uncurl from your ball child
wipe away those soot laden tears
welcome to the new world
where all is here to fear
sons of the apocalypse she wailed
bow down to your fears
welcome to the new world she wailed
welcome to the fear
welcome to the chaos that i have brought so near
uncurl from your ***** you men
bastars filled with shame
bring forth your sins,
and i shall give them names
Crawl out of your festering holes,
and bring out the young
for a man will say anything,
when he stares down the barrel of a gun

so we came in great swavs
and brought forwards all our rot
and smiled as she told us
that the world would forget us not

Very early in the morning we were woken from our sleep,
We were going on safari, being driven in a jeep,
We went out before our breakfast, we went out before sunrise,
We went out before the sleep had fully vanished from our eyes.
We had to dress quite quickly, and we went out in a rush,
And after we'd been driving through miles and miles of bush
For an hour or two, I have to say - forgive the way I speak,
But the roads were very bumpy - I was dying for a leak.

The driver stopped the jeep and kindly offered us a drink,
But it might have been more kind if he had only paused to think;
We had seen a herd of elephants, some vultures in the sky,
Several wildebeest and zebra, a hyena passing by,
Giraffes, a pair of ostriches, a buffalo or two,
And we'd taken lots of photographs (well, that's what tourists do);
We had even seen some lions lazing underneath a tree,
But ... we hadn't seen a toilet ... and I really had to ***.

Beside a water-hole at last we found a pair of loos,
And I hurried to the gents', 'cos that's the one I have to use.
Yes, I went up to the gentlemen's, and pushed the door ajar,
But I didn't push it hard, and it didn't open far.
There was something in the way, you see. I did a double-take,
For it looked just like a tail, the last six inches of a snake.
I decided not to panic - I'm not that sort of bloke,
And it could have been a rubber one, left there for a joke -
So I pushed the door wide open, to be sure of no mistake,
And what should I clap eyes on but two yards of living snake!

I closed the door, quite firmly, and went to tell the guide,
"I was going to the loo, but then I found a snake inside."
He didn't quite believe me, but he went across to check.
- Not just a snake, a cobra! - "Gosh," I thought, and "Flipping Heck."
For the snake looked very supple, and the snake looked very strong,
And if it would uncurl itself, the snake looked very long,
And a cobra's bite is savage, and a cobra's bite is quick,
And if that snake had bitten me, I'd be feeling rather sick.
"It might even be a spitter, judging by the size,
"So don't you go too close, and please be careful of your eyes."
But I had to take a photograph, for that's what tourists do,
And, warily, I took a snap of the cobra in the loo.

The driver wrote a notice "Danger, Big Big Snake Inside",
And the lady with the first-aid box took out of it with pride
A strip of sticking plaster to stick it to the door,
To tell anyone who came, there was a cobra on the floor.
By now the snake was moving, it was climbing up the wall;
It hid behind the cistern, and could not be seen at all;
It came down again, and wrapped itself around the waste-pipe neatly,
Then slithered right inside the pan and disappeared completely.

Now I was on a mission to tell others what I'd seen,
But I was very conscious of the fact I'd Still Not Been!
So in that situation, though most times I wouldn't dare,
When I found the ladies' empty, I quickly popped in there.
I'd had a narrow squeak, but now (in every sense) relieved,
I had to write my story, which I hope will be believed,
For every word is gospel truth, I fully guarantee,
And it's even got a moral, which is very plain to see.

    (Moral)
If you ever see a man who's coming from the ladies' loos,
Please don't jump to conclusions, he might have a good excuse,
- "I went to spend a penny, for my need was quite intense,
"And I had to use the ladies' - there's a cobra in the gents'!"

little one
huddled, hiding
in that place
i only ever arrive at
by spiraling

why is it that you fear
everything?

come out.
It may hurt.
It may not be safe.
But here
you can uncurl.

One day people will touch and talk perhaps
easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as
sunlight,
And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
And work will be simple and swift
as a seagull flying,
And play will be casual and quiet
as a seagull settling,
And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder
or care or notice,
And people will smile without reason,
Even in winter, even in the rain.

I waterfall my fingers down my throat
and wriggle them like they’re alive,
like I’m nineteen years old again,
trying to prove that I’m the cool girl
with no gag reflex.

The shower runs on boiling hot
and if I stand, I might fall,
so I’m taking the hair-infested plughole
as my date to the dance,
once I’m done with the black hole left in its absence.

My fingers are uncomfortably water-warm
and if I close my eyes, it feels so good,
like the first time I realised there was a clenched fist
inside my stomach that I could begin
to uncurl.

When I think about it, it’s like *******.
It’s something I wouldn’t talk about in Church
and it’s something I should only do behind closed doors.
A lot of things are like *******, in that way,
like being gay, and cutting my own hair, and whatever this is.

It’s a distraction.
It’s something to do when the list of things to be done
is the same every day, when the doors are perpetually
shut and the clenched fist will always be clenched
once rigor mortis has set in.

I

These are hard materials
Sharp edged, inflexible
To a degree
That unfolds the truth,
And one truth
Leads to the next
In linear sequence.


Each from the others, isolated
Yet dependent
On what has gone before,
And what follows for the confirmation of truth’s verity.


Various truths are the data set of probability,
Flexible to a degree
Because of the uncertainty of absolute verity
That only singularity allows.
The statistic of one
That even when wrong
Its absoluteness is unquestionable
Because to question is not to know
What has gone before.



To know is singular in its effect,
Its purpose sustained by the uncertainty of data sets
From which truth derives.
The metaphysics of it all
Betrays the conceit of knowledge
And those that claim knowledge
Such that they impose their understanding
On others do not know
And care even less,
Except when their ignorance
Results in what is cared for….
All suppressed by the singularity of knowing
By those who acknowledge a statistic of one.
Preferring the comfort of its certainty
Rather than the uncertainty
That arises form the truth of data sets.


II

Data sets determine league tables
Positions of football clubs
And universities
Where those learning to know
Know what they are learning
And rate it accordingly.
Because as customers
It is said that
They are entitled to know
Even if they are learning
The data sets that allow them to understand
What they are attempting to know
Perhaps without conscious thought of
The void of ignorance that learning attempts to fill.


Yet in their unknowing, the certainty of the learning
Determines the positions of institutions in league tables
In turn compiled from the data sets
Of incomplete knowledge
Asserted with conviction
Establishing what is said to be true
In ignorance of sure foundations.


I wish that I had the conviction of others
To be certain of what I know
Without doubt
Without hesitation
Untrammelled by thoughts of the uncertainty of data sets
Compiled by the compilation of singularities.


Which itself compels another thought
That we all derive from a single small point,
Infinitesimally small but infinitely massive
Exploding once or perhaps in series
Like the popping of a two-stroke petrol engine
That propelled motorbikes and lawn mowers
In yesteryear.


And yet we are saying the same thing
In different ways
Unrelenting in the stream of thought
And consciousness
But ….
Please allow the words’ meanings to breath.
Where is the pause
To allow the assimilation of meaning?

The punctuation of time and space
The meaning of words
Arises from their spacing
And timing.


David Applin August 23rd 8:00am-ish 2014


III

Yet the certainty of data sets
Give us comfort
Those who await the miracle of birth
Calculate the probability of certainty
From statistics derived from the accumulation
Of data
To give the certainty of a happy outcome
A statistic of one…. or at most two or three
To which we all cling and which data
Accumulated in sets allows to be certain…
Or at least to hope to be certain
That the outcome will be happy
And reinforce our faith in belief
Itself knowledge in the absence of evidence
Truth uncurled by those hard materials
Derived from numbers
Each in itself a number
And therefore a singularity
Which hard materials cannot uncurl
Only their interpretation
Can reveal the truth of data sets
Each consisting of the singular truths
That interpretation cannot uncurl,
Because to do so would give us a statistic of one
Which cannot be questioned
Because it stands alone
Inflexible, somewhat obtuse without the context
Of the other singularities that make up the data set.


Befriended of one another, the collective now represents a version of truth
Because each singularity gives context to its companions
So that collectively their truth is revealed
As a statistic.


One as a statistic cannot be
Because it lacks the context of its companions,


QED

David Applin
Queen Victoria
North Sea
Lying off Ostend
25th October (evening) 2014

Copyright David Applin 2015

My lungs are beating like they have swallowed my heart whole.
Divided on who she loved more, they choke my breath so I taste sour gummy bears as I curl over wounded,
a victim of one of loves ****** battles.

As I have fallen in love with every girl I have seen since I was 10.
I saw her in the playground with hair to her waist and we picked daisies like I picked her.
Seeing something beautiful and killing it for the sake of beauty alone.

I stopped falling in love when I chose the scent of musky sweat over the scent of rose blossoms.
It left a stench on my pillow so pungent and powerful I slept by the toilet which I shared my dinner with unwillingly.
Curled over out of no love I spat into the mix of **** and princess shapes and went back to the man who thought my interest in women was a turn on, so I pushed his button to turn him off.
It was that night I left.

It was that night I put down my fork and threw out my two meat and veg into the recycling to go into the arms of another woman's cutlery.

It was that night I stopped dispensing my body like candy from a machine and instead knocked on the door of myself and welcomed her in. Fall in love she said, but with me.
After putting the kettle on I fell in love with the curve between her thighs and the scars upon her arms. I fell in love with her inability to eat spaghetti elegantly and her obsession with trees.

Ever since then I have started living in my body as a home rather than a hotel I can change every week, I have begun to uncurl my spine and untwist my mind.
I now love a girl who smiles at the sky and shares food with her lover rather than an appliance.

But love spreads faster than fire and if you're not careful it can swallow you whole.

I say swallow me whole. Swallow me completely. Rip out my lungs and replace them with trumpets as I refuse to do anything but love, love, love.

“Unbind
Unclasp
Uncover
Uncurl
Unfurl
Undo
Unfasten
Unfold
Unhing­e
Unhook
Unleash
Unlink
Unmask
Unroll
Unveil
Unclip
Unlace
Unzip
­Untie
Unbutton
Unlock”

“Undress.”
“Understood.”

Unravel