Inconspicuous, his presence noted only by the obscurity and the ever growing number of spent cigarette stubs that littered the ground.  It had been a long day and the rain, relentless in its tenacity had little intention of stopping, baleful clouds still  hung heavy, dominating the lateness of the afternoon sky, a rain laden skyline broken only by smoke filled chimney pots and the tangled snarl of corroded television aerials.

     The once busy street was fast emptying now, the lure of shop windows no longer enticed the casual browser as local traders closed their premises to the oncoming night, solitary lampposts curved hazily into the distance, casting little more than insipid pools mirrored in the gutter below, only the occasional stranger scurrying home on a bleak, rain swept afternoon, the hurried slap of wet leather soles on the pavement, the sightless umbrellas, the infrequent rumble of a half filled bus, hell-bent on its way to oblivion.

     In the near distance as the working day ended, a sudden emergence of factory workers told Beamish it was 5-o'clock, most would be hurrying home to a hot meal, while others, for a quick drink perhaps before making the same old sorry excuse... for Jack, the greasy spoon would be closing about now, denying him the comfort of a badly needed cuppa' and stale cheese sandwich.  A subtle legacy of lunchtime fish and chips still lingered in the air, Jack's stomach rumbled, there was little chance of a fish supper for Beamish tonight, it protested again... louder.

     From beneath the eaves of the building opposite several pigeons broke cover, startled by the rattle as a shopkeeper struggled to close the canvas awning above his shop window.  Narrowly missing Beamish they flew anxiously over the rooftops, memories of the blitz sprang to mind as Jack stepped smartly to one side, he stamped his feet... it dashed a little of the weather from his raincoat, just as the rain dashed a little of the pigeons' anxiety from the pavement... the day couldn't get much worse if it tried.  Shielding his face, Jack struck the Ronson one more time and cupped the freshly lit cigarette between his hands, it was the only source of heat to be had that day... and still it rained.

     'By Appointment to Certain Personages...' the letter heading rang out loudly... 'Jack Beamish ~ Private Investigator...' a throat choking mouthful by any stretch of the imagination, thought Jack and shot every vestige of credulity plummeting straight through the office window and amidst a fanfare of trumpet voluntary, nominate itself for a prodigious award in the New Year Honours list.   Having formally served in a professional capacity for a well known purveyor of pickled condiments, who  incidentally, brandished the same patronage emblazoned upon their extensive range of relish as the one Jack had more recently purloined from them... a paid commission no less, which by Jack's certain understanding had made him, albeit fleeting in nature, a professional consultant of said company... and consequently, if they could flaunt the auspicious emblem, then according to Jack's infallible logic, so could Jack.  

     The recently appropriated letterhead possessed certain distinction... in much the same way, Jack reasoned, that a blank piece of paper did not... and whereas correspondence bearing the heading 'By Appointment' may not exactly strike terror into the hearts of man... unlike a really strong pickled onion, it nevertheless made people think twice before playing him for the fool, which sadly, Jack had to concede, they still invariably did... and he would often catch them wagging an accusing finger or two in his direction with such platitudes as... "watch where you put your foot", they'd whisper, "that Jack's a right Shamus...", and when you'd misplaced your footing as many times as Jack had, then he reasoned, that by default the celebrated Shamus must have landed himself in more piles of indiscretion than he would readily care to admit, but that wouldn't be quite accurate either, in Jack's line of work it was the malefactor that actually dropped him in them more often than not.

     A cold shiver suddenly ran down his spine, another quickly followed as a spurt of icy water from a broken rain spout spattered across the back of his neck, he grimaced... Jack's expression spoke volumes as he took one final pull from his half soaked cigarette and flicked it, amid an eruption of sparks against the adjacent brick wall.  Sinking further into the shadow he tipped his fedora against the oncoming rain, then, digging both hands deep within his pockets, he huddled behind the upturned collar of his gabardine... watching.

     It was times such as these when Jack's mind would slip back, in much the same way you might slip back on a discarded banana peel, when a matter of some consequence, or in particular this case the pavement, would suddenly leap up from behind and give the back of Jack's head a resoundingly good slapping and tell him to "stop loafing around in office hours... or else", then drag him, albeit kicking and screaming back into the 20th century.  This intellectual assault and battery re-focused Jack's mind wonderfully as he whiled away the long weary hours until his next cigarette; cup of tea, or the last bus home, his capacity to endure such mind boggling tedium called for nothing less than sheer ******-mindedness and very little else... Beamish had long suspected that he possessed all the necessary qualifications.  

     Jack had come a long way since the early days, it had been a long haul but he'd finally arrived there in the end... and managed to pick up quite a few ***** looks along the way.  Whilst he was with the Police Constabulary... and it was only fair to stress the word 'with', as opposed to the word 'in'... although the more Jack considered, he had been 'with' the arresting officer, held 'in' the local Bridewell... detained at Her Majesties pleasure while assisting the boys in blue with their enquiries over a minor infringement of some local by-law that currently had quite slipped his mind at that moment.  Throughout this enforced leisure period he'd managed to read the entire abridged editions of Kilroy and other expansive works of graffiti exhibited in what passed locally as the next best thing to the Tate Gallery, whereupon it hadn't taken Jack very long to realise that it was always a good place to start if you wanted free breakfast, in fact the weeks bill of fare was tastefully displayed in vivid, polychromatic colour on the wall opposite... you just had to be au-fait with braille.
                            
     No matter how industrious Beamish laboured to rake the dirt there always appeared to be a dire shortage of gullible clients for Jack to squeeze, what would roughly translate as an honest crust out of, and although his financial retainer was highly competitive he understood that potential clients found it bewildering when grappling with the unplumbed depths of his monthly expense account, which would tend to fluctuate with the same unpredictability as the British weather, the rest of Jack's agenda revolved around a little shady moonlighting... in fact he'd happily consider anything to offset the remotest possibility of financial delinquency... short of extortion... which by the strangest twist was the very word prospective clients would cry while Jack beavered around the office with dust-pan and brush sweeping any concerns they may have had frantically under the carpet regarding all culpability of his extra-curricular monthly stipend... and they should remain assured at all times... as they dug deep and fished for their cheque books, and simply look upon it as kneading dough, which eerily enough was exactly the thick wedge of buttered granary that Jack had every intention of carving.

     Were there ever the slightest possibility that a day could be so utterly wretched, then today was that day, Jack felt a certain empathy as he merged with his surroundings... at one with nature as it were.  The rain, a timpani on the metal dustbin lids, by the side of which Beamish had taken up vigil, also taking up vigil and in search of a morsel was the stray mongrel, this was the third time now that he'd returned, the same apprehensive wag, yet still the same hopeful look of expectation in his eyes, a brief but friendly companion who paid more attention to Jack's left trouser leg than anything that could be had from nosing around the dustbins that day... some days you're the dog, scowled Beamish as he shook his trouser leg... and some days the lamppost, Jack's foot swung out playfully, keeping his new friend's incontinence at a safe distance, feigning indignance  the scruffy mongrel shook himself defiantly from nose to tail, a distinct odour of wet dog filled the air as an abundance of spent rainwater flew in all directions.   Pricking one ear he looked accusingly at Jack before turning and snuffled off, his nose resolutely to the pavement and diligently, picking out the few diluted scents still remaining, the poor little stalwart renewed its search for scraps, or making his way perhaps to some dry seclusion known only to itself.
  
     Two hours later and... SPLOSH, a puddle poured itself through the front door of the nearest Public House... SPLOSH, the puddle squelched over to the payphone... SPLOSH, then, fumbling for small change dialled and pressed button 'A'..., then button 'B'... then started all over again amid a flurry of precipitation... SPLASH.  The puddle floundered to the bar and ordered itself a drink, then ebbed back to the payphone again... the local taxi company doggedly refused to answer... finally, wallowing over to the window the puddle drifted up against a warm radiator amidst a cloud of humidity and came to rest... flotsam, cast upon the shore of contentment, the puddle sighed contentedly... the Landlady watched this anomaly... suspiciously.

     The puddle's finely tuned perception soon got to grips with the unhurried banter and muffled gossip drifting along the bar, having little else to loose, other than what could still be wrung from his clothing... Beamish, working on the principle that a little eavesdropping was his stock-in-trade engaged instinct into overdrive and casually rippled in their general direction...  They were clearly regulars by the way one of them belched in a well rehearsed, taken-a-back sort of way as Jack took stock of the situation and was now at some pains to ingratiate himself into their exclusive midst and attempt several friendly, yet relevant questions pertinent to his enquiries... all of which were skillfully deflected with more than friendly, yet totally irrelevant answers pertinent to theirs'... and would Jack care for a game of dominoes', they enquired... if so, would he be good enough to pay the refundable deposit, as by common consent it just so happened to be his turn...  Jack graciously declined this generous offer, as the obliging Landlady, just as graciously, cancelled the one shilling returnable deposit from the cash register, such was the flow of light conversation that evening... they didn't call him Lucky Jack for nothing... discouraged, Beamish turned back to the bar and reached for his glass... to which one of his recent companions, and yet again just as graciously, had taken the trouble to drink for him... the Landlady gave Jack a knowing look, Beamish returned the heartfelt sentiment and ordered one more pint.

     From the licenced premises opposite, a myriad of jostling customers plied through the door, business was picking up... the sudden influx of punters rapidly persuaded Beamish to retire from the bar and find a vacant table.  Sitting, he removed several discarded crisp packets from the centre of the table only to discover a freshly vacated ashtray below... by sleight of hand Jack's Ronson appeared... as he lit the cigarette the fragile smoke curled blue as it rose... influenced by subtle caprice, it joined others and formed a horizontal curtain dividing the room, a delicate, undulating layer held between two conflicting forces.

     The possibility of a free drink soon attracted the attention of a local bar fly, who, hovering in the near vicinity promptly landed in Jack's beer, Beamish declined this generous offer as being far too nutritious and with the corner of yesterdays beer mat, flipped the offending organism from the top of his glass, carefully inspecting his drink for debris as he did so.

     A sudden draught and clip of stiletto heels as the side door opened caused Beamish to turn as a double shadow slipped discreetly into the friendly Snug... a little adulterous intimacy on an otherwise cheerless evening.  The faceless man, concealed beneath a fedora and the upturned collar of his overcoat, the surreptitious lady friend, decked out in damp cony, cheap perfume and a surfeit of bling proclaimed a not too infrequent assignation, he'd seen it all before... the over attentive manner and the band of white, Sun-starved skin recently hidden behind a now absent wedding token, ordinarily it was the sort of assignment Jack didn't much care for... the discreet tail, the candid snapshot through half drawn curtains... and the all too familiar steak tartare... for the all too familiar black eye.

     To the untrained eye, the prospect of Jack's long anticipated supper was rapidly dwindling, when it suddenly focused with renewed vigour upon the contents of a pickled egg jar he'd observed earlier that evening, lurking on the back counter, his enthusiasm swiftly diminished however as the belching customer procured the final two specimens from the jar and proceeded to demolish them.  Who, Jack reflected, after being stood out in the rain all day, had egg all over his face now... and who, he reflected deeper, still had an empty stomach.  Disillusioned, Jack tipped back his glass and considered a further sortie with the taxicab company.

     "FIVE-BOB"!!! Jack screamed... you could have shredded the air with a cheese grater... hurtling into the kerb like a fairground attraction came flying past the chequered flag at a record breaking 99 in Jack's top 100 most not wanted list of things to do that day... and that the cabby should think himself fortunate they weren't both stretched flat on a marble slab, "exploding tyres" Jack spluttered, dribbling down his chin, were enough to give anyone a coronary... further broadsides of neurotic ambiance filled the cab as the driver, miffed at the prospect of missing snooker night out with the lads, considered charging extra for the additional space Jack's profanity was taking...

     And what part of 'Drive-Carefully', fumed Beamish, did the cabby simply not understand, that pavements were there to be bypassed, 'Nay Circumvented', preferably on the left... and not veered into, wildly on the front axle... an eerie premonition of 'jemais-vu' perched and ready to strike like a disembodied Jiminy Cricket on Jack's left shoulder, looking to stick its own two-penny worth in at the 'Standing-Room-Only' arrangements in the overcrowded cab... and at what further point, Jack shrieked, eyes leaping from his head as he lurched forward, shaking his fist through the sliding glass partition, had the cabbie failed to grasp the importance of the word 'Steering-Wheel...' someone wanted horse whipping, and as far as Beamish was concerned the sole contender was the cab driver...

     In having a somewhat sedate and unruffled disposition it had fallen to Beamish... as befalls all great leaders in times of adversity, to single handedly take the bull by the horns, so to speak and at great personal cost, alert the unwary passing motorist...  Waving his arms about like a man possessed whilst performing acrobatic evolutions in the centre of the road as the cabby changed the wheel came whizzing around the corner at a back breaking 98 on Jack's ever growing list... and why, Jack puzzled, why had they all lowered their side windows and gestured back at him in semaphore..?  Rallying to its aid, Jack's head and shoulders now joined his shaking fist through the sliding glass partition and into the cabby's face, "Who" Beamish screeched with renewed vigour ,"Who Was The Man", Jack wanted to know... *"a

There are days in these persistent weeks of the year...
When the sky is a block of grey outside the window,
It takes its place with such certainty that even the raindrops will not take their time
to appear on the glass in an attempt to divide it,
Sprawled across the floor with music in my ears I come to the conclusion that
Tom Odell is the only person in this world who understands me.
I hold my legs and cry into my knees
but they never hold me back,
After a while I crawl to the corner of my room,
And sit with my back against the radiator;
Any warmth will do,
And despite my enjoyment of this warmth
I can feel the radiator making dents in my back,
It reminds me of the way each day dents the week with its appearance,
The way it reaches Sunday, battered, bruised and tortured,
But it never stops,
It just carries on
and carries on.
And so maybe the persistence of each week is something to be admired...
But it still hurts
and hurts.

Last night, I sat on top of my radiator, the window cracked slightly open
So I could feel the wind brush my feet

And for only the third or so time,
the cold voice in my head whispered
suicide

It was not a want
More a playful experiment with ideas

The voice ran a quick calculation
Of how easy it would be just to
fall
Go into the bathroom, grab a razor and
answer some higher call

And I recoil from the thought
Not because I know it should seem
wrong
But because I'm scared of how easy it would be

I lean toward the egde of the radiator

The I pull down the shade of the window and walk away.

The steady hum of the radiator
Is now our only constant.

Your angry heart is coursing blood so quickly you’re colored red,
Thumping so audible that the dog confuses the tremor for an earthquake,
He’s barking,
You’re barking.

My own has shattered into such a sadness that it is skipping beats
Akin to the now wrecked records splintered on the floor,
They’re past scratched,
I’m past scratched.

The radiator didn’t acknowledge the war,
The radiator stayed as steady as a surgeon’s hand,
The radiator didn’t realize we needed to cool down,
But, oh, how I wish that heartless thing did.

home isn’t just a structure -
brick and water aren’t symbols,
they don’t reflect trust or
Love.

I can wash -
the grease from my hair
the dirt from my skin
and uncomfortably sleep
when my inner monologue is louder than ever,
with your songs ringing in my ears,
and bad thoughts longing to be heard
but it’s love
your love
that keeps me warm
and makes me feel safe,
not the white walls
or the bread in the cupboard

I consume the fibre
Anyway
and glare at the walls.
home could leave
unannounced, brutally
I'll get warmth from the radiator
now you're gone

in june I felt the project change
from trying charting all scenarios of your face
to looking to books to blacking out spontaneous lines in found papers
to clearly eventually
be a misneglected omen of your impending collapse.

"I would like to blame this on the weather,"
I said to the sky,
"I would like to stay."


I felt the camera flash stop taking
strobe light moments of our strobe light moments
instead slipped tape recorder in your cereal box
videotaped the tooth brush
ever scraping dead skin while you slept.

I said, "If you wake up I will know nothing."
if you call this a dream, I will shake
and shake.
I said "it is clear now that you are decomposing."
(there's only so much the heart can take.)


stopped thoughts about the bus would hit you
spent time watching the sun through your palm:
little bones will scatter light.
little scars on thumbs.
we are made up only of who puts us back together.
and I could smell the rain.

I said, "It is easier if you stay angry"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."


I put the Starbucks mug on the radiator
ceased to chart your worried looks.
I knew your brow, heavy clouds as you'd undress
but made a scrapbook of frozen dinner clippings
drew a line through where you went that day.

I said, "I want to prove that you meant nothing"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I said to the sky.


and then the rain.

The leeching color from my eyes
My parched mouth puckered
My joints are stiff, stubborn and brittle
Creaking like exhausted floorboards
Wringing my fists, white ands shriveled
Twisting my hands, skinned and raw
I'm ill with desperate thriving
Too weak to carry on, don't have the choice
Veins laden with liqueur, thinning hopes and regret
Pulsing pulsing pulsing
Bones fluttering with birds of bad omen
Scalp rid of hair to make place for the thorny crown of vanquishment
Blood diluted with bitter disappointment,
Sloshing, smearing through my mucked-up system
Aching from the deadly drone of existence
From small victories, large defeats
I'm the mortar, they're the pestle
Clobbering into my hollowed life.

The hammer of that thing
Routine so dull and tedious
Pounding and pounding and pounding
When you can't even scream or weep
Thud thud thud
My temples scream with dank submission
My brain is reeling, hurling from the vertigo of it all.

Morning, noon & night
The dead avenues, the empty buzzing
Beats hammers in my brain
Throb throb throb
I'm quivering with numbness.

I'm mature now, I'm ripe
So ripened and rotten
Adult things, adult preoccupations pulsing around me
It seems like person really only has two choices
Get in on the aimless hustle or be forsaken
I've taken it all up
Rent, coffee, wine, cigarettes and newspaper
Forgotten pills
Unpaid bills
Thump thump thump
Anguish, pain, woe and misery
Turbulence and stress, the banging hammer.

I'm a drunkard, a wanderer
With a beaten, battered suitcase
Days like these, weeks like these, when all the weapons are pointed at me
I'm a ***, an outcast
A pigeon in the pummeling rain
Dribble dribble splash
The ache is a relentless thing.

My job, my rent, my house
My walls limp with memories stuck with rotting glue
Wallpaper torn, curling at the edges
The cold hard floor radiates and screams
The couch, cold & hollow
Incrusted with bits of filthy grime
The dead radiator hisses like an angry snake
The shades down, no sunlight
No life seeping through the venetian blinds
And my clothing sits in the chairs
Like the dead emptied out
The blankets are thin, frayed and tattered
As hope is
The moths, on the other hand, are alive and well
They weave webs of moribund rot
Interlacing me into their strands of decay.

Surrounded by the coldhearted, they snarl
And their laughs abash, dishearten the pure
Bruising me relentlessly
They are so tired, mutilated
either by love or no love
All their bleak and sunken eyes
All their weak and drunken souls
All their meek and shrunken hearts
Vultures with neckties
Weasels in frocks
Collared beasts, that's all they are.

The mournful poet with the shrapnel wound
Was so wrong
I guess he wanted to be lyrical, but his words led astray
Time is not water
It does not flow easy, smooth and transparent
It drags you into dark alleys and batters the hell out of you
Punches you in the ribs, rips your skin,
Jerks you by your hair, stabs you, disfigures you
Leaves you crippled and broken, gasping for air.

Sweating in a rocker
Lanky skeleton hands clasped, praying- for what?
I'm not living, or dying
I'm simply crawling backward
Or no, I'm not crawling, I'm being dragged,
Through nights of lonely perfidy, breathing the beaten dusty air
The dark wind wailing, ebbing through the frail curtains
Laying in bed, too wretched to move
When memories, of heaven and hell,
Droop like broken shades
Across the window of my mind
And ****, I can feel my soul slowly dropping down through the mattress
My stomach is heaving, my teeth clenched and gritted
But not with fear, no, it's too late for dread
And it *****, because we realize we were all so caught up in a life in which we can find no meaning...we end up wrong and graceless and sick
We're born shriveled and alone, we die shriveled and alone
No matter what.

The water drips from the faucet
As the worries fade from my mind

I rest my head on the back of the tub.
My heart sooths down to a murmur,
Not heard above the humming of the radiator.

This is wonderful,
Pure bliss without a worry on my mind.

The water stings against my body
As the heat turns my skin scarlet,
But it doesn't concern me.

I sink further under water.
This is relaxatio-

"Hurry up in there!
I need to take a shower.
And don't use all the hot water."

Well, ****.

LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.

Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.
Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail and men called "knights" riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.

A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain.
Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain.

precursor - title correlation
body -

mind of:

C                oh

    oh                      Ri

n'ah.   (half an hour fiddling with a 502 bad
gateway; traffic these days! jeez!)

I.

it don't know what's more frustrating for the reasons that it's so good... i can't choose... it's a close call... either listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers' B-sides from By The Way... ugh! why didn't they release that as a double album! Stadium Arcadium was not that good as a double-album... all the prior albums are MAGIC... literally... for ****'s sake: GOLDMINE is literally just that... there's that... i can't concentrate on making my own translation of Ovid... i'm yet to scribble down the translation i have... i can't even drink my whiskey properly... the other frustrating focus? watching Armand Duplantis break his own world record of 6.21metres... the ****** has still at least 10cm in him! a record that will have to stand-still for the next 20+ years... i'll be dead before this record is broken... Сергій Бубка best be sleeping... i'm listening to the music, reliving the end of the World Athletics and trying to heel-myself-in-the-buttocks: better get a move on boy... hmm! "trying"... i'm actually heeling myself in the buttocks: no time to wait... one can wait for a bus... one cannot for one's own incentive... ol' Lizzy is coming up the mountain... she's coming with the proper closure of the 20th century... however many popes she outlived... however many prime ministers and american presidents... come on Lizzie... just one more year... i'm actually dying to spend money with whittle Charlie printed on the notes... my fingers are itching... but **** me... music so good By The Way should have been a double-album... no! Stadium Arcadium was not the salvagable double-album worth session... i'm getting "schizophrenic" vibes... i know that poetry is not an entertaining medium: it's a complacent self-congratulatory, thereupeutic load of *******... it's obnixious when staged: the exasperated art of speaking with speed... today i realised that i much prefer drinking to having ***... i like the preservation of my brain with a hard-on of itchy fingers than any actual ******* hard-ons... the knife opening oysters or plucking out the eyes of deer... best the eyes be gauged out... than having deer stare into car lights... hybrid confusions of static, motivated to move... frozen in a make-shift imitation of root and clay and copper: bam! one more statue down...

II.

it's no wonder why i'm not looking for a girlfriend, it's no longer bewildering why i'm not looking for a wife, at best i'm looking out for that ancient custom of Roman emperors: to become a foster father, a surrogate - i'm yet to find a match-up... i almost did, but she undermined my chances by undermining her own seriousness in such affairs... but clarity does come... as much as i might be a surrogate father to her son or daughter: i wouldn't be faithful to her... i would steal the night and run away into a brothel... but there's something else... the whole dynamic of publishing has changed... the whole idea of a library has also changed... i own more valuable books in my private collection than the public library of Romford... which is me peering at the dire straits of what the public is fed... i know why i don't aspire for pair-bonding... perhaps man so levelled aspired toward the imitation of birds a long time ago... perhaps swans are truly noble creatures: for one hears of widow and widower swans... perhaps parrots: born from those monstrous beasts that were the dinosaurs can imitate our talk... all that's this reality within the confines of "perhaps": nonetheless, it's all true... but perhaps being the mammal that i am... i moved from a community of chimpanzees into a solo-ride of imitation-bear... perhaps i only entertain the opposite *** on the encounter of ***... i couldn't land a conversation with a woman outside the constrictive-framework of work, so much so: i would abhor the mindset of men that go on dates with women: buy them food and then EXPECT... i leave that ******* out in my interactions... pay-up-front for what you're about to receive otherwise don't play cat while the woman plays mouse... or rather... a rat in cat's clothing: the woman therefore becoming a rat-trap... mind you: i can't think of a more terrible idea than the modern version of: eat first, **** later... at the old ****** proverb states: a hungry ****** is angry... a filled ****** is lazy... god forbid i ever become tempted by those dating sites... i'm currently looking for the original Latin text of Ovid's the Amores book 2 poem 6... why? what i have in my hand... and what i'm finding... it's like what Robert Pinsky remarked about once: TRANSLATIONS differ so much from one translator to another...

they have done it... UEFA are mad... just to get my
accreditation for the women's Euros final
at Wembley they're asking me to bring my passport
with me... so is Wembley the JFK of Florida
          space-shuttle launch? Houston? am i leaving
the country?
                but the girls have done it...
funny: some other people are still complaining:
IT'S TOO WHITE!
   there's not enough diversity in the team...
          that's me also planning to go and live
in Kenya and become a model for toilet paper...
i'm sure i could replace that known Koala bear /
golden retriever or perhaps i could go there
and model for soap adverts...
it just so happened that racial tensions (only football
could create them) rose up for a little:
just one night the day England lost to Italy
on penalty shootouts... because... 3 black guys
were playing a rigged roulette...
            then again? me? and the African heat?
fat chance...

find me the original Elegy VI: the death of Corinna's
pet parrot...
oh man... and her name was Polly...
i sat up late last night trying to find something
interest on the television...
bam! thank you ma'am...
                       kurt cobain: montage of heck...
sort of reminded me of...
                           a SCANNER DARKLY...
                           mind you: i sometimes do enjoy
a one-man show... or at least two...
there was this brilliant show in the West End...
Stones in his Pockets...
       two actors... sharing the roles of...
                  about 15 people each...
but it was back in circa 2001...
so... maybe it was Louis Dempsey
                                                        & Sean Sloan...
mind you... i'd still love to see Samuel Beckett's
             NOT I...

Jack Trades says: i'm about to a heap
of hay of hate...
                                i'm everywhere sometimes...
if it's not music, then its visual arts,
then it's philosophy, then fine literature...
then something "oriental" in thinking...
then its coupling my fetish for Deutsche as:
father to the English zunge...
then it's back east to rummage in some Katakana...

i know why i'm single, Roger Moore remained
a bachelor until his death...
  courteous: as ever as forever always...
i'd be a terrible match-up... i've given pair-bonding
a chance: i can't bemoan why X is not Y...
the sort of men that pair-bond are claustrophilic...
they love the company of a mate...
each time i was ever in a "relationship" i already
had one foot dangling: tapping an imaginary
drum set...
recently i discovered the B-side of the Red Hot Chilli
Peppers... so for me it's a version
of keeping the 20th century alive with
the "dichotomy" of the Rolling Stones vs.
the Beatles... i'm more... R.H.C.P.'s A-sides
of R.H.C.P.'s B-sides?
                                        i'm busy...
                i'm always busy... i don't want to relax...
i want a Turkish barber to suggest that
i need  hot-towel and an arm massage after
my beard is trimmed and... i'm still going to state:
getting a Turk to trim my beard is a close
contender to oral *** from a Turkish *******...

but try finding me that original Latin of Ovid's...
ah! found it! let's see if i can compete with
my own translation... the one i originally read
and the one i found finding the original Latin
were so disparaging...

**** yes! well... there was Ted Hughes writing
about the Crow... poor ******...
should have killed himself: might have competed
with his terribly-wonderful wife of a poet...
i give her that: what noose?
best head in an oven...
and you want a shovel with that?
but this is Ovid... "complaining" about
the death of his lover's parrot...
immediately i jumped to conclusions:
not enough crackers...

(A) the Original:

Psittacus, Eois imitatrix ales ab Indis,
    occidit—exequias ite frequenter, aves!
ite, piae volucres, et plangite pectora pinnis
    et rigido teneras ungue notate genas;
horrida pro maestis lanietur pluma capillis,
    pro longa resonent carmina vestra tuba!
quod scelus Ismarii quereris, Philomela, tyranni,
    expleta est annis ista querela suis;
alitis in rarae miserum devertere funus—
    magna, sed antiqua est causa doloris Itys.
Omnes, quae liquido libratis in aere cursus,
    tu tamen ante alios, turtur amice, dole!
plena fuit vobis omni concordia vita,
    et stetit ad finem longa tenaxque fides.
quod fuit Argolico iuvenis Phoceus Orestae,
    hoc tibi, dum licuit, psittace, turtur erat.
Quid tamen ista fides, quid rari forma coloris,
    quid vox mutandis ingeniosa sonis,
quid iuvat, ut datus es, nostrae placuisse puellae?—
    infelix, avium gloria, nempe iaces!
tu poteras fragiles pinnis hebetare zmaragdos
    tincta gerens rubro Punica rostra croco.
non fuit in terris vocum simulantior ales—
    reddebas blaeso tam bene verba sono!
Raptus es invidia—non tu fera bella movebas;
    garrulus et placidae pacis amator eras.
ecce, coturnices inter sua proelia vivunt;
    forsitan et fiunt inde frequenter ****.
plenus eras minimo, nec prae sermonis amore
    in multos poteras ora vacare cibos.
nux erat esca tibi, causaeque papavera somni,
    pellebatque sitim simplicis umor aquae.
vivit edax vultur ducensque per aera gyros
    miluus et pluviae graculus auctor aquae;
vivit et armiferae cornix invisa Minervae—
    illa quidem saeclis vix moritura novem;
occidit illa loquax humanae vocis imago,
    psittacus, extremo munus ab orbe datum!
optima prima fere manibus rapiuntur avaris;
    inplentur numeris deteriora suis.
tristia Phylacidae Thersites funera vidit,
    iamque cinis vivis fratribus Hector erat.
Quid referam timidae pro te pia vota puellae—
    vota procelloso per mare rapta Noto?
septima lux venit non exhibitura sequentem,
    et stabat vacuo iam tibi Parca colo.
nec tamen ignavo stupuerunt verba palato;
    clamavit moriens lingua: 'Corinna, vale!'
Colle sub Elysio nigra nemus ilice frondet,
    udaque perpetuo gramine terra viret.
siqua fides dubiis, volucrum locus ille piarum
    dicitur, obscenae quo prohibentur aves.
illic innocui late pascuntur olores
    et vivax phoenix, unica semper avis;
explicat ipsa suas ales Iunonia pinnas,
    oscula dat cupido blanda columba mari.
psittacus has inter nemorali sede receptus
    convertit volucres in sua verba pias.
Ossa tegit tumulus—tumulus pro corpore magnus—
    quo lapis exiguus par sibi carmen habet:
"colligor ex ipso dominae placuisse sepulcro;
    ora fuere mihi plus ave docta loqui".

mein gott... in English it reads so smoothly reading
it while listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers'
B-sides... quixoticelixer...
teatra jam (short)... and then thinking about it...
through to and through Going Li coupled
with trouble in the pub (instrumental version)...

i will never own a car...
              mind you: i already secretely own a house...
if i keep appeasing my mother and my father:
when reality kicks in and they're dead and i'm
project solo... it's not like i'm waiting for the day...
they are hoarders of shoes and screws...
literally... no metaphor...
  on my own: i will have to recycle so much ****
before i will put the house on the market...
and? i never pledged any allegiance to Essex...
England... i have: pledged an allegiance
to the English tongue...
                 but if not the Shetland Islands...
north... "god" send me north! even as far as
Greenland!
                i'm not willing to die in a place where
villages are flaring up in a July heat...

i can't bemoan what i honestly couldn't keep...
i sometimes get mad at my father for being
so submissive to my mother...
i sometimes get so mad at my mother for only
being able to talk about her chronic pains:
i'm alligned with my grandmother
who once said: she's just like your paternal
great-grandmother... every itch and scratch...
it's like writing with chalk on a blackboard...
hey presto! ruptures of the Grand Canyon...
that ******* bollocking of: ooh! ah!
           me? i don't understand people with tattoos...
me? i collect scars...
these two fading ones on my face are a disappointment...
i thought something more pronounced
could be kept from that bicycle-crach Francis Bacon
esque imitation of painting:
   the sort of painting where you can still revel
in brush-strokes being visible...
   because it's not rigid: Renaissance form painting...

now: i can sort of imagine what men couple up...
those who fear being alone...
those not interested in art...
those mostly interested in sport... but not all sport...
just some sports...
sports that they support "passing their lineage"
with according to the cult of football teams...
not all-sports... i.e. not an interest in fencing...
swimming... certainly guys who thought:
wow! tennis is great to watch!
   but squash is so much more fun to play!
cycling... well... if you love cycling per se:
watching other people cycle is a bit: BOO-RING...
what sort of other men get married?
probably those not interested in risque ***
with prostitutes...
ones interested in making money for a woman
to spend...
me? i'm not interested in money...
                       in terms of money:
i'm more likely to spend £30 on a book than
think about a dinner date...
                      
is that...   ??? i'm not even going to ask myself
that question that begins with a buzz-word
and the letters Mmmm... miso...
                             well... what is a boy to do...
figure out what to do with his spare time...
               i don't mind cleaning the house:
who ever said that it's the duty of a woman to keep
the house clean? i like living in a household in order...
i love cooking: it's like chemistry 2.0...
                      give me a bag of Indian spices and i'll
cook up a perfect storm of a curry...
but then again: i'm not work-shy when it comes
to using heavy-duty tools akin to the KANGO...
which... i later found out was a Japanese word for
Chinese in general... or the other way round...
i'd hate to be one of those Phil Collins types of
forgetting how many hands i have
by changing gloves like i might be an octopus...

and when it comes to children?
eh... it's enough for a boy in a buggy in a supermarket
pointing his finger at me as i walk past
making that chimpanzee face of OOH at me...
or a fist-bump with some teenagers at the London
Stadium... that's enough... i'm happy to play
the "secret uncle" role...
while women remain women: as fickle as the wind...
i've learned to live with that reality...
i scratch my beard and pretend that i'm playing
a violin...

plus, i'm a terrible drinker... i'm a loving-drunk...
i'm drunk right now...
if a litre of whiskey per night satisfies
my libido shortages i'm happy:
it implies i can write... i stop drinking and start
*******: alles goot...
                           today i was visited by a wasp...
i was visited by a bee before...
oh man... it was heart-breaking...
he was dying... i had to help him...
   i poured some honey onto the pave-,
and moved him towards the puddle...
he stuck his mighty Gene Simmons sucker out
and started to perform an OD on sugar...
i was glad... watching him die from a sugar-overdose...
it was: rather pleasant to watch...

TERROR! mix JAINISM with TAOISM
and fuse that in an European mind...
               but i'll still eat meat...
                        it's a parody of what's to be expected:
i prefer life with the possibilities of change...
with... curiosities of: extensive ulterior
possibilities that run counter to estblished norms
of expectations of a RIGID MIND...
i water: i flow...
      i fire: i dance...
i air: i whirl...
i earth: i rumble...
i lightning: i blink...
hey presto! the five elements!

in another language close to my heart:
since i was born with it...
the pronoun disappears:
ja woda: płyne
ja ogien: tańcze...
   ja powietrze: kręce się (odd)
ja ziemia: trzęse się (also "odd")
ja grzmot: mrygam

there are languages in existence where pronouns
hide... to be honest...
in ******? the pronouns are rarely used...
oh mein gott... when they're used in a sentence:
esp. the I... it's like... wow! i just found
a "nugget of gold"!
seriously... that how my mother-tongue
is structured: on English is the current
prounoun-circus available to watch...
i'm siding with the Somali pirates having
a giggle... playing blackjack with either Greeks
or some other Africans...

there are languages in English that cannot: will not,
succumb to the current Marxist onslight
happening in this tongue...
not because these languages will not:
they CANNOT...
mind you... it's such an intellectual low-bar
of achievement... but since it's piggy-pop...
it must be slaughtered on an individual level
before this DISEASE is allowed to spread...
thank heavens that English is only my second
language... how that allows me to bypass
buying into any sort of propaganda...
   my lingua Ingelese... my tongue for spreading
ideas...
    oh: and thank **** i' expressing in a medium
desecrated by the same people pushing these
sordid ideas... post-humous fame! 'ere i come!
obviously! who's in it for the "real" and immediate
if one isn't... fabricating a pickling of a shark
in plastic.... who? who?! woof!
   a-woooooo"

            my heart has shrunk and hardened to
the size and hardness of a pebble...
    i wish i could entertain cosy nights with a woman
watching some pointless movie about
the stereotypes of love... then again: no...
i'd rather not...
drinking alone: who the hell said i was alone?
i sometimes "hallucinate" someone crying:
of late... i'm like: this isn't Aud Lang Syne...
this isn't Shakespear...
then again i love the idea that my true readers
are yet to be born...
i'm happy, happy-bear-alone...
                       a Maine **** is sleeping in my
bed... i'll join him come the right hour...
but he's not looking at me... he's looking above me...
only yesterday i started to paparazzi
a wasp that flew into my bedroom...
          what the **** do i have above me?
please say letters... i will not do alright with a halo...
i'm not going to join that
archangel one minute... saint the next...
clip my ******* wings for a get-through-easy
card: no!
          
it became finalized today... i'm literally tired
of ***... i'm tired of *** when it's equivalent to not...
being tired of eating food... drinking water...
it's unnecessarily-necessary... *** as golf...
per say...
                2 months of delay in payment...
i'm thinking about rekindling my affair with that mountain
bike... i have to forget the streets...
i need the woods again... but for that i need new tires...
oh... hell... i no longer have anything
to prove in the brothel... blah blah whatever...
threesomes look great: LOOk...
like a block of cheddar looks great...
when shredded...
and then melting...
perhaps in pornographic flicks...
but in reality? the changing of condoms
from one mouth to another...
from one ****** to another...
                          
what?! peiple are having unprotected ***?
vermin ****?!
   **** me... well... at least i'm obnoxiously savvy
in that regard...
no no... it's too disappointing...
you have to split your attention up...
there's nothing good about a *******...
why? because, usually... of the two girls...
there's one you really want to be a screwdriver to...
while the other is just being a, *******...
a ******* bandwagon... leftovers...
a pair of **** you get to imitate ****** with...
it's a bit like:
coupling an elephant with a giraffe...
but i want to ride the elephant!
but i want to stroke the giraffe's neck!
but  i want to pretend the elephants's tusk...
no! not tusk! TRUNK....
that rectangular bit of ******* you shovel
your clothes in when travelling...
TRUNK... or a TRAMPOLINE!
no... not the bouncy layer...
TRUNK... sneeze! trambone! jazz! ******* Miles Daisies!
Davis!  trumpet *******!
no... don't get me started on the sax...

then again: i want a rhino's horn! ram-jam...
Black Betty Bam B'eh Lam!

- oh no... i moved along... R.H.C.P.'s: thanks for the t-shirt...
Big Bukowski style:
i hate the eagles... run through the jungle...
run Forrest! whun!
WHUN!
  and that's me... hardly a LAMNTIA of the Beatniks
tripping... me? enough whiskey
and the right song... and i'm grooving beside
an imaginary drum-kit...
in that: once upon a time...
when men grew their hair long...
they were the barbarians knocking
on the gates of Rome... rather than being
the implosion of Rome within with
all of Rome's degeneracy of transgender gimmicks...

mind you: i've given it some thought...
i broke it down toward the following schematic:

anonymous audience, commenting,
video making blah blah...
****** "schematic": if you can call it that...
mind you: the VAR in WIETNAM
had the best soundtrack...
just saying: hey! her?! hey! don't shoot
the messanger!
i'd rather work the Fulham opening night
with the new stand: Thames-side being opened
than attend Wembley for a Westwood...
Westworld... Westlife concert,
i'm all up for handling those Scousers:
northern monkeys?
southern fairies...
let's just call them for what they are...
northern TOURISTS...

but the dynamic of publishing has changed:
i already know the criterium first...
women and children first...
THIRST beccause water matters...
i'm thirsty too... one litre of whiskey and
i'm still typing like a machine...
i'll box my liver and kidneys
as long as i keep my brain and eyes happy...

but it's just a different dynamic...
the internet experience...
i know a lot of people miss it...
i can't force people to read my bollocking-riddles...
ergo? i don't stagnate into celebrating it
or therefore advertising it...
i'm either read or i'm STAUB...
   dust...
                
i can't! i'm only making something available...
i can't force people out of their democratic "wedlock"...
you like it? great! you don't? great!
but the psychology of those video creators that
mind how many views they receive and
how many comments they: likewise receive...
"false hits" with the number of hits of viewership?

me? i'm not bothered... i've been watching
the female Euro finals...
i was almost scared... what if the female England team
don't make it to the finals?!
me? i'm gearing up...
any rowdy hooligans up to speed?!
as much as i hate women not trying toi compete
in sports that are sexually-exclusive...
there's this... THIS... i watch the games because
the Colleseum is burning...
i'm only watching the fire...
    and i'm watching the women i'd love to ****...
this never would have happened if watching
tennis...

    the crisp biting attache of a sharpshooter
WONG sort of mixer-mix-up with a whiskey
and a pepssi...
me... reaching for a second glass
with one already filled like: *******... RAINMAN...

keep your horses!
i'm gearing up to a translation!
wait, the, ****, up! keep it cool in Doob-Lyn!
oh no... you don't get to tell me
i use too many vowels without me showing
you... you mishandled the vowel-to-consonant
dynamic... Doob-Lyn is Dublin: tow me...
no: not to me? tow me... now you're dragging me
along the snail-trail...

the disparaging translations:

(B) the A. S. Kline translation

Parrot, the mimic, the winged one from India’s Orient,
is dead – Go, birds, in a flock and follow him to the grave!
Go, pious feathered ones, beat your ******* with your wings
and mark your delicate cheeks with hard talons:
tear out your shaggy plumage, instead of hair, n mourning:
sound out your songs with long piping!
Philomela , mourning the crime of the Thracian tyrant,
the years of your mourning are complete:
divert your lament to the death of a rare bird –
Itys is a great but ancient reason for grief.
All who balance in flight in the flowing air,
and you, above others, his friend the turtle-dove, grieve!
All your lives you were in perfect concord,
and held firm in your faithfulness to the end.
What the youth from Phocis was to Orestes of Argos,
while she could be, Parrot, turtle-dove was to you.
What worth now your loyalty, your rare form and colour,
the clever way you altered the sound of your voice,
what joy in the pleasure given you by our mistress? –
Unhappy one, glory of birds, you’re certainly dead!
You could dim emeralds matched to your fragile feathers,
wearing a beak dyed scarlet spotted with saffron.
No bird on earth could better copy a voice –
or reply so well with words in a lisping tone!
You were snatched by Envy – you who never made war:
you were garrulous and a lover of gentle peace.
Behold, quails live fighting amongst themselves:
perhaps that’s why they frequently reach old age.
Your food was little, compared with your love of talking
you could never free your beak much for eating.
Nuts were his diet, and poppy-seed made him sleep,
and he drove away thirst with simple draughts of water.
Gluttonous vultures may live and kites, tracing spirals
in air, and jackdaws, informants of rain to come:
and the raven detested by armed Minerva lives too –
he whose strength can last out nine generations:
but that loquacious mimic of the human voice,
Parrot, the gift from the end of the earth, is dead
The best are always taken first by greedy hands:
the worse make up a full span of years.
Thersites saw Protesilaus’s sad funeral,
and Hector was ashes while his brothers lived.
Why recall the pious prayers of my frightened girl for you –
prayers that a stormy south wind blew out to sea?
The seventh dawn came with nothing there beyond,
and Fate held an empty spool of thread for you.
Yet still the words from his listless beak astonished:
dying his tongue cried: ‘Corinna, farewell!’
A grove of dark holm oaks leafs beneath an Elysian *****,
the damp earth green with everlasting grass.
If you can believe it, they say there’s a place there
for pious birds, from which ominous ones are barred.
There innocuous swans browse far and wide
and the phoenix lives there, unique immortal bird:
There Juno’s peacock displays his tail-feathers,
and the dove lovingly bills and coos.
Parrot gaining a place among those trees
translates the pious birds in his own words.
A tumulus holds his bones – a tumulus fitting his size –
whose little stone carries lines appropriate for him:
‘His grave holds one who pleased his mistress:
his speech to me was cleverer than other birds’.

(C) the  P. Green translation

parrot, that feathered mimic from India's dawlands,
is dead. come flocking, birds, to his funeral:
come, all you godfearing airborne creatures,
beat ******* with wings,
   mourn, claw your polls, tear out soft feathers
(your hair), and pipe high your sad lament.
Philomela, nightingale, the ancient crimes of Tereus
which you lament is long past -
    divert your grief to the obsequies of a rare and modern
bird: poor Itylus' case was tragic, but antique.
all wind-borne voyagers through the clear empyrean
lament now, and above all his friend the turtle-dove
they lived in complete agreement,
    their bond of faith held firm to the end.
what Pylades was to Orestes or Argos, that Parrot,
turtle-dove was to you - while fate allowed.
yet of no avail your devotion, your rare and beautiful
plumage,
your adaptable mimic's voice;
    not even the care that my darling lavished on you -
poor Polly, paragon of birdhood, is dead.
so gree his feathers, they dimmed the cut emerald;
scarlet his beak, with saffron spots.
no bird on earth could copy a voice more closely
or sound so articulate.
fate, jealous, removed him - that unaggressive creature,
that talktative devotee of peace,
with his tiny appetite , whose love of conversation
left him little leisure for food,
who lived on a diet of nuts, used poppy-seed to encourage
sound sleep: kept his thirst at bay with nothing but water.
quails spend their whole life fighting -
maybe that's how they reach a ripe old age.
carnivorous vultures, kites gyring high in the heavens,
weather-wise jackdaws, prophets of rain to come,
are all long-lived - while Minerva's bête noire, the raven,
can outlast nine generations. yet Parrot is dead,
that loquacious parody of human utterance,, that bonanza
from the eastern edge of the world,
greedy death almost always pickss off the best ones early -
it's the third-raters who reach a ripe old age.
Thersites attended the funeral of Protesilaus;
Hector was ashes while his brothers still lived.
what point is recalling the desperate prayers my sweetheart
uttered?
some stormy sirocco blew them out to sea.
six days he survived, and then, at dawn on the seventh,
his thread of destiny ran out.
yet somehow, though dying, he could still find utterance,
and the last words he ever spoke were: 'Corinna, farewell!'
beneath a hill in Elyium, where dark ilex clussters
and the moist earth is for ever green,
there exists - or so i have heard - the pious fowls' heaven
(all ill-omened predators barred).
harmless swaans roam after foot there, there dwells
the phoenix, that long-lived, ever-solitary bird;
there Juno's peacock spreads out his splendid fantail
amid the billing and cooing of amorous doves;
and there, in this woodland haven, the feathered faithful
welcome Parrot, flock round to hear him talk.
his bones lie buried under a parrot-sized tumulus
with a tiny headstone bearing these words:
r.i.p. Polly: this tribute from his loving mistress:
articulate beyond a common bird

the thought of LEMONS or perhaps
the IDEA of lemon...
then again: i can't refrain from
ORANGES and LIMES...
and the shy-sunlight of autumn
and the blooming of apples...
and operas...
             "someone"...
                              what pretty pies of
unfuckable wonders await...

divert your grief to the obsequeies of a rare and modern
bird: poor Itylus' case was tragic, but antique
(antiquated?).
all wind-borne voyagers through tge clear empyrean
lament nowm abd above all
his friend the turtle-dove, they lived in complete
agreement
   their bond of faith held firm to the end.
what Pylades was to Orestes of Argos, that, Parrot,
turtle-dove was to you - while Fate allowed,

i'm not even going to bother with a "bananna C"...
i woke up wild-awake with ideas...
brimming with Tao...
"non-doing" id est: point PROVEN
or rather point SERVED?!

Russia and China are clashing...
or rather sparring...
they're having their civilization-state
agenda being put in place...
while there's a "culture-war" in the "west"...
right... James Bond...
so we're refrrering to nation-stattes
as post-nationhood...
  "states"...
                    precursors to the globalist agenda
of fake space exploration via the ******* telescope...
if Russia and China are civivilasation-states...
then... whatever culture "war" is investing in:
or rather: digressing into... impliies
the FSA (federal states of america)
             is a culture-state...
                                                ­                 no?

personally? i don't like the current h'American culture...
it's absolute *******...
no! i'm not going to translate any more of Ovid...
i already read the better translation...
i found out only two minites ago that
i prefer drinking to having ***...
and keeping an eye on cats is just as rewarding
as rearing children: if you allow yourself
to give them a personality...

           so Russia is a civilisation-state...
while America is a culture-state...
                    well... no wonder...
                                            America is the zenith
that could be: but doesn't have to be
preserved...
the culture-state-of-the-sand-*******...
i wish: the Arabs clocked in lucky...
sitting on so much raw ill of oil...
bounce bounce libido bounce bounce...

hmm... "inner monologue"... i had that "thing"
once... i kost it... turning psychotic...
then again: within the confines of having
an internal monologue? i was passive...
       i was a passive agent...
                         upon losing it: having my soul
evaporate: becoming an "N.P.C."...
i became an active agent...
i opened my eyes a second time...

           i think my inner monolpogue became blocked
by:
został wyciszony... bo zaczoł być cykliczny,
tzn. nie po prostej:
       wymarł według koncepcji
sprawiedliwości...

even i know: the gods uttered the words:
shut the **** up! we know you're right!
but we're playing roulette!
shut the ******! we're playing cards!
shut up!
wait! wait your turn!
**** me, given the prowess at attaing
a concept of the differential of space comparing
time... i.e. speed... i'll be karma-happy
once i die...

i'm not translating the rest of that Ovid...
a girl's parraot died... great!
now i'm thinking about:
a bicyckle is a terrible idea... to ride...
on the roads towards St. Paul's... i think i might
require a horse!
i need a horse! bring me a hood, a hoof,
an apple and a toothbrush!
the last place i'm thinking about moving
to is California...
   and thank no god for that...
just the people who already live there.

III.

i sooner discovered the rare B-sides of Red Hot Chilli
Peppers than having realised... oh right...
they release two albums after By the Way...
i completely forgot about those two...
               guess i'm not as big a fan as i thought i was...
Go Robot... it's not oh so wo terrible now, or anymore...
oh woah woe... what a whale to ride into the night...

sometimes it just happens, a sort of blend of an Ezrra Pound
and a Charles Olson moment, poem, moment-poem...
it stretches for three days and you just don't want
to finish it... you kept repeating yourself writing seemingly
aimlessly with no focus...
at this point writing becomes theraputic...
by the simple act of writing: not theraputic regarding
what you're writing about: memories of frustration and
complications having finished Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus...
unlike those joyous frustrations with Samuel Beckett's
Watt...
                  and on the third day "he" finished painting
four metal chairs a new colour of copperhead...
a copperneck painting chairs copperhead...
to me the colour of copper is more appealing than
that of gold...

if i still had that inner-monologue people speak of
i wouldn't be writing this,
that inner-monologue fantasy i once was a proud owner
of: i.e. the closest "thing" to the idea of soul
was also filled with so many doubts...
i simply don't care what the supposed benefits
of it were... that whole no-inner-monologue ergo
one's an NPC (non-playable character)...
    i remember that that when my first psychotic episode
slammed me on a rampage i started to see DIFFERENTLY...
it was as if a veil was lifted from my eyes...
if i didn't write terrible poetry back then...
i most certainly wrote very little...
             the inner-monologue doubts... a plethora of them...
no? psychosis = the osmosis of soul...
   the body has remained... the devils said:
but these idle hands and this idle intellect have to stay...
we'll pass on the message with your soul
as it leaves your body...
call it whatever you want:
   res vanus or the silence of the "mind"...
that's how you become more of an active agent...
it might be called writing but i call it digging...
a tunnel toward some variaton of: marrying Hades
with Tartarus...
                after all... Venus is the daughter of titans...
and she's the only Titan among the Olympian gods:
such is her perfection... almost on par with
   the patron of philosophers that's Sacred Sophia:
who entertains the foolishness of elder men
without being able to tell them apart from boys...

IV. if i were to translate Amores II. XI

would i be willing to add a D in the translation sequence?
i don't think so
there's no need... i like comparing the two i already
made available...
i just wanted to stress how unbelievable Latin is...
compared to the modern tongue, for example English...
how compact it is!
- and course, i prefer the second translation...
     it... exfoliates!
                     this is the point for me where i truly appreciate
Ovid to be on par with Horace...

side by side walking through the zenith-nadir of
man...

   i'm finally come across a sequence of events that
make me unwilling to stop typing: perhaps if i get
drunk enough and stumble on my first typo
perhaps a series of typos would end my ambition...

do i think men in the west are living
in a land of libido-insomnia? i think they are...
whoever said that watching one type of pornogrphy
soon spirals out of control and men start
scouting for more extreme *******:
hello outlier A! hello outlier B!
where's outlier C? oh... he's coming...
at a time when women are supposed to be these
sexually liberated creatures while men
are either STAGS with harems or limp biscuit *****...
thank god i managed to catch the train
of having the ***** of walking into a newsagent
and buying a pornographic magazine to ******* to...
stashed about six in a folder behind
the radiator in the bathroom at 21B Beehive Lane,
Gants Hill...
                         mind you: i started prematurely...
8?
     i switch off with western ****** antics:
people are either having too much ***: ergo the kinks
or not enough of it...
outlier in the middle: when it's too hot
i leave the insects to do their lineage pride...
cooler temperatures: *** like rubbing sand-paper
on a ****** paint-job...

                         makeshift boney **** of the hand...
well: at least ******* makes me more interested in
the **** than **** ***...
but i did the opposite... i need to keep a sack-of-sanity
atop my head...
beside adoring the Katakana...
i very much adore Japanese tamed sexuality...
     グラビア アイドル (gurabia aidoru)...
back in the day when the English tabloid newspaper
the Sun had a page 3 girl...
back to basics... a show of *******...
    a show of cleavage... perhaps even the breast
like the eye... the sclera of the rounded breast...
the darkened skin at the iris and then the pupil
as the ******...
  floral patterns of the *******...
                  back to basics...
                           a photograph of a naked woman
and all the imagination at work: what wouldn't
i want to do with her?

well... if you begin pleasing yourself while concentrating
on the kiss between Venus and Cupid
in one of Bronzino's beauties of paint-strokes...
you're hardly going to go down a rabbit-hole
of "hide and hide": wihtout seeking it out...
people and thier kinks...
while a minority: dodo-project sexuality of
homosexuality is celebrated: garnerded unto the guise
of "pride": i can't stomach shame...
but hey: look at me! i'm about to parade my sexuality
like and ******* latex-clad gimp readied
for being given ***-favour-orders...

outlandish! god-forgiving god-fearing...
  hardly every god-loving...
           a settling in of a blue that's not the sky
but a melancholy... i'm finally willing to end this
"diatribe"... to start afresh... again and again...
like mixing: Dreams of a Samurai with
Hans Zimmer's spectres in the fog...

                      my ***: going back to figuring out
the premature adventures into ***...
one boy passing on the secrets of *******
to another while sharing a bath:
the cruel curiosity of the circumcision:
in a secular environment: without the kippah
or the niqab: the submission of the women...
i will not give up the "sheath" to my "sword"...
i will keep my teeth with my twirling tongue...
if ever an improvement on the aesthetics?
clipping the ears of Dobberman dogs...
banning clipping the clipping of their tails...
but still: the preserved atrocity of male circumcision...
i could agree...
once a woman is devoted to her man...
a circumcision like putting on a wedding ring...
noble swans... oh noble swans...

a melancholy that's sort of azure...
amass enough water and you will see blue...
amass "too little": freeze it...
a paleness somewhat grey...
but then the icebergs roaming that are
the Cistercians...
            all i need right now is for some lonely
dog to start barking into the night...
or the cackling "laughter" of a fox...
    
    but all those sexless lives...
            "lucky" me for taming my consumption down...
where would i be without it?
i didn't ask for a *******...
i wa offered it... i will never forget how she clamoured
for the opportunity...
she couldn't stomach being rejected twice...
she just had to clamour like a crab in a crab bucket...
even if she thought she thought she succeeded:
she was the spare wheel...
what i've learned... i prefer one-on-one interactions...
but i gave in...
   it would have never worked out:
not like it "works out" in pornographic flicks...
the sharing of saliva and other juices...
we're responsible adults...
unlike in the pornographic flicks...
          two women: one man...
the changing of condoms...
                           i had to think quick:
there's only one way i will not be undermined...
snuggling up to the one i really wanted
to spend an hour with...
                       kissing neck and cheek...
while she did a hand-job...
   the other just sat there sort of idle...
                          until i figured out... those *******
could be of some use...

- i couldn't pull off a Jesus look...
long hair and a beard is not my "thing"...
even with a sly undercut...
i chose the better option.... short hair, a beard, yes,
but a "fu manchu": an elongated love-spot...
competing with the length of the beard...
i really "don't understand" why i have no memory
of my chin and neck...
it's like there was never the idea of using
water as a mirror... perhaps poor Xerxes lashed
at the Aegean for hiding his reflection
when he had one of those Narcisstic moments
of anguish: he forgot how he looked like...
but then the sides of the moustasche also drooping:
elongated... that work much better than
a beard and long hair...
it's so unfashionable these days...
i don't get why men think beards and long hair
"work"....

then again i never figured out why Khadira
wanted to have unprotected ***...
  how she insisted that it was just plain o.k.
for me to ******* into her...
how i snapped and dived in into her pandamonium
of multiples springs of irritated ****...
all slobbering with oyster-tongue
and knose...
                               all that informed me...

companionship? what a rare commodity...
it's enough to have a mother to know
how a woman's company can quickly sour
the already sweet grapes...
one word: tell a man he's LAZY...
while he's just tired of being pushed and shoved...
if a mother can do that to a son?
what could a wife do?
                          and i'm come across curiosities of
men who waged wars with their mothers...
at the Tyson Fury boxing match...
i was trying to calm the **** down a guy
who was having a panic attack after being
"abandoned" by his mother...
who bought the tickets... and drinks...
i squeezed him hard... told him: but i'm here for free!
nay! i'm here and getting paid for it!
blah blah...
               i hate seeing panic attacks in men...
it makes me either feel like
more than a man or less of a man...
it makes me think of the men prior
with shell-shocks... or women exploiting
the challenges of p.t.s.d.

                                    i've seen so many people fake
a mental illness... i've spoken at length
to them... how easily open up to their own struggles...
while i'm left alone with whatever ones
i have...
                   maybe because my "mental health issues"
have morphed into philosophical caviats
implies that i'm immune to outright sharing
the details... and boring people to death...
so i listen...
        i listen...
                            in one ear out the other...

i remember days in high school when we would love
to change the subject, create a game:
SLAP-BALL... imitation of Tsar Peter III prior
to tennis... an imitation court... with a fence between us...
or just playing BLACKJACK...
cards... that was big... we understood that ignoring
women was best done with / by playing cards...
at one point: i remember it to this day...
Samuel Richards grabbed Ian Goodman's neck
and pinned him to the floor...
we tried to intervene...
i don't know whether it was about the actual
game of cards or whether it was about
Sam bailing out... he was about to move to France...
and ****** off from pur in-group...
started playing basketball with the black-boys...
forgot he was supposedly the "PUNK" in the school...
i remember skateboarding with him...
he actually stole his mother's credit card and bought
a skateboard for me...
but his ******* MOHICAN was ****...
it didn't entertain the entire length of his skull
meeting his spine...
but we did walk back from Romford
toward Ilford this one night...
underage drinking... singing Backstreet Boys songs...

ha ha...
         time is a museum of melancholy...
while space is a museum of furthering whatever is left
of leftover potential...

i'm so despondent about this life having to end...
today i cycled up to the traffic lights
on my ******... ******?! £125 viking road bike... say the word
****** one more time... what was i facing?
a solitary man in an Aston Martin...
behind him? some solitary guy in a Porsche...
right... "alphas"...
i'm on my bicycle... but these two guys
in those choicest of motor-examples?
that's the thing with "competing" in life rather than
sport...
     i like my bicycle... i love my bicycle...
i am yet to wash away the blood from my head
from the crash...
i don't have a broken leg: i just have an outgrowth of bone
on my shin where my bone should have cracked:
i love milk...

competing with these men... **** me...
i was thinking about the Porsche guy...
nice game... but it's not playing cards...
i taart myself up: compete...
what do i get? i get a Porsche...
     but then ahead of me there's this guy
in an Aston Martin: mate! i'm ******!
oh blue blue Hue... the Aston Martin looked like
the bomb that is already was...
the Porsche? the Porsche looked like
a ******* Ford Mondeo by comparison...
Civic Extra... if that's even a car...
i was sort of happy to by cycling...
i figured... well: i'm not using my legs...
to walk... i'm peddling...

ever heard the expression "push-bike"?
i heard that only recently... what a werid coupling
of words... a motorcycle is distinguished from
a a bicycle by the term: "push-bike"
this half-brain-dead coworker...
what the **** am i pushing?!
it's just as weird as calling it a peddling-bicycle, no?
eh?
but what am i pushing? a bicycle is a bicycle
a turtle is a turtle... i still have to figure out
what's being pushed...
what comes first? the donkey, the carrot, or the stick?!

mawn the lawn: sieve the sand...
mawn the lawn: sieve the sand...
keep nurturing the spacing between numbers
but also keep lost track of the alphebticaal
queue...
never the type to rehash a refurbishment
of SPAWN...

           i simply don't want this day-dream to end...
around me people cowering into sleep...
i'm left in limbo...
            between consetllations and the scythe
of the moon... dearest: moooooon...
i'm itching to break the silence with a howl...
but first: the thirst of a dog barking...
i hear a dog barking i'll start to howl!

aren't we simply becoming the same
tired people of old?
              more impetus...
more gravity! more fire! more tides!
more the quaking of the earth!
more whirlwinds! more! more!
one Pompeii is not enough!

                       almost one litre of whiskey
into the session and i'm sober-tense...
i'm starting to think that entertaining
hell is not a bad "gimmick"...
                  there's the imaginary hell-crowd
and there' some also doubly-imaginary
crowd of people that yet to be bound to imitation-migration
focus...
           next time you ask me:
i'd rather be eating ice: crunching on
ice than drinking water...
i want to burn my tongue...
licking ice...l i want to burn my tongue
licking ice: but first i want to be dipping
it in coridnader-cumin-chilli-turmeric mix-up
of spiders...

i want to first bruise my knees before
i lick them clean...
i want the strict juices of: not tomatoes?
red is red: ergo blood is blood...
vulture ****...
there's an open window:
there's an evaporating night too...

best refrain: 6 by 6s refrain on 9s...
since? there's plenty of 0s / oopses...
by this "flesh and blood"...
i heave this sand and timer
like: i was sadly woken up with
an inheritance of salt...
boiling blue bloods and boiling gravy...
a smile that reads: clenched teeth...
a smile so awkward that
it make^ a parrot think twice about
imitating human speech.

^a notable typo, i think i might require an editor
(insert a snigger); two alternatives:
1. it might make a parrot think twice,
2. a smile so awkward that it makes a parrot think twince...
all depending on the tense.

60 sunshines, 59 nightfalls till I face the day
40 topics held in to regurgitate,
**** and span for the marker man to give a brother a break.

Wait, I ain't done
Got anxiety about two more chores in head
Not to ***** and moan but *******
Getting tired of this ****
What's the point to push if you don't know where to go
Blindful blissful ignorance?

They say, and you go.
What subject?
What ever is most respected.
What job?
What ever brings financial comfort.
What about this?
Nah, you ain't good at that.

And so you sulk ever so distracted
Hearing the drip drop taps, splat on to the sink.
The metallic ting of the radiator reverberates as dormant inner silence sings.
Forever more.
A didactic sore for the ears,
Apologies in advance,
Though regardless you must hear it.

Never run to please others
Rather, focus and listen to the deep.

They would have given a lot
those paste-skinned kids
with straw for hair
and knobby knees
Not that frail— it seems

Beneath grayish strings
through black rims
one cracked lens screams—
Gets nothing!
Changes nothing!
Ritual words fall—
a rusted refrigerator
shoved over a railing from the second floor

Barking dogs tied to the radiator of misery
fed on rough-house excuses for kindness

Why do people keep children?

Larger than average eyes
huge foreheads of genetic wrong
******* childhood downstairs
while mother is sleeping
I can get used to the smell of cats
Human ***** is not so—
different?
and if I didn’t change my clothes for a week

What do children know?

Jenny cuddles a starving kitten
then releases it to where
they disappear...
one generation after another
Famished eyes
devour anything offered
words...food...***...God

Screams from the mats of string and gray
Scald the frantic instant badly
I watch her bolt beyond explanation
Night gives no reason to let her live....

My faith went the way the kittens go
Hope and a small girl
blend beyond blackness

I stopped as I went
past RDU International.

I killed the engine
next to a sky plastered
to a lake.

With a thousand wilting
banana trees
in the back,
and a needle jumping
in the red,
I came to a stop.

Planes scoured the sky with their screeching,
soured the lake
with their contrails,
the geese watching from the middle of the lake
in flotillas
idling in the heat
because it was too hot to move.

If I didn't get these bananas back to the nursery,
they'd die.

Taking out a gallon jug,
I walked to the shoreline
and reached in between reeds,
and cattails and contrails
and cirrus in globs of clay
to lift the water to the radiator.

As I poured the water
into the radiator,
I knew that humanity
is neither the geese, the truck,
or the airplane,
humanity is the needle.

Miles and miles of ink black tarmac...

'Faster', I squeal with excitement.
Your eyes light up
Headlights bright in the dark.
A huge satisfied smile stretches across your face,
Cheshire cat grin.

We vault into the night
Destination least of our worries.
Your eyes catch mine for a second,
I relish the thoughts that pass between us, some of them aching to break the skin.
You are mine and I can't think of anything else I could possibly need.

I watch the ice form tiny road maps across the window.
You try and count the months we have left on this earth.
I am warm, though our bodies are not touching.
I reach for your hand
It burns into my palm.

"...Igitur quantitates relativae non sunt eae ipsae quantitates quarum nomina prae se ferunt, sed earum mensurae illae sensibilis (verae an errantes) quibus vulgus loco mensuratarum utitur..."
--D. Isaaci Newtoni.

Time did not relent under the force of speculation.  The only trees that could be seen were in the photographs beyond the reach of the faltering jeep.  Although it was claimed that such a rugged machine would endure the longer journeys, truth explained that the truck had grown old.  It had a ferocious grill to protect the radiator.

cos ln q ( u ) d P d e = mu chi v ( w ) d ( y , par Z ) d ( x , hyp N ) .

The sense of protection fended off any result of error on the highway.  Basic footing expressed the hardness, and the light, floating away, came from electric lamps, like eyes, glowing through dust.  The name of the purpose implied that sensitive eyes disliked the sudden splash of illumination.  It was true; the passengers did not like the expectation of more to come.  The new engines were stronger and ran cooler.

A Burner on the Bridge

A burner on the bridge.  A human burns,
Trapped in technology and beer and fire
We hear the cold dispatch, the desperate call
To go, to see, to mend, if possible
We drive.  The flashers, blue and red, rotate
In the startled faces of those we pass
At speed, Hail Mary speed, surreal speed
Time, motion, space, and light obscure the night

In a pattern tail lights wink dim, then bright
Stalled traffic makes a long glowworm in reds
Boats, trailers, trucks, tankers, Volkswagens, Fords,
People in shorts drift around, slug Cokes, laugh
Unshaven men smoke cigarettes and swear
Blue-haired killers in Chrysler New Yorkers
Blink blankly through bifocals in the glare
Of flashers and flashlights, flares and taillights.
A burner on the bridge.  A Human burns.

We drive slowly through the curious crowds
Who mill about and stare and point and laugh
They consider a charred corpse fair reward
For being delayed on their trip home from the lake
When they ‘rive home they’ll hoist stories and yip:
“I was there; I seen it, man; it was gross!”
But some already are anxious to go
They honk, and pop a top, and cuss the cops.
A burner on the bridge.  A human burns.

Below the bridge, old, silent water lurks
Oozing warmly, fetidly, in its drift
Slithering blackly in the warm spring night
A silent observer of fire and death
A carrier of beer cans and debris,
Radiator coolant, plastic, and blood
Concrete pylons pounded into the mud
Where once were trees.  And now the water sees
A burner on the bridge.  A human burns.

The bridge is an altar.  The wreckages
Are vessels sacred to our gods, the dead
Are sacrifices to our gods, an incense of death
Our offering is broken flesh, and blood:
“The is my body, burnt on this spring night;
This is my blood, shed on the center stripe.
A burner on the bridge.  A human burns.

A shapeless hat among the smoking ash,
Old clothes, a shoe, cans of beer, fishing lures:
The sad trifles and trinkets of the dead
Now, firemen in their yellow rubber suits
Climb slowly through the tortured, broken steels
And gently stow a man into a bag
Ashes and smoke, green radiator fluid
The old river flows, wherever it goes.
A burner on the bridge.  A human burned.

Hours later: coffee at the Dairy Queen
High school baseball players yelp cheerfully as
They wreck fast cars in a video game.
Under the fluorescents, the flashers seem
Still to turn, endlessly turn, in the night
Hamburgers, possibly char-broiled, are gulped
Sloppily, laughingly, as cleated feet
And deep-fried breath cheer a video death.
A burner on the bridge.  A human burned.

A burner on the bridge.  A human burned.

Glances in passing and nothingness,
I'll drop out and take up gardening.
And you are so cool, all German bred,
and sometimes braided. I see you, so
well-read and rather regal. ***** blonde
nuclear, alabaster, aluminum rods -
electricity dripping from the soles of
your shoes. This classroom, my own
ink blotted incubator, the radiator sits,
flatlining. Your jaw as two razor blades,
your shoulder blades, broad, gentle.

I wonder how you look in the morning,
How you look at yourself in the mirror.
Do you practice smiling, and
how often do you wash your hair? Oh,
you exist in glass, and I will not try to
know you. Leaving this poem limited,
and yet. Your jam drop mouth houses all
well-spoken soliloquies, radical requiems.

So, what would happen if we brushed
shoulders in passing? Your little accent.
Accident, we appeared in the same
huddled mass. Literary plugs in the
drain, and your new American. So,
why don't we just go walking on
airplane wings? Some transcontinental
affair. Frequent flyer *******, stranger.

I am reading this poem,
late, in the snug familiarity of my bed,
with gentle night-light and sable night-sky,
stars swimming beyond the glass,
warm breaths fogging up the panes.
I am reading this poem,
curled on a beanbag in a library with her my by side,
breaths stirring against my skin,
like the winds of time, of change, taking me away from here.
I am reading this poem,
in a room that is abound with remembrance and days gone by,
where the bedclothes are heaped, fresh and steaming with warmth,
with the same freedom that the open valise speaks of,
a journey ending in success, a triumphant flight.
I am reading this poem,
as the underground train screeches to a halt,
and before heading up the stairs,
towards the love that life has bestowed on me.
I am reading this poem,
by the glow of the laptop screen,
where the headlines flash and flicker,
for once, joy is splashed across the monitor.
I am reading this poem in a waiting room,
of meeting eyes and crinkling smiles, more friends than strangers,
without fear.
I am reading this poem by firelight,
in the simple joy and jubilation of the young who know they matter,
and live with hope and inner liberation, from the earliest of ages.
I am reading this poem,
freed of the curved lenses, the cloudy cataracts,
and I can see the letters for what they are and I read on,
because this freedom is precious.
I am reading this poem as I sit by the radiator,
the milk is already warm (electricity isn’t cut these days)
child in my arms, book in my hand,
because life is waiting for me to live it,
knowing it is never too short or too long but just right.
I am reading this poem not in my language,
while she sits at my side and helps me translate,
because tongues are free to roam now.
I am reading this poem listening for something,
stopping to savour the taste of freedom,
to be able to refuse the task I cannot turn to.
I am reading this poem because I can,
and there is so much left to read
I have now and forever,
to soar untamed with wings unclipped, clothed as I am.

Manhattan by line,
by subway track purr,
by foot in a midwinter
fresh, gale force air.

The dying battery in
Times Square's wristwatch,
halts hands in mid air,
each hailing the second taxi
that comes to them
every next minute;
definitely in the next ten.

Buried benches in thigh high
snow look lost, with
only their branching tops
on display for the tourist's show,
tramping through
this January snow.

Double-back, back
past the Chipotle store,
where diners stand and eat,
stand and greet,
stand with napkins to appear neat,
stand near the radiator to warm their feet,
stand-in-the-corner-and-text-your-wife-saying-you'll-be-hom­e-late-because-this-meaty-wrap-is-pleasurable-to-eat.

He was with another woman, kissing her cheek.

Manhattan is a horizon of horizontal lines,
drawn by pencil lead, led up a page
to create this fascinating portrait
that a point-and-click-camera
cannot comprehend,
let alone negotiate.

We can go unnoticed there, like
most others in this gale force air,
but billboard boys-
the ones that braid ****** building hair,
window panes
and balcony balustrade-
are the famous ones
of Broadway, with nothing more
than their commercial stare.

The librarian walks around.
I look to my right and see a classmate watching videos on youtube about boards of canada, if she looks to her right there's a girl looking at her cellphone, the video has bicycles.
The people in the main hall can be heard all the way on the other side of the library.
I took no pictures today even though I brought my analog photocameras, there is no visual recording of this day.
I look to my left and see a large flatbed scanner, it says EPSON in big capitals and in smaller capitals it says "GT-20000".
The artworks behind the window looking into the hallway look partly improvised and partly thought out.
The reflection of a grey sky can be seen when looking up.
I think it should rain but the clouds seem reluctant to do so.
I will try to write a song today.
The brown artwork is a tree with roots.
I think that is a bit much.
The clicking subsides.
The librarian remains silent, with a sporadic amount of mouse-clicks to break up the quiet atmosphere.
I don't know what the song should be about, in fact I would like it to be about nothing which is something not easily done.
The silvery-blue artwork is made of old plastic bottles.
I liked it, it was great though I am not a fan of the cgi blood used in some scenes.
I can forgive them for it.
I am anton, I am a man in my late twenties.
The large television in the library is turned off.
The noise in the background is noticable.
The door of the toilet is opened and a girl with heavy dark make up steps trough and makes her way back to her work.
The scarf is plaid, red.
I rode my bicycle to my university, the road was broken up and I had to be creative in my driving.
I remember that my classmate records the traces of people trough frottage, it's interesting.
The fingers of students on keyboards seem to tickle my eardrums, they are a bit intrusive.
I will stay in school for dinner.
The white artwork is skeletal and weblike at the same time.
The words are on the wall and on the glass window.
I visited my personal coach who helps me in school, we discussed my plans for the weeks.
The amount of sentences should equal 26.
The noise of typing shortly intensifies.
The words released onto youtube spell titles of songs. 14
I am wondering what to do next.
I am wearing Adidas shoes, they were considered cool when my ex's uncle gave them to me as a present; I felt reluctant to take them.
I visit a university where I study arts.
The head of the author is filled with chaotic thoughts.
I think my classmate has a funny way of typing, she seems to be talking to a friend on facebook and I am not creepy at all.
The internet seems slow.
I think about the amount of documents that must have been scanned on the machine, there are scratches on it.
The voices can be recognized.
I saw monkey heads.
The cables of the computer hang against my feet and are slightly irritating.
The girl next to me changed between videos.
I signed up for a few courses, my academy requires it's students to do so.
I eat and drink at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The library is lukewarm.
I notice that my fingers already hurt from typing, or maybe from sending text messages from my phone.
The radiator makes a low rumbling noise.
I record stories and poems on casette tapes, they find their way into simple installations.
The garbage bin is empty.
I watched the first episode of Ash VS Evil this morning.
I am warm, I am wearing a leather jacket and a fleece vest over a brown t-shirt.

You towed your broken down
beat up, used, rusted old
Chevy into my workshop
smelling like crap, and looking a whole lot worse
she had a busted engine
sputtered like a plane
(but not in a good way)
you leaked black oil all over my floors
stains of which I still can’t remove
no matter how many gallons of bleach I use
the radiator, well let’s just say
had seen better days
the interior leather seats were torn
and the once slick body
looked like you had *******
some mafia kingpin
so I spent my days and nights
greased up and elbow deep,
in your muck trying desperately,
but lovingly
to do what a mechanic does best
and I was leaking time
like I owned it, when I could’ve
should’ve found a more profitable fixer upper
I told myself, no convinced myself otherwise
and eventually, against the odds,
fixed you
then some schmo walks in
a bulging from both pockets
from wads of cash
and grabs you right outta my hands
the you I returned
to a shiny beauty as best I could
with the tools I had
well then, maybe I did fix you
I just never realised, I was doing it
for someone else.

could i be your several puppies
all i want is you'r hands
on my head all i want is a lot of your hands to
scratch all of my puppy heads
and right behind the ears My puppies eears
i don't mean to hide away from
you i promise i'm not mad im just
afraid of the lightning
and the vacuum too
and sometimes the sound of the radiator
why is it so loud
it sounds like monsters
everything is monsters and you are sweet
your hands on my puppy heads you
are so sweet

i once dated a boy who found it "adorable" that i know how to change my headlights
     fill my radiator
     change the oil
     and notice every stopsign as i'm halfway through it
he dumped me via text

before that
there was a boy who loved my lack of first person capitalization
     my over-use of metaphores and similies
     the way i personify the night
     and practice preforming poetry in the shower
he took off into the sunset with my journal in his shoulder-sack

and somewhere in between
i stopped asking myself what it means
threw up my hands
     and learned to enjoy the ride

it’s windy i think,
at least the windows are rattling.

the men in hard hats,
yellow motes off in the distance
and their jackets the colour
of poison,

they scale the façade
of the contralateral building.

they’re speaking, yelling,
probably catcalling, singing
their ugly songs on cherry pickers
like some crowned nest
of wagtails.

it’s early i think,
though the lights are always on.

they’re fluorescent, staining,
unflattering colouration, rinse
your skin to poverty,
to jaundice.

i’m here because of pills
i’m here because school is out,
i’m here because i’m tired
and i’m here because of you.

flowers sit at the side,
already dry upon purchase.

gifted awkwardly;
do we give flowers to a man?
a boy in sheets, foolish drunkard,
balloons with helium
to lift my spirits.

its lonely i think,
though it’s filled with people.

wristcutter, lupus, chemo
all thrown into one.
we’re what’s left post-production,
left to sit in an outlet store;

buy me for half-price
or else half an hour of company.

i’m the young one,
nurses scan me with motherly eyes,
the radiator warmth,
their rounded bosoms,
‘you remind me of someone’.

at twelve to three, she washes me,
asks me to lift my *****
so she can get at the two-day grime
of indolence.

it’s sad here i think,
at least the television is boring.

daytime ghosts and broken families
make my bedsheets gain weight;
even the balloon sags
in heavy misery,
nothing is mine.

sleep comes in fits
and starts in blankness.

it ends with my questioning
of where the dream began
and where hope had perished.

you haven’t come,
i knew that you wouldn't.

it’s hard to blame you,
what with my post-use pinings
long after you’d given up
and the way i act familiar
after treating you like a stranger.

i long to leave here,
so much the windows are rattling.

i’m here because i am
i’m here because of my job,
i’m here because i’m tired
i’m tired because of you.

The doorknob to the closet
full of my skeletons is made of
funny-bone

But there are days
when honesty tugs a little too roughly and
I realize this isn't all that funny now
Is it?

As a writer
You learn presentation is key
In the bend of language
I create this man
I want you to believe me to be

And so I tell you these stories
like they are jokes
Like they are no big deal

Like the first time I got drunk
was with my friend's mom
who was a known child molester
She tried to order us ****
But couldn't work the cable

Or my friends and I used to travel our city
via the water drainage system
Near the mall
We got lost once
and while standing
in ankle high water
we saw at least 20 homeless people
sleeping on pallets
We called that place *** City
We had to get directions back out

There's a possibilty I have been an accessory to ******
Around the time in my life when I learned
How not to dwell

My body was a wishbone
My father meant to break
But every beating
left me the better half

I find so much of it funny

My brother's most recent suicide attempt
My mother's
My father's Alzheimer's

He once chased after our mailman
naked
Asking him about some letter
from some woman
I have never met before

I find laughter
and beauty
in the bend of language

When this chest becomes a broken radiator
and my heart grows cold
The metaphor mutates Campfire

Come here
I am lonely
and I have a story to tell you

I tried to quit smoking last week. And my best friend died for eighteen hours. Such a deep loss has only been felt by rose hips, in the early winter, after the petals have fallen to the ground, like snow, like jumpers from high-rise buildings, like a maiden, after that last, fatal step off the plank, with swords at her back, and the horizon calling to her, the song of the Sirens drifting up from the ocean floor. Dropping, like petals, caught in a harsh winter breeze. The left-overs, the carcases of the flowers that were and are no more, watch with eyes of sorrow and hearts of lead, as each friend, companion, lover, even casual aquaintance plummets, to land on the already frozen soil of a dead, snowless, Colorado winter.
I died with my friend. My roots were tangled, and with each second that passed, a million axes took bites out of them, feasting on my identity. The axes were only gold-plated, it would seem, and not pure, unadulterated precious metal. Engraved in the paper-thin facade was a name, a face, and a hope, all of which were merely a poor excuse for an excersise in willpower. The cold, iron blade shone through the thin, gently curved lines of lip and ear and eye made of nebula. With each breath that passed between loosely parted lips, I felt myself fade, giving my everthing to the world (hope, name, face) that had, only moments before, murdered my closest companion.
My eyes grew steadily hard, increased stone-content. By 6:30, I had been staring into the eyes of my mistress, Medusa, for at least two hours, my head filled with love songs and daydreams, clutching straws and holding out for the one perfect moment that would shed a brief light on my life, which is, in all reality, the afformentioned pirate ship, but void of lamps, candles, or any other means of illumination.
Questions flowed to the surface of my disjointed mind in a stream, a river, an oceanic current of molten rock and sloppy second guesses.
(Will one hurt? Half? Just one puff? Why? Why? Why?)
And as I turned to stone, I finally found the courage to answer one of the questions that my brain shot itself with, injected into its own blood stream. The question was the sole bullet in a revolving, high-stakes betting game, the answer, the fourth trigger pull, with only two chances left anyway.
(Because... I don't know why...)
So stand up, go to the place you have thought about two-million times, and, yes, smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.
As my friend rose from the dead, pushing aside the boulder blocking the entrance to its tomb, which everyone knew was just a temporary tenement, and we were reunited, we spoke of fascists. Well, I spoke of fascists, it listened. I spoke of the kind of fascists that exist in grayscale television commercials, spewing ingnorant words about the untimely deaths of beloved family members, who give me ***** looks in public, and have forced me into alleyways, across streets, out of sight, out of mind, to the back of the bus, as if non-smokers live forever, as if everyone can accomplish said impossible feat, if not for the evil plant, the evil spiritual plant that poses a threat to the well-ordered religious structures, pyres built for martyrs and long-dead saviors.
I have only begged for eternity once, and I was very young, with years of rocks and hard places ahead, only pink clouds behind, and eyes incapable of foresight. This boy ate apples, and drew on his arms with black pen every Sunday. Go into the church clean, bathed, come out with temorary full-sleeve tattoos. This boy was made of wonder, myth, and blind acceptance. No longer.
I have now gazed into an eternity made of open graves, lost loves, and harsh, barbed-wire truths, punctuated with sharp, jabbing exclamation points of brief pleasure that only seem to make the reality of eternity worse. I am a *******, and even I don't want that. A body can only function for so long without sleep before the motor wears out, the radiator breaks, the gasket leaks, and the marbles flee from the growing insanity of their owner. We all need to rest eventually, and in my secret mind - the one that grimaces with sick pleasure and only shows its teeth in the lines of a poem, slightly blurred by metaphor - I long for that sleep. I am tired, but the day is only half done. But each sun sets, and we can not deny it that truth, that sensation of finality that settles upon senile eyes like a cataract, that snuggles against warm, pink lungs in all its black, tar-like splendor.
Truth, like so many other things in this solar system, only takes shape when under the eye of a microscope, with a passive viewer sewn to the end of it, with the sole intention of passing judgement before shouting "NEXT," and repeating the process untill they either run out of things to judge (blame, think, guilt-trip) or die.
So, smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette. Puff, puff, puff it and let us hope they never get to either of us, old friend.

The empty beer cans that you used to defy gravity
They empty shampoo canisters that washed away your wrath and loss
The empty notebooks not filled with the poetry you weren’t inspired enough to write
The pages of books you couldn’t finish but pretend you did
The lost shoes and who you where with you feet deep in grass and not cardboard
The bed you don’t sleep in because you have found a warmth the don’t sterilize
The roommate who things didn’t fill up your cupboards now designated for other objects
The roads you don’t drive because you have nowhere to go

Life is in the muffled noises you hear between rooms
The nights you didn’t take pictures
The ones you don’t remember even though they shaped your exact being
The times you felt boring
Or when you didn’t realize how many substances you were on
Or the papers you could have made genius  
The empty boxes of hairdye that washed out in a week and didn’t cure your suburban binality
The dumb tattoos you want to get but now would be a shameful laser treatment
Your daydreams that never came true
Your daydreams that always came true and somehow didn’t lead up to there power of inception

Life is in other peoples good nights
Other people dark pasts of drug abuse and  civil unrest in the **** of an earthquake
Life is in the drug you where afraid to do
In the lies that you tell to become a different person
Its in the people you treated like **** for your own guilty needs
Its in the people whose gritty *** you walked in on

Life is in your lack of passions or skills or drive or organization
Its in the stupid ironic thift store choices you don’t throw away but never wear for 99 cents
Its in all the time you didn’t sing in a crowd
And you let someone convince you of facts you knew where wrong
It in every liar, and ****** human being you defined inorder to not believe they were ****
Its in every used ****** of the one night stands that made miserable times but good stories
Its in *** length hair
In tongue scars
In the people who know too much about you and you have know idea

Life is in your love of things you hate
In empty coffee cups that once saved you in a moment of weakness
In all the tears you shed drunk
Its in all you temporary obsessions and forgotten hobbies
The greeting cards you didn’t read and the thank you you never gave

Life is in the person you thought you would be right now
The empty packs of stubbed cigarettes
The forgotten names and anonymous snuggles
The empty guns and unfolded knives
The unmailed letters that help you reach redemption by telling them you would never forget

Life is in the times you didn’t run to the wild
The people who weren’t who you thought
The soul mates that became frat brothers
Or those people who drifted because you didn’t no what to say anymore

Life is in our unbrushed teeth
Or the void you cant find
Or the puzzle piece hid under the radiator
Life is in the wine bottles we stack

Life is in what we treat as forgotten streaming unconscious waste
Because we always looked ahead, and to empty more that will never fill

I left photograph albums of her out on
    the coffee table
Thinking the neighbours might like to
    see and so, celebrate her life
Her youthful days spent at home,
playing among the fields, by the river,
In the little country village where she
  lived,
Her time in England and in America,
Her joys, her loves, her hopes,
I thought it was a good idea.
But when the neighbours came by
They talked only of their own families,
    their kids
About their hobbies and what Clubs
   they were in & what they were doing
      the weekend,
About their cars and how big they
    were
What horsepower the engine was,
They talked of Life and of getting on
    with life
And enjoying life,
Maybe they had it right, trying to be
    positive in the face of sorrow
It must have been awkward for them,
Maybe it was my own fault too, for not
    drawing their attention to them (the
        photograph albums)
But I was busy getting drinks, making
    sandwiches, serving tea
(And had a fair bit of drink taken
    myself by then)
But the photograph albums they were
left their untouched, not a single page
was turned like no one was interested
Like no one wanted to know, like no
    one cared at all
I thought it kind of sad, and my Dad
    who had sat there silently for a long
       time
Listening to what was being said
Suddenly got up and walked out in a
    bit of a huff.

We needed a suit of clothes to lay her
    out in, in the coffin,
I thought rather foolishly I suppose,
    that I should put them on the
     radiator first to warm them
It would be cold in that coffin, and colder still down in that deep dark
    clay.

In the Nursing Home she had
    complained of being very hot
I used to take her in a little tub of ice
    cream
And give her a few teaspoons every
    night,
Now when I open the freezer door,
    there's still one tub left inside
The last one, the final one I'd brought
    in
But never used, that same fateful night
    she died.

It's funny but I try not to think of her
    that much
Because I know if I did, it'd only upset
    me, make me all sad & teary eyed
And I'd be no good then, no use to
    anyone,
There's a time and a place I suppose, a
    time and a place to grieve... to
         remember.
I know she wouldn't have liked to see
    me that way either,
She would have wanted me to get on
    with my own life
She used tell me, "Don't waste your
    time on me, my life is over now,
        my days are done,
It's your turn now, go live your own
    life and find your own happiness".

It only hits you when you go into her
    room & see her clothes still hanging
       there
And you realize she's not around
    anymore to wear them,
I bought a lot of them for her myself
Used to embarrass me going into the
    Ladies Section to get her stuff
The pyjamas, their the saddest, they
    hurt the most
The ones with the little woolly sheep
    on them, the ones with the nice
        bunnies
( Heh! they always used to joke I had
    such poor taste)
The one with the bright red flowers
And the one with the little penguins
    on skis
With the scarves wrapped around
    their necks.

We had to write a final farewell
   message to put on a card
To go on the bouquet on her coffin
I struggled at first, looking over at my
    brothers, not knowing what to say,
My mind, as always, wanted to say the
     'right' thing
But luckily, my heart got in the way
I said, I wrote " Thanks for all the
    Years Mom,
It was a great pleasure knowing you,
Enjoy the next life, you deserve to,
I'll be seeing you! "

Headlights, LED's, burning bright
Into my retinas, reflected in rear view
And side mirrors, a radiator grill just
Visible, almost the outline of a person
Behind the wheel, androgynous ghost,
Mad Max or just mad, determined
To drive to wherever, faster than
Anyone else, cocooned in black leather
Heads up display laid out across sweeping
Digital dashboard, vying to pass me;
But what of the queue plainly ahead
Stretching to far horizon, vanishing point,

Perhaps it is supernatural, absorbing traffic
Clearing the way by passing through it,
An alien craft with technology far
Advanced from our slow turning wheels
Selfishly driving alone in our home from
Home interiors, gathering subjects
For an out of this world experience
Or maybe a time machine
Like Back to the Future powered by flux
Capacitor, it will disappear and turn up
Ahead of all of us, or maybe my imagination
Has run riot and it's just another impatient
Idiot.