there...
                                    and also just nowhere...
         so i got off at Seven Kings and went into my
old catholic school...
                                  waited at the reception for a good
5 minutes (good to know they're still teaching
people manners with regards to the uttermost
productive necessity of bureaucrats)
               -              i asked about my old English
teacher: does Dr... er... does Mr. Thomas,
        er, does Mr. Bunce (Thomas) still work here?
   yes, he does.
             you see, i'm a former pupil of this school
and i wondered if i could have a meeting with him.
oh, that's impossible, he's currently teaching.
                     Kafka... note this in your afterlife...
         well... in that case, could i leave him a message?
oh sure, just write your name and your contact details
and he'll get in touch with you.
   well... i need a bit more than a scrap of paper,
can i have a notepad?
                 sure.
                                    so i took  the pen
and the notepad and sat in this grand refurbished hall
of the school that used to remind me
of chemistry labs stinking of old wood and sulphur,
of the old ways... of being beaten and Pink Floyd
escapism and all the hippy crap...
                               what a grand place this has become...
it's no longer known as C. P. Catholic School...
but the plus version: C. P. Academy...
  but you still walk into the plus surroundings and there
are still pamphlets written by Father Ted
about *our Lord and Saviour christ Jesus...
          or Hey! Zeus! in Spanish... same ****...
different cover...
                               but i was well dressed in my
Indian summer wear that's Indian summer:
English September and October...
              i'd move the calendar up a bit...
get the kids off anti-depressants...
                           anyway, i had my three copies
of the "first edition", try tell that with the internet
breathing down your neck... it doesn't, matter...
             but i did write him a lovely note:
unchaining me from the straitjacket of grammar!
                  i wrote from what year i graduated
2002 (g.c.s.e.) or 2004 (a-level),
                        and blah blah and one more blah
later                    walked back to the reception
  and asked for a rubber-band...
                   then i bundled the whole thing together
and asked if she could give it to him...
                    of course, she replied.
                            p.s. if you don't mind,
Mr. Thomas, you can always shove one of those
copies into the school library...
                         p.p.s., someone stashed
the book about the Gnostics by some German in
there once... maybe i'm thinking along the same lines.
      the journey back?
i walked.
                                 i walked from Seven Kings
to Romford...
                               taking a stroll
with one hand in my pocket (left)
because holding a cigarette in the other is never
exactly great when it's not doing something...
that's what the pockets are for...
not exactly suited for your wallet... but your hand...
when you're strolling in the green-belt fields
segregating the outer-most London (wannabe
Londoners / Eastenders) and the Essex inheritors
of Cockney... Kilimanjaro?
                                  Kilimanjaro?
                 ­                          me, i don't Essex
either...           most of the bankers chose this
district for the scenery, i.e. standing in a field
that isn't a hill or any sort of elevation
and beyond, yonder, the glass shards of their
former institutions...
                                        4.7 miles... not bad...
  a stroll... and that's without any food and solely
on coffee and a sleepless night...
           a butterfly fluttering along the way (only one)
and a fresh ripe auburn conker lying beneath
an oak tree (also, only one)...
            but what hit me was walking back...
it was truly like reading the book of revelation...
13:7... all the way from Seven Kings through to
the Romford: the street vendors, the bookies,
the Muhammedian car dealers...
                  the bewildered ones walking into
mosques, Sikh temples...
                                       one man cleaning the patio
entrance to a church from weeds...
                           cheap Kentucky chicken from America
         (if you think, that they don't synthesise
the meat in cat food and call it tuna or beef
but rather use actual meat... you're grossly mistaken,
    it was on the news...
                                         they are already
capable to synthesise meat...
                                     they do it in the perfume industry,
they're doing it in the food industry -
    a childhood memory of asking why they were
smearing lipstick on the frogs they caught...
they replied: they burn easier...
                  and they did... paint a frog lipstick
pink and boy... that's a French marshmallow, right there)...
           but if you ever walk that stretch of road...
               revelation 13:7...
          i'd like to see the Evangelists wriggle out
of that one...                       oh sure...
i treat religious television like some meathead
might watch football... it's game on after 5 minutes...
but anyway... that was my day...
           all 36 or so hours of it... how was yours?
                                                          ­                        g'day!
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
i was about to start writing this up when i thought:
another whiskey Quincy? **** storm,
spilled the remains of the one i barely touched
before having to pour myself a:
puritan Scot in Cheltenham.

now, i heard people say any town in Essex
is a ****-hole...
                            fair enough...
but there are darker recesses of England you
must get to know before making that
assumption...
                  sure, London, proper London,
zones 1 - 4, E17 (post code, outer reaches,
Walthamstow, used to have a dog racing
track - played there once,
like a typical Paris catwalk, those hounds)
can skive off Greater London
                    like New York can laugh off
New Jersey, it's pretty much like that...
the only thing is: Londoners don't know what
exists outside this area: the buffer zone.
this is the buffer zone...
                 you experience England outside of
this very sensitive area of integration,
take for example a 3 hour coach trip to
a little town of Cheltenham in Gloustershire
not far from Oxford (a hub of learning)
and Bristol (Massive Attack, and that
bridge by Brunel - funny, engineers are above
architects, in that engineers build things
that *work
, architects are like science-fiction
novelists rather than scientists -
do you know how many problems workers
experience, because an engineer
"forgot to mention" something essential in the plans?
at least an engineer gives you a read table,
all architects work for Ikea -
          ah, here's pieces a - z,
put it together yourself) - anyway...
              spilled my Quincy whiskey, now i'm a puritan
of scotch - unlike that damning quote from
1950s Hollywood: whiskey with a drop of water...
   ok ok... a little **** of ice floating about...
when will the nagging stop? no one says jack
about putting water into authentic absinthe...
      why? cos it goes cloudy green when you do!
(too much digression, news paragraph).

   i was leaving London on Friday,
murky the way i like it... Albert Bridge never seemed
so out of cinematographic urgency -
               but the west end with its grand buildings
appealed to me to start imagining
                    Oscar Wylde ghosts leaving these places
for promenades in top cats and tiaras for the ladies...
                     west London... the best way to see it
is in transit... preferably rather urgently...
                    and in a coach with other people not paying
attention...
                       the Thames receded into the estuary (
as it does), those housed in boats experienced a wake-up
call with a 10° ***** into the mud -
                                past the Chelsea pensioners' abode,
past many monuments to be exact...
   and then onto the open M4... past Windsor Castle
and the streak of aeroplanes about an aerial mile
apart landing at Heathrow -
                                  3 hours later, there i was,
in Cheltenham - chitty chitty bang bang,
apparently dubbed the hub of all English literary
endeavours - well, if you're going to host
a literature festival, wouldn't you claim to host
it with at least one patriotic son of the word?
did i see any statue of a famous poet or writer in
that little rugby stockpile of excess triceps?
nope.
           well, at first i thought it was cute...
                                a little Portobello, albeit
without the St. Petersburg paintwork on the houses,
houses as grey as the skies...
                                           got lost looking for
the b & b hotel i was supposed to be staying at for
the night, went into a gas station, asked,
i was apparently only adjacent lost -
                           old school, map printer and no
g.p.s. on foot -
                                  i once read a map and navigated
a car from an obscure Essex city,
to an even more obscure city in eastern Poland,
past the dreaded Penta Germania consisting of:
Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and
obviously Dortmund -
                                           i call it the whirlpool
of navigation...
                            anyway, so i found the abode,
what a nice little place it was, shied away from
all the traffic - a lovely garden,
a room fit for a journeying writer,
          actually, everything a writer could hope for
to lock himself away and write,
            tunic scenic - everything to ease the literary
constipation - the surroundings, the whole decor,
i even took a picture thinking: shame if no
Balzac were to not emerge from these rooms...
                           i sure didn't,
i dropped all the things, took a shower,
went into town to do the g.p.s. topographic of
the city so i wouldn't need a map in the future -
bought a bottle of whyte & mackay with a huh?!
apparently this brand isn't popular...
               went back to the room and found myself
drinking in front of the dreaded sight...
well... it was a room fit for a writer...
               but it had a double bed in it...
and a mirror at the desk...
                                    i downed one puritan glass
and looked in the mirror: i don't need your company.
looked away and found to my amazement the
truth of modern writing: the industrialisation
of writing... it emerged in the 20th century when everyone
did it by himself, with a typewriter -
        the industrialisation of writing on an individual
scale can be quiet debilitating when trying to
rekindle the quill... i didn't write anything, i doodled,
and those were bad doodles, it wasn't writing,
it was doodling... i drank a quarter of the bottle
and went out...
        went into the first bar, ordered a Guinness and
and sat down by a table with a
(later disclosed) Gloustershire University student,
a Canadian, jacking-off a script for some
B-short-movie in a public place: to catch the oozing
exfoliation of inspiration from crowded places -
if ever that worked, it might have ever worked
in a graveyard...
                             we were joined by his friend,
some peasant, we got chatting, boy, it was such a thrill
to exchange names... the Canadian's name
i did remember: Darcy...
                          he had that look about him that made
it worthwhile to remember his name,
ah, when names fit the image...
                         chubby, pig-blondish, hairy...
i'm guessing a native of Quebec...
                               but i could be wrong.
so a few hey hey, yeah yeahs later i asked if they
knew something about this gig on the festival slot
that was starting tomorrow, 5 p.m. and for free...
sure sure... got to eye the guide... so i asked:
so, maybe we could meet up at this place at this time
and go from there....
                                  Titanic looked more graceful
sinking than the reply...
                                                 i had to really check myself,
this isn't London psyche chess, this is:
we are small people from a small town,
we think a charming stranger is a serial-killer...
                    the Yorkshire ripper case scenario,
not last... first.
                              i might have been ******* a lemon
by then and pretending to be drunk squirming
a Buddha look - i pretended the polite noting down
the details: suddenly i didn't think like attending
this ****** venture that would start at 5 p.m., end
at 12 a.m. and according to my travel diary:
having to wait 2 hours to catch the 2 a.m. home.
so i went to the first instalment of the "literature"
festival... lemn sissay and salena godden -
and i have to admit, it was a corker - a true
a champagne cork popped and hit the crystal
chandelier and i laughed... and that's how i lost my
virginity to "spoken word",
                                         i wasn't listening to poets,
but i was thoroughly entertained, i swear that
at the end of her performance Salena pointed into
the dark (great tactic, how can they be nervous
if they can't see anyone? they stand on a pulpit of pure
light and see black ahead, where the nerves?)
and said: esp. to my friend over there...
                i might have involuntarily back-laughed /
snorted like a pig trying to catch enough lung volume
for a ha ha...
                          got chatting to this lovely middle-aged
couple: told them: i'm being ***** with gags.
                prior, i was watching the queue build up
into the room, with a god-awful grin on my face...
i couldn't take it off...
                         perhaps because i was looking at
the demographic and thinking: where are my peers?!
i spotted about three people in a close age proximity -
the rest were farts and soon-to-be-farts...
                             now Sissay freaked me out...
in a good way... i met the two after the show,
i brought two copies of my own printed work to give to
them... i had to ask their publicist if i was allowed
to touch the Aegean marbles... luckily i did,
but then i asked the stupid question to Sissay:
so who were you trying to imitate when your eyes
were bulging out nearly gauged out like a Pink Floyd
song video of: teacher! let these children go!
               i should have associated something African
freakish in mask, a strengthening - the sort
of look that New Zealander rugby players put on
to frighten people off when dancing the haka -
he really did talk like that...
                                       the little devil voice didn't help
either... but i only asked that "stupid" question
while mumbling something about how hard it was
getting published and how anyone aged nearing 40
forgot the free press of the internet emerging and
how he asked for a q & a after the performance...
and... hand on my heart:
                                   got asked one question...
          and answered... only one question...
                                        a complete and utter ******* meltdown...
   not: oh yeah, so who's your major influence...
                      a Samuel Beckett moment from not i.
later i standing outside and smoking, a grand English
dame of the west approached me,
chitty chatty kiss the hand later i got to say the most
famous line known to the current Englishman:
unfortunately... from Essex.
             honest. anyone asks you in Essex the question
they always ask: so where you're originally from?
                         anywhere else in England
they just ask you: whe

— The End —