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Maggie Emmett Jul 2015
PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi
This poem is part of a longer poem called Seasons of Terror. This poem was performed at the University of Adelaide, Bonython Hall as a community event. The poem was read by local poets, broadcasters, personalities and politicians from the South Australia Parliament and a Federal MP & Senator. The State Premier was represented by the Hon. Michael Atkinson, who spoke about the role of the Emergency services in our society. The Chiefs of Police, Fire and Ambulence; all religious and community organisations' senior reprasentatives; the First Secretary of the British High Commission and the general public were present. It was recorded by Radio Adelaide and broadcast live as well as coverage from Channel 7 TV News. The Queen,Tony Blair, Australian Governor General and many other public dignitaries sent messages of support for the work being read. A string quartet and a solo flautist also played at this event.
Thomas Thurman Nov 2010
I watched from Farringdon as Satan fell;
I’ve battled for my soul at Leicester Square;
I’ve laid a ghost with Oystercard and bell;
I’ve tracked the wolf of Wembley to his lair;
I’ve drawn Heathrow’s enchantment in rotation;
at Bank I played the devil for his fare;
I laugh at lesser modes of transportation.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

The Waterloo and City cast its spell;
I watched it slip away, and could not care,
the Northern Line descending into hell
until King’s Cross was more than I could bear;
he left me there in fear for my salvation,
a Mansion House in heaven to prepare:
so why return to any lesser station?
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

Three days beneath the earth in stench and smell
I lay, and let the enemy beware:
I learned the truth of tales the children tell:
an Angel plucked me homeward by the hair,
to glory from the depths of condemnation,
to where I started long ago from where
I missed my stop through long procrastination.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.

Prince of the buskers, sing your new creation:
the change you ask is more than I can spare;
a change of spirit, soul, imagination.
I change at Aldgate East because it’s there.
Bother, I've got it wrong again. Ballades are ababbcbc, not ababcbcb. I think this can be saved anyway.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
i've noticed that, upon ushering words from the depth
of nothing, or as an interlude in Knausgaard's day-to-day
musing in vol. 6 after inviting Geir over:
this "i" or that "i" or for that matter "my" i...
however you want to frame it...
    i noticed that if i allow myself an evening of not writing...
esp. on an electric screen for someone else to see...
if for example i lay down to go to sleep...
not exactly asleep: dart out of bed and scribble something
on a piece of paper for only me to see...
i will still dream...
but if i sit down and face the electric screen:
pixels like the eyes of a fly... for someone else to see?
i don't dream...
   otherwise... having scribbled down the following
on a piece of paper:

   exploring Heidegger's dasein in another language...
my native, which i will translate into English,
basically prepositional coordination of(f) being
off not necessarily implying non-being -
perhaps merely: being-in-itself or rather the other...

tu-być : be-here
              to-bycie : this-being
ten-byt :                      ditto
although: nuance... there is a distinction...

i also scribbled down something i heard a long
time ago about how Russia, India and China are
re-orientating themselves with the slacking of the western
influence on: whatever it was that the west had
for the past three decades beside
proxy wars, collateral damages and "culture"...

i heard the term: post-ethnic-nationalism
post-ethno-state post-nation-state...
ergo: multiculturalism... which, oddly enough:
i can't come to grips with trying if not trying to
pretend to be a native of these isles -
perhaps it might be a shock for someone outside
of London - but in London it's almost
second nature to... be surrounded by people
from all around the world...
needless to say: the natives are not so disgruntled
once they're sitting all pretty-cherry on top
of some hierarchy: esp. in the journalistic
opinion sections of the Saturday / Sunday magazine...
then it's an open bonanza against
the "lower class racists" and what not...
i can't be an anti-racist: after all...
                                     anti-racists once produced
a schematic for us to learn from in primary school...
which shower the size of brains of...
a white person, a black person and a racist...
and some other brains...
the racist's brain was under-developed:
smaller...                                      ­ really?!

anyway... so Russia, India and China have opted for
what has come to be known as the:
civilization-state...
                                     given the ongoing zeitgeist
******* blowing up in the Anglophone world from
H'america... the culture-war(?!) -
i would bet fairly and say that pretty much all
former nation-states of western Europe
and beyond are currently in a state of morphing
into: buzz buzzword: being - culture-states...

but whereas a civilization-state seems an abrupt
optimal to counter and disagreement with regards
to continuity: civilisations don't merely come and go...
whereas cultures do...
   culture is somehow a totality of the little things
in life... fashion, the arts, politics, faux pas innuendos,
trends, diet...
that's culture and some...
but civilisation? to me that's like saying...
the foundation of Rome was the creation
of the aqueducts...
                  civilisation to me is like saying:
the British Empire and the steam-engine...
civilisation to me, London, exclusively is... the tube...
the underground network...

seriously... i don't need to go to a West End Play
i don't need to go and see Ed Sheeran play
to a sold out Wembley stadium of 100,000+ people
(although, i did, even though i did because
i worked a shift there doing security,
so, technically i didn't, but did)
            i don't need culture... as such...

all i need to do is first, do a shift at Craven Cottage...
hope that the Elizabeth Line won't be working
travel on the Central Line from Newbury Park all
the way to Holborn... and then blah blah...
instead of trying to look at the tired faces opposite
me admire the map of the Central Line
(it's a toss-up between the Central Line map,
or the District, Northern or Piccadilly)
and then, on some sunny day... get my bicycle
out... and bicycle for most of the route... notably...
skewing... merging at Fairlop working my way
through Barkingside, coming to Gants Hill
then less of the tube route (mind you...
between Leyton and Stratford it's pretty
much over-ground) -
   and then from Stratford - through to Mile End...
from Mile End via Whitechapel... to Aldgate...
from Aldgate to St. Paul's... Chancery Lane...
Holborn... rat beneath the ground:
like a rat needs a bicycle -
   well this rat is no hamster: hence the bicycle
and not a hamster-wheel...

what culture? movies?! i tried watching something
relevant to the 1980s today... ***** Dancing...
great soundtrack but... cringe!
that's even before Malcolm X and how inter-racial
inter-****** relations had to be the new norm:
i mean: ******* fair play...
    building the new Brazil -
    but i still think there's an under-representation
(and isn't everyone supposed to get a fair share
of representation) of white boy Romanian girl
(Roma, gypsy) or white boy Turkish girl...
   or white boy half-white half-Indian girl...

i know i will not dream tonight because someone
will see this...
my little itchy thoughts, my freed from the reins
"i" that doesn't really have these words clogging
up its mind - only until the itching of the fingers starts
and i have a blessed day...
like today...

why is it that a Saturday evening can feel like
a Sunday evening?
oh, right... i made steak for dinner tonight...
potato wedges (skins on, first boiled until
the the water started boiling, turned off, soaking
for 5 min, drained, olive oil, cajun pepper sprinkle,
into the oven)
    and some baked vegetables:
leeks, carrots, parsley root, red onions,
celeriac, swede... balsamic vinegar,
    sambal, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper,
sugar (i stopped using honey,
   it sticks to the baking tray plus the vegetables
lose their crunch, and vegetables need their crunch)...
2 steaks (456g total) shared between three people...
seasoned with sea salt and grain black pepper
(i prefer pepper grains than pepper powder,
i.e. pockets of explosion of that spice)
    3 min each side... a perfect medium-rare blush...

however the Indians might sell their spices...
chillies etc. there's still something wholesome
when it comes to eating certain types of food...
given that... i wouldn't be eating beef in India:
i wouldn't be seasoning beef with chillies!
that's why pepper is important...
that's why horseradish is important...
i let most of the Indians slip up: oooh! the Europeans
didn't have any spices...
apart from thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender,
mint... pepper, horseradish, i#m sure we
were also familiar with cumin seeds -
as well as that anise-seed that' not the star
(i forgot the name of it, it looks like
a cumin seed, but fatter, and split down
the middle - green) oh and of course:
plenty of salt...
what's all the spices in the world in the culinary world...
IF, YOU, AIN'T, GOT - SALT?!
   (if you don't have... i know i know...)

it's rather bewildering talking to certain Asians...
although, saying that...
most of Eastern Europe had plenty of interaction
with Asians, namely the Mongols
and the Turks - which the western Europeans
sort of... "forgot"... after Darwinism they
skipped over Asia and went straight back
to Africa... personally? i feel more akin to Asians
(esp. the oriental folk) than i do with anyone
from Africa... however Christianity was born...
after all: what's the definition of a white man?
Caucasian? and where's the Caucus?
Asia... Europe was always going to be
a funnel - a bottle-neck continent -
a port... a departing point...
       perhaps we shouldn't be so clingy to it...
unless of course:
   oh the parody of Jesus never came out of
Europe: "we" had to wait for it coming from
North America, but by then it was no longer
a parody of Jesus but a parody of North American
Christianity... a North American parody of Jesus
is... oddly enough... a European parody
of North American Christianity: via Jesus...

which brings me to another thing... only upon
doing a shift at Craven Cottage did i first hear
the parakeets... never before...
     i'm not going to bloat my ego this much but...
since then i've seen an article on Wikipedia that
i never saw before, the article just appeared out of
nowhere: feral parakeets of England...
subsequently... only a day ago:
you're only here for the parrots, fans chant
as birds swarm Leyton Orient pitch (Evening Standard
4 hours ago)
and bare conker trees overrun by bright green
parakeets make them seem vibrant despite leafless
branches (Daily Mail, 3 days ago, somewhere
in south London)...

today i was given the chance to walk back into my old
haunt... as much as i love cycling...
it's sometimes refreshing to walk...
the slowing of pace, the horizon almost intact...
more so... if walking into a forest...
Bower Wood... i know it is a curated wood...
it's not as feral as the pine woods of Eastern Europe...
but: if life gives you X... you make XY...
x = lemons, y = juice ergo xy = lemon juice...

i'm pretty sure i was familiar with this wood...
i was out hunting for souvenirs for my mother to dress
the table / fake deer antennas for candles to sit in...
holy, some other greenery with black berries...
i was hunting for ferns, almost near impossible
given this time of year... found some! bright blush
of childish envy... oh... and birches...
some oak barks fallen off... just me alone in the forest...
i was so thankful by myself...
but usually i heard crows, magpies and woodland
pigeons... but now?! parakeets?!
here?! now?! parrots in winter in these parts?!

i swear the world is standing-up-side-down...
it's hard not to miss an under-current of a serious
pagan revival weaving and slithering its way through
Europe: if only you care to listen...
i switched off from whatever is available in culture
these days... i know that what i'm listening to
will not gain popular traction...
i can walk into the forest and... there's the forest...
i go back home... cook dinner...
go into my bedroom, open a bottle of cider
thinking: no champagne will beat this...
put on a record akin to...
Heilung's TENET and... hey presto!

                       i was in company of a good friend:
someone already dead who...
i don't know how someone can lose themselves
in the forest... pareidolia...
   you can sometimes see paths already trodden...
unseen but somehow: you can see a "ghost"
of a foot here and there...
    you know: you just KNOW where a human foot
prior to yours once treaded...
there are patterns... better sticking with pareidolia than
the iconoclasm of celebrity...
i always thought that was better...
i like to think i'm in the company of strange
creatures: phantoms of my mind...
but hardly! how can these be phantoms of my mind?!
i didn't spontaneously conjure a face in a tree
when the ******* tree is older than me!
the tree was here before me!
what?! some sin?! some psychological sin
of non-conformity?! i don't adhere to star-gazing
in the filth of commodities and entertainment?!

i know why this feels like a Sunday evening even
though it's a Saturday night...
i was planning on going to the brothel tonight...
but... oh hey mother, hello father...
i'm going out... where? you don't have any friends...
blah blah... yeah... well... i'm kind of happy
because of that: no social-constraints of expectations...
as the conversation usually ran with the last
remaining friend i had from high-school...
- so, what have you been up to?
- nothing...
     and he knew that i was scribbling like mad...
what's there to talk about when it comes to writing?!
last time i heard: you read what is written...
you don't talk about it...
hopefully the reading of something written goes
back into thinking and is not spoken of:
since the conventionality of everyday
formality of social-speech crushes anything delicate
that is born from i-ought-not-but-regardless-i-must!
it's a compulsion!

i went to the shop about 3 hours ago to buy an extra
bottle of cider because i knew: having read a little more than
usual i had to keep the Libra of conscience in place,
"conscience": never write more than you read...
and never read less than you write - so so...
          wow... FORK in the "ROAD"...
                        this is me replaying the opening of the song
TENET - the sound of the horn...
well... i didn't have a horn in the forest...
but i had my pagan statue... a dead white tree...
i left this little stick next to it... i used to walk this wood
more times than i can remember...
sometimes i walked into it bare-chested...
blind from the darkness, but somehow illuminated
by the moon... sat on a stump of wood...
silence... then a breaking of a branch...
not the sort of breaking of a branch still attached
to a tree... something stepped on it...
i wasn't alone... i froze but then ushered in my voice
to compliment a shared bewildered amazement:
that is not a foot of a man stepping on a branch...

in the same wood i saw my first GARMR...
would i really have to go with the flow
of a Christopher J. MacCandless?!
                                       if hell is going to send its hounds
out to meet me, it doesn't matter where that might
be... i don't need to visit the northern most parts
of Norway to find what i'm seeking...
and what i'm seeking i found: since i'm dragging what
needed to be found around...
it's not surprising that at Bower Wood i was
alleviating a traffic problem when
two does and about 5 fawns were causing havoc...
"havoc" in the night implies 3 cars pulling over...
me coming down from the hill running up to
the village of Havering-atte-Bower spotting one...
not caring if there was a stag nearby running
with the fawn which subsequently ensured
the two does and the rest of the fawns
started to gallop and disappeared into the Wood...

i wish i could make this stuff up...
but then again: i'm not jealous of people
who have seen the Galapagos Islands or the Maldives
or... ah... just recently...
i took that rat-above-rat-below trip on my bicycle
into central London... i said to myself:
circle round St. Paul's cathedral... nope...
not good enough... around the Old Bailey then...
o.k. - and i "prayed": please! not another flat tire!
hey presto! on my way back... a flat tire at Aldgate!
great! well... i walked this distance before...
i can walk it again... walking back...
passed the East London Mosque and then...
Allahu Akbar! a bicycle repair shop!

walked up - leaned the bicycle against the wall,
the Chinese guy said: just 10 minutes
(while he was fixing this Deliveroo rider's
electric bicycle) - no problem -
i took some times to each some gelatin sweets
and drink some water, looking at people,
i felt like i was in some exclusive club,
only cyclists allowed - it felt like a very urban
sensation that most punks must have felt,
or goths, standing out...
i paid too much compliments to those guys
in Cycle King bicycle shop in Chadwell Heath...
i knew the front tire was worn down,
but i thought: get the professional's opinion...
they would be more than willing to change
the inner-tube for the Nth time before telling me:
oh... you need to change the actual tyre...
how many times did i change the inner tube?
**** knows! milking it... ******* were milking it!
but this Chinese guy said outright plainly...
it's ****... i'll change it for you...
inner tube, tyre and labour... £55...
done!
               he changed it to a tyre that...
well... let's face it... 2nd gear front
and 4th, 5th 6th and 7th gears in the back...
i was whizzing past home... he said:
less width... more grip... for the grit...
   but at least he was ******* honest...
that's what i mean about a European's relationship
with the Asians... i'm honest, they're honest...
they're not some SCAM MERCHANT KNIGS
of NIGERIA: CNUT-MBAPPE typos...

oh... and it's not like anyone didn't notice
that Indian girls think they're the bomb?!
oh yeah... oh no, not the Muslim girls... those girls
are whipped into always staring down...
like white girls are whipped into peering into
their smart-phone screens and envisioning:
anything outside of inter-racial relationships is:
pederasty (loose term)... whatever it might me...
bulimic antics: not done properly, mind you...
not in the Roman style of training the oesophagus
to just spew on a whim: i.e. i ate too much...
apologies... i need to... ugh! ugh! ugh!
                      get ready the trampoline!
we're going to launch half-digested fish-heads!

now i'm happy... my Trek Merlin 5 is compatible...
fun... looking at that *** trying to chase me down
working my way down toward the Old Bailey...
Asian ceramic raven haired
no helmet... and never, never... ride a bicycle
in an urban environment minding
the sticker on the inside of a large vehicle:
BLIND SPOT... well... d'uh... so use the large
vehicle like a battering ram against all the gnats
of smaller vehicles... ride on the outside of the large
vehicle... always on the outside...
what are you, cyclist... a Hebrew forced by
the **** brown-shirts to walk in the gutter rather
than on the pavement?! what am i?
just because i'm a cyclist i'm no less a hazard
to a motorcyclist?! momentum, self-generated!
i like my legs... let me know when you're dealing
wheelies and whizzes on a ******* wheelchair...
until i have my legs... i'll be skimming through
traffic... Norman Davis might have called
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth God's Playground...
i think i'll call London my playground...
there's plenty to play with around here...

                 but for once i listened to my ego...
for some reason i didn't require a depth of the
Freudian secular trinity of the addition of superego
and id... i was just about to think about going to the brothel
but then my ego said: you're not feeling it...
and i wasn't... i still had to clean the kitchen up,
take the garbage out... i was oiling myself up...
"oiling": checking if i still had a 30 year old's hard-on
i stopped using the fake diet of ******* of
actors: disposable, unattainable...
i switched to: ROMANIAN AMATEUR ****...
well... it's what i'm going to get...
but i checked my hard-on too many times today...
checked, i.e. checked without climaxing...
checked about 4 times... the 5th time i checked
i was thinking about going to the brothel...
but then my ego (not my ego) checked me...
you're not going anywhere:

THE FICKLE MIND AND THE FIRM TRUTH
OF THE BODY...
the mind lies more times than the body cares to admit...
until, of course... the reality of body steps in
and the mind has to retreat... just as happened with
my excess drinking... i went to buy that extra bottle
of cider and waiting in the queue while a mother
with three daughters "****'s sake" the mother retorted
while the girls were undecided what else
to add to the basked i looked at the shelves
with all the spirits... no! no! no more whiskey!
no more *****! no more!
i checked my supposed "impotence" too many times
today... "impotence": more like being
insulted by the madam: beached-whale...
she just flicked it when it went limp because
i found her physically abhorrent...
flicked it... like it was a worm...
like she was 6 years old and i was 5 years old
and she was still playing with Barbie dolls
and unlike she was...
because she knew what a key was and what a keyhole
was... but she had no idea what
physical attraction was...

                        reciprocated...

well ****... it's working... guess it's not working with you...
a bit like the horse that Christopher Reeve rode
when it dropped him and recalculated Superman:
without a spine...
plus i had no excuse to leave the house...
i had plenty of excuses to read some more of Knausgaard
and write this...
tomorrow i'll have the excuse of "working late"...
going to a brothel is not like saying:
oh yeah... i'm going on a date with a girl
we're going to the cinema blah blah...
       no... dearest ******* Madam...
she's the one that chased away both Mona and Khadra...
what the **** happened?!

what am i? a Duracell bunny?! there's an ON and OFF
switch with regards to my phallus?!
if that's the case... what's the dynamic of ****?!
is ****... no... it can't be... **** is a man *******
a turned-off woman? i once had an experience
of a woman who... let's put it mildly:
her **** was as dry as the adequate metaphor
of sensation one might regret to feel from rubbing one's
hands on sandpaper!
hands... finger tips... rough skin...
ergo the ability to play guitar or rock climb...
we're talking tender skin...
so... technically: hardly a pleasure for a ****** to feel
pleasure from an unaroused ****!
ergo?! that was an aroused **** and it's all psychological:
not physical... the shame of giving it so freely
and unwillingly... whereas playing games with
those one might want to give it up to...
i can hardly **** with a LIMPY -
   but i certainly wouldn't want to **** a timber-mill worth
of toothpicks, match-sticks and left-overs...
**** is psychological it would seem...
                the shame of it... all those labyrinths of playing
games suddenly disappearing from the case of
"spontaneity"...
   you should ask her: South African... Sancha...
worked in a private school... teaching boys Mathematics...
maybe she was a *******... by now who knows?!
i do know that i wasn't terrible aroused by her
the first time we tried...
i got a limp... like i got a limp with Ilona:
a forewarning... but she was adamant and whispered
into my ear: you will not deny me...
second time i was in her teacher accommodation
i brought a copy of the Machinist with me on DVD...
she must have spiked my drink because then the horror
of cocoon *** ensued and that's when
she climbed on top of me and gave me the sawdust
sandpaper **** treatment in the dark...

it kind of follows through to the casual mode of
argumentation people have concerning the schizoid condition:
it's all in your mind...
right... so the schizoid condition is simply: so...
your i-think detaches itself from thought
and forms a i-hallucinate complex as if: spring follows winters?
well then... it's all in your mind...
**** is probably in most of women's minds...
it doesn't actually exist in reality:
in the physiology... **** is a mental construct...
it must be... since i don't recall any ******
talking about: oh ****... i had to pull out...
her **** turned into a mantis or the mouth
of a worm from the planet Dune... i just couldn't
continue!

the next day she drove me to the station and i never saw
her again...
ergo? i have a strange relationship with a limp ****...
it's not impotence: per se,
it's more a judge of character concerning a ******
partner: however brief, however informal...
it's like a wild animal freezing still...
     deer in the headlights...
                                      i should have known better
with Ilona... but she pressured to the point where it
finally started "working": i wish "he" didn't...
it would have saved me so much pointless drama...
if i were a man with a child i would tell him just as much:
it's not working for a reason...
that ***** is a mantis... you're not a robot...
this isn't a *****... you're not an extension of a *****...
it's not working for a reason...
go and check... watch the most realistic "*******":
switch to amateur stuff...
                                that's all you're going to get...
and can you, get it up? well then...
it's not you...
                                     once all the glamour is gone
and you're left with a butcher's cut of antics...
                              well... if you're aroused by that sort of stuff
in private... why can't the partner reciprocate?
maybe that's just me finalising some logistics for
tomorrow...
shift at the Ice Rink tomorrow...
me... two girls...
   one butch lesbian... she keeps rubbing off on my arms
every time the home side scores
and she's celebrating...
      one rub by chance i can understand... two rubs
and i'm thinking: this isn't homosexual conversion therapy,
is it?
the other? got me the job to begin with...
started taking dieting pills because she feels depressed
because she thinks she's fat and this is what
working with women looks like if you're not
in the business of being a plumber: in the realm of
customer service...
    
                 that's how this new girl i fancied at work
got fired... about 4 other girls ganged up on her
and she was literally bullied out of work because...
            
it's coming up to 1am... i need to get up early tomorrow...
do a cycling shift...
trim my mustache, my beard, my ***** region, my arm-pits...
finish one more bottle of cider for good luck:
or no luck...
           listen to some more pagan music...
think about Bower Wood and how i wish that if i weren't
working tomorrow
i'd buy myself a bottle of whiskey and walk
into it, right now... to howl and wake up the crows.

p.s. oh, right, that dream i had last night when
i didn't scribble any words for anyone else to see?
two night ago i was swimming with
pseudo-jelly fish on the edge of the universe
transmitting vibrations of light...
last night i was watching while some colts
were gleefully celebrating their ability to drink
shots of absinthe... until i walked up to the bar
and showed them how to drink absinthe
properly...
i took out a spoon, dipped the spoon in some
sugar... poured some absinthe onto the spoon...
lit the spoon and the sugar alight...
watched the caramel form...
then poured some water into the glass
to clue them in into the secret of drinking absinthe:
you don't drink absinthe like *****...
you need for the green-milk of wormwood
to emerge!
    sie müssen für die grünmilsch von wermut
zu auftauchen!
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2022
i could tell you how certain stations on the London underground
smell, but i can't capture you this smell...
a bit like in that film Perfume: scents are lost over time,
with regards to places -
                            unlike the eternal pine forest...
or the zest of lemon...
                                         those are universal scents...
one could and humanity has: created a synthetic answer
and copied these scents... made synthetic tastes
a whole chemistry of a posteriori scents and tastes...
Kant and chemistry are a perfect combination...
given the classical schematic:

analytical                         analytical
a priori                             a posteriori
apples grow on               tomatoes:
trees and                          categorised as fruits          
carrots grow                    yet used as vegetables
in the earth                      the analysis being
since apples                     even though they grow
are a fruit                         on something: trees,
while carrots                    bushes, vines...
are a root vegetable,       analysis has found that
ergo?                                 they are better treated
all vegetables                   as vegetables rather than
grow in the earth            fruits, since one rarely cooks
while all fruits                 savoury meals with fruit
grow on trees                  yet the tomato is used
or shrubs                         plentifully in savoury cooking


synthetic                          synthetic
a priori                           a posteriori
■, ▲                                   in light of the given examples
(geometry)                        in the realm of the analytical
and the propositions       a priori: that fruits grow on
that come with                 trees or bushes
them:                                  there's the pineapple
e.g. c² = a² + b²                   anomaly:
or physics:                         pineapples grow on the ground
e = mc²                                (in the ground) like cabbage-heads
                                            grow in much the same fashion...

i always struggle with the a posteriori conceptualization...
in the original i wrote as can be seen above...
are tomatoes the byproduct of
analytical a posteriori knowledge?
i.e. they are fruits that are used as vegetables (used,
hell, even treated as such)... because you will not find
a tomato desert as such...
the classification of a tomato as a fruit:
given how it grows... would also invoke the cucumber
to be treated as a vegetable:
vegetables are not as juicy as fruits...
the flesh of the fruit is usually softer and certainly
more juicy... while the flesh of the vegetable
is more bulky and requires cooking and salt
to extract the juices oh a higher carbohydrate
concentrate of the fibrous nature...

pineapples... a fruit that grows like a vegetable
in the earth...
i like this "confusion" in my head...
i'm not going to clarify it...
            i leave this curiosity in my writing on purpose...
analytical a posteriori facts:
well... first having categorised the tomato as a fruit:
upon analysis... true: the tomato behaves like
a fruit... but upon analysis: after the fact:
it is better used as a vegetable...

         and the synthetic a posteriori truth about
the pineapple? then again: i know where i might be going wrong...
isn't synthetic a posteriori knowledge possible?
it's not as simple as the pineapple example
based on: fruits grow on trees while vegetables grow in
the earth... i can only find questions
on the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge...
ergo? of course synthetic a posteriori knowledge
is possible...
    it's ingrained in chemistry...
what does synthetic a posteriori knowledge look like?

a chemist tastes a lemon... and he tries to replicate
the taste of lemon using chemicals...
he breaks down the chemistry of the lemon...
and? with due course... replicates the taste of lemon
without actually using a lemon!
he breaks the lemon to the basic components
of citric acids and whatever else is needed to replicate
the taste of lemon and grind it into a powder:
chemistry is synthetic a posteriori knowledge...
isn't it?

the examples i cited with the pineapples:
it doesn't matter that the pineapple behaves like
a vegetable when it grows...
apart from that sick idea of a Hawaiian pizza toppings...
pineapple? ham?! you what?!
that's not synthetic a posteriori knowledge:
that's just a ******* whim of bad-taste...
there's no actual synthesis of the pineapple growing
as a vegetable and the "ingenuity" of treating
it like a bad idea for a pizza topping...
the tomato: however... is a pristine example
of analytical a posteriori knowledge:
sure... it's categorised as a vegetable...
because of the way it grows... compared to actual vegetables:
but? you wouldn't allow the tomato
to be bitten into like an apple... you wouldn't bake
a tomato cake as you might bake a banana cake...
the analysis concludes: our knowledge of fruits is this...
and we have this vegetable: the tomato
that's a fruit... but it would be better suited
in being used like a vegetable...

synthetic a posteriori does exist... it just doesn't apply
to pineapples for the simply reason that they
grow like vegetables... they're still going to be fruits...
synthetic a posteriori knowledge is chemistry...
it has to exist because a pineapple is
not a synthetic a priori "idea" of TASTE let alone
virtue or however Kant framed it...

ugh... my first day back at Craven Cottage...
little ****** steward: i hate these hierarchies...
it's a petty army of high-viz. jackets...
   i wasn't the supervisor but i had some colts under
my "supervision"... i tried to smooth things over:
i did... in the end i wanted to see Fulham play
Liverpool... i spread the word around:
this is *******... they should have put us inside
the stadium...
   but... the weather was the loveliest and the Thames
was tide-out... two seagulls arguing...
in the shade: this part of London is truly mesmerising...
i love the smell of the Thames with the tide out...
in the shade under these mammoth-esque splendours
of foliage...
hell... i even managed to spot my first KONIK
(little horse)... that's slang for... those ******* that buy
tickets at the regular price... then hang around the stadium
and try to push the tickets at a hyper-inflated price...
the ****** was selling the tickets for £250 for two!
and this was after the first half finished!
i told one of the guys with a radio:
call this in...
                          i had to repeat myself about 3 times
before the management agreed to my concern...
they sent two spare police officers to the person in question...
he almost sold those ******* tickets...
one minute i see him pretend to tie his shoelaces
(he wasn't pretending) - his black cap
disappearing under the bushes... next minute:
wh'ah where?! ****** did a runner...
so he wasn't tying his shoelaces "on a whim":
he was about to do a runner...

                  that's ******* exploitation...
that's like: stealing... capitalism at its worst...
the ingenuity of crime: oh... but it's innocent crime...
it's i buy something for £30 but...
i'll sell it for you for £250...
                             now... it's not antiques! it's not a *******
van Gogh painting that has been lying around
for quite some time... gaining a repertoire and a reputation
as something good, worthwhile:
it's a ******* football match ticket!
hyper-inflation like under the Weimar Republic...
money good as "gold": "gold" as in winter fuel,
timber the new platinum!

after all: there was no real synthetic a priori knowledge:
chemistry is hardly a question of appearance,
water is clear, but so is hydrochloric acid...
what else is clear? sodium hydroxide...
                 chemistry was born from synthetic a posteriori
knowledge...
how many chemical experiments came as a surprise
a sort of anti-Eureka of synthetic a priori knowledge?
champagne springs to mind... lysergic acid comes
to mind: no one was actually trying to find these things...
e.g. they did not come about through analytical
a posteriori knowledge: they arose from
a dimension of the synthetic a posteriori knowledge:
by chance: by accident...

sure... i might be doing a ******-low-skill job right
now: and it is... i'll admit...
it's super **** sometimes:
most of the time my coworkers are either
over-bearing ego-maniacs fixated on hierarchy,
or they're lazy Somali youths...
or just plain-sighted Nimrods...
i sometimes leave my mind to wander...
that when i get the jerks in the feet like
i'm about to fall over... like for bearskin hatted
soldiers on parade...
but i leave my mind to wander:
it's not an insult if it's true...
                  no: when i was a roofer and fiddling
with inanimate things there was more focus
on the work to be done... dealing with people
is a crass differentiation from perfecting how an inanimate
ought to behave under your hands...
to turn a roll of felt into a water-insulated roof
with a roll of fleece and enough tar...
people are different: i'm sort of studying people...
gearing myself to hover in on children in schools...

if Leibniz preferred the profession of librarian
and a private intellectual life of par excellence...
i wouldn't think twice about becoming a primary school
teacher than being a secondary school
teacher of chemistry...
**** me: if drag queen hour is about to be imported
from America: i best (better) step in...
i just imagine: well... unlike a barren woman...
who has no children...
who goes into a profession akin to primary school
teaching... but then i'd arrive...
i know the obvious stereotype to battle:
PEDOHPILE! ha ha...
           Ava Lauren: just my type... plump...
full-bodied... probably the age of my mum by now...
that's my type...
i need something rounded of:
a 5.9 = a 6... just an example...
                
             but i let my mind wander... when roofing
you couldn't leave your mind to wonder...
i could... tell you of the specific scents in certain
underground stations... Baker Street? is that the one
with the Victorian arches, a station under the bridge?
i don't remember...
Putney Bridge is a beautiful station...
but today i took the route:
Romford via train... got off at Stratford... waited for a minute
for the central line...
(i love meditating on the topic of tubes maps...
there are only two important lines
in London... why? based on how many times
they intersect... the Central Line and the Piccadilly
Line... they only intersect at Holborn)...
travelled to Holborn... not sitting...
at each carriage there are these half-seats...
you're leaning back... standing-sitting...
i felt so relaxed... i gave way to the momentum
of the tube...
i was moving backwards and forwards...
head nodding... shoulders doing the mr. plastic-fantastic...
i almost tried to remember the remaining
tension in my body... the grip i had on a bottle
of water and a packet of tortilla wraps...
the rest of me was: freed...

when it comes to scents... that's one thing:
everyone knows it's a stupid idea to change tube
lines at Bank... why? well... Bank it connected
to Monument...
it's a city within a city: a London 2.0... oh oh:
yes it ******* is... never change at Bank...
anyway... as i was relaxing having closed my eyes...
i can tell you where the best sounds of
machinery exist in London?
between Liverpool St. - Bank - and Chancery Lane...
mind you... i cycle the route from time to time...
what's above? is not, what's above...
compared to cycling... this route is like:
watching the original Dune movie...
i'm strapped to a ******* earthworm...
or: being digested by one while listening to
the clag glug and clamour iron biting iron...
i sometimes do the "twirl" of the tube above
ground... just after Aldgate...
i head towards Brick Lane... toward Liverpool St.
prior to reaching Bank St.:

all the Piccadilly Stations between Holborn and
Earl's Court have this sickly sweet stench
about them... it's sickly sweet... it's: sickly sweet...

i remember back in St. Augustine's we had one
female primary school teacher...
some ****** proverb speaks the words:
woe unto you for having to care for the children
of others...
while i'm thinking: that would be a worthwhile challenge...
i don't want any of my own:
the fear of ******* them up more than
i was ****** up wears me down...
at least with the genes of strangers
i can send in an auxiliary covert party of my psyche...
who would i send in? the usual suspects...
Kant, Heidegger, Newton, Ezra Pound...
oh... the list is pretty long...

most probably Rumi hanging around with
Zhuangzi... Ovid and Horace...
ooh... terrible idea to start drinking whiskey
after binge-eating a watermelon...
the burps i'm getting back:
******* postcards from Uan Muhuggiag (Libya)...
i'm seeing camels double the number of their humps!
not good... absolutely no good

burp... ooh... this watermelon will not go down
so good... while i worry about *******
myself come tomorrow morning...
unlike the Red Hot Chilly Peppers singing
the fames of California:
what do i have? i have the countryside of Essex
and the incursions in the concrete staccato
of London... i can mediate this...

              burp: well... at least it's whiskey mingling
with the juices of a watermelon...
i much prefer that to the half-digested acidic
meat of any sort...
                 that's healthy burping and healthy farting
for your...
hmm... investing in children... that's an idea...
i once remarked to a boy in a supermarket:
you know... how a while i thought animals
were incapable of seeing 3D objects
in a 2D canvas: i.e. why wouldn't animals
watch television with men?
today i had a "Fred" pester me for a bite
of my tortilla roll...
i would have given it to him freely:
i wasn't that hungry...
   so i asked his owner: so... what's his diet like?
oh... Fred has had pretty stomach upsets...
he spent the past three days eating mulberries
from a tree...
ooh! i love mulberries: who couldn't be more upset?
the dog or the mulberries?
ugh: these kind of people:
that have their dogs on a ******* vegan diet...
hey! Fred! bite into this tortilla wrap!
i have learned that the food man eats
if also eaten by a dog tastes better:
after it was eaten by man!

o.k., fair enough Fred... you have an owner that
deserves having you: but no children...
i'd put you in the same category as a child...
children, dogs, cats...
things that might stir in man the unusual:
certainly not Darwinistic / genetic investment
that might reduce a man's hormonal balance...
mate... you look at me that dumb-***** eyed way
one more time... let me pat you on the head
like i have... you're coming with me to the land
of eternal tortillas wrapping around chicken
and bacon: there's no "yes" as there's no "no"...

but that's London for you...
            and that's also Essex for you...
i spent an entire day in London?
where did i find those cheap-*** beauties of womanhood?
i didn't find them in London:
i had to travel back to Romford to find...
i sat down to eat a snack bucket in a chicken shop:
three spicy wings, some chips...
mayonnaise and some chilly sauce...
a 7up... £3.50... i enjoyed the meal
and thought about: nothing...
nothing is usually hard to "think" about...
you get into geometry: to prolong your time at pretending
to look "cool"... when eating alone...

i hopped on the bus... watched two hunchbacks
of an elderly couple "manage" their way own:
what cruel fate... the extension of mortality
via science... may i never see myself
that old... reduced to being the child of Atlas...
no... i don't care for the sensibility of secularism
and science...
old age transcends both of these:
it's the reality of old age...
prolonged old age is best renowned
and celebrated by lizards: turtles most in fact...
mammals look weird...
mammals look weird when their life is prolonged:
unnaturally: via the basis of science!

start giving out re-prescriptions to people
with a a faith in science but no hope in hope...
start selling them hopes of eternity...
this materialistic "eternal life": is drawing us closer
to no closure...
there comes a life: there coms a death of said life...
it's not fair to pretend that the inevitiable
is "not" going to happen: it will...
the tyranny of old age...
                  by the standards of the Benelux:
i'm more than willing to bow out...

who knows! i am not willing to simply live
for the awkward presence of strangers
on a basis of anomalies and non-intrusions
of some freaked-up formalities...
to hell with that: i have no evolutionary-existential
plight of  "conscience" that might make me suppose:
on racial grounds: that the human "effort"
will disappear: outright: completely:
sure... chances are... humanity will be governed
by more people willing to ***** cities of death via
the pyramid... people engage in the magic carpet
flights of Islam and pseudo-Islam from regions
akin to Somalia and Bangladesh:
my problem? i can't live forever! can i?

et scriptum est...
i like being toyed around as being the idiot...
it helps me grow...
and it was so written...
                ergo? ut necesse sit!
(and so it must be)
  ha ha! ah ha ha h ha ha!
vulnus ferrum:
                  sanguis respiratio
scratch of iron:
breathing blood!
            
mortuus est mori: the dead must die!
vivos debet mori /
vivos non sunt exceptio!

i work among people that make my intellect:
CLOWN!
   i entertain them... i must...
but their intellect is about as much:
grappling as... i don't know what!
i'm out of metaphors and aphorisms...

                        intelligence is discouraged when it comes
to a working environment...
           i'm like Leibniz... i'm unlike Newton...
my ambitions a "cowering" in a personal enterprise...
i like the individualism of m own enterprise:
i don't hope to solve or save the problems of
a common man... nope!
                
last time i heard? the train has arrived:
i also heard: the train is leaving...
well... i'm i geared up:
what do i care for the famines in Ethiopia?!
i don't care for claiming responsibilities for
people who don't take responsibilities for
themselves!
starve?! **** it... why not?"
oh right... one of the Somali types?!
pretend it's work by hiding behind the bushes?!
ergo? behind the bushes i pretend to shower you
with free bread and pork? don't like pork?
eat dirt instead!

i'm done: free-loaders: i'm done with them...
i'm so ******* with these Somalis that you can't even begin to comprehend!
And it has been a hard days night,
too friggin' right mate,
started early
finished late,
get to the bus stop
had to wait, but now
I am satisfied,
tried my hardest
did my best,
If this was a test
I am sure
that I'd pass.

In the city and
the streets are wet
and *****,
Winter brings such things
I'm not at all surprised,
my eyes look out on desperation,
Liverpool. the street
and station, but I am heading home to where my heart and the beat awaits me.

Tired though not beaten yet
I have yet to get a midnight
Kiss.

Two hours late but how could I miss the thrill that chills me, thrills and will she **** me one more time?

Stepney and still late
no worries
the bus hurries me home.
Paul Hansford Aug 2016
Found in the churchyard of St Botolph's, Aldgate,
one distant lunchtime sixty years ago,
and saved perhaps from second burial
less ceremonial than its first had been,
would Hamlet have mused on this? A finger-bone,
less striking than a skull but just as dead.

I keep it now and wonder  
what skill he had possessed, the one who owned it.
Was he a tailor or a silversmith?
a carpenter? a weaver? or (none of those)
a lowly labourer, or a sly pickpocket?
Was it a woman's finger, a high-born lady?
or housewife (working her fingers to the bone)?

Did that hand long ago once guide a pen,
inscribe long lines of figures in heavy ledgers,
telling the tale of profit or of loss?
Did it write sonnets? messages of love?
or thoughts to pass on to an unknown future?
I cannot know, but still this humble bone,
the nameless relic of a city's past,
may have some little life, if only for me.
Saint Botolph, patron saint of travellers, had churches dedicated to him at four of the ancient gates of the City of London.  Daniel Defoe tells of two pits being dug in the churchyard of St Botolph's, Aldgate, that were filled with the bodies of 5,136 victims of the plague of 1665.  An ancient mystery?
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2021
(i) pre-scriptum: anchor posit

it would be all-too obvious that i'm going to begin with writing about nonsensical subjects... bowel movements... what's not to laugh about... a warm-up standing before a firing-squad metaphor... not my last words: how they don't tend to bury people with epitaph these days... in manus dei... which is hardly an epitaph... definition of epitaph: a transcendence of maxim... the... maxim... the sigma of all the incremental parts that once held the man as subject of life...

...i cycled into central London to do no more than:
**** myself off...
all those lives i'm not part of...
without a drop of bitterness:
i guess i can only be glad...
somewhere in South London past
Waterloo station nearing the Shard
i came across... a mythological blonde...
yoga-pants... *****-esque...
couldn't tell the traffic from a horserace...
she had that expression
on her face that read:
i've been to a few ******* parties...
all holes properly used...
come to think of it: i'm only
there to be ******: not there to do some
return policies...
so a timid deer...
point made when i noticed three-guys
ogling her up...
eyes turned to lap-dancing tongues...
point proven...
well... it's South London... even if's still
teasing the scent of the Thames...
it's a lot different over the river...
so i "debated" myself
on the point...
   CS4 is worse than CS3...
oh most assuredly...
CS4 is congested...
too many pit-stops...
i promised myself that i would never
again cycle into central London
via little Bangladesh that begins
in Ilford and ends at Aldgate...
that's CS4...
CS3 though? oh that's another barrel of
laughs... begins in Barking...
although it could begin in Rainham...
and ends at... don't know... to be honest...
i must have taken a CR13 from tower bridge
through to Waterloo station...
but... it's the proper underbelly of the city...
near the docks come Canary Wharf...
as i promised myself i would never
again cycle into a heavily urban scenario
being the tourist of faces and all manner
of the locals' mannerisms:
i said to myself... Essex county is open...
the trees the diluted traffic... all that fresh air...
but not exactly Belgium: flat...
such contemplations when you find
a pseudo-Nirvana of the third take of
emptying yourself into the throne-of-thrones
because... you put a quasi-hibernation
plug in your ******* for the day
and now the bowels strike back with
a build-up to a crescendo of: unplugging...
the usual suspect of bits & bobs...
  that allows you to suppose you've
been emptied but... ooh... oh...
the crescendo proper...
                      custard pie... of ****...
thank god for all the stealth work...
the pipes... the sewage treatment plants...

(ii) change of focus

i always had an invitation toward a monk's life...
ever since visiting Taizé...
the Teutonic Order had a brothel in their
monks' citadel at Marienburg...
a break from a 4 year dry run...
perhaps the end of a year of grief having
buried a friend of mine:
fishing, cycling / reading buddy...
someone to watch the Vierschanzentournee
come Christmas and New Year...
someone to listen to on a dementia loop
as if: no... the memory bank wasn't broken...
it was on a repeat that
asked the question:
is this a drowning man...
               clinging to a razor?
once old ages enter the fore...

it was all pristine in my head: i almost chuckled...
now coming to the canvas i can see it's going
to be a hard-won effort:
mini-digressions is my best attempt
to keep this afloat... even though it's sinking
like a hard-earned stone of mass...

sometimes drinking has a taste.... esp. in the variation
of kalimotxo... with a red Marlboro:
like it's the taste synonymous with a
first kiss... both of you are slobbering teenager
all to ready to precursor either *******
of glugging down oysters / eating fleshy
flowers... tongues to eager...
an ode to the mosquito legion owner/ vampire goat...

(iii) words come across as shortcomings
  
i don't have enough patronage money to begin
painting... a photograph will have to do...
i remember this room, this same brothel...
there were two mirrors on the wall...
i'll bring her a copy of my book of poetry
and i'll ask her if i can take a photograph
of her face... for the love of Rousseau's
heart for a god... beside the argument: i need to photograph
her in a variation of the antithesis of the self-portrait...
i'm already saving up for the hour...
perhaps she will say no...
but i don't want a ****...
nor a picture of my phallus in her mouth...
i need contortions using the two mirrors...
words have become the weapons of gods
and gagging orders of men...
Khadaj'ah...
              something has to arrive sooner:
i'm breathtakingly agonised by my own: coils...

cauliflower - ALUMINITE - alias
of brain tissue folds...
           Al₂(SO₄)(OH)₄ . 7H₂O...
well... if it isn't me looking at paintings...
or naked bodies of prostitutes...
it's me looking at minerals
and their chemical formulas...

all that's quartz SiO₂...
most notably the amethyst... iron stained quartz...
jasper... petrified wood quartz...
onyx quartz... agate...

or... VANADINITE
   Pb₅(VO₄)₃Cl....

now... if i were drinking a second bottle of wine
to calm the already frantic nerves
at the prospect of the next encounter
all school-boyish...
and owned a dog... he might bark at me...
a feline presence is more welcome:
joke of my curing insomnia and "insomnia"
with this here wine...
fern of a creature... always disappears
into the dream world...
who asks for a leash or a muzzle
or walkers in the presence of a cat:
a time least spent: certainly not wasted:
that cats decided to sleep more than
actually waste their time with being:
conscious...
not somehow a waste of time:
like the waste of time modern man has
become: seeking refuge in "reverse-psychology":
duped by the undercurrent of
the crucifix of the subconscious...

the holy Freudian trinity... the sacred secular
trinity of the: consciousness:
the son... subconscious: the holy spirit...
the collectively shackled premature
*******... pre-suppositional heap of dung...
the father: shackled... proper:
in the unconscious...
if asked: about time to raise the father:
to unearth him... "him": who is my father?
shy-titan... you already know the score...

it excites me more and more with the prospect
of writing these words
and coming back with a photograph of the
*******...
dizzying heights of the grave of gravity
in that's how my body: hollows out
futures... and tendencies of a list of todays...
if only i had enough and of having enough
i would become bored:
perhaps i could become an ageing lecher...
but since i'm gagging for the least:
of the last... i'll be keeping up the spirit of mute:
sometimes teasing onomatopoeias during
*******... i want to take a selfie of
her using at least two mirrors...

i want to take two photographs...
my mind is burning from the mere thought...
clear the fog...
thank god no genetic details of mine
will be passed on...
i couldn't shackle myself to the responsibility
of children...
call it immature:
a delinquency... i will call it what it has been
for almost... "forever"...
share my responsibility in the coming
onslaught...
           if i'm feeling it... what's to suppose there's
no build-up of a greater tide...

i've made satire of the "diet"...
fuckless for years...
but come the opportune moment when i wake
up and take to a feeding:
i find her...
       juiced up from the cradle of my
unsatisfied longing...
can a woman tell a man hasn't touched
his antonym in so long
as to also not have: some... pillow-talk ref.
to combat that carnal Kandinsky-build up moment?

wine! wine! more wine!
words are staggering when picture would
better suffice to encapsulate these sensations...
for those that have had enough:
retreat into kink... gimp suits and all that's latex...
for those that haven't had enough:
retreat into mirrors...
    revising slits of katakana-niqab rereading...
some depeche mode doesn't hinder...
and one: either...

        oh sure: reimagine...
it's a feverish writing of a man who desires all that
might invoke the zenith of a shared
patience with each other:
for the worth of an hour's worth...
after the hour's done...
there's no companionship...
there are no shared stories...
we return to the shadow: we return to the grave...
the foetus is cut from the womb
from the umbilical chord...
the hour's enough...

i return to my: steinherz...
she returns to her: dachboden-frivolfotze-eskapaden...
i'm glad other people can:
cut-the-mustard... and... reproduce...
if i don't die by my own hands
aiming at the pulse...
alone in a hospital ward eyeing up nurse
with one of these octopi purely pupil eyes
of rage... i never...
it will be a private affair:
no one will interrupt the world
of people having their conversations:
i'll keep in mind the congregation
of crows:
i'll keep the crow forever in my mind...

(iv) body needs to be under 5K

can you believe me that i acknowledge all that you have written with... how can i escape verbiage...  oh wait... i was hoping your wouldn't spiral out of control with a bunch of defence mechanisms: easily-offended etc. you are... a breath of fresh air... truly... comparison? even though you sent me your picture... it's in the back of my mind... i don't remember it: i'm still focused on the avatar you presented... and... oddly enough: you are starting to resemble Harley Quinn... sipping that espresso while reading a romance novel while the whole world around her: is ablaze... let's forget the the buzzwords i picked up... they're not important... they're not important if we have allowed ourselves to synchronise ourselves on other points of interest... i can be excused leaving some time between reply, though, no? you still are a pen-pal who's sharing her passion for teaching... it's never personal... it might become personal if i pressure you with imitating my punctuation, or, for that matter: some grammatical idiosyncrasy... the red roses: roses are red... n'ah... bad example... not off the top of my head (scalp included) to make a point... i agree... we're two people toying with imitation ping-pong... next subject matter... ah... oh... casual ***... paid for or... somehow... spontaneously... given?  i already have an answer in my head: from experience... i was reading the sunday times magazine last weekend... dating apps... i know they came about circa 2012... apparently there was this great revolution of people seeking & finding casual ***... i was still into my psychotic trip without the use of hallucinogenic juice... "fear of god"? ha ha... i've just heard that dating apps were a breakthrough in how people made themselves available... casual ***... me visiting a brothel probably itches the thought: where *** is so freely available... but there's someone out there... still willing to use cables... when everyone else is using wireless WIFI... notably for headphones... i still buy vinyl and CD to "translate" the music to MP3... you're asking what casual *** is: akin to? you want me to describe what it feels like? it probably feels like any form of intimacy that one subscribes to within the "confines" (parameters) of long-term relationship expectations... although more concentrated... esp. if you haven't had a chance to be intimate with someone... my last diet lasted for 4 years... extended by a year since i was grieving for my grandfather's death... i was grooming my pet cat and she... decided to agitate me... not cognitively: primordially: therefore sexually... i'm not into this whole trans-sexuality... but what i was agitated by was a trans-species probe... i had to find resolve and exercise against a canvas of a woman... "against": to match-up to... to compliment... i found that in order to have casual ***: one must be unusually restrained for the whole affair to become: passable: casual... you can't bring your firsty laundry... your most inhibited frailty to the fore... a most assured contraint is to never invoke words during *******... at best: vowels... with a pinch of consonant: i call it the vowel-catcher "principle": what could be shouted as A... becomes a softly oozed out Ah from mouth to mouth... you chose the subject matter: blah! politics... whatever faction we supposedly belong to: there's always that citizen of the world: the universal man nibble... isn't there? would you want me to tell you what you might be missing in the arena of casual ***? i couldn't tell you... since i haven't used any of the modern short-cuts of the hook-up culture "dating" bonanza... i'm an outdated model when it comes to ***... if it happens... casually... proper... once or twice... there was this... no... i won't go into the details... it was my birthday and i mixed her a decent cocktail and.... well... the pistons... the grease.. whatever metphor you like... then there was this Thai-surprise... she was supposedly a lesbian... later a bisexual... i took her home and played her some Kind of Blue... it's not like jazz is cheap... am i still... sounding a bit crass: "objectifying" as a way of making shortcuts? isn't it? *** without having children? it must be... esp. if you have long spells of not doing what most urban folk seem to be having all the time: unless they're merely boasting about having: smoke & mirrors... i'd allow my head to be chopped off and turn into an urban myth surrounding a cockroach if i could have more of it... the urban myth of the cockroach? apparently if you decapitate a cockroach... it keeps on living: a zombie torso... finally dying after two weeks from... hunger... since... the ****** obvious... it has no head to ingest food with! - how odd... i thought i had something original to write tonight... i started scribbling then lasted long enough to find myself writing too poorly, so i resorted to read my inbox messages... i am more willing to leave you with a reply than have to masquerade with some "originality"... you asked me: or at least insinuated about casual ***...what's your take on *******? i ask the question while listening to the cure: short term effect from the album: *******... i'll hardly make this a light-hearted question... i don't even think it might be categorized as a question: hasn't ******* / rather the spread of it... become ominous? i still remember the ****** of shame with colour in my cheeks when i would buy: a magazine short of sinister... a woman's naked body: if not celebrated.... sure... i'll be the one jerking off to a revision of the **** via cubism... the face will not be a sorting out process of a nightmare...  if ever i watch a pornographic movie: it will be done via turning the sound off... whatever a woman is concerned i like to see a potential: i don't like to see something to imitate... come to think of it: i don't think i've asked a question: if i wanted some clarity... i would be gagging for it... no wonder we moved away from politics and onto such "pressing" matters as to why: so many of us are not getting enough of "it"... no? whether we have children or we don't have children: i've seen it for my very own eyes: having children doesn't allow you to savour certain guarantees:  my maternal grandfather ought to have been surrounded by his loved ones... his grandson (moi) and his daughter... (my mother)... what came about? a "conspiracy" between his wife (my grandmother)... and his son (my uncle)... so he died... alone... in a hospice... last time i checked in never wanted to have *** beyond the gratifications bound to the "casual":... i want the puddle experience when other people might stress: there's the sea! there's the sea!
you probably acknowledged a truth that wasn't a question before someone who... wouldn't want you to find seeking said experience as something... necessarily... equally shared by one and all... it won't be... i've had my moments of raging against the night having spent a paid hour with nothing more than kisses... caresses and a limp phallus... come to think of it: i don't think *** is ever "casual":  it might be for sociopaths... sociopaths who "think" that stealing apples from a grocery stall is synonymous with buying them...  by casual i'm implying: it's better that there's a transactional transparency invoked: someone is getting more than the other... the party involved with thirst is thirsty... the party selling water: eh... a metaphorical muddle by now...  while you're wondering why casual *** is like... i'm wondering what... fatherhood is... it's a nice compliment of agitations... what wouldn't i do with fatherhood: well... what wouldn't i... keep 3am a time worth staying awake for... so that i might sccribble some words down...

(v) comment section

commented on Mr *******s Integrity

- it must be a fairies' tail...no? at least en engaged cat telling with waggling to joke at the dogs' investment in: the currency of leash / muzzle? good to know that you remember Mr. Schmidt... i'mm somehow sure he wouldn't be content with anyone else remembering him... lessons seem to have been learned... and all the best of him: kept, since you allowed him to be: so graced.

- One thing I’m sure of is only a twisted A-hole would make a comment like this but at least thanks for reading this and these were real people.

- i'm the twisted A-hole and you're the "dear Jesus"... crux-sucker? fair enough... love's a temple... however you want it: on your knees... hey! your take on the best dangling of doodling fancy. no problem... i'm no homophobe.

seems to me... people lack all the entertainmet
when it comes to nuancing language...
they can digest jokes...
they can doodle around with crosswords...
but... when it comes to...
hell: if they're not going to bother...
why the **** ought, i?!
too many movies: too many books unread...
a barrage of art has left everyone
yet to feed into the feels of:
the end of the 20th century: romance.
Aldgate
not the old gate
because that's long gone
and so has
'that turbulent priest'

his association with the laws and taxation
are well documented and
divinely noted

I note also an 'Angel' on the
Northern line
passing time probably
until the pearly gates
open.
The blind beggar near Aldgate
a city gent at the Embankment
the Temple not meant for a psalm

this District line takes
some time to unravel
so I travel on blindly
much the same as the beggar.

Euphoria
I'm passing Victoria and she passed
away many a long day ago.

and
I am heading to Kew but Richmond may do
a walk in the gardens or a stroll by the Thames
all caught quite neatly by the camera's lens.

In a day filled with happy
I have to ask her to
slap me
just in case I am dreaming.

........................ ................,.

(part 2)

Back I thought to Barons court
alas 'twas not to be
I took the platform on the other side to find myself beside a sea
which pleased me absolutely,

going home is such a chore
I'd sooner watch the comings of the tide but what I actually saw
was building sites by seaside huts,

this nuts and bolts society has once again undoubtedly
******* me up completely.

Short platforms are the norm for me
in this shrunken underground
where I can see
that insanity
Is the next stop.
It's all ******* and everyone knows it's
a ***** hawk that hovers, but nobody bothers to say.

I am worn down by the West End and tired,
Eros has ******* me.

But it's ******* and I knew that it would be,
there is **** all for free and you pay through the nose,
some days it seems to me, that that's how it goes.

At any rate, I'm on a bus full of drunkards and we're passing through Aldgate and that's ******* too,
Who needs the night hawk when I have the ***** hawk hovering over my head.
Monday
and I'm shuffling in to work
so
let the week begin.

Do you remember when it used to feel real?
and when back then it was no big deal
to
be a man and earn your keep,
now
I wonder if it's better just to stay in bed and sleep.


The mirror looks the same
but
it's a different face I see,
what's going on outside
reflects inside and
poisons me.

Bow Road is a slow road
the way I go to work road.
that is coming from the East
and going to the West.

and the end smokes cigarettes
quite calmly so as not to disturb
me.

Thinking it's all about
the cues we use.
are you in a queue?
do they use you too?

There's still time,
hidden between the
decaying buildings
and
clogged in the cracks
I buy
two more packs
of
lucky strikes,
nails
to seal the coffin lid.


At Aldgate
I wait
for
Thomas
who tells me tales
of Canterbury
and speaks
of Henry in
hushed tones.

Did you hear the pad
of footsteps on the sidewalk?

history come talk to me
but
there's only the future here
to walk with me and
presently
I join in,
let the week begin.


My time nears me
and I weary,
clearly
something is not right

written out of the script
popped in by being
pipped at the post
and that's the most
we can all look forward to

step out of line or
stay in the queue?
it's up to you
isn't it?
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2019
the more i watch these youtube
videos,
the more i think...

where do these people get
so much energy to talk?
and... that's what talking does:

it attracts bothersome
comment sections...

i'm proud to say:
i haven't received an email
in years...
   whatever comment section
activity is...
confined to the bare minimum...

recently i invested in
a gramaphone and,
i'm happy to say:
   just my luck in not having
invested in a camera /
mic.,

       to be honest:
i've matured beyond thinking
that: completing a novel
is some sort accomplishment,
and how there's
no shame in reading
poetry...

as in:
  optics...
you can't exactly multi-task
drinking a nightcap,
listening to music,
smoking a cigarette
and reading a novel...

a novel requires a sober
judge,
silence,
   and a worth of a good
hour to eat up chapters...
plus the over-congested
lines of a paragraph...

since when was poetry
all about the ghouls,
the rhymes,
          and the gallows of
broken hearts?
really? poetry was also
about, feelings?

one thing is for sure...
i'm glad i invested
some saved money
in a gramaphone
and not a camera / mic.

sorry... i just don't have
the energy to
give someone passive
content...
on which it is easier
to comment...

            how else would
you create a depth of
consciousness to concentrate
on a novel that lasts
for 1500 pages in
small print?

   you'd begin by listening
to music: with lyrics,
and reading poetry...

      and being able to tell
someone what the poem
was about...
   and the lyrics of the song...

i've changed...
and it only took me a month
of being without
internet access...
what i've lost is:
the ability to become engrossed
in this medium...

well... at least ladden
with conversational overtones
type of poetry:
is much better than
any piece of journalism...

given journalism:
as a style of literature is...
well...
pretty much all the opinion
pieces in the times
(English edition)
are alien to me...

        i can't relate to them...
sure...
the classical type of journalism:
what, when, where?
  that's passable as in:
reading an encyclopedia...

but the opinion pieces are...
sorry to say:
     unreal...
             so i give them a pass...

but coming back
to poking around for a niche
on the internet...

               it must be exhausting...
being like a cow during
summer in a pasture...
   bothered by so many
bothersome flies...

- and it's not even that i want
to express a freedom
of speech that could be...
anti p.c.,

              i...
                          i'd much
prefer a subtle variety of
presence...
                a shadow presence...
all of and all the much
more of an existential
lethargy that's
become a fine, fine architecture
that consolidates
a man in a throng...

but when internet "content
creators"
   drop videos...
of running around this and there
with their cameras...

hmm...
i walked past the mosque
between
whitechapel and aldgate
drinking a beer in public...
that day i walked
from the sq. mile
to Goodmayes...
i managed four beers...
drank in public...
sure...
   a few snoops along
the way...
                   ***** looks
from passing cars by young
Muslim men...

but... i stopped caring...
truly... which is not the same
as: not giving a ****...

i very much concerned
myself in chancing
a public toilet to take a whizz...

were you ever hand-cuffed
for taking a whizz in
a back alley,
and being miraculously
un-cuffed?

           - once i found
a police van to be the next
best thing to a taxi
back home...

- fun fact:
if something hits a police car,
like i once did on
a bicycle...
the smart-car stops,
locks in...

    - and the incident needs
to be reported...
i said to the pair
of officers: i'm watching
Wimbledon back home,
i live 5 miles away,
can i go?

nope...
i had to wait for them
to report the incident,
before the central
office could unlock their
patrol car...

i.e. sometimes i can't
exactly stomach some
of these ivory tower
"content creators"...

good thing i invested
my money in a gramaphone
and not a camera / mic.,
that ship has sailed,
long time ago...
and i'm not going
to bother with that medium
any time soon.
Inner city limits.


I did get on the bus
no fuss
eschewed the tube
and
got the bus.

No point being early today
even if I was there'd be no
one there
anyway
the
caretaker's got the day
off and not taking care
of anyone,

but it's Friday
and why you may ask
does that make a difference?
all I know
is that as days go
Friday's are one of the best.

Standing room
and on tte
lower deck thoughts
drift silently in the quiet
faces of passengers.

Passing the Boorh memorial
a man of god dressed in
sartorial elegance,

Whitechapel
smells of ether and rain.

The Royal London
looks regal
a
palace for tte sick.


Into the city
past Aldgate East
no one at home
but
at least
the lights are on
and now this bus is jammed
spread so thickly with people
that drip like thick treacle
down the aisle,
in a while I beleive
they'll leave
they always do.

On through the Bank
and down to
St. Paul's,
behind me
a solitary
muezzin calls
the
faithful to prayer.

I'm getting there
albeit
slowly
but
the getting is part
of the process
and progression is
just a bonus.
Bromley by-Bow,
it
is as well to know
not the same as
Bow road where it is
still advisable to
'Mind the gap'

Have you ever seen
Stepney Green on
Saturday?
Ha
no way you'll see it from
the underground
as I've just found.

On to Aldgate East
don't expect to meet
that
'turbulent priest'
he's long gone.

I'm going on
passing Tower Hill,
the monument
a monument to
the great fire

Cannon street
no cannons
Mansion house where
they really need *****
(of the cannon variety)
Blackfriars in a blackfriary,
must remember that and put
It in my diary
Temple
Embankment
Westminster
at James's park
and it's dark but still
underground so quite
reasonable

Victoria
amused?
I'm confused
it looks so new.

Glass and steel
all go to make me
feel cold and
unwanted
which is probably true
in the new
continuum.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2021
where was is that i heard, 20% of people do 50% of the work,
or perhaps i overheard the ratio incorrectly,
20% of people do 80% of the work...
i left the house at 5:30am...
i don't think i slept a wink...
    got to Liverpool St. at around 6:40am... no trains
to Wembley Park... i.e. no Metropolitan Line from
Aldgate...
the Hammersmith & City line opened at around
ten past seven a.m.
  jumped on it to Baker St.
   then a five minute wait for the metropolitan
line... two stops to Wembley Park...
picked up a coffee at McDonald's, black... five
or six sugars... those sachets are never teaspoon
equivalent...
perhaps late by half an hour... but not really...
a massive queue of stewards at the signing-in...
people coming later than me...
waiting for about 3 hours outside the stadium
until we were finally let it and allocated our
positions...
hardly any briefing...
the national anthem was tested about five times...
as was the pyrotechnics...
sweep of the entire north stand of level 5...
checking for all the seats being in a working
condition... then allocated our spots...
no chance in hell was i going to stick to the plan...
someone approached me gagging for a smoke,
no can do, cameras everywhere,
took my hand, i told him: i'm a smoker too...
i haven't been smoking since 8am...
just imagine what that cigarette will feel like
when you get out... stay strong...
a co-worker was babbling to some customers
about the events at the Euros
when the stadium was stormed by hooligans
without tickets... he remembered that
he was instructed not to speak about it...
for an hour or two i was reassuring him
that he wouldn't get into trouble,
paranoid... the people he was talking to
had their telephone out...
he was on the frontline of the stampede:
he thought he was going to be dox(x)ed...
but you're a wearing a face-mask, aren't you?
and your voice never sounds the same in real
life as it might sound on a recording, no?
don't worry...
telling people in the glass room on level 5
to finish their drinks... kick off in 10 minutes...
two hands extended: ten digits showing...
thank you mate... blah blah...
at half time: 5 minutes to kick off...
one hand extended five digits showing... more thank you mate...
the incident with a first aid...
a man and his two daughter...
i should have asked for his ticket, just in case...
i will next time...
one first aid room closed,
we walked to a second first aid room: also closed...
i left the three in the company of fellow stewards:
keep them entertained, talking...
only a bruised knee, or a cut knee...
his, or one of his girls? i couldn't remember,
talked to a supervisor, both the first aid rooms
are closed, where are the first aiders?
message to control room, hawk-eye on...
they should be at base 503... went to base 503...
they're not there... they apparently were located
in one of the first aid rooms: now open...
escorted them to the man and his two daughters...
but obviously half time was over
and they ****** off to sit down...
clearly the incident wasn't so important...
but i persisted...
walked up and down each base up the stairs
scanning the crowd, hoping to find them...
almost reaching an epileptic fit from scanning
so many faces... until another supervisor approached
me: what are you doing?
looking for them... they might have gone to a lower level,
should i stop? yeah...
then this guy who wanted to go from level 5 to
level 1... but his ticket read: you're supposed
to be on level 5... he tried to wriggle his way out...
but my younger brother is there,
and i have food for him...
the supervisor asked: but your under 18 companion
is in company of an 18+ minder?
if everyone wanted to go down to the lower
levels for a better view...
it wouldn't be fair...
then not-minded children running across the aisles
at the top of the stadium...
one fellow steward asked me to intervene,
a mother herself... happened three or four times...
first two times a supervisor just passively walked around
the "incident" without music influence...
by the time i got there one of the kids was
falling on the chairs... thankfully i scribbled to them
a sentence with a hand facing down:
moving my index and middle fingers slowly
with an imitation of: walk... don't run...
go back to your parents... lucky mummy also picked
up the scent of danger...
problem sorted...
then this solitary kid high up in the stands...
what team do you support, you're enjoying yourself,
you're up here alone? where are you parents /
who are you with? grandfather, father and sister?
you're up here to get a better view...
all the while kneeling beside him...
oh, cool, just remember to return to them
before the end of the match...
at the end of the match he was still up there all alone...
sort of mumbling to himself...
or just excited as any child might be
when sitting on the highest reaches of the Wembley
crater...
i escorted him to his grandfather before the final
whistle... problem sorted in advance:
it might have been a missing child... when the crowds
started to disperse...
then this escalation steward came to one of the bases:
one steward at the door... the other
at the bottom of the rows... at the end of the stairs
for level 5...
so people don't unhinge themselves and sway into
the barrier and possibly fall off...
he noticed one missing to the left...
i walked down to the one where i was at
and looked to the right...
how many missing in your position...
thumb, index, ******* posited with question,
three missing? he affirmed...
and i was off... a fellow steward: no supervisor,
imploring one of each of the three pairs to break up,
one to stand at the door the other to go down
to the bottom of the stairs...
they complied...
the women's Chelsea team beat the women's Arsenal
team 3 nil... Chelsea had only managed to win the FA
cup twice prior to today's win...
the Arsenal team have won it 15 times...
today's stadium capacity reached circa 42K...
not bad for a female football match... i reckon...
the clientele... a mixed bunch...
you'd think there would be more women...
n'ah... hmm... most certainly more children than per usual
football match... children are most certainly gender neutral...
well... gender "neutral"... whatever the hell that means...
it probably means:
i was a boy once too... i'd play video games,
but i'd also play with dolls with girls...
we'd congregate with girls playing hide-and-seek...
tic-tac-toe... no ******* way...
no boys there... or jumping over skipping ropes...
no chance... climbing trees? sure...
such a different clientele to what's expected
to a Fulham match...
£4.80 for a steak & ale pie... burgers at £6.00 not worth
the money... you can never get a bad pie
at a football match...

in summary... i think i was built for this role...
over £10 an hour... but it's not about the money...
i don't want money...
i have an apprehension of money...
firstly: i don't really know what i'd spend it on
if i had too much of it, if there was enough for rent,
for food... i just don't like spending money...
i like drinking whiskey...
i prefer cooking my own food than imploring
others to cook it for me...
i feel silly in a restaurant... almost like a mannequin
with a grimace, or for that matter movement...
all those restaurants in central London...
glass panes... oh look... the mannequins are eating...
window shopping escalated...
they're also advertising clothing!
cooking for yourself though... it reminds me of...
those days in the organic chemistry laboratories
of the Joseph Black building up in Edinburgh...
air filled with whiffs of sulphur and ethanol...
and machinery...

i fear money, as much as i fear god...
what's the point of loving either Mammon or Ha-Shem
when you become ignorant to both,
who might, suddenly... on a whim... change their mind
regarding your fate?
plus... extra money: while you might not be spending it...
someone might latch up onto you and leech your wallet...
why would anyone ever want that?
that's why i don't want to earn beyond
my capacity...
let savings be like a trickle...
in that fabled torture of Loki... Loki's punishment...
with the serpent's venom dripping onto his head
drop by drop... "riddling" a hole in his skull...
but this life is all a credit... best work around the medium
of debit...
i don't remember the last time i worked with
credit... spend less than you earn...
simple, no? never "fake it, until you make it"...
if it has to be summarised as... well... stretching it:
it's not an ascetic reason...
it's a Spartan reason: there are no religious reasons...
there are only... self-imposed reasons...
come to think of it...
once the ascetic reasons are established...
aesthetic reasons come on their own...
it's beautifully! ha ha! simple!

it becomes... luckily one of the supervisors dropped
me off at Newbury Park with two fellow
co-workers... he was heading up to Basildon...
put the heating up... one co-worker was nodding in
approval to the met sleep...
me? i took a power-nap after having some food back home,
from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, before writing my father's invoice,
making him lunch & taking out the garbage...

but he kept on switching the music
and texting while driving...
what?! what is this, short-attention span when it comes to music?

alll i herd was rap, some drum & bass,
something equivalent to pendulum,
before the song was half-way through,
he would change it... start working early in life...
low attention span, how many thought were pulverising
his head when he took it upon himself
a self-assertiveness of an "alpha-male":
sure... Dan is about 2 inches taller than me,
fatty boy, walks about like a falling oak...
has 4 children... yet.. his mind was distracted
by my silence...

i could have said: listen, mate, i'm knackered...
it might be probable that i only dreamt up
sleeping these three hours...
treating women like second class citizenry:
but.... THE WOMEN LOVE IT...
the grumpy male...
they love it!
i'm not your uber driver etc.
well, i'm not having any of it... i just focused
on his restless mind...
if i were driving the car...
you'd be listening to

die eisenfaust am lanzenschaft...
through & through...

die aeisenfaust am lanzenschft
die zügel in der linken,
so sprengt des reiches ritterschaft
und ihre schwerter blinken

hey-ah hey-ah.... hey-ah! hey-ah!
und ihre schwerter blinken.
hey-ah hey-ah.... hey-ah! hey-ah!
und ihre schwerter blinken.

das balkenkreuz, das schwarze fleigt
voran auf weißen grunde,
verloren zwar doch umbesiegt
so klingt uns seine kunde,

hey-ah hey-ah.... hey-ah! hey-ah!
so klingt uns seine kunde.
hey-ah hey-ah.... hey-ah! hey-ah!
so klingt uns seine kunde.


at worst, you'd have me playing Prokofiev's
schlacht auf das eis...
(battle on the ice, some Nevsky)...
if only the Polacks wrote a musical score
for... schlacht bei Tannenberg...
sadly... only  painting...

that's history... what a scatter brain...
we rode all the way from Wembley toward
the straight A12 towards Essex Basildon...
i don't think i heard a whole song in full...
playing the role of "alpha male" leaves most men
scatter brained...
he already has the physical superiority,
but his mind is a mollusk...

my fellow coworker tried to establish something,
i already disclosed to her that i studied
chemistry, that i write... ahem... poo-etry...
my name, my ******* name...
i break it down to her:

M'ah-T'eh...   ΩŠ...
the it's written as mateusz...
but the slavic S+Z is equivalent to the English S+H...
which is equivalent to hiding either Z or H
within the S as a caron: Š...
ma-te (again, hide the H's of the vowel catcher
tetragrammaton)...
the upsilon is prolonged, therefore becomes
a doubled omicron, like in pOOl...
ergo... an omega... omega being sort of a "double-u"...
W... V... a double V... when is softened from vent...
wet is the softened version of vet...

it's not a double "U"... is it... that's an omega...
it's a double V... that W = 2xV, no?

come to think of it, telepathy?
if you read enough Julian Jaynes, about the phenomenon
of the bicemeral mind...
prior to to the event: as if the 8 winds spoke one
word simultaneously, was someone calling me?
i heard the word: MA-TE-USZ...
as clearly as i felt the cold,
heard the rain, saw the sun...

if my name could be elevated....
from merely: geschenk von gott
to: das licht von zorn...
   (gift of god that becomes:
the light of wrath)...
i'd hear about it, prior to seeing anything...
that the day begun with a hallucination,
and ended with someone asking
me for the syllables corrected...

clearly this is a job for me, i'm very fond on
ensuring crowds are safe, secured, serviced...
i like this simple mantra:
keep them contained within a crowd status....
keep them herderded...
i might wish for sheep, people is the closest i'll ever come
to being someone herding sheep not uprooted
from his roots in Iran, being turned into
an Just-Eat driver on a ******* moped...

i'm loving these little snippets of authority,
it can't allow me to turn into a megalomaniac,
i feel... a genuine concern for people,
esp. children....
i don't need my own... the children of strangers are
plenty...

but it's so bewildering, a guy pretends to be this alpha...
rude to females... mein gott: how women love
being slapped metaphorically!
mein hertz, ist nicht im des recht platz...
singen freude! singen frei!
lassen alles einfach: singen!

i lapse into etymological English, i.e. German
whenever something is... odd... curious...
a hmm proposition...

plenty... jetzt kommt, der große: schlaf(en).
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2021
superficial overtones...
the Kaiser bites the *****: turns it sour
from all that saliva-glue...
and the French want to rekindle
the glory days of Charlemagne
go down with Napoleon's
overstretched ambitions into
overstepping into Russia...

but at least i tend to my conversational
overtones...
i don't like superficiality of
this love yet to be tasted:
yet so yawn: ah so tender...
give me three proper glugs
of southern comfort on ice
after roughly 4 hours
coming back to havering-atte-bower
doing a lap of hyde park...

and i'll tell you how weird
is feels cycling into central Loon'don
when once upon a time i'd take
the bus... the tube...
and use up some of my legs
in the labyrinth of Bank station...

honestly? cycling through London...
i thought it was much bigger...
the tube enlarges what's made
available...
what is 20+ miles to and back...
the flat serendipity of London
that's almost like the joys of tulips
and the Benelux...
you can cycle for miles...
of note: from Aldgate toward Stratford...
from Stratford to Ilford...
from Ilford to Chadwell Heath:

demon speeding, no other...
i almost wish to own a horse by now...
but then the symbiosis associate
with four legs trotting two legs
lagging, hanging down on the sides
of a torso...

it's unlike heading toward Southend on Sea
or into the nitty-gritty: rolling hills
of Essex via Epping...
plus the thrill of cycling through traffic...
cycling with objects that might torpedo me
to a death...
the thrill of the roundabout...
it's such a cerebral fatty-hard-on
to peddle...

           after all... 29" wheels and i cause
a stampede... of flutes torturing
carl Orff's O fortune: on wheels...
but of no concern...
"they" didn't leave their abode with
a Yiddish...
like they left-off burger-burning
and burning bridges of etymology like
they did in: Hamburg...
did they...

Russian didn't leave many words
for original maneuvering /
    manoeuvring (too many vowels)...
god no god: but the words are available...
those vowel siamese twins
of AE & OE.... one can understand SH
coming together for a crown (Š): caron...
to hide the lesser "goik"...

                /məˈnuːvə/ vs.
[muh-noo-ver]:
hands down... the british linguists heave more
rock of letters than their
h'american counterparts...
if... linguistic reiterations are to be minded...

all these 'postrophes and 'urds
and almost cockney shortenings are
to come to any fruition...
all these Scotch accents with not diacritical
marks all that but not Gaelic...
fine fine clause...
so... why do the Velsh still retain their
Çymru?

to hell with "getting to know" these
natives: sometimes...
ask a rock to move with telekinesis as probe!
blow up Mars... grief a life until retirement in
a swamp you could retract to eat
with it: by a magic wand...
turn into a stew!

yes yes... i heard "correctly"...
  
/təˈmɑːtəʊ/ vs. [tuh-mey-toh, -mah-]
vs. well yeah... katakana:
            トマト
            ポタト

don't get me started on the grand: Toe & Camel...
tow-may-toe...
yes... i get the choke "joke"...

- yore! the burger buns are: burning...
i'm halfway reciting my bob dilly-dan-dan
adventures and i've lacklustre sensations
concerning old age...
i shun it... on the shores
of the Faroe Isles i cling to a mythological
possession of a pebble...

to fathom a a cloud like an
apparition of a swan...
i will detail the youth we shared,
together...
over something akin to a Loch Lomond...
Glasgow begged us to yawn...

no "toe" in a katakana to:
no... "toy"...
it's either a: t'oh (ト)...
or a t'eh (テ)...

and this is what laughter looks
like in ol' ***'
(unlike a spanish giggle
of a german saying yesyesyes
quickly):
                  ハ ハ
                         ア ハ ハ
                                               ハ
                                                    ハ
i expected much more from
the natives: that they might known
their own tongue and its
"shortcomings"...
i truly did...

given they govern a "diaspora"
that's so well connected
and it's sunny in England
but raining toads
in the Vermont of the U.S. of A.
love for acronyms falls short...
no?

Marble Arch looks aplenty weird
when you can fathom the entire stretch of miles
without there being anything implicit of
of "automation"...
of junction...
it's not like me a Beckett with a tail
for a bicycle...
i'd like to see Paris, again...
on a bicycle...
it must feed such a shortening of
a... lessened inquest of interest...

        of course... came the conquest of idea:
enough clones are the a plenty...
of Islam... but there will always be this bothersome one
that will "think" and think it's otherwise...
there's always one and one is
enough to balance out a plethora of equations...

to conquer England is to have a Miami smile concerning
this fickle... bothersome: and "weather"...
to conquer England is to have a
mosque erected in Bradford... Luton...
their cuisine is superior, don' you think?
oh, wait... they are the blue 'indus:
the last mother superior 'inds...

         in the zunge of the natiff...
i too would think "otherwise":
they did have an arsenal of spices
greater than the nuke arsenal of
either the soviets or the h'americans..
we will be glad to be educated concerning
the use of cumin, coriander...
black cardamom bombs of pseudo-whiskey...

toe-may-***!
        tow-m'ah... tease!
                    a clarity of the syllable junctions...
like giving birth to time...
like collapsing into atom
for the purpose of spacing &
coordinating...
like the time Albert Fish stuck needles
into his pelvis before
being electrocuted...

and this might have been an event
to equal the raising of
the Eiffel Tower...
but then again...
if it wasn't the Eiffel...
and there was Albert Fish...
i'd probably remember the *******
fish-wed-lock
rather than...
the congregations of moi-mort-dans-haler...

giggle: at most: through the congregation
of the most, left, available....
these walking add-on abortions...
thee ***-less truant plays of
"lost harem" sods....
my eager ****** lust....
           last >  tréma oh:
   parabolique glisser....

           non! ici, je m'eh tie(n)(s):     (où)
          nein... hier:
ist

— The End —