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Raj Arumugam Sep 2012
once I had a master
whose name lent some dignity and glamour
now I wander
free of institution
free of protocol and guidelines
I am the wandering ronin
nowhere to belong, related to none
and so coming in to freedom

when I was within Order and File And Rank
when I was within Identity and Badge and the Group
I had recognition and complacency
Now I am the ronin with no labels
wandering as I desire
unfettered as the birds of the sky
and as the ocean waves
Now I have no rules to follow, no obligations
just the rhythm of love and justice
Now I see all that I thought was necessary was but a burden;
the price for my place had been my freedom
And now I am the wandering ronin
uninhibited, unconditioned, free
as a sparrow might choose to rest where it pleases
zen Sep 2018
Gliding in air
was an eerie delightful hue
hanging high above violet and blue,
for eons no one had knew,
the peon pest probing around
the howling zoo,
rhyming and roaming
hiding and hoping
flighty the ronin
ran,
groping every moment he could come to
as a token to his gallantry
the guidance to his apathy
decided to devise his only strife
to live happily
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
. she was 19, i was 21, and i guess i was the first boy who treated her decently, allowed her to slap me in the face and stood like a copper statue before her... she wouldn't have made it at university among all the English yuppies, being pregnant... turns out, she might have opted for the Juno (the movie) route... all i know is that she graduated with a masters in anthropology... she was up in Edinburgh, i was back in London, roofing with my father doing the Scottish Widows HQ and then some other project, trying to weave myself into a managerial position in some roofing company... but then? the psychosis spiral... oddly enough - no hammers, no hearing voices wielding a hammer running down the street naked... contained... walked into a church near King's Cross st., lay on beside a the side altar, pulled the cloth from the altar, and wrapped myself in it... then heard singing, had my iPod with me... turned it off... turned it on again, turned it off... the singing still echoed the church... got up, put the cloth back onto the altar and started running around the church aisles... then a great wind dispersed the singing... what kept my sanity? well... given that i was smoking marijuana and fasting? one word... sátān... the whole 40 days in the desert? cut short... in a concrete desert... i phoned my then ex-girlfriend to meet me at this spot outside the church - right across from a royal mail HQ - and i remember the words: can you bring me bread, and water? nothing... on my own then... no... that sort of experience is no cause for jubilation, there is no ******* euphoria: you're talking about ******* it - in my case? thankfully that's only metaphorical... and i'm not buying the psychiatric *******, the easy way out answer: ooh... but youz ver in a church... what?! what the **** are these people talking about? sober people are allowed to have these experiences? well, really?! so why so many of them are negating or doubting intellectuals?! negation is the new doubt... somehow i managed to fend off the atypical munchies routine while smoking marijuana while walking in public... never bothered me... i was a reggae ***** at the time... notably Israel Vibration, Stephen Marley, Damian & Culture... & ***** and the Maytals... cliche, i know... but **** and rap?! seriously? gangster whatever the hell that means... i've just read an article about cultural appropriation... so what has the Jamaican Rastafarian culture have to do with Old Testament prophets?! JAH... they're always singing about JAH... it's a ******* yak! yah! a german YA! cultural appropriation my ***! it's Jamie Oliver's **** sauce! ****'s sake! yeah, right, Bambi on Jamaica smoking a silly one doing the reinvention of king David's psalms... no cultural appropriation there... nope... none... nothing... nothing wrong with Alpha Blondy singing about Yerushalem... nope... no cultural appropriation.... nope... none... nothing! i mentioned these bands to my Jamaican **** seller... big on the Illuminati conspiracy theories, i liked to listen to him ramble... hardly a Charlie Temple paranoid... loved his ox tail broth, his grandma made it for him... and a pretty daughter, but no mother... eh? his Thai ****? i'd prefer the shorter span of a tobacco high... where? near my old high school, Canon Palmer R.C. - now a ******* academy! whoop! whoop! sound the klaxon! you don't experience what i've experienced and start a cult with *** ****** in mind... like **** if you think you do... you... lay low... you puncture the existentialist exodus from Cartesian doubt - namely outright negation - and you wait for the revitalization of doubt, namely the pop culture variant of belief... doubt is, oddly enough, a variant of belief... and belief? be a leaf... just remember you were once attached to a branch of a tree.

yeah...

        a catholic school isn't
exactly a Jesuit school...

but being asked questions
about abortion
and euthanasia

   aged 15 or 16?

in real life?
  you short-circuit, glitch,
become ronin -

    the personal life, details?
too messy...
   she tells you she's taking
contraceptives,
   she's ends up self-harming...
she says she was abducted
and held for ransom,
she's a russian citizen,
her ex-boyfriend is still
hanging around,
  a son of some Russian oligarch...
you've only dated for a
bunch of months that do not
even make it half a year...
you don't mind condoms,
because... hell...
you'd love to see her wearing
latex...

     you know, the usual bits & bobs...

voodoo...
    for some strange reason i woke
up, and the ring finger blister
on my left hand, made by burning
out a cigarette on it
started bleeding:
  close to the bone -
and look! you get a slot motion
of your body recovering!
  no disclaimer concerning
the pros to what sharp objects
women do, by cutting...

but you know...
      asking a 15 / 16 year old
about his opinion
  about either abortion
or euthanasia?
  bad ******* move...
           at this point i'm thinking:
thank ****...

what does it even mean,
when a woman says it,
she's not exactly point-break
on Cartesian logic...

'matt, i think i'm pregnant'
'well, you know what you should
do, get an abortion.'

mind you... i am a citizen of a country
where abortion is legal...
hell, it might have worked,
*** was good, she could
reciprocate that sentiment...

oh, but if there is a kid at the end
of the tunnel?
i **** sure hope he doesn't
contact me, like a kid from
a ***** donor clinic...
      there's something malicious
waiting for him for me
to add about his mamma -

   aligned?
oh you know... *****, Henny,
  Diana and the Egyptian...
   go Charlie go!

                  please please keep
your name... we need a Charles trinity!

so yeah... Roman Catholic school...
****! oh right, outer east end of London...
Paddy central...
               i wonder...
                  but i'll never know...
the Polish Catholics are leaving...
               good on 'em...
          (yadda yadda, yeah yeah, for them)...

i'll never know...
   am i angry?
               i listen to Byzantine and Templar
chants and drink to a well earned
excess...
               sometimes the odd Bulgarian
******* to hug...
    
oh right... that one last time?
i didn't forget my genitals...
   i did an uncourteous lax of etiquette...
****!
           now it makes sense!
i forgot to trim my ***** hair!
(mumbling out) ******* eureka.
Michael Marchese Apr 2018
Just a wicked peacenik’n quick draw from the Paw
Game of Thrones’n the Shah, crussian bones of the law
When the baby-skull splitters want nuclear winter
Ideal New Cold steel and send Chernobyl shivers
Down Roman Republicans’ severed headlines
Till there’s no more dead kids on for prophet front lines
I’m in exile sharpenin’ [sic]kles in style
Pyongyang’n Kuomintang climate denials
Erasing their nation-hate racial profiles
Outpacing their skinhead disgraces by miles
Shell casin’ this place like the Nuremberg trials
For Fords sellin’ swastikas stockpile bibles
Defiled by Normandy tide genocidals
Fresh meat off the boat spreadin’ Plague mercantiles
I smile and **** ‘em with kindness
Then grind
Battle tax in my acid bath
Salt Marchin’ prime
Because WAR IS THE CRIME
I’m the Clown Prince of Rhyme,
Level 9 state of mind
Like the state of Rakhine
The Black Hand before time
Runnin’ Africa’s Luciest Sky Diamond mine
I’m the ronin alone in
The monkey god shrine
And my guile’s reprisal’s Versailles treaty signed
Strippin’ pride from the Rhine
Now your Motherland’s mine
Swine
RCraig David Oct 2016
There was a smitten kitten, too hot to wear mittens,
whose conventions sent you over the moon.
She liked hiking tall towers,
sniffing lavender flowers
and smiling when tunes were crooned.

It is known and it's written,
many cats liked Smitten Kitten,
some still do to this day.
There were polecats, fat cats, tall cats, small cats and cats that were all work and no play.
There were fast cats, scaredy-cats and cats who only came out at night or the day.
There were even other kittens,
too hot for their mittens,
who loved when she'd come out to play.
All were fun,
had their day in the sun,
but none purred smitten kitten the right way.

It has been said and has been written that smitten kitten,
too hot for her mittens,
without pretense or condition,
had a purring penchant for cellar rats and precision in the kitchen.
In the French district downtown,
near the alleys by the Sound,
some nights she waits for one Ronin Chef,
for last time he left,
a tall and a tasty treat.
Smitten Kitten gives pause,  
relaxes her claws,
licking her paws...she wishes,
for his white wine-kissed elaborate fish dishes
and dreams of what next he will make.
Her tongue and mouth can’t wait.

Tonight it occurs,
he arrives...she purrs,
on the alley wall she curls up and takes a seat.
Endearingly peering through the window...she thinks...
"Whilst he stack his plates with mouth-watering innuendo?"
"Whilst he whip the spicy sauces and flames into a great crescendo?"
He begins...as so...
He chops and he flips sizzled serranos, hot on the lips,
and stacks seasoned seafood high on a plate.
His old radio is tuned
to a station crooning tunes,
twisting tongs and spinning spoons,
the One Ronin chef shoots for the moon.
The chef vigorously bakes and flambés,
stirs curds away,
hands so fast it's alluringly blurring.
He says not a word nor nary a chanced glance occurring.
Smitten Kitten's eyes glazed,
her mouth watering for "amaze"!
Food spins, is seared and is braised.
pots clambered!
hot buns glazed!
fruit hammered!
Sauces ablaze!
Bang, Boom!!

Alas it was done,
Her heart and appetite had been won.
And the chef began to tear the kitchen down and moved out of sight.
Suddenly she scampered and hid,
as a savory stacked plate was slid
carefully out the backdoor and out of the way.

The chef it occurs
had made it for her,
and her fur began to frazzle and fray.  
She sniffed the array of flavor,
her palette began to saveur,
the salt,
the unami,
the spicy and sweet.

It is said and is written,
from Smitten Kitten’s first bite bitten,
she remains stunned, amazed and enamored, to this day.
Raj Arumugam Nov 2011
Scene One



...some time in time... bare stage except for a square neon sign on left that reads: “Aged Care Home”...on right is a rectangular neon message display with full title of the play...Urgo and Burgo bring Raj Arumugam out on wheelchair...
*



Urgo: I am attendant 1. Often known as Urgo.



Burgo: I am attendant 2. Always known as Burgo.



Urgo:  You see this creature seated here
            in the wheelchair? 
Can you believe it?

            This creature once wrote poems
            
and its poems still inhabit cyberspace.


Burgo: Oh, this creature did that?


Urgo: Yes, this.


Burgo: I think I’ve read some.

             Not that I can remember any.
             
Not a word, not a title.
 But must have been pretty good, ha?
             
To write all those words, in verse...


Urgo: I don’t know about that.
           
It’s the girls who write. And sissies.
           
And for all that, you know
           
there’s just one word this creature can say.


Burgo: Really? Just one word?


Urgo: Yes.
All right, watch this.
           Come on, Raj-i.

           Hey baby...Burgo here wants to hear you.
           
Just one poem in your one word.
           
Come on, baby - or no soup for you tonight.



Raj: Baa, baa, baa

        Baa, baa, baa

        Baa, baa, baa

       Baa, baa, baa



(Burgo and Urgo clap)



Urgo: Baan-derful, Raj...
Now Burgo,
           let’s wheel the creature back in

           and dump him in
           his corner.



(Urgo and Burgo go out, Urgo pushing wheelchair with Raj in it)





Scene Two



...some time in time... bare stage except for a square neon sign on left that reads: “Aged Care Home”...on right is a rectangular neon message display with full title of the play...Urgo and Burgo bring Raj Arumugam out on wheelchair...






Urgo: Today, Burgo, is Exercise Your Vocal Chords Day.



Burgo: No problem - Ahhhhhhhhrrrrgggggooooaaaaa.....



Urgo: Not your vocal cords, Burgo.
           
It is Exercise Your vocal Cords Day
            
for our distinguished guest currently
            
on this wheelchair.



Burgo: Ahhh...I see...



Urgo: All right, Raj-i baby...
Exercise your vocal chords 

            and entertain us with your delightful voice...



Raj: Baa, baa, baa
        
Baa, baa, baa

        Baa, baa, baa
        
Baa, baa, baa



(Burgo claps)*



Urgo: OK - that’s enough exercise for the day!
           Let’s go






(Urgo and Burgo go out, Urgo pushing wheelchair with Raj in it)






Scene Three

...some time in time... bare stage except for a square neon sign on left that reads: “Aged Care Home”...on right is a rectangular neon message display with full title of the play...Urgo and Burgo bring Raj Arumugam out on wheelchair...


Urgo: Burgo!

Burgo: Sire!

Urgo: Sire? Where in the world
           did you get such a word?

Burgo: Sorry - I thought I was in a *****
             Shakespeare play.

Urgo: Have your head examined, Burgo.
            We’ll never make it there.
            All we have is this 3rd-rate one-act play.

Burgo: I understand. I’m just a little ambitious.

Urgo: Be realistic. Don’t be ambitious.

Burgo: That’s wise, Sire - I mean, Urgo.

Urgo: Well, this creature in the wheelchair,
            for example...It was ambitious...
            and it had a great fall...
            it never knew how to be realistic...
            But more of that, later - first, what Day is it today?

Burgo: It is We Tickle Your Foot Day, today.

Urgo: You learn fast, Burgo.

Burgo: Thank you, Urgo.

(Silence)

Urgo: Well?

Burgo: I’m very well, thank you.

Urgo: You idiot! I mean if you know it is
           We Tickle Your Foot Day, today -
           then what should you do next, you knave!?

Burgo: Oh. Ok.

(Burgo kneels before Raj, takes off Raj’s shoes and with a feather tickles Raj’s feet.)

Raj (laughing): Baa, baa, baa
                              Baa, baa, baa
                              Baa, baa, baa
                             Baa, baa, baa


(Burgo puts Raj’s shoes on again, and his feather back in his pocket and stands up.)



Burgo: You mentioned ambition
              and this creature that sits on the wheelchair.

Urgo: Yes, it is time to exercise my vocal chords.
           This creature forgot, like all creatures,
           we come alone, and we go alone.

Burgo: Ah, at last! - hints of a Shakespearean play
             albeit we’ll never make it into one.
            With ambition, loneliness and all the Lear madness.
            Will we have the lewd parts too
            and rich imagery of body parts?

Urgo: Perhaps...perhaps...but let us stick to the ordinary ...
           This creature was born in 1derLand
           but was washed ashore to foreign shores.


Burgo: Good, good...like Paris, son of Priam and Hecuba?
             O Paris, washed ashore to Sparta
             O so well-loved and nursed by Helen.

Urgo: Yes, except this creature is more akin to the Wanderer
            like Oedipus, or just the indistinct Mendicant,
            the Samurai with no master, a ronin,
             all cursed to wander the face of the earth...

Burgo: Oh - are we in Shakespeare yet?

Urgo: We are in deep ****! That’s where we are!
           We all are.
           Burgo - let us stick to the banal like hamburgers.
          This creature forgot that
          and dreamt of things like poetry, ideals -
          and therein is the moral of the story for you:
          we come alone
          and alone we go
          one at a time we come
          and each we own, and each faculty
          one at a time they go.

Burgo: So let us stick with the banal
             eat our burgers
             and pick our teeth after.
             Do they supply toothpicks at takeaways
             in your country, Urgo?

Urgo: No, we recycle them, Burgo.
           We just pick up discarded ones from the ground.
           Like some nations pick up cigarette butts
           from the bins.
           Waste not; want not.


Burgo: Oh, if this scene goes on any longer
             it might become Shakespearean, Urgo.

Urgo: Ergo - we must go.
          But let us allow Raj to have the last word,
           since this play is entitled
          “ Raj Arumugam, (a one-act tragicomedy)”.
          Idiot of a son! What kind of fool-writer will have a play
          with his own name as the title of his play?!

Burgo: So, Raj-i, you egocentric ******:
             You have the last word in this scene...
             You really put words into my mouth, you ****!

Raj: Baa, baa, ba
        Baa, baa, baa
       Baa, baa, baa
       Baa, baa, baa


Urgo: All right, Let’s go, Burgo.
           Bring him in -
           Let’s drop him in bed
           and may he drop dead!



(Urgo and Burgo go out, Urgo pushing wheelchair with Raj in it)




Scene Four



...some time in time... bare stage except for a square neon sign on left that reads: “Aged Care Home”...on right is a rectangular neon message display with full title of the play...Urgo and Burgo bring Raj Arumugam out on wheelchair...



*


Urgo: Burgo!


Burgo: Urgo!


Urgo: How long has it been since
           you started work here?


Burgo: 3 months, Urgo. Why?


Urgo: Well, show me a game...I’m bored...a new game...


Burgo: Well, have you played wheelie bin?


Urgo: No.
But Oh I love to delve into world culture.

           Show me.


Burgo: Well, let me show you.

             A wheelie bin is a bin with wheels
             and you put ******* in it
             
and you leave it outside on the kerb
             
and the garbage guy in his truck collects your *******.
             
So this is the game.



(Burgo pushes wheelchair round the stage and sings.)



          This is the way we 
wheel out our wheelie bins
           
this is the way we 
wheel out our bins
           
early every Thursday morning


           This is the way we 
leave our bins,
            our wheelie bins

            this is the way we leave our bins
            
out on the sunny kerb

            every Thursday morning



(leaves wheelchair on kerb)



           This is the way we empty our bins

           this is the way we empty our bins
           this is the way empty our bins
           every Thursday morning



(empties the wheelchair; Raj Arumugam  drops onstage)




Urgo
(joining in):
 This is the way we 
pick up our *******

                                  pick up our *******
                                  
this is the way we do it

                                  this is the way 
always we do it

                                  early Thursday morning!



(Urgo picks up Raj Arumugam and drops him in the wheelchair)



(Urgo and Burgo clap, applauding each other.)



Burgo:
And now, Urgo - for the ritual
             of 
Raj Arumugam’s final words in the scene...
Is that right?



(Urgo nods...)



Burgo:
  Sing, you Sir in the Wheelchair.



Raj: Baa, baa, baa
       
Baa, baa, baa

       Baa, baa, baa

       Baa, baa, baa




Burgo: Oh, you spoil the fun! Let’s go.






(Urgo and Burgo go out, Urgo pushing wheelchair with Raj in it)




Scene Five

...some time in time... bare stage except for a square neon sign on left that reads: “Aged Care Home”...on right is a rectangular neon message display with full title of the play...Urgo and Burgo bring Raj Arumugam out on wheelchair...


Urgo:
          Let's leave him here tonight;
         some fresh air might do him good

(Urgo and Burgo leave, leaving Raj on his wheelchair.)

(Long silence.)


Raj: Baa, baa, baa
       Baa, baa, baa
       Baa, baa, baa
      Baa, baa, baa



(Raj has a thought. His thought is broadcast as a message on the rectangular neon light display: “Hey guys, come back...Another word is coming back to me.”)

(Long silence)


Raj:
**** **** ****
**** **** ****
**** **** ****

(Raj has another thought. His thought is broadcast as a message on the rectangular neon light display: “Another one’s coming back...maybe my mind is coming back.”)


Raj:
**** **** ****
**** **** ****
**** **** ****

(Long silence. Lights fade. Darkness. Curtain...)
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
the new gillette ad.,
******,
please,
DON'T SHAVE...
no Lenin stasi,
not alt.
to whatever left
or right in
copernican
terminology is...

"culture war":
basically,
warring with ronin...
or no factions...
or no shogun
to, mind the matter...
stop shaving,
what is the worst
that could happen,
your face looking
like a 1970s
gyrating *****
bits...

SLO' 'N' GRO'.....
a beard:
which doesn't imply:
any more
of the worth of man,
but a man's worth:
nonetheless,
like Gump Forrest Gump
said:
i know what love is,
Jenny...
  and i know
what a ******* ice-cream
berg-that-sunk-the-Titanic
looks like like: Steward.
none of us are
leaving this *******
being, the either
to either suit a cosmos
of choice: ever
the two smart ones
apart...
savvy?

you're are dumb as
chalk contra brick...
and i am cheese
with an adjective's worth
of of chalk...

lookie 'ere:
a humming camel!
**** me...

i said: *******...
can you even imagine...
i tortured that oyster's worth
of an excess of skin...
in terms of genitals...
parody of 242...
and i ate and ate and ate
that ****...
no praise...

       i recovered my mouth
and the mandible jaw
only when i looked
like:
   having just eaten a slab
of tinned mackerel...
   ugly: born the 4th of july
family fwendy antics
sort of picture...
  all: oily...
like...
my body was dipped
in sea,
but all my mouth was
alright with the religious
procedure of:
mouth dipped in oil:
a messiah is born!

oh don't get me wrong:
i much enjoyed
oral *** performed on
women...
one amsterdam *******
informed me:
laughing...

    you know what
oral *** is like,
misnomer
the canvas of
                prostitutes?
kissing...
i spent an hour kissing
one,
only because i forgot
to trim m'ah... boosh...

i'm bored:
so what's not new?
gillette ad.....
****, that's old:
stop shaving...
yes,
every time i pick
up one of those
thai misnomers of ***
in the park,
and i search beneath
the drowning-line...
and there's no ****
assurance...
trans-phobia?
    
  gay: love beard...
the *****-suprise,
what?
with a sports-bra?!
did i just buy a chicken
breast or was that
a pork's chisel
worth?

         i was arachnophobic
for a while...
the spider was still there...
i employed the tactic:
forget it's, "there"...
the ****** was still
sitting proud like
a painting of some artist
in the national tate...

Heidegger...

        irrational fears were
fun...
or at least:
that was the basis of
them being subject to
emphasis...
      not like this...
not like this though...

                    come the bataclan
incident:
   and they slaughtered
and ate the genitals
of the men shot dead...

   i: dodo:
english: dodo project -
pidgin english...

               scuttle though:
baron mis-brain
      alias:
       and whatever
   dumb-do-dumb-better-be
is noorm...
      
cannot the protest
averting the gillette ad.
be nothing more than:
don't shave?

        hell...
i'm all loser, all beavis & butthead
& beck & radiohead
ready...

               what i supposed
to be... a solo lone creep
actor readying for
the apocalypse of
              what has become
the glory-hole
  contra latex
                    fetish riddles
of...
    the remnant man?

yeah...
i'm trans-phobic...
in that:
i could never fathom
anything coming
in, rather than out,
of that 'ole of
prostate massage
sitting's worth...
but being a faked face...

enough for the worth
of a bearded Beatrice
to suffocate my
limp's worth of:
the sort that requires
an insomniac *****...

i'm trans-phobic,
in terms of
being allocated
the pretense of
having to experiences
a thai surprise...
which is basically
a bisexual girl
picked up in a park
off a bench,
donning a sports bra
and a short-hair
cut...

   what's the difference
between a trans-phobia
and a thai-surprise?

and what isn't?
          - i could never find
a crop of short hair on a woman
unappealing;
every ****** has a tom-boy
haircut...
and what isn't nabokov:
will certainly not be
a john williams novel: stoner...

the really people
of the seriousness literature
of novels...
well... being a, "poet"...
i'm the tabloid gnat's
worth of person,
in the economy of selling
toilet paper...
with **** smear's worth
of content to boot...

'appy as i am:
one of belzeebub's
apostles:

        galileo! galileo!

the worth of the most
uneventful life:
encapsulated
in... a riveting... chance:
rather choice...
of words...
  to make...
                it a life...
almost worth living...
or at least allowing
a... posthumous scan
worth of print.
Mazen Edlibi Dec 2015
Scary label!
****** in principle!
Ruthless by craft!
He is the one who lost a privilege!
He is the Drifter! Wandering in universe looking for answers! Looking for himself! Looking for privilege taken from him!
Would he be interested in people around him?
Would he look around for comfort?
Would he consider the pain inside him?
Would he consider those scars in his body?
                           He is a Drifter!
                           He is ahead than others!
                           He is a seeker!
Nothing more to lose, but more to gain!
No more to dwell in the past, more journeys to go through!
Breaths to be inhaled and power to exhale!
There is purpose, meaning, belief, faith and hope!
Those don't exist in loser, they exist in
                           Fearless Ronin!
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2015
so there on the window sill
i sat perpetrating my crime,
one had outside the window denoting the mentally ill
and the other inside the compartment of
a room denoting terrorists,
then i switched hands and opinions...
and then two bright objects of fire appeared
on the skyline... then another two... a perfect rhombus that
traversed the night sky.

i mingled *r.d. laing
with the saint benaiah ben yehoiada today...
what a miracle of the slow approach,
i was so desperate for paper i even wrote on a sunday times news review page,
god help me, i feel the need to speak over people in writing.
testament to modern *******: the modern trans-gender phenomenon
is primarily found in st. thomas’ gospel
as entrée of r.d. laing’s **** of paradise artistic spontaneity
away from rigid theory so numerous in the exampled situation
of the lisp acquired on the psychoanalytic couch...
it speaks of turning left to right... up to down... man to woman...
a bit like a sat nav giving directions... you end up in a kingdom
that’s a ditch and the king is adorned not in crimson cardinal
or purple bishop... but pain... this is 1967... no wonder the hippies
died off after people started to dot dot dot post-1967
with the excavatio in translatio to remould western, christian, societies.
that text, says it all! david bowie and alice cooper and marc bolan
with the lipstick and 8 o’clock eye-socket shadows...
but things are picking up / getting serious...
the young ones are on it... post-colonial details i might have you add...
it was bound to happen... vietnam and the daddy longlegs starving man of africa...
built in processor 5.6GB of memory and an iphone...
what?! i’m translating my slavic soul... we fed the mongrels and mongolians
with crusader ***** in the baltic... we disappeared for a few centuries
and came back... blackmailing the airlines for an unsafe crash landing
somewhere in belarus, with the state banquet officiated, of course.
you see.. i’m the silent eager satyr from such paintings by matejko
like hołd pruski and stańczyk... expression beaming with: yes... go on...
spur me on... i’ll gallop to status of stallion with laughter!
all the catholic canonical saints are for people who prefer images
to words.
so there’s laing in 1967 allowed the ancient deciphering of
quasi-egyptian text... and then all hell breaks loose in the now, present...
i’ve got two left hands and two right feet... i think i’ll transverse
in walking like a crab... sidewise... out of here...
you go along with your daily “historical” bullying...
i like my place... outside the post-colonial continuum...
so much so that i even have a theory for the experience:
HE WASN’T THINKING IN HIS MOTHER TONGUE,
THE NATIVITY OF THE SOUL TOOK FORM FROM THE POLLEN
OF THE BODY, MANY IRANIANS AND EGYPTIANS...
HE THOUGHT COLONIAL, HE ACTED COLONIAL...
PREVIOUSLY HE MENTIONED POLAND LENDING AEROPLANES
TO EGYPT... HE ACTED LIKE AN ENGLISHMAN TO A ******...
NOW I SEE HIM LIKE A PENGUIN WITH CHEETAH FUR...
A WORD OF LISP I GATHER...
I WAS THINKING STUPID TRUST... WHILE
A SINGLE WORD OF THE MOTHERTONGUE RESONATED
TO PURSUE CREATIVITY THUS EXPRESSED
UNABLE TO FIND THE 0,0 COORDINATE IN THE
NORTHERN TRANS-EUROPEAN MILITARY COMPLEX.
this is how integration happens in europe: acquire the native tongue
acquire native psychology... don’t acquire the latter
define the former with exactness of body...
conclusion? i did stupid via trust... he did stupid via a blood-thirst
and a michael jackson trick of bleaching the soul
but leaving the body oddly mongrel-like... not so complete
like africans from the caribbean losing the tongue
due to jamaica’s great weather, then moving to england
and starting reggae rap... god knows how those two fitted for a size 12
perfect matching: quick-slow, quick-slow...
slow-quick rat ah rat ah regina duck in dumplings... bewildering
that i didn’t turn grey but turned ginger over the years.
you see this theory? it makes the mongol horse pale in comparison;
dad said: a jew did it! a jew did it! a ******* mid-******* just said: you
(double emphasis, the colon and italics... well i was there,
and this poem is proof that i was there, with her).
then this poem in the background with added photogenic approach...
titled: on ******* who create art.
ahem... napkin for the torero and rare steak to suite:
there they are the geniuses and the mediocre,
sitting in abodes of aspirational peace of the living -
half-dead many of them almost to the core of rotten apples,
with arsenic in apple seeds the last remaining life -
a poisonous mechanisation of activity on the breeding continuum
curtailed (is that implying cut-short?),
horrible ******* to live with,
they sitting knitting words together that make no cardigan fit,
or they’re making 2d rooms with the odd splash of colour
that will never obey the cube but the rectangular canvas,
no use of a poet’s pen in the solace of a quiet pension spaced,
the usurpers of peace among the living among the twins of sabbath,
these ronin of the fountain of solace found in t.v. and slippers...
who let them in?! can you hear poetry with a hammer?
can you hear it on a construction site, or an art gallery or a library?
so there they are, the *******, choosing the most importune of places
to do their craft... in the living spaces of plumbers and electricians...
hardly the place to craft their art when there’s no pulpit to
exercise their crafty practice with the end remark.
why then the plumber the safeguard and incubator nest of home,
and why the cold chill of aqueduct syringe at home for poet?
does no friendliness reside in stressing or not stressing certain words anymore?
perhaps the coalminers will tell me?
they say i am in a coal-mine by the sheer whiteness of disposable white
of canvas... and only among them in solidarity of a brotherhood
by excavating with them the coal that’s their amber burnt at home
and my solitary ink expressed in the library of their darkness of having
bulged forearm forceps of the bicep and no patience for reading... but digging,
i’ll know my orientation in those mines once more...
where the safe and understood route has has not yet been written...
and all that is seen... is the whitened darkness of the blank canvas of
what i peer into stumbling with the inverse... the flashlight of words
against the darkness of the canvas... me and my blind horse.
god i hate live editing... but then again... it keeps me
drunk and soberly paranoid to scrabble in revisions before i doze till morn.
woolgather Jul 2016
If you'd look down on your body
And see only bruises and scars
You're not alone, don't worry,
You're not the only shooting star.

I've not painted myself,
With things as black as yours;
But, mind you, I've been as dark as thyself,
And I've been in too many horrors.

I've not blame you for the blade you've held,
But I feel your grief, and this I'd tell;
I've felt it before, your feelings compelled,
In a sea of regret, from cloud 9 you fell.

I've tried many times to drown my sorrow,
And watch blood of innocence drip through unwelcome wound,
And rise, another day, not as hollow,
And plaster a smile as if I'm not doomed.

Today, I regret ever letting my demons run
Even though they'd pushed me to write;
I'd say to you "Be strong! Bask another sun!"
And let your demons help you in the fight!

Just know that one even from across the oceans,
Would like to see you stand;
Would like to see you trump your omens
And lend a helping hand.

If you'd be switched over,
I'd help you back up again.
Even if I can't go sooner or later,
At least with the words that came from my pen.

I hope you'd read this,
Even out of the boon,
Even if you'd not find bliss,
**Together, let's sing our battle tune!
I hope you couldread this, Ronin Okami. Stay strong, dude
Write lyrics like spreadsheets with number crunching
Calculate the isotopes
numerical accuracy in the vein of vain attempts to overcome
the show off tendencies of artist who exhibit flow to illicit
concern about existence beyond what they can see of pedagogical poetry
more concerned with numbers and patterns
who gives a **** what the stress is on the vowel in the third stanza  
lyrically despondent personal correspondents for a publication that says
more about what you know than what you feel
and who you are
computer says no, statistically impossible, synaptic haiku
five seven five
musical ronin
go go gadget of talent
extend-o-pole and flying nimbus as you train like son-goku
hyperbolic chamber where time is an illusion only to collapse
true Saiyans are warriors from the womb until death and after
over nine thousand and the scanner short circuits
write on the clouds with light so hot that it burns on thought
not contact
no constants, just variables, electron microscopes to try and hear the angels sing.
Large Hadrons small dreams, no love, just roman numerals
XIV, ***, Blood transfusions in the realm of “O Positive” and you're just a pessimist, negative Nancy at the end of evolution
Flesh and bone as a tent in your double helix of a genome,
flesh like clay in the hands of some master
but you know no master
no nations, under no gods but Darwin
all 23 chromosome pairs making 46 parts of your brain
screaming neurons fire
WRITE
WHAT
YOU
ARE
If you should so choose as to end not with a bang but a whimper
then your memory is forfeit
contribute in some meaningful semblance of sarcasm and sinsethesia with anesthetic medications of pop remedies and voided memories
of sinthesisia
Smell the colours and taste the sounds of pen on paper
when you never own a pen or a pad
just a bright white rectangle you stare at for hours on end
No thoughts just Digg and Reddit
your only contributions a thumbs up or a red thumbs down
like buttons
but no dislike, because if you've got nothing nice to say
then say nothing
unless you're outrage and full of spite
and morose
at the state of human nature
beauty and song thrown out in an effort to leave nobody behind
and so we have a generation coming in
at the age of 5, who are told new math
new science
wrote memorization of equations
no thought process, no argument about relation
theory of relativity, the genious mind just numbers and letters on a page with squiggles and lines that don't have to mean anything more than they mean on the book
we have a generation with no lust, no hope
Do they dream in black and white?
do they dream at all?
is the consequence of IQ tests and graded paper intelligence
the thirst for knowledge and creativity?
WE HAVE TO SCREAM
at the injustice
Burn it to the bricks and ashes
we hurl through the windows
in the streets and in the parks
car radios and clock towers sold
for cheap homemade *****
dance around the fire like the wild things are
LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN
but then we're still hollow
no happy medium, just excess
in the pursuit of Dionysus, trepination,
demon possession is illegal in the eyes of the police and federal law
spread your legs and lean against the car
as they frisk you and plant the seed
of doubt
in the cuffs of your jeans
You have the right to remain silent
but I hope you don't
refuse
question
resist
work in progress.
Raj Arumugam Sep 2012
I wander now
in the wilderness, in the woods
on deserted paths between villages
greeted by strangers
welcomed by humble folk
but welcomed at no Lord’s castle
rejected by Masters and Authorities
shunned by those in Position, in Step
ostracised and kept in the distance by Establishment

the lonely all-embracing tree
offers me shade
the narrow cave
accepts me in the night
a kind wife and her man
offer me part of the meal
they have prepared for their children

the Order harries me on
I have to keep moving
And nothing in my past
condemns me in the present
nor does it save me

All that I’ve learned
is become my burden
All that I’ve loved
I’ve grown to hate
Of my own life
I’ve made my straitjacket
and in my footsteps you read
The Sutra of the Outsider

— The End —