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Mateuš Conrad Aug 2017
you want the good first, and the bad second?
never mind, you're going to get
the bad first...

so there i was,
sitting in the street, outside a pub,
sipping a cool drench
of heineken pint, probably
the best beer in the world
(i'd agree with the carlsberg ad.,
but then it's featherweight
at 3.8%... so dear dane?
probably no... stick with
shakespeare... you *******
umlaut wannabe (ø) diphtong)...
so i was sitting there
with some dutch-bewilderment,
a local...
  out pops a skinny kenyan
and starts ******* in front of us...
sure, he's ******* against
the dumpster,
  but the dutch-bewilderment
glaces at me and his eyes
are already saying to me:
worth a knife or a stick,
to clobber the ******* down,
i've lost the desire to drink
my beer...
         centre of amsterdam,
i was wackoed out of the pub
by sheer: huh?!
     i admit, not all stories are bad,
the other time, i was sharing
a hostel room with two germans,
who decided to waste
a mushroom experience while
watching *american dad
...
while me and this egyptian
architecture student hit the town...
i was drinking, he was
smoking,
   then i took a **** at one of his
"special moment" rollies...
and then he said,
   put these on (headphones),
listen to this music...
the music? le trio joubran,
the song? masar...
     i was drinking throughout
the day... but one **** of
the rollie, and the music?
            **** me, the dam bursts...
i was sitting there,
in one of the cafes,
  mouth open, eyes closed,
one or two dutch girls looking,
my egyptian companion said...
     it must have been akin
to someone shooting up ******...
with my eyes closed i must have
been looking at god,
  or a diamond, or into a kaleidoscope;
gravity fused itself with my genitals...
i was dragged into my seat...
  and couldn't move,
eyes closed, mouth agape,
      monged out of my nuts,
which by this moment in chronological
order, was beyond the chance to orbit
saturn and take a selfie...
  the holy trinity of an excess
of *****, some marijuana,
   and music you've never heard
before, suggested by a stranger...
last thing i remember was walking
through the streets of amsterdam,
laughing my head off...

when i consider reviving memories
of cities i usually have several
version to mind...
the first amsterdam i went to was so:
.............................
........................
...............................
a boring trip, i bought two pipes,
a classical pipe, and this asian pipe...
the second amsterdam?
         was this the amsterdam where
i visited a *****?
can't remember...
  amsterdam no. 3?
             i think that's the amsterdam
account i just gave...
    never mind the minor thrill
of "smuggling" a few grams of hash
through the airport,
  in a biscuit can...
                a bit like plagiarising
that sociology essay, just inviting
the thesaurus to change the sentence
structure at university...
for the thrill, not for the grade...
  evidently a.i. isn't familiar with
the thesaurus cheat mode...
  **** me...got a first in that essay,
and managed to beat the computers;
oh yeah, smuggled the hash in...
it wasn't a lot, barely an 8th of an ounce,
fact of the matter is, i did it;
that being said,
  i have no romance with amsterdam,
i just miss paris...
      i'm never going back,
the memories are too precious...
              that hostel... duck something,
drowning duck? drunk duck?
    i can't remember...
   i'm never going back to paris,
the memories are too precious,
and the current affairs are too painful
to make that city a beacon of light
once more...
   we showered in the outside,
and we made courgette pasta with onions
garlic, bacon and cream...
    but that was 2005 or so.
       for some reason, i never had the sort
of affection for amsterdam,
            great for smoking,
great for drinking,
   great for not feeling guilty about
window-shopping prostitutes:
   with that victorian-feminism attitude
of the brits...
     hey! you're cutting the chivalry costs
of paying for the meal: back to basics...
  stochholm? over-priced...
      you'd probably become intoxicated
quicker, having downed a bottle of *****
you bought at the airport,
  and then drinking your own ****,
than you would, while drinking at the swedes'
americana experiment with pseudo-prohibition
tactics...
    how are you going to keep warm?
fat ain't furr... but sure as ****,
alcohol numbs the biting cold,
    no matter how you think about it
in describing it as a placebo effect...
                    it still warms the poles
in the outdoors, esp. when a person dies
in winter, and they have their stypa /
   wake drinking session in the graveyard.

i just can't forget that look of disgust
from the dutch guy sitting next to me,
drinking his beer,
   without our shared canvas, of an african
******* in the street, against
a dust-bin;

as borat would have said...
                     *mmm das nnnnnnniiiiiiice.
Ah, Nikolaas, my love for him is not the same, as my love for thee;
My love for thee was once, and may still be, sweeter, purer, more elegant, and free;
But still, how unfortunate! imprisoned in mockery, and liberated not-by destiny;
It still hath to come and go; it cannot stay cheerfully-about thee forever, and within my company.

And but tonight-shall Amsterdam still be cold?
But to cold temper thou shalt remain unheeded; thou shalt be tough, and bold;
Sadly I am definite about having another nightmare, meanwhile, here;
For thy voice and longings shall be too far; with presumptions and poems, I cannot hear.

Sleep, my loveliest, sleep; for unlike thine, none other temper, or love-is in some ways too fragrant, and sweet;
All of which shall neither tempt me to flirt, nor hasten me to meet;
My love for thee is still undoubted, defined, and unhesitant;
Like all t'is summer weather around; 'tis both imminent, and pleasant.

My love for thee, back then, was but one youthful-and reeking of temporal vitality;
But now 'tis different-for fathom I now-the distinction between sincerity, and affectation.
Ah, Nikolaas, how once we strolled about roads, and nearby spheres-in living vivacity;
With sweets amongst our tongues-wouldst we attend every song, and laugh at an excessively pretentious lamentation.

Again-we wouldst stop in front of every farm of lavender;
As though they wanted to know, and couldst but contribute their breaths, and make our love better.
We were both in blooming youth, and still prevailed on-to keep our chastity;
And t'is we obeyed gladly, and by each ot'er, days passed and every second went even lovelier.

But in one minute thou wert but all gone away;
Leaving me astray; leaving me to utter dismay.
I had no more felicity in me-for all was but, in my mind, a dream of thee;
And every step was thus felt like an irretrievable path of agony.

Ah, yon agony I loathe! The very agony I wanted but to slaughter, to redeem-and to bury!
For at t'at time I had known not the beauty of souls, and poetry;
I thought but the world was wholly insipid and arrogant;
T'at was so far as I had seen, so far as I was concerned.

I hath now, seen thy image-from more a lawful angle-and lucidity;
And duly seen more of which-and all start to fall into place-and more indolent, clarity;
All is fair now, though nothing was once as fair;
And now with peace, I want to be friends; I want to be paired.

Perhaps thou couldst once more be part of my tale;
But beforehand, I entreat thee to see, and listen to it;
A tale t'at once sent into my heart great distrust and sadness, and made it pale;
But from which now my heart hath found a way out, and even satisfactorily flirted with it,

For every tale, the more I approach it, is as genuine as thee;
And in t'is way-and t'is way only, I want thee to witness me, I want thee to see me.
I still twitch with tender madness at every figure, and image-I hath privately, of thine;
They are still so captivatingly clear-and a most fabulous treasure to my mind.

My love for thee might hath now ended; and shall from now on-be dead forever;
It hath been buried as a piece of unimportance, and a dear old, obsolete wonder;
And thus worry not, for in my mind it hath become a shadow, and ceased to exist;
I hath made thee resign, I hath made thee drift rapidly away, and desist.

Ah, but again, I shall deny everything I hath said-'fore betraying myself once more;
Or leading myself into the winds of painful gravity, or dismissive cold tremor;
For nothing couldst stray me so well as having thee not by my side;
An image of having thee just faraway-amidst the fierceness of morns, and the very tightness of nights.

And for seconds-t'ese pains shall want to bury me away, want to make me shout;
And shout thy very name indeed; thy very own aggravated silence, and sins out loud;
Ah, for all t'ese shadows about are too vehement-but eagerly eerie;
Like bursts of outspread vigilance, misunderstood but lasting forever, like eternity.

'Twas thy own mistake-and thus thou ought'a blame anyone not;
Thou wert the one to storm away; thou wert the one who cut our story short.
Thou wert the one who took whole leave, of the kind entity-of my precious time and space;
And for nothingness thou obediently set out; leaving all we had built, to abundant waste.

Thou disappeared all too quickly-and wert never seen again;
Thou disappeared like a column of smoke, to whom t'is virtual world is partial;
And none of thy story, since when-hath stayed nor thoughtfully remained;
Nor any threads of thy voice were left behind, to stir and ring, about yon hall.

Thou gaily sailed back into thy proud former motherland;
Ah, and the stirring noises of thy meticulous Amsterdam;
Invariably as a man of royalty, in thy old arduous way back again;
Amongst the holiness of thy mortality; 'twixt the demure hesitations, of thy royal charms.

And thou art strange! For once thou mocked and regarded royalty as *******;
But again, to which itself, as credulous, and soulless victim, thou couldst serenely fall;
Thus thou hath perpetually been loyal not, to thy own pride, and neatly sworn words;
Thou art forever divided in his dilemma; and the unforgiving sweat, of thy frightening two worlds.

Indeed thy godlike eyes once pierced me-and touched my very fleshly happiness;
But with a glory in which I couldst not rejoice; at which I couldst not blush with tenderness.
Thy charms, although didst once burn and throttle me with a ripe vitality;
Still wert not smooth-and ever offered to cuddle me more gallantly; nor kiss my boiling lips, more softly.

Every one of t'ese remembrances shall make me hate thee more;
But thou thyself hath made more forgiving, and excellent-like never before;
'Ah, sweet,' thou wouldst again protested-last night, 'Who in t'is very life wouldst make no sin?'
'Forgiveth every sinned soul thereof; for 'tis unfaithful, for 'tis all inherently mean.'

'Aye, aye,' and thou wouldst assent to my subsequent query,
'I hath changed forever-not for nothingness, but for eternitie.'
'To me love o' gold is now but nothing as succulent',
'I shall offer elegantly myself to not be of any more torment, but as a loyal friend.'

'I shall calleth my former self mad; and be endued with nothing but truths, of rifles and hate;'
'But now I shall attempt to be obedient; and naughty not-towards my fate.'
'Ah, let me amendst thereof-my initial nights, my impetuous mistakes,'
'Let me amendst what was once not dignified; what was once said as false, and fake.'

'So t'at whenst autumn once more findeth its lapse, and in its very grandness arrive,'
'I hopeth thy wealth of love shall hath been restored, and all shall be alive,'
'For nothing hath I attempted to achieve, and for nothing else I hath struggled to strive;'
'But only to propose for thy affection; and thy willingness to be my saluted wife.'

And t'is small confession didst, didst tear my dear heart into pieces!
But canst I say-it was ceremoniously established once more-into settlements of wishes;
I was soon enlivened, and no longer blurred by tumult, nor discourteous-hesitation;
Ah, thee, so sweetly thou hath consoled, and removed from me-the sanctity of any livid strands of my dejection.

For in vain I thought-had I struggled, to solicit merely affection-and genuinity from thee;
For in vain I deemed-thou couldst neither appreciate me-nor thy coral-like eyes, couldst see;
And t'is peril I perched myself in was indeed dangerous to my night and day;
For it robbed me of my mirth; and shrank insolently my pride and conscience, stuffing my wholeness into dismay.

But thou hath now released me from any further embarkation of mineth sorrow;
Thou who hath pleased me yesterday; and shall no more be distant-tomorrow;
Thou who couldst brighten my hours by jokes so fine-and at times, ridiculous;
Thou who canst but, from now on, as satisfactory, irredeemable, and virtuous.

Ah, Nikolaas, farther I shall be no more to calleth thee mad; or render thee insidious;
Thou shall urge me to forget everything, as hating souls is not right, and perilous;
Thou remindeth me of forgiving's glorious, and profound elegance;
And again 'tis the holiest deed we ought to do; the most blessed, and by God-most desired contrivance.

Oh, my sweet, perhaps thou hath sinned about; but amongst the blessed, thou might still be the most blessed;
For nothing else but gratitude and innocence are now seen-in thy chest;
Even when I chastised thee-and called thee but an impediment;
Thou still forgave me, and turned myself back again into elastic merriment.

Thou art now pure-and not by any means meek, but cruel-like thy old self is;
For unlike 'tis now, it couldst never be satisfied, nor satiated, nor pleased;
'Twas far too immersed in his pursuit of bloodied silver, and gold;
And to love it had grown blind, and its greedy woes, healthily too bold.

And just like its bloodied silver-it might be but the evil blood itself;
For it valued, and still doth-every piece with madness, and insatiable hunger;
Its works taint his senses, and hastened thee to want more-of what thou couldst procure-and have,
But it realised not that as time passed by, it made thee but grew worse-and in the most virtuous of truth, no better.

But thou bore it like a piece of godlike, stainless ivory;
Thou showered, and endured it with love; and blessed it with well-established vanity.
Now it hath been purified, and subdued-and any more teaches thee not-how to be impatient, nor imprudent;
As how it prattled only, over crude, limitless delights; and the want of reckless impediments.

Thou nurtured it, and exhorted it to discover love-all day and night;
And now love in whose soul hath been accordingly sought, and found;
And led thee to absorb life like a delicate butterfly-and raiseth thy light;
The light thou hath now secured and refined within me; and duly left me safe, and sound.

Thou hath restored me fully, and made me feel but all charmed, awesome, and way more heavenly;
Thou hath toughened my pride and love; and whispered the loving words he hath never spoken to me.
Ah, I hope thou art now blessed and safely pampered in thy cold, mischievous Amsterdam;
Amsterdam which as thou hath professed-is as windy, and oft' makes thy fingers grow wildly numb.

Amsterdam which is sick with superior lamentations, and fame;
But never adorned with exact, or at least-honest means of scrutiny;
For in every home exists nothing but bursts of madness, and flames;
And in which thereof, lives 'twixt nothing-but meaningless grandeur, and a poorest harmony.

Amsterdam which once placed thee in pallid, dire, and terrible horror;
Amsterdam which gave thy spines thrills of disgust, and infamous tremor;
But from which thou wert once failed, fatefully, neither to flee, nor escape;
Nor out of whose stupor, been able to worm thy way out, or put which, into shape.

But I am sure out of which thou art now delightful-and irresistibly fine;
For t'ere is no more suspicion in thy chest-and all of which hath gone safely to rest;
All in thy very own peace-and the courteous abode of our finest poetry;
Which lulls thee always to sleep-and confer on thee forever, degrees of a warmest, pleasantry.

Ah, Nikolaas-as thou hath always been, a child of night, but born within daylight;
Poor-poor child as well, of the moon, whose life hath been betrayed but by dullness, and fright.
Ah, Nikolaas-but should hath it been otherwise-wouldst thou be able to see thine light?
And be my son of gladness, be my prince of all the more peaceful days; and ratified nights.

And should it be like which-couldst I be the one; the very one idyll-to restore thy grandeur?
As thou art now, everything might be too blasphemous, and in every way obscure;
But perhaps-I couldst turn every of thine nightmare away, and maketh thee secure;
Perhaps I couldst make thee safe and glad and sleep soundly; perfectly ensured.

Ah, Nikolaas! For thy delight is pure-and exceptionally pure, pure, and pure!
And thy innocence is why I shall craft thee again in my mind, and adore thee;
For thy absurdity is as shy, and the same as thy purity;
But in thy hands royalty is unstained, flawless, and just too sure.

For in tales of eternal kingdoms-thou shalt be the dignified king himself;
Thou shalt be blessed with all godly finery, and jewels-which thou thyself deserve;
And not any other tyrant in t'ese worlds-who mock ot'er souls and pretend to be brave;
But trapped within t'eir own discordant souls, and wonders of deceit and curses of reserve.

Oh, sweet-sweet Nikolaas! Please then, help my poetry-and define t'is heart of me!
Listen to its heartbeat-and tellest me, if it might still love thee;
Like how it wants to stretch about, and perhaps touch the moonlight;
The moonlight that does look and seem to far, but means still as much-to our very night.

Ah! Look, my darling-as the moonlight shall smile again, to our resumed story;
If our story is, in unseen future, ever truly resumed-and thus shall cure everything;
As well t'is unperturbed, and still adorably-longing feeling;
The feeling that once grew into remorse-as soon as thou stomped about, and faraway left me.

Again love shall be, in thy purest heart-reincarnated,
For 'tis the only single being t'at is wondrous-and inexhaustible,
To our souls, 'tis but the only salvation-and which is utterly edible,
To console and praise our desperate beings-t'at were once left adrift, and unheartily, infuriated.

Love shall be the cure to all due breathlessness, and trepidations;
Love shall be infallible, and on top of all, indefatigable;
And love shall be our new invite-to the recklessness of our exhausted temptations;
Once more, shall love be our merit, which is sacred and unalterable; and thus unresentful, and infallible.

Love shall fill us once more to the brim-and make our souls eloquent;
Love be the key to a life so full-and lakes of passion so ardent;
Enabling our souls to flit about and lay united hands on every possible distinction;
Which to society is perhaps not free; and barrier as they be, to the gaiety of our destination.

Thus on the rings of union again-shall our dainty hearts feast;
As though the entire world hath torn into a beast;
But above all, they shan't have any more regrets, nor hate;
Or even frets, for every fit of satisfaction hath been reached; and all thus, hath been repaid.

Thus t'is might be thee; t'at after all-shall be worthy of my every single respect;
As once thou once opened my eyes-and show me everything t'at t'is very world might lack.
Whilst thou wert striving to be admirable and strong; t'is world was but too prone and weak;
And whilst have thy words and poetry; everyone was just perhaps too innocent-and had no clue, about what to utter, what to speak.

Thou might just be the very merit I hath prayed for, and always loved;
Thou might hath lifted, and relieved me prettily; like the stars very well doth the moon above.
And among your lips, lie your sweet kisses t'at made me live;
A miracle he still possesses not; a specialty he might be predestined not-to give.

Thou might be the song I hath always wanted to written;
But sadly torn in one day of storm; and thus be secretly left forgotten;
Ah, Nikolaas, but who is to say t'at love is not at all virile, easily deceived, and languid?
For any soul saying t'at might be too delirious, or perhaps very much customary, and insipid.

And in such darkness of death; thou shalt always be the tongue to whom I promise;
One with whom I shall entrust the very care of my poetry; and ot'er words of mouth;
One I shall remember, one I once so frightfully adored, and desired to kiss;
One whose name I wouldst celebrate; as I still shall-and pronounce every day, triumphantly and aggressively, out loud.

For thy name still rings within me with craze, but patterned accusation, of enjoyment;
For thy art still fits me into bliss, and hopeful expectations of one bewitching kiss;
Ah, having thee in my imagination canst turn me idle, and my cordial soul-indolent;
A picture so naughty it snares my whole mind-more than everything, even more than his.

Oh, Nikolaas, and perhaps so thereafter, I shall love, and praise thee once more-like I doth my poetry;
For as how my poetry is, thou art rooted in me already; and thus breathe within me.
Thou art somehow a vein in my blood, and although fictitious still-in my everyday bliss;
Thou art worth more than any other lov
Terry Jordan Apr 2017
It’s not that big a surprise
How much I adore Amsterdam
Like immigrants long ago
So welcomed here just as I am
In the historic Lloyd Hotel
To witness a wedding so swell
I’m glad I’m here in Amsterdam

Canals and bikes aplenty
Whizzing past on every street
The Keukenhof gardens amazed
VanGogh’s Museum made me weep
I’m glad I’m here in Amsterdam

We walked for miles & took the train
Our flight home I made not a peep
It must have been that Space Cake
We ate it and went right to sleep
A fond farewell to Amsterdam
Just returned on a 10-hour flight from Amsterdam to Miami, after witnessing a magical wedding of my niece Karen & Fabian, her now Dutch husband, who shared their vows on a boat ride to the Skinny Bridge where they kissed to seal their love. The' Space Cake' made the plane ride back less painful!
A C Leuavacant Jul 2014
We used to go down by the old dock
To wait for the boats to pass by
In Amsterdam's last nook
With our old hand gloves
That kept the last inch of our old selves attached to our bodies
And the air was fresh
Filling our lungs with aromatic daytime
The buildings leaped out of the river
Making the horizon line a thin slip above us
And we came alone
To Amsterdam
To the handsome port here
Just to get some chips in a cone

In the Afternoon when the fog had gone and the cold had warmed
We went for a long walk
Just on our own
Through the city
Along the Canals
My lord It was beautiful to see it all so clearly
The floating tops of great cathedrals
And slanted open top house boats
We even rented out bikes
Saw the streets by night
Felt the chilly winds return
But in bed felt the warm ironed sheets beneath us
And we came once a year
To Amsterdam
To The constricted Canals
Just to get some chips in a Cone

But we did go home of course
Well you did
I though, never left those days we spent
In the golden light of the canal-side winter markets
You moved on and called it a thing that we used to do when we were young
When we had more time than sense
I still remember it as if it was yesterday
Us in a peddle boat
Passing the Frank's old place
With that love of the past
And of just silence
And we came with each other
To Amsterdam
To the storm of riverside cyclists
Just to get some chips in a cone

I'll never forget them
Those chips in a cone we had
At least seven times a trip
We'd go up to the stand by the canal
And not worry about our health for once
This was more important
It was the chips in a cone that brought us together
And the taste of such a simple thing still makes me smile
I remember the last and final time we went
Just before we had our first son
It was the night before we left
And I went up to the woman in the chip in a cone stand
One more order
One last chips in a cone
It was all I had come for
So simple but such a milestone
The end to my youth
And we left with each other
From Amsterdam
With a lot more than we brought
Forgetting to finish our chips in a cone
Kind of new style. Not at all personal to me, just a narrative style about one of my favourite cities.
I feeleth so anxious as the fleshy winds outside,
Invisible as their turquoise screams, I feeleth like everything is just not right;
Ah, but how if even all later suns shan't be fair,
And t'is passivity shan't ever be bound to fade?
For my soul declares-t'at he, it wants not any more to care;
And about thee only, it wants to be quiet, yet witty still-like yon pale lovesick summer glade;
I want to attach myself to our captivated hours right now;
With thee in my lap, and thy gentle whispers-as today shall be replaced by tomorrow.
I want to dream of thee once more tonight, o sweet Nikolaas;
My darling at present and from the future, whilst my only dearest, from the past.
Ah, sweetheart, why are but our subsequent hours-and perhaps paths, to suffer;
If thou art not by my side, and maketh not all t'is terseness better?
Ah, and wouldst it ever make sense any longer;
To live by him-but without thee, wouldst it but make my wild heart easier?
For censure is to which my answer, and is hatred-for I cannot help loving thee more;
I wanteth to love, and age-by thee, and by thee only, within my most passionate core,
And I wanteth not to understand anything-for comprehension shall but renew our last sorrow;
I wanteth instead-to renew t'is despaired wholeness, and its proven compassion-our love has once made nature show.

I still wanteth to remain quiet; to cherish and glitter within my wholesome devotion;
But which duly keepest me sober, and maketh my doubled heart tremble not;
Calmeth me, calmeth me with thy kisses-so enormous and tasty, like a quiet can of little soda;
Maketh me accursed, petty, and corny-maketh me thy lands' most dreaded infanta.
Tease me like I am a quivering little darling, who cannot but tries shyly still-to sing;
With a coarse voice descended from sunlight, where the worst are joy, and lovingly mean everything.
Maketh me honest, and tempteth me deeper and more;
Until I sighest and flittest myself away, with agility like never before.
Consumeth my greed-and with it, drinkest away its all befallen vitality;
For I knoweth thou shalt restore me, and reneweth all my endeavoured weaponry.
Ah, Nikolaas, how sweet doth feel t'ese blessings, by thy very side!
Nikolaas, Nikolaas, my lover-my sweet husband, from whom my hungry soul canst never hide!
Oh, and darling, Amsterdam might be cold, and plastered with one slippery tantrum;
But thou art still too comely to me-with those familiar eyes like a poem;
A poem t'at my very heart owns, and is graciously fat'd to be thine;
And thine only-for as I danceth later-in my princess' frock, I knoweth t'at thou art mine.
Ah, but fear thou not-for shall I protect thee like t'is;
I shall slander thy rival west and east, I shall degrade t'em all to'a yawning beast!
And upon my victory be I at ease-and finely grateful;
On which truth shall spring, and maketh our love venerated-and more fruitful!
Ah, just like I had b'fore-how canst kissing thee be extremely pleasant,
Even whenst he be t'ere, or perhaps-be the one concerned?
I hath to admit, t'at 'tis thee-and not him, I so dearly want;
Thee who hath painted my love, and made everything cross but all fun;
Thee whose disguise is my airs, and who hath ceaselessly promised to be fair,
Thee whom I'th dreamt of t' be my lifelong prince, with whom I wish to be paired,
Thee whose recitations lift my heart upwards, and my delight proud;
Thee whose poems hath I crafted, and oftentimes recited sensibly, out loud.

Ah, t'at devil-who told us t'at our joys cannot be real;
For they are not at all virtuous-nor by any chance, vigorous?
Ah, fear not those human serpents, darling, whose mouths are moth-like-bloodless but who canst ****;
For to God they are mortal still, and to His eyes whose jokes are not fun, nor humorous;
And thus we shall be together, as we indeed already are;
For our delight is not to be altered-no longer, as dwells already, in our heart;
We shall come back to it soon, as tonight's full moon smilingly starts;
And exalt it as wint'r comes-dear winter, as perhaps only be it, one few months' far;
Ah, and be I then, crush all t'is impatient longing, and sorely missed affection;
And vanquish all the way, t'is all omnipotent sin-of having loved only, a severe affliction;
Oh, but under whose guidance, Amsterdam shall embark again, and smile upon us;
And lift our tosses of joys, into the lapses of its sweet thunders, fast!
Ah, Nikolaas, shall we thus be together, under the wings of Amsterdam's rainbow;
To which endings shan't even once appear; as guilt be then dead-and is not to show;
The only left opus of love be ours to sing, as heaven is-so benevolent;
Betray us not, with fruits of indifference-much less once of one malice, and gay impediment;
And our happiness shall be pure-and entangled, like a pair of newborn twins;
To which our fantasies are finally correct, and thus its affixed lust-shall no more be a sin.

Such love and lust-whose fidelities shall be our abode;
But by whose words-delusions shall never arrive, and thus be put aside;
Novelties shall be fine, and their definitions shall be lovely;
They shall twitch not-for a simple moment of starched felicity!
Oh my darling, I needst to come and visit my wealthy Amsterdam;
With authenticity now I entreat: myself, myself, ah, run there-whenst stop doth time!
For as we embarketh, no more worrisome medleys shall they come again, to bring;
And to no more sonata, shall they retort-nor so adversely, and dishonestly, sing.
Ah, Nikolaas, the stars are now obediently looking down at us;
Jealous of our shimmering love, which is the lush garden's yonder, giddy beaut;
Ah, who is shy to its own mirror, and oft' looks away so fast;
But needst not to swerve, factually, for 'tis, on its really own-has but very much truth!
But still, whose hastiness maketh it succumb-and even more bashful then the sky;
Ah, as if those pastimes of its ****** soul are always about-and be termed but as a single lie!
For it shall never happen, to it-who owns our midnight hours-with one promise to be skirted away too fast;
With not even a single pause, nor a second of rest-while it passes?
Ah love, our very love; its circular stains, nevertheless, as left hurriedly-too massive to resist;
For they giveth taste to our plain moonlight-and thick'ning flavours to our kiss;
So at our first night of gaiety thereof-we won't be hunger for earning too much bliss!
Ah, Nikolaas, all shall be perfect-for felicity is no longer on our part-to miss,
And t'is part of our earthly journey shall feel, defiantly like heaven!
I shall be thine-and claim no more my thine self as his;
In thee doth I find my salvation, my fancy dome-and my most studious cavern!
All which, certainly-is his not; all which shall be ripe, and thus fragrant-like a rose perfume;
And by whose spell-we shall be love itself, and even be loved-within the walls of our private haven;
And even then, we shall love each other more-as be cradled in each other's arms; and lost like this, in such a league of harmonious poems.

Amsterdam shan't be rigorous, it shall be all fair,
Its notions are curious, like these but entrancing summer days;
Thinking of which is but a sweat-but a bead of sweat for which I most care,
Which is neither dreadful nor boastful, as I devour it avidly, amongst t'is poem I'm 'bout to say!
And t' mindfulness of which, I shall no more hastily rid of;
I was too dreary back then, crudely foreshadowed by a crippled love!
'Twas my mistake-my supposedly most punished, punished mistake;
For faking a love I ought not t've ever made, and one I ought not t' ever take!
A mere dream I hath now fiercely pushed away;
And from which I hath now returned, to my most precious loyalty,
As thou knoweth-thou hath never wholly, and so freely-left me,
Thou art all too genuine, and pristine, like yon silvery river-as I oft' picture thee.
Ah, so t'at is all true; t'at thou art my most gracious, and unswept loving angel,
A prince of royalty, and my very, very own nighttime spell.
Just like thou hath done hundreds of time, thou maketh me but delight and mischief;
And notions t'at bubble within my most, giving me charms and comfort-for me to continue to live!
Together, our lips shall be warm-and no more joy shall be left naked;
Soon as there are more tears, we shall throttle and fairly feast on it;
Making it all but remotely conscious, and forcibly-but sensibly, deluded;
Making it writhe away impaired, and its all possible soul awesomely flattened!
Ah, Nikolaas, thou shalt be the mere charm t'at leaves my odes too fabulous-by thy wit,
Oh, my darling, for thou art so sweet; o, Nikolaas, I really hath only my words, to play with!

And guess what, my darling, heaven shall but gift us nobly, all too soon;
An heir shall we claim; as descendeth one day beneath the excited full moon.
For he shall be born into our naughtiest perusal;
And demand our affection excitedly, as time is long, as arrives winter-from last fall!
Soft is his hair, clutched in his skin-so bare and naive;
He shall be our triumph, and a farther everyday desire, to continue to live!
And we shall consider him our undefined, yet a priceless fortune;
Light as the night, at times singular but cheery-like the sketch of a fine moon.
And portray in us both the loveliness of a million words;
He shall be handsome, just like our love-which is damp but funny, in whose two brilliant worlds!
Oh, my darling, I now looketh forward to my heavenly Amsterdam;
Whose prettiness shall be thoughtful, as I thinketh of it-from time to time.
Ah, thus-when all finally happeneth, I shall know thou art worth the whole entity of my thousand longings;
Thou art the miracle t'at I hath decently prayed for-and thus fathomably, the very sweet soul-of my everything.
Mike Hauser Mar 2015
i met a man in amsterdam
with mirrors on his head
take a look at yourself
was all that he said

i took a look long and hard
then had to turn away
i didn't like any of
the looks it is i gave

i met a man in amsterdam
that held up a sign
saying lay out for me all your needs
but take all that you like

he gave me what i needed
in mind bending thought
most of it he gave for free
the rest of it i bought

i met a man from amsterdam
just left of the canal
he held ******* in the air
and said that's what it's about

with no argument from me
as i peacefully understood
the man i met in amsterdam
in his corner of the world
Rileigh Shanks Mar 2018
Lift up your head, O Amsterdam!
Cast off your shame like a cloak;
Let it fall from your shoulders
As the shadows fall from the trees under the noonday sun.
Let your righteousness shine like the dawn;
Let your salvation blaze like a burning torch.

Too long have you lived in oppression;
Too long have  you allowed lewdness and adultery to taint your every thought.
Your graceful form has been ***** and ravaged,
And unspeakable sins have taken hold of your life.

You have opened yourself up to Corruption;
You have embraced Idolatry like a lover;
You have welcomed Lust into your *****;
You have accepted Rebellion and Calamity as you closest friends;
Captivity and Abuse are constantly biting at your heels.

You have lost sight of your former glory;
You have forgotten you early prestige.
Do you not remember the words spoken over you in your youth?
Can you not recall your previous high standing?

You, O Amsterdam, were once so full of innocent beauty;
Everything you touched was made lovely.
Your skill and your potential were rivaled by no other.
Creativity and reform flowed from your hands like a mighty river,
And the promise of your future shone with the blinding brilliance of the dawn.

You were once a woman of untamed joy and boundless freedom,
Until you allowed fear to creep in and tame you.
You cowered at the feet of Dread and allowed him to harness you.
You surrendered to him your life, your freedom, your spirit, and your morals.
He stripped you of your pride and forced you into passivity,
Tearing away your will and your self dignity.

But you, O Amsterdam, did nothing to resist him.
You stood idly by and watched as your life was reformed by Dread.
You leaned into his changes;
You embraced his foreign ways and made them laws throughout your land,
Allowing everything you once stood for to be transformed.
You were selfish and afraid,
Seeking your own salvation at every expense to others.
And in your schemes for self preservation,
You lost everything.

Through your cowardice and because of your stoicism,
Your power and your control have been removed.
They have been taken from you and given into the hands of the Enemy,
And you have made no efforts to reclaim them.
You have grown lax and frail,
Unable to stop even the most conspicuous of wrongs;
Too feeble to lift even a single finger in defiance.

But do not fear, O Amsterdam!
Cease your trembling and lift up your head!
Set your eyes on the horizon and behold,
For your Savior is near!

The LORD has not forgotten you.
He has not abandoned you in your hour of weakness and despair.
He remembers all of His promises to you,
And He calls you by your True Name.

“I have made you to be a carrier of Freedom,” says the LORD.
“I have created you to be a Woman of Joy.
I have placed a uniqueness and an artistry inside of you,
And you will bear that into the surrounding lands.

“You were hand-crafted, O Amsterdam,
Individually selected by the LORD.
I have called you to be a place of refuge and new beginnings;
I have set you apart to carry a mantel of original and artistic vision.
I have made you a Leader and a Sanctuary,
And your influence will reconstruct the world around you.

“I, the LORD, will hold you in my hand for all to see–
I will renew your beauty and your splendor, and will lift you up to your former glory.
Never again will you be called “Forsaken” or “Desolate”,
For I will bestow upon you a new name.
You shall be known as “The Object of God’s Delight”
And “The Bride of God”,
For the LORD delights in you,
And will claim you as His bride.”

The nations will see your righteousness.
World leaders will be blinded by your glory.
You will walk through the streets of your city,
Your the Darkness will be transformed by the Light.
Your rivers will be refreshed by new streams of living water,
And hope will bloom with the springtime Tulips.

The LORD is reclaiming your territory;
He is marking every door with His seal.
He is bringing Revival like a tidal wave,
And releasing Honor into your streets like a hurricane.
Dignity and Grace will once again be your crown,
And you will commit yourselves to the Lord in triumph.
Olivia Kent Feb 2015
Amsterdam,
Oh Amsterdam.
The lingering bells of a multitude of bicycles.
Clinging to the misty air.
Carefree.
Careless.
Canal flows past.
Upon which dances sunlight.
A bundle of sparkles.
It's early morning in-situation.
The ladies of night, are still sat propped up sleepily.
Looking like they're wide awake.
The coffee shops seem to  never quit,they never seem to sleep.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
Delft grinders shaped as windmills turn and grind.
Oh to awaken in fair Amsterdam.
(C) LIVVI
FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99
Added today to commemorate the birthday of Carl Sandburg
Chloë Fuller Dec 2014
amsterdam. tension. relief. release. accent. bowl. swig. bowl. bowl. reverend. mole. alley. fifth beer. bowl. sixth beer. blur. catching up. *** standing up. normalcy. hiding. secrets. bowl. friends. family. couch. spinning. smiling. exit. diner. bathroom floor. steam. bowl. her legs. beautiful. her teeth. beautiful. it hurts. keep going. sleep. sweat. 8 am. warm wind. splitting headache. packing. bowl. relief. amsterdam.
written during my freshman year of college in 2011
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.oh yeah, huge fetish fan.... gamer youtube commentary videos... like the quartery... no... ****... the quartering... it's like... ****, i don't even know what's it like: a magic mirror i'll never own, having dropped out on PS1... and telling my cohabitation ςentries (obsolete now, ******?!) to by an iMac, for its properties of not succumbing to PC viruses... PC viruses... a thing of the past... late 90s early 00s... with **** sites linked to Trojan horse bundles... a man with ******* can't *******, so what the hell is he supposed to do? just watch the poor ******* looking for their missing ******* in the excesses of female genitals... oh... wait... they found... and took revenge... but it's never M.G.M., always the F.G.M. bit of the equation... like the kippah was never, "really" translated into a tonsure, oh yeah, that **** floats, that's a real keeper that is; wankers. what?! i'm doing **** with the hand twice a day, but i have the supposed, "excess" skin on my ******* emblem... or little Richie, whatever... i have it... my male circumcised counterparts... sorry chief... you're the one that has to look for extra skin.. oops?! do you say oops on such matters? i never know... but the new age gaming experience is so much better... this antithesis of NPC styled games... and the fact that they're. "free"... but you later learn that you have to pay extra? the longevity increases exponentially... what's your payment method, if you're poor? patience... you really learn to wait, which expand the lifespan of a game... it's like: **** it, a free game, where i also get to polish cliche virtue? compared to paying £50 for a game, i might finish in one sitting? i'm about to to take a ****, play a game, or read a book? hmm... clueless among the Seattle folk... play a ******* game! well, you know... if you don't have a fetish fulfilled with someone readied to expand upon me wearing a ******... might as well watch commentary videos of gamers... same high... albeit no hard-on.

censoring female *******
with bright lights?!

**** me,
good that i managed
to go to an Athenian
strip-club,
a Polish,
  & and an East London
brothel...

psst... Amsterdam...
oh right...
who the **** travels
to Amsterdam for
the **** these days?

last time i went i went
into the red light district
to feel unabashed,
certain that...
a plump Puerto Rican
was waiting for me...
and she was...

****? Amsterdam?
what's this...
the year 00s?
i don't know...
you tell me...

so they're censoring *******,
cleavage from
video games?

   i have a censorship
experiment for you...
you know what the current
would be like
if everyone finally discovered
that
Theresa May is not Margaret Thatcher?
pandemonium!
not all women can be
a Maggie Thatchie...
who would have known...
you need to be a daughter
of a of a grocery store owner,
or whatever working class
background she came from...

with ol' Thatchie the whole
Brexit ******* would
run the course of,
two words:           *******!

where was i?
oh, right, censoring *******
and cleavage in gaming avatars...
you know how i censor that,
"delicate" matter?
i just think of a cow's fore udder...
or... is
that a cleavage... or
a *** on your chest?

there you go... limp **** through
and through...
and then i start thinking
of the dewlap...
to be honest, i don't know how
you'd serve that...
is it fatty? then i'd deep-fry it...

good thing i visited an Athenian
strip-club,
an East London brothel,
and Amsterdam's red light
district...

          and all done...
without a S.T.D. to mind...
mind you, ******* these days
is quiet ethical,
i would have more chance
catching an S.T.D. on the dating
app circuit than in a brothel...

beside wearing a ******...
i always wanted to experiment
with a latex body-suit...
excess rubber...
or whatever the hell it is...

so much for freedom of speech...
but wait a minute,
do i have to reiterate
that i didn't say this,
and that you didn't say this
either?
          this is phonetic
encoding, this is not speaking...
well...
then we know what
the Cartesian res extensa
(extended thing) actually is...
writing,
writing as an extension
of thinking...

          in this scenario...
a thought, that has been washed
in heretical fires...
having transcended
thought's association
with the moral-θ (theta...
looks like English has
a new pronoun,
trans even the already in
place transgender pronoun
category)...
      θ 'ink beyond any
association to a moral 'ought.

*now if you excuse me,
i have a bottle of Russian Standard
i have to finish,
and two bottles of just fine, fine
English cider to interlude with.
Alex Nov 2014
But just maybe by then i’ll be north and you’ll be south
just how we’ve always been on different paths
but somehow ended up at the same place again and again.
Meet me in Amsterdam.
When you’ve toured every major city
and I’ve seen enough landscapes.
Would you spare a week from all of this and escape?
Just to feel like we’re sixteen again
when we planned that we’ll do this one day.
We said we’d live.
I know you said a lot of things.
Yeah, so the future didn’t turn out the way we hoped,
but i’m hopeful that one day you will
Meet me in Amsterdam.
Where we’ll experience night, day, and beautiful weather.
See and do all kinds of things together.
Where we could pretend we’re in another universe
Where we ended up happily ever.
Where I could finally say goodbye to you forever.
Maybe when we leave, I’ll go north and you’ll go south.
Or maybe we’ll somehow end up at the same place.
Edna Sweetlove Aug 2015
This is the very first of my "Barry Hodges' Memories" poems.*

People think that Amsterdam is an exciting city,
Full of life, full of fun, full of cheap beer and drugs
And easy to buy thrilling ******* **** films galore.
But there is another side to this Dutch metropolis
Believe me, I know, I have been there, squire,
And I have seen it in all its drug-filled horror.

I was there one balmy eve, just off the Leidseplein,
With my older brother, a kind and gentle man
(although physically not very pretty),
When a gang of Surinamese youths,
Sky-high on crack *******, or whatever filth,
Attacked us, mugged us, use what words you wish,
It doesn't matter, the result was the same.

And they left him lying there in the gutter,
His skull cracked and seriously brain-damaged,
And for what, I hear a myriad voices query,
Well only a few hundred lousy over-valued Euros.
He dragged out a miserable half-alive existence,
For a few Hellish months in the city hospital;
Dear God, I shall not be going to Amsterdam again
(with or without a Dutch cap, may I add tentatively).
As a result of intense praise from many people, I have been encouraged to write a whole series of poems about my memories of various cities. You will be interested to learn that I posted this poem on another poetry website and received some most sympathetic comments. I reproduce the comments below so you may see how some good and simple people have been moved by my words:

"American papers are filled with such gruesome events, as well. It is a violent world we live in. Blessed are we to have a safe haven to meet with like minded people and share our words in such a positive way. I am sorry for the terrible loss of your brother." (from an American reader, 28/11/2007)  

"A terrible tale indeed Barry, and I extend my sympathies to you on the fate of your brother. However, I do not think this sort of thing is confined to Amsterdam - you have only to read the English papers to see similar events occuring daily in this country." (from an English reader, 28/11/2007)

"Painful and emotive memories Barry, and still some argue for legalising drugs, I think not." (from a pompous old ****, 28/11/2007)
Terry Collett Aug 2014
You sit next to Randal
By the river. He brings
Out the postcards he’d

Bought. Best send one
To your mother, he says,
Don’t want her worrying

About you and how you’re
Doing. You take the offered
Postcard and put in on your

Knees. Amsterdam. Randal’s
Been here before, he knows
The place well. Came last

Year with the French girl.
You wonder why he dropped
Her soon after their return.

Maybe she wouldn’t let him
Or maybe she did too often
And that put him off. You

Look at the picture on the
Front of Amsterdam at dawn.
Ann Frank’s Haus yesterday.

You remember that. Haunted
You; you felt some aspects
Of her were still there. What

To write to Mother? Why bother?
Part of you thinks, she’ll look
Between the lines, see things

That aren’t there, imagine things,
Suggest you did this and that.
She never trusts. Randal writes

His scribble fast, usual crap:
Weather, food, whatever. He’ll
Not write to say he shafted you

Twice the other night between
Hot sheets. His parents don’t
Know him; think him so sweet

And clever. Shaft girls, smoke
****? Never. You take a biro
From your bag and neatly write.

Dear Mother, we are well and
Enjoying the sights (guess what
We do at nights? Leave that out)

And the weather’s fine and food
Is plentiful and yes, I do change
My underclothes each day and yes,

We have separate beds in the hotel.
(Lies are cheap) you pause. Randal
Has done, he licks a stamp, presses

It onto the back. Finished? He asks,
Placing his hand on your knee, giving
A squeeze, sending a buzz between

Your knees. You smile, nod, and
Hand him the card. He reads and
Shakes his head and grins. All lies,
He says, and all those hidden sins.
POEM COMPOMSED IN 2010
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
i get to be ridiculous, i'm an artist, it's only that my ridiculousness doesn't border with the Vatican City, or Switzerland that it's deemed "weird" (symbol use, also know as passing on misnomers, ~ - that's ambiguity, a stranger punctuation construct from the hyphen), it's weird because i'm attired in familiar clothing to an Essex loafer, i don't have the currency to buy fancy Pompidou mascara or lipstick and stroll with other drag queens at gay pride... i'm back-of-the-woods type of guy, on the Cartesian Libra heavyweight to the side of 'i think' than on the pigeon-**** weight side of 'i am' - mathematically speaking that's like 2 + 1 = 3 - "schizoid" thinking coupled to non-schizoid behavioural patterns therefore means... an increased threshold capacity for experiencing pain.

the first time i smoked marijuana
(and i didn't know how to roll
a joint of marijuana and tobacco)
was the happiest time of my life,
i exercised a lot, practised Roman bulimia
unconsciously - no pills, nothing,
******* down my throat, later
i trained the *suprahyoid
and the infrahyoid
muscles so well that
i could just throw the chocolate bars up,
trained them so well as if i was gagging
on a *****... but to keep a body image,
well, you know, to look **** (add sarcasm
with the italics) you have to do what women
do, for me it was a Roman Bulimia,
for them, dieting - it was weird owning
a different body from the one i own now,
c.c.t.v. Narcissus-shadow stalker was all a craze back then,
too much self-conscious ******* wrapped in
a ***** and sent to a daycare centre -
it feels great these days, drinking 70cl of whiskey
a night, and why would i be bragging without
a bowler hat and a cane a butterfly prim
on my neck and a neat suit?
i read Bulgakov, that'll do, i have an operatic
cat at this moment, i've never heard so many variations
of meow after the doors to the garden are closed
and he's told to remain indoors after 9p.m.,
he sits on the bathroom windowsill and wants
to be nannied in the lap while someone smokes
downstairs... 'fella, same fresh air down here as up there'...
it's more of a fox than a cat...
he matured to be ~10 kilograms, and so's a mature fox,
i know, i weighed one, cutting a work's pay for
some sanitary worked one night
when i was eager to buy a few beers... mature foxes
~10 kilograms minus 21 grams (you know, the
Higgs' boson of soul, alejandro gonzález iñárritu -
but why add ñá so close? it's -nia- anyway,
so Mexico or e ** ** **, the Mexican Hew, huh?
ah... Habana!)
swear to god, never heard so many variations...
where was i? ah, adapting Bach's polyphony within
poetry, could have been a king david, but i smashed
my lyre... i never liked the cheap one-man tennis
and a brick wall of poetry within claim of stiffening repeats:
rhyme... bounce... rhyme... Bunsen! rhyme... bounce...
rhyme... Bunsen! ya-d'ah ya-d'ah ya-d'ah...
a carousel in Golders Green where all the payots
flew off and made french pastry curls... cinnamon... mm.
and two books i wish i'd written -
closed society and it's allies, the alt. to Popper's
antonym based yawn-epic - Karl, falsifier -
and anger and restlessness, the alt. to a Danish
epic by Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling -
alt. say it as it is - ******* is like a bow-tie event,
a moth a butterfly event - the ******* was
there for a reason, pleasure from *******
when your *** partner was "feeling tired",
men and women are both libido struck sometimes
to extremes, they mentioned f.g.m. but didn't mention
m.g.m., with ******* you ain't chasing, you ain't
playing the dating game - circumcision gave
women the upper hand, the toy machine of manhood,
you have ******* for a reason, it's not in line with
ancient Hebraic laws where you have to do 613 things
to obey... and with ******* you're less likely to
go Boko Haram cuckoo and steal girls for their ******* -
i believe the fabled conversation between Zeus and
Hera is necessary - women derive more pleasure
from ***... but men derive more pleasure from life -
well, if you have *******, see the image problem?
i'm dressed... you're undressed... i have two capacities
and a tool to curb my libido, you have jack and a stockpile
of nukes - with a cigar smoking duke on percussion
that only takes one press and the whole orchestra starts
up with a crescendo rather than a build-up.
oh right... the first time i started smoking marijuana i
was 21... i remember it clearly, i don't know how i managed
to roll a joint... Edinburgh 2007, Montague Street,
i rolled one... smoked it... lay on the floor...
and giggled my way through Daft Punk's album human
after all
- giggled and danced horizontally...
solipsism at it's finest... later i met a girl who said that
*** after marijuana was so much better than sober...
i beg to disagree... given that solo moment,
and ******* prostitutes drunk, esp. in Amsterdam,
where i don't have to feel any English sensibilities on the matter.
JV Beaupre May 2016
Canto I. Long ago and far away...

Under the bridge across the Kankakee River, Grampa found me. I was busted for truancy. First grade. 1946.

Summer and after school: Paper route, neighborhood yard work, dogsbody in a drugstore, measuring houses for the county, fireman EJ&E railroad, janitor and bottling line Pabst Brewery Peoria. 1952-1962.

Fresh caught Mississippi River catfish. Muddy Yummy. Burlington, Iowa. 1959. Best ever.

In college, Fr. ***** usually confused me with my roommate, Al. Except for grades. St. Procopius College, 1958-62. Rats.

Coming home from college for Christmas. Oops, my family moved a few streets over and forgot to tell me. Peoria, 1961.

The Pabst Brewery lunchroom in Peoria, a little after dawn, my first day. A guy came in and said: "Who wants my horsecock sandwich? ****, this first beer tastes good." We never knew how many he drank. 1962.

At grad school, when we moved into the basement with the octopus furnace, Dave, my roommate, contributed a case of Chef Boyardee spaghettios and I brought 3 cases of beer, PBRs.  Supper for a month. Ames. 1962.

Sharon and I were making out in the afternoon, clothes a jumble. Walter Cronkite said, " President Kennedy has been shot…”. Ames, 1963.

I stood in line, in my shorts, waiting for the clap-check. The corporal shouted:  "All right, you *******, Uncle and the Republic of Viet Nam want your sorry *****. Drop 'em".  Des Moines. Deferred, 1964.

Married and living in student housing. Packing crate furniture. Pammel Court, 1966.

One of many undistinguished PhD theses on theoretical physics. Ames. 1967.

He electrified the room. Every woman in the room, regardless of age, wanted him, or seemed to. The atmosphere was primeval and dripping with desire. In the presence of greatness. Palo Alto, 1968.

US science jobs dried up. From a mountain-top, beery conversation, I got a research job in Germany. Boulder, 1968. Aachen, 1969.

The first time I saw automatic weapons at an airport. Geneva, 1970.

I toasted Rembrandt with sparkling wine at the Rijksmuseum. He said nothing. Amsterdam International Conference on Elementary Particles. 1971.

A little drunk, but sobering fast: the guard had Khrushchev teeth.
Midnight, alone, locked in a room at the border.
Hours later, release. East Berlin, 1973. Harrassment.

She said, "You know it's remarkable that we're not having an affair." No, it wasn't. George's wife.  Germany, 1973.

"Maybe there really are quarks, but if so, we'll never see them." Truer than I knew.  Exit to Huntsville, 1974.

On my first day at work, my first federal felony. As a joke, I impersonated an FBI agent. What the hell? Huntsville. 1974. Guess what?-- No witnesses left! 2021.

Hard work, good times, difficult times. The first years in Huntsville are not fully digested and may stay that way.

The golden Lord Buddha radiated peace with his smile. Pop, pop. Shots in the distance. Bangkok. 1992.

Accomplishment at work, discord at home. Divorce. Huntsville. 1994. I got the dogs.

New beginnings, a fresh start, true love and life-partner. Huntsville. 1995.

Canto II. In the present century...

Should be working on a proposal, but riveted to the TV. The day the towers fell and nearly 4000 people perished. September 11, 2001.

I started painting. Old barns and such. 2004.

We bet on how many dead bodies we would see. None, but lots of flip-flops and a sheep. Secrets of the Yangtze. 2004

I quietly admired a Rembrandt portrait at the Schiphol airport. Ever inscrutable, his painting had presence, even as the bomb dogs sniffed by. Beagles. 2006.

I’ve lost two close friends that I’ve known for 50-odd years. There aren’t many more. Huntsville. 2008 and 2011.

Here's some career advice: On your desk, keep a coffee cup marked, "No Whining", that side out. Third and final retirement. 2015.

I occasionally kick myself for not staying with physics—I’m jealous of friends that did. I moved on, but stayed interested. Continuing.

I’m eighty years old and walk like a duck. 2021.

Letter: "Your insurance has lapsed but for $60,000, it can be reinstated provided you are alive when we receive the premium." Life at 81. Huntsville, 2022.

Canto III: Coda

Honest distortions emerging from the distance of time. The thin comfort of fading memories. Thoughts on poor decisions and worse outcomes. Not often, but every now and then.

(Begun May 2016)
*** trafficking – the trafficking and debasement of souls; Drug trafficking – the trafficking of substances that debase the body.  Here compared you will find the prevalence, impact, and rehabilitation processes associated with *** and shrug trafficking.  Respective clientele, demographics, and locales that these types of trafficking touch will be revealed in order enlighten you to their world-wide prevalence. The physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological impact of lifestyles that result from these two types of trafficking will be detailed to etch vividly an image of just how far-reaching the impact of these two activities is. Light will be shed upon the rehab processes that lead to recovery from each.
                 According to UnoDC.org, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the use of illicit drugs has remained in a stable trend, with approximately the same number of people using illicit drugs each year. This trend has continued for a number of years. Upon examining the world drug report, written by UnoDC.org, production of several drugs exhibit particularly interesting trends. ***** production for example fell and spiked in a somewhat predictable patter from 1990 until 2010. When this data is graphed a reasonable medium appears for all the years, revealing that ***** production has stayed around an average production of roughly 200,000 hectares annually. Likewise, coca cultivation pictures an interesting trend. From 1990 to 2010 coca production appeared to be almost identical each year, and with little to no rise or fall in production, there is a similar trend in its being trafficked.  
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls is a documentary that was released in 2012 by Exodus Cry Its producers and researchers saw firsthand the atrocities of the *** trafficking industry. The film crew interviewed former pimps and prostitutes, spoke to traffickers, the families of the trafficked and to individuals still actively engaged in three sides of the *** trade referring to currently employed pimps and prostitutes as well as those who purchased ***. The researchers and producers interviewed eastern European gang members and took a trip to Amsterdam’s red-light district – home of legal prostitution. They journeyed to Los Angeles and saw the glamorized side of the dark issue of *** trade.
According to Nefarious, the number of humans trafficked for the purpose of providing ****** services is on a shockingly steep rise. In a matter of a few years, *** trafficking rose from the third largest criminal enterprise to the second. It is second only to drug trafficking and is vying for the position as top criminal enterprise in the world. It is encroaching upon that position far more speedily than any authority or decent human being would care to acknowledge.  A survey taken in 2010 by DART (the drug awareness resistance training program) revealed that 21.8 million people aged 12 and older had taken an illicit drug in the previous month. In 2010 it was estimated that between 153 and 300 million people had used an illicit drug at least once in the previous year. These statistics fail to take into account the impact that this usage has on the lives of the families of drug users. Neither do these statistics reveal the extent to which drug users lifestyles are impacted by drugs. However, nearly  every single human trafficked for ****** purposes is completely and utterly enveloped in the lifestyle of prostitution and the violent world of being prostituted. In Nefarious a shocking statistic is revealed. Approximately ten percent of the entire human population of earth has been trafficked. Both human and drug trafficking are prevalent across the globe. Human trafficking occurs in 161 of 192 countries. Illicit drugs are trafficked in every country that has laws that deem substances unlawful. There are little to no race, religion, ethnicity, or age restrictions on who can and is trafficked for use of ***, but drugs are far more limited by age and ethnicity in their use.
Drug trafficking, though similar to *** trafficking in many ways, is in no way as substantial a damaging force to the mind, soul, and spirit as the world of *** trafficking  is in terms of the critical and dangerous force it exhibits in the emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual  impact it has on young girls. Both drugs and *** trafficking have some influence in all of these respective areas. The primary area in which people are affected by drug use is the physical. Drug users’ health declines, they become physically or psychologically dependent, and they may develop diseases from sharing of needles or lack of inhibitions that lead to *** with an infected individual. Drugs may, in some rare cases, lead to psychoses and mental disorders. They may cause brain damage, which is both physically and mentally damaging. Drugs may even set one’s heart and soul in a place that they are more susceptible to lies or truth. They alter spiritual state for some individuals, but only mildly. However, *** trafficking victims are impacted majorly and in their entirety as a person. In all aspects of the physical, mental, and spiritual, *** trafficking victims are consumed by *** trafficking. In Nefarious it is revealed that In order to “break” *** trafficking victims they are profusely beaten, and are psychologically toyed with to create a twisted trust and dependence on their various handlers. They are repeatedly *****, and are examined like cattle by those who wish to buy women. They are imprisoned in dark rooms and not allowed to leave unless told to do so. They are bedridden and forced to ******* themselves. After being broken in ways described above and sold to a ****, girls are forced every day to meet certain quotas of customers and cash flow. If they do not meet these they are beaten even more. They lay in bed sometimes a week at a time to recover physically enough to usefully return to their “job”.  Through this hellish ordeal, their soul, self-worth and identity are being attacked by circumstances that devalue them. They become like animals.
*** trafficking victims become dependent on their environment for normalcy. This is so true for some individuals that even though they have been rescued from the lifestyle, they return.  This is not because the *** trafficking victims enjoys the lifestyle of prostitution, and it is not because they want to. Instead, it is because they think they can be nothing more than a *******. The *** trafficking victim, in this case, believes that they need to settle into the numb and thoughtless mind state that they develop when broken. Returning to prostitution does not evidence an addiction. In contrast, it is the cry of a soul that is desperately trying to cope. They do this in order to feel as if they can survive.  
The rehab processes for *** and drug trafficking differ greatly in commitment and length, but are similar in that they both require physical and psychological rehabilitation.  Drug rehabilitation programs typically consist of twelve-step programs or something similar. They last a number of months, or occasionally a few years. They allow individuals counsel and encouragement, and they attempt to, by abstinence, exorcise an addicted individual’s addiction. *** trafficking rehabilitation requires the re-creation of an individual. Self-worth must be reconstructed. The spirit must be healed in order to allow for psychological healing. Prostitutes are not addicted to prostitution, but prostitution produces dependence in that the prostituted crave normalcy. This dependence must be killed. Successfully rehabilitating women from this forced lifestyle requires lifelong commitment and endless resources. It requires passionate fanatics, people who will pour their life into changing the lives of others, because only the incurable fanatic can wreak havoc on the tragedy of human trafficking. Any short-term effort to rehabilitate a *** trafficking victim is doomed to failure. The degree to which the brokenness of *** trafficking victims becomes ingrained in them is so extreme that it takes a lifetime to reshape their lives.
While researching *** trafficking in order to accurately produce Nefarious, the researchers and producers of Nefarious became convicted by facts that they collected. The evidence they collected speaks to the fact that *** trafficking does not just attack the body; it attacks the entire being, and in far worse ways than drugs ever could. Varied races and ages are prostituted and / or consume drugs. The impact of both of *** and drug trafficking is severe, but much more so severe in the case of human trafficking. The rehab process for human trafficking is much more in depth and is testament to the horror and degree of psychological, mental, and emotional disfigurement, as well as acclimation to a horrible situation to the point that horror becomes normal – a new definition of addiction. Human trafficking is an atrocity that is far more horrendous and prevalent than imaginable. It is far more destructive than drug trafficking. Drug trafficking is one of the most destructive forces in this generation.  Surely consuming drugs is one of the most horrid things we can do to our bodies, but what about consuming souls? *** trafficking consumes souls, hearts, minds and bodies. It splits, fragments, debases, brutalizes, obliterates, murders, rapes, molests, destroys, and dehumanizes the prostituted.  Drug trafficking attacks the body the soul, and sometimes the mind, but in much milder ways.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
preliminary explanation

before i really begin the project i have a few scatterings
of thought that made me do this, without real planning,
a different sort of impromptu that poetry's good at,
less Dionysian spur-of-the-moment with an already
completed poem entwined to a perfect ensō,
as quick as the decapitation of Mary Boleyn with the
executioner fooling her which side the swing would
be cast by taking of his hard-soled-shoes -
i mean this in an Apollonian sense - i know, sharp contrasts
at first, but the need to fuse them - i said these are
preliminary explanations, the rest will not be as haphazardly
composed, after all, i see the triangle i'm interested it
but drawing a triangle without Pythagorean explanation
i'm just writing Δ - i'll unravel what my project is
about, just give me this opportunity to blah blah for a
while like someone from an existential novel;
what beckoned me was the dichotomy of styles,
i mean, **** me, you can read poetry while in an awkward
yoga position, you can read it standing up, sitting down,
eating or whatever you want - obviously on the throne
of thrones taking a **** is preferred - the point being
what's called serious literature is so condensed for
economic reasons, font small, never-ending paragraphs,
you need an easy-chair and a bottle of cognac to get
through a chapter sometimes - or at least freshly mowed
grass in a park in summer - it's really uncomfortable because
of that, and the fact that poets hardly wish upon you
to be myopic - just look at the spacing on the page,
constantly refreshing, open-plan condos, eye-to-eye -
but it's not about that... the different styles of writing,
prose and the novel, the historical essay / encyclopedia
or a work of philosophy - what style of writing can
be best evolutionary and undermine each? only poetry.
poetry is a ballerina mandible entity, plastic skeletons,
but that's beside the point, when journalism writes history
so vehemently... the study of history writes it nonchalantly,
it's the truth, journalism is bombastic, sensationalist
every but what courting history involves -
a journalist will write about the death of a 100 people
more vehemently than a historian writing about the Holocaust...
or am i missing something? i never understood this dichotomy
of prose - it's most apparent between journalism and history...
as far as i am concerned, the most pleasurable style of
prose is involved in the history of philosophy, or learning per se,
but i'll now reveal to you the project at hand -
it's a collage... the parameters?

the subject of the collage

it weighs 1614 grams, or 3 lb. and 8 7/8ths oz.,
it's a single volume edition, published by Pimlico,
it's slightly larger than an A5 format,
3/4 inches more in length, and ~1 centimetre in
width more, it has a depth of 1 and 3/4 inches in depth,
a bicep iron-pumping session with it in bed -
i was lying with this behemoth of a book
in bed soothing out a semi-delirium state
listening to Ola Gjeilo's *northern lights

and flicking through the appendix, and i started thinking,
no would read this giant fully, would they?
the reason it's a one volume edition is because
the only place you'd read such an edition would
be in a library, at a desk, and you'd be taking snippets
out from it, quotes, authentic references points
for an essay, esp. if you were a history student,
such books aren't exactly built for leisure, as my arms
could testify... after the appendix i started flicking
through as to what point of interest would spur me
onto this audacious (and perhaps auspicious)
act of renegading against writing a novel (in the moment,
in the moment, i can't imagine myself rereading plot-lines
after a day or two, adding to it - that's a collage too,
but of a different kind - and no, i won't be plagiarising
as such, after all i'll be citing parallel, but utilising
poetry as the driving revision dynamic compared
to the chronologically stale prose of history) - i'll be
extracting key points that are already referenced and not
using the style of the author - the book in question?
Europe: a history by Norman Davies prof. emeritus
at U.C.L. - the point of entry that made me mad enough
to condense this 1335 page book (excluding the index)?

point of incision

Voltaire (or the man suspected of Guy Fawkes-likes spreading
of volatility in others) -
un polonais - c'est un charmeur; deux polonais - une
bagarre; trois polonais, eh bien, c'est la question polonaise

(one pole - a charmer, two poles - a brawl, three poles -
the polish question) - mind you, the subtler and gentler
precursor of the Jewish question, because the Frenchman
mused, and not a German, or a Russian brute...
and i can testify, two Polish immigrants in a pub,
one senior, the other minor, one with 22 years under
his belt of the integration purpose, one with 12 years,
the minor says to the senior about how Poles bring
the village life to cities, brutish drunkards and what not,
it was almost a brawl, prior to the senior was charming
a Lithuanian girl, before the minor's emphasis on
such a choice of conversation turned into idiotic Lithuanian
nostalgia about the disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian
commonwealth, primarily due to the Polish nobility.

10,000 b.c.

looking that far back i don't know why you even
bother to celebrate the weekend -
i mean, 10,000 years back Denmark was
still attached to Sweden,
England was attached to France,
and there was a weird looking Aquatic landmass
that would become a myth of Atlantis
in the Chronicles of Norwich,
speedy ******* Gonzales with the equivalent
of south america detaching itself from Africa...
mind you, i'm sure the Carpathian ranges are
mountains. they're noted here are hills or uplands,
by categorising them as such i'm surprised
the majority of Carpathian elevations as scolded
bald rocky faced, a hill i imagine to have some
vegetation on it, not mountain goats with rock and roof
for a blacksmith in a population of one hundred...
at this point Darwinism really becomes a disorientating
pinpoint of whatever history takes your fancy,
Europe - mother of Minos, lord of Crete,
progenitrix / ******* and the leather curtains
of Zeus's harem (jealous? no, just the sarcasm
dominates the immortal museum of attachable
****** to suit the perfect elephant **** of depth
the gods sided with, by choice, excusing the Suez
duct tightening of a prostate gland... to ease the pain
upon ******* rather than *******); mentioned by Homer
the Blind tooth-fairy, the Europe and the bull,
Europoeus and the swan, same father of wisdom to mind,
on the shores of Loch Lomond -
attributes a lover to the bull, Moschus of Syracuse,
who said earring Plato cured him of where the ****
should not enter even if it shines a welcome
in the disguise of Dionysius... revisionists bound to Pompeii
named Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens Veronese
and Claude Lorrain revived the bulging bull's *******
and her mm hmm mm, too gracious my kind, hehee...
Phonecians from Tyre and Io - so too the Sibyl of ****** -
and unlike the great river civilisations of the Nile,
the Ganges, soon to be the Danubian civilisations
and gorged-out-eyes-that-once-sore-colour-but-lost-sight-of-
colours-­after-seeing-the-murk-of-the-Thames...
soon the seas overcame civilisations of the rivers,
as Cadmus, brother of the thus stated harlot said:
i bring you orbe pererrato - hieroglyphics of the cage,
but not an owl or a hawk inside it -
so let's perfect speaking to an encoding by first
rummaging into learning how to procure the perfect
forms of counting - i say left, you say I, i say right
you say II, left right left right, what do you say?
VI. bravo! the Hellenic world just crossed the Aegean
and civilisation bore twins within the cult of a lunar-mother,
Islam of Romulus and Remus, a she-wolf
a canine of the night - according to another -
tremulae sinuantur flamine vestes - or so the myth goes -
a cherished phantom of what became the fabled story
of sole Odysseus with his ears open and the remnant
sailor's ears waxed shut - as if the bankers of this world,
revelling in culprit universal fancy than nonetheless
bred the particular oddities - lest we forget,
the once bountiful call of the sirens to the oceanic
is but a fraction of what today's sirens claim to be song,
a fraction of it remains in this world, the onomatopoeia
of the once maddening song, the crude *******
arrangement of vowels bound to the jealous god's
déjà vu of the compounding second H.

from myth to perpetuating a modern sentiment

you can jump from 10,000 b.c. to the Munich Crisis
of 1938 - 9 with a snap of the fingers,
imitating quantum phenomenons like gesticulating
a game of mime with Chinese whispers necessary,
if Europe is a nymph, Naples her azure eyes,
Warsaw her heart, Sebastopol and Azoff,
Petersburg, Mitau, Odessa - these the thorns
in her feet - Paris the head, London the starched collar,
and Rome - the sepulchre
.
or... die handbuch der europaischen geschichte
notably from Charlemagne (the Illiterate)
to the Greek colonels (as apart from Constantine to
Thomas More in eight volumes, via Cambridge mid
1930s)... these and some other books of urgency
e.g. Eugene Weber's H. A. L. Fisher's, Sr. Walter Ralegh,
Jacob Bronowski... elsewhere excavated noun-obscurities
like gattopardo and konarmya had their
circas extended like shelved vegetables in modern
supermarket isles, for one reason or another...
prado, sonata sovkino also... some also mention
Thomas Carlyle (i'd make it sound like carried-away isle,
but never mind); so in this intro much theory,
how to sound politically correct, verifiable to suit
a coercion for a status quo... Europe as a modern idea,
replacing Imperum Romanun came Christendom,
ugly Venetian Pirates at Constantinople,
Barbarossa making it in pickled herring juice
in a barrel to Jerusalem... once called the pinkish-***-fluff
of Saxony, now called the pickled cucumber,
drowning in his armour in some river or Brosphorus...
alchemists, Luther and Copernicus were invited on
the same occasion as the bow-tie was invented,
apparently it was a marriage made for the Noir cinema,
beats me - hence the new concept of Europe,
reviving the idea of Imperium Romanun
meant, somehow including Judea in the Euro
championship of footie gladiator ***** whipped
narcissists, rejecting the already banished Carthage
(Libya / Tunisia by Cato's standards) and encouraging
the Huns, the Goths and the even more distant Slavs and
Vikings to accept not so much the crucifix as
the revised spine of the serpent but as the geometry of
human limbs, well, not so much that, but forgetting
Norse myths of the one-eyed and the runic alphabet
and settling for ah be'h c'eh d'ah.
dissident frenche stink abbe, charles castel de st pierre
(1658 - 1743) aand this work projet d'une paix perpetuelle
(1713) versus Питер Великий who just said:
never mind the city, the Winter Palace... i have aborted
fetus pickles in my bedroom, lava lamps i call them.
the last remaining reference to Christianity?
Nietzsche was late, the public was certain,
it was the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, with public reference
to the republica christiana / commonwealth was last made.
to Edmund Burke: well, i too wish no exile
upon any European on his continent of birth,
but invigorate a Muslim to give birth on it
and you invigorate an exile nonetheless:
Ezra expatriate Pound / sorry, if born in eastern
europe a ***** Romanian immigrant, pristine
expatriate in western Europe, fascist radio has
my tongue and *****, so let's play a game:
Russian roulette for the Chinese cos there's
a billion of them, and no one would really mind
a missing Chow Mein... chu shoo'ah shaolin moo'n'kah!
or a cappuccino whenever you'd like to watch
classic Italian pornographic cinema with dubbing
with nuns involved... Willaim Blake and his
stark naked prophesy, pope pius II (treatise 1458)
even though Transylvania, Tharce and Hungary
shared the same phonetic encoding with diacritical
distinctions like any Frenchman, German,
or Pole at the Siege of Vienna (1683)
to counter the antagonising Ottoman - i swear historians
do this one purpose, juggle dates and head-of-state figures
prior to entering a chronology - they must first try out
a ******* carousel before playing with the toy-train...
broadcasting to a defeated Germany public, T. S. Eliot
(1945) ****** import to into Western Germany
and talk of the failing moral fabric, China laughing
after the ***** intricacies of warfare of trade,
what was once wool we wished to be silk...
instead of silk we received vegetarian wool, namely
hemp, and Amsterdam is to blame... nuke 'em!
that's how it sounds, how a historian approaches
writing a history from the annals, from circa and
circumstance and actual history, foremost the abbreviations,
the fishing hook standards, the parameters,
the limits, and then the mathematics of history,
one thing culminating into another... contra Lenin
N. S. Trubetskoy, P. N. Savitsky, G. Vernadsky
Russian at the perks of the Urals - steppe Tartar shamans
or salon pranced pretty **** boys? where to put
the intoxicant and where to put the mascara... hmm,
god knows, or by 21st calculations, a meteor;
they say the history of nations is a history of women,
then at least the history of individuation
and of men who succumb to its proliferation
is astoundingly misogynistic.
Seton-Watson, among the the tombstones too reminded
of remarkable esteem and accomplishment
with only one gravedigger to claim as father...
as many death ears as on two giraffe skeletons
stood Guizot, men of many letter and few fortunes,
or v. v., incubators of cousin ***** and none the kippah
before the arrogant saintly diminished to
a justly cause of recession, ha ha,
by nature's grace, and with true advent of her progression
as guard-worthy pre- to each pro-
and suggested courteous of the ****** fibre,
oh hey, the advent of masqueraded woofing,
a Venetian high-brow, and jealousy out of a forgotten
spirit of adventure that once was bound
to hunting and foraging... forever lost to write  history of
a king dubbed Louis the XIV...
crucibles and distastes for the state to be pleased,
once removed from Paris, forever to Angevin womb
accustomed once more, at Versailles released -
as cake be sown so too the aristocratic swan necks
for worth of mock and scorn - and the dampening rain
rattle the blood-thirst of the St. Bartholomew's Day
slaughter, to date, the rebirth of Burgundy,
of Anjou, and with the dead king presiding, to be
of no worth in judging himself a king before god or pauper...
saluer Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville!
that i might too in stead rattle a few bones prior to burial
with the jaw that will laugh and chatter least
had it been to my kingly-stead a birth so lowly.
then at least in satisfactory temperament i procure a
judgement of the noble like of a *****
for an hour's worth of pistons and jarring tongues...
as if from a nobleman then indeed as if from a *****,
for who sold Europe and said: Arabia, if not the
Frenchman, the Englishman, the Spaniard?
the former colonial conquests served you not enough?
i imagine the reinstatement of Israel like
the Frankish states under Philippe-August...
precursors to a cathedral dubbed Urban the 2nd's..
there were only Norwegian motives in the Ukraine
and the black sea... Israel to me is like plagiarism
of the Frankish states of the middle-east, with Europe
slightly... oom'pah loom'pah mongolian harmonica.
some said Rudyard Kipling poems,
some said Mr. Kipling's afternoon tea cakes -
whichever made it first on Coronation St.
some also say the Teutonic barbecues -
it was a matter of example to feed them hog
and cannibalise the peasants for ourselves,
a Prussian standard worth an army standard of
rigour - Ave Maria - letztre abendessen nahrung -
mein besitzen, wenn in die Aden, i'd be the last
talking carcass...
gottes ist der orient!
gottes ist der okzident!
nord - und sudliches gelande
ruht im frieden seiner hande.

germany's lebensraum, inferiority and classification,
inferior slavs and jews, genetics and why my
hatred of Darwinism is persistent, you need
an explanatory noting to make it auto-suggestive
for Queen & Country? diseased elements,
Jewish Bolshevism, Polish patriotism,
Soviets, Teutons, the grand alliances of 1918
or 1945? Wilsonian testimony of national self-determi
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2018
/                                             bit-chute diesel
                         car engine analogy -

you really have
to watch it for a "reasonable"

amount of time,
before the site "behaves"
like

               a youtube page of
"instant gratification"...
   "up-to-speed"

       connection expectation

     ...(diesel car engines have to run
on stand-still for a while,
as any scottfish roofer will tell you
at 5am in the morning...
   give it 30 minutes...
  the giraffe should turn into gazelle...
                  any minute now)...

                          pixel-white
interaction...

  ­ given the fact that samsung
has demonetißed
    all of american content creators:

using a samsung tablet?
   i haven't seen a single advert in
probably two years...

       not, one!

(not a single video on youtube
is allowed advert streaming
when utilißed via a samsung
                 outlet device)...

                 it's like a free pass
into the red light district of amsterdam!
no nonsense policy
     pass into "deviation":

  do men still travel to amsterdam
to experience the legality
of marijuana?
                     seriously?

                 so not the prozzies?

the same mad american was
working the newly arrived tourists
on the streets,
   supposing it was like visiting
detroit: and the night
customers were not akin
to the sudanese starving masses...
can't remember
his name...
   he did say it...

      but ended up speaking
with a spaghetti tangled tongue and i'm
half trying... and half...

  i can see his face...

        it's neither pretty, nor ugly,
just memorable...
                 i don't even think he
was out to squash a con
            to fit into his pocket,
                  and lace it with pennies...  

could i really be that bad,
to go to amsterdam, spend three days
among the sensible dutch,
and not go there to enjoy
their lax laws convened around
marijuana use, but instead,
go to amsterdam to ****
  a plump puerto rican
   with an african pageboy
who was supposed to bring
      extra heinekens to her neon tower,
of a cermic tiled boudoir?

**** me!
                if that isn't amsterdam?!
and the sensible dutch?
no wonder the english think
that peasants shouldn't even
allow themselves the relenting
) outside the bracket joy
of ****-a-billy-billy...
  ***!

                 too much "excuse" from
being ashamed of
1960s' ***-infused humour,
  i guess to aspire an argument for
suggesting an exposure.

  england is experiencing
     a...
               hmm: misnomer at every turn...
A 1960s SHAME OF
            MAKING *** FUNNY...

apparently i'm not surprised...
     because if *** isn't niqqab serious
in how two bodies attach themselves
for a brief moment?
   then there's no a priori to begin with.
All my late night rendezvous
Have since been eclipsed
By stable days and nights with you.
You save me from the spiders in my shoes,
And when storm clouds start grumbling, I save you.

And I know that this sounds cheesy--
But I don't care. I don't care!
Because I happen to know you ******* love cheese.
And for you babe,
I'll be the best cheese.

I'll be thy holy Swiss cheese,
I'll be your buttered Brie.
And when we've aged 50 years?
Well then babe,
I'll be your ******* Gouda.

At least, that's what I want to be
If you'll let me.
I want to be the finest cheese your tongue has ever tasted.
So lay your wine-stained lips on me;
Let's see how we pair.
After finding my soulmate, my inspiration to write sort of dried up. I no longer had the heartache and pain that had fueled me for so many years. So this poem is dedicated to my love, who makes me feel safe, and at ease.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2016
i staying this hostel in amsterdam,
less glorifying than ginsberg
to be a czech fool king wording
self-praise about spinoza,
two germans (who decided to take
mushrooms watching american dad:
i tell you, hallucinogenics
and television - plato's cave -
equate to plato's deepest caverns),
i spent the first day with the germans,
i didn't smoke ****, i just drank,
second day i spent the day
with the egyptian (architect student,
nice scrapbook of doodles), who was cradling
a bottle of the potato elixir known as *****,
in one of the cafes he gave me a blunt,
then gave me his hearing-aids from which
music blasts, he chose to play me
le trio joubran's masar (https://goo.gl/4vcBE1),
there and then i opened my mouth and
in oh oh oh surds imitated a woman's ******,
all ******-active drugs are a release from
thinking, ******-active drugs don't like thought,
indeed i was thoughtless, and in ecstasy bold
enough to attract a dutch girl's curiosity
at my mouth turned in O and my eyes closed
being fed the agarwood trembles of horsehairs
tied either end for a song,
it felt... it felt like a unison resound of
solomon's harem... i turned marijuana into
a ****** because of the music...
these ******-active drugs don't like thinking,
they disperse thought into a semi non-existence,
less carousel more dodo (extinction),
active ingredients of such a nature restrict thought
and reveal an intoxicated self, or self without thought:
a "true" / "undiscovered" self.
and now looking into something resembling
a library, but actually a graveyard...
you tend to do that, keep company with the dead
scribblers, given your position of demised
appreciation numbered less than expected
filling a quarter of the imagined auditorium,
you turn to the dead ones...
among the tombstone crucifixes a few are still alive:
will alexander (poet), fady joudah (poet & physician),
jim bradbury (historian specialising in accounts of
philip augustus), norman davis (historian,
author of god's playground, competitor
with paweł jasienica about the history of poland),
there's also an addition by will self and irvine welsh,
but that's about it... the rest of the ******* are dead:
and this makes me feel nearer to what's intended:
a brick, on a shelf, a brick in the heart layering
of first 20 years, and subsequent life after till
promised anno mortum 60 with the world's age
of civilisation aged 2052 (e.g.);
hence too the exhausted day filled with sleep
awaiting its completion,
but that memory stitches me up into a whole of
the puffy duck-feather teddy bear's abdomen content,
as i parted the egyptian with laughter
once a single drag of the blunt started to wear off.
Laura Enright Dec 2016
I felt it first –
the day we wore waterproof boots in Amsterdam in August,
an unexpected storm did little to disturb us
I began to notice it then
the secret in this town that everyone, except me, knew about

Something that was hushed and passed around
under the blanket of moon
hidden away in a fiercely dark room of the Red Light
beneath maroon velvet curtains and leather-topped stools
or nestled beneath a bridge on the black canal past midnight.

I saw water dotted with blurred droplets, dark blue
the reflection of milky streetlights.
I pull the curtains in the mezzanine and the show begins
on the street below. I look out.

A curve of the lips
a gentle folding of the arms
a hand brushing against another

A secret never told
A city more alive than awake.
Tyler Durden Jan 2015
If you really would like to know my name is Amsterdam.
I've been floating here for awhile,
Somewhere along the way the person
Holding me together let go.
But For the most part
I guess you could call me, happy.
The thing I've noticed with people,
They always find a problem with everything,
You can't just sit back and see that the fog behind her eyes are the very thing that makes her perfect.
Life just isn't told that way.
I know someone out there has to agree.
Someone out there has to be something like me.
I'll just float along watching you from here, wishing I could fix your problems,  show you the way the rain smells is maybe all you need to smile again.
So I'll stay here until I find where I belong.
Until I find someone to hold me into place again.
I know this isn't really a poem, but I was thinking of developing this into a screenplay, fleshing it out and turning it into visual poetry. But I wanted to get feedback from you all first. So please let me know what you think.
Mitchell Feb 2013
Goodbye Prague, to a city I never thought I'd know.
Goodbye Prague, to a heaven that is lined with shattered beer bottles and stamped out cigarettes the junkies and the hobo's here still manage to get a  few puffs out of.
Goodbye Prague, to a hell that was once hovering with the feelings of control, manipulation, and more control, but now is twirling top speed to a land unknown.
Goodbye Prague, you seductive ***** with your cheap liquor, beer, and cigarettes, smelling of aged mahogany mixed finely with an acidic burst of fresh *****.
Goodbye Prague, I do not know when I will see you again, but I hope that I do and that I never grow so old that I forget you.
Goodbye to your abstract animals smeared black, screaming in the exploding summer sun. Goodbye to freshly cut pigs heads and cow flesh, hanging in your storefront window, tempting every passerby like the *****'s of Amsterdam.
Goodbye to every cobblestone that shines after a fresh rain or snow, slippery to the newcomer, an annoyance to the amateur, thoughtless to the old timer.
Goodbye to the potraviny's stocked with two crown marked up ***** and space vegetables shaped and colored in a one and only kind of vernacular; without you, I would have half-drunkenly stumbled home towards dreams of menial headaches and shadowy beer or perhaps to The Oak to drink alone.
I scream so long through faint puffs of carbon nicotine clouds made illuminated by the icy orange street lamps 800 years old glow!
I scream so long to late metro's and early trams!
I scream so long to the roaring rocks who reflect the faces of aging clocks!
So long to passed out bums and unforgiving metro officers. So long to dollar fifty beers and the fear of getting deported. So long with counting silver crown to make even, seeing my math prowess has lessened. So long embedded needles and bottle caps deep within the snowy cobble. So long listless wanders all their money thrown away until the month of May comes to knock on their door. So long alleyway romance 100 crown notes and old men in their rickety fishermen boats. So long sad masked faces who in their forward march sit stunned seeing fortune picks only some. So long through the grey mist stabbed with neon signs that attract the youth and the mad. So long to the feeling everything I had to say was the wrong thing. So long to feelings of foreign familiarity whose ball and chain were slowly starting to rust away. So long in song to the player's of Riegrovy hill whose voices I just couldn't stand. So long I've come to understand everyone's got a choice to live or wish they did. So long to the wide swept hills of Petrin, where angel's of lore go to rest atop dusted fresh snow, among the dotted new born vine. So long to the sound of wet metal against metal, a scream of order carried on the blue man's shoulder. So long to a city whose architecture reminds me of old men's faces and whose color reminds me of elderly women's dresses. So long to smoking in front of children without a second thought for their health. So long to racism that is wicked, but grunted genially - the executioner smiles at the accused - the gravedigger's weep for the dead - the ant makes a break for a hill not his. So long forlorn love whose only remedy for a cure is the beer sitting in front of you. So long to wondering what's going on in the world, when all I want and got is what's right in front of me.
Farewell Prague, you shadowed street walker, a cloak of stars around you, finding all that owe you  your due.
Farewell Prague, you in the morning eyes half mast, snow crunching underneath stony white.
Farewell Prague, miss-handler of crooked time pieces stating the obvious, ignoring to blame bluntly on youthful alcohol abuse.
Farewell Prague, you took me up the hill and through the woods where ravens, black as gutter ice, crackled down at me like showers of New Year's fireworks.
Farewell Prague, you gave me peace where I once thought I was unable to have.
Farewell Prague, you befriended me, then ordered me a shot that made me cough, then ordered me a beer so we could sit and truly feel what it is to sit and wallow in our time here.
Farewell Prague, you entranced me with view after view to a city to stubborn to die.
Farewell Prague, I leave you like you would leave me.
Farewell Prague, to your fat snow flakes that drop into wide eyed children mouths, tasting of iron whiskey rye, though they do not flinch at the taste.
Farewell Prague, I leave you with a hush of a whimper, bitter as the cold, and indifferent as the server's over at Cafe Lourve.
Farewell Prague, with a thousand miles of graveyards, where ghosts barely have the strength to weep.
Farewell Prague, I admit I never knew how to love until I came to visit you.
Farewell Prague, as I stare out your cracked and smoky tram windows, my thoughts not my own, shop windows and naked, screaming men, their cigarettes bouncing in between their lips like a jack of spades on smack, where at last we see that life is only a worth a **** if lived.
Farewell Prague, I see the cards there on the table and you're winking at me while I stand at the backdoor, and what's more, there's a secret you've got to give that I refuse believe.
Farewell Prague, to your open sore catastrophe of society, KFC on every block, and Starbuck's on every other, and on the other other are the lined' wino's shaking open handed and spread for a case of cardboard vino.
Farewell Prague, to the nasty smoker's in trams that just stopped caring.
Farewell Prague, to a city rhythm generated by an ignorant originality and uniqueness, where the same has no name and the the plain jabber on about their jobs in their pretty blue jeans.
Farewell Prague, because to say goodbye would mean we don't have that friendly tone.
Farewell Prague, I see to sacrifice oneself for the comfort of the elder or the opposite fills me with agitated obligation stationed in a vessel older than I've ever lived - yet I know it, for it is me.
Farewell Prague, you are a lost lullaby caught in the wind of an elastic multi-colored pin-wheel, shining riches of the rainbow into the eyes of children, who all whistle when they snore.
Farewell Prague, a button upon the Earth, like every man.
Farewell Prague, a love song sung in the depths of a damp grey hall, rivers all around, so the sounds too much to drink were outlandish in high emotion, juvenile commotion.
Farewell Prague, we were young - not caring about the future, but of course, with worry in our hearts for worry is a sign of human being human; yet, still, we asked nothing of one another and you gave and I gave and you took and I took and we walked underneath one another's blanket's until we were no longer cold and the winter showed to be just an annoying individual at the party.
Farewell Prague, to your lack of complications, making simplicities acceptable again.
Farewell Prague, to the snow that never stops falling, all while slumbering within dream until the seam is ripped so the old can die.
Farewell Prague, I've shined every marble staircase and washed every tram window; you owe me nothing because I like you.
Farewell Prague, to the long nights bleeding away at the table alone, the lady fast asleep, lit by the dim orange glow of the twisted streetlights below.
Farewell Prague, to the long nights forgetting pains of existence and accepting every solution to ward of resistance.
Farewell Prague, our long talks and hovering walks, always forcing me to balk.
Farewell Prague, at last you got the praise you have always deserved.
Farewell Prague, to hot humid nights filled with *** and butter in the summer and cold bitten cold of ***** and juice a la winter.
Farewell Prague, to bad service but good drink and food.
Farewell Prague, you curious tale the bravest man would waver to say.
Farewell Prague, to bridges galore and more dead leaves then wrinkles on my crooked face.
Farewell Prague, at night the sheen of liquor wears off only if you let it be so.
Farewell Prague, to all the those lonely mornings bent head into book on the way to work.
Farewell Prague, how long till you grow to be young again?
Farewell Prague, how long till I admit my defeat to you?
Farewell Prague, how long until I accept I'm the last fool in this world?
Goodbye Prague, the last soldier is standing, but the war is not yet won.
Goodbye Prague, to your hazy stars glimmering and shining for an indebted audience.
Goodbye Prague, the sun breaking through ink spilled colored clouds, the birds chirping, the dogs barking, and us wondering where we started.
Goodbye Prague, your churches are empty so the sins of man run rampant and at last the prayers of men go unanswered; we now abandoned to fend for ourselves.
Goodbye Prague, the puncturing purity of your ways make me giggle in delight as I listen to the cool piano man play; his eyes on the horizon shattering like toppled china.
Goodbye Prague, at last there is a time where we both get what we want.
Goodbye Prague, the verandas are chilled with the dew of winter and the snow glitters like bitter diamonds as the fool tips his hat to shy away the sunlight.
Goodbye Prague, every rain drop that fell upon me was a gift you can never take away.
Goodbye Prague, the fool adheres to agnostic rules but the cruel here see no reason to sue.
Goodbye Prague, I think therefore the dust of escape reflects the waves of the river Vlatva.
Goodbye Prague, to your lack of vowels.
Goodbye Prague, when the night wavers hear the Beherovka weep into its own glass, love leaving her forever making no note to Kissy.
Goodbye Prague, tram driver's unforgiving in their merciless need for schedule.
Goodbye Prague, the last homage to the war standing like a shining diamond neath chipped and shattered rubble.
Goodbye Prague, a listless memory mentioned only in drifting dream.
Goodbye Prague, every loving glance smelling of freshly poured beer over newly fallen snow.
Goodbye Prague, to your hardness, your beauty, and your madness.
Goodbye Prague, your days wet with rain, stricken by sunlight, reflecting white emerald into the window panes of passing trains.
Goodbye Prague, at last you got what you deserved.
Goodbye Prague, now I can weep and say I have trampled upon your cheek and slunk through your veins and trudged through your blood and skipped through your hair and saw every line - both sought after and nought - you have acquired through time.
Goodbye Prague, there is no reason to get excited, you are free.
Goodbye Prague, I see the silhouette of the trees that line your hills and I am forsaken to see the leaves turning from jovial yellow greens to disregarded and disparaged furnaces of dim fire reds and browns.
Goodbye Prague, the people within you deserved all of the credit.
Good Prague, the people outside of you deserve what ever they believe they do.
Goodbye Prague, you family to families with common sense and love rampaging through your barley stained veins.
Goodbye Prague, perhaps there is nothing under your rubble, maybe already all is lost for everyone, everywhere, but maybe, you living the simpler life, can show all that life can be so.
Goodbye Prague, you gave me letters, words, lines, commas, apostrophes, and dashes, paragraphs, pages, and eventually, a story; I leave you marked.
Goodbye Prague, an old friend whose hand I shook but knew would one day turn my back on.
Goodbye Prague, the bite of your cold generosity and your bustling love leaves man with nothing but to bike back with no chance of triumph.
Goodbye Prague, street cleaners clean up your wear and tear from the mothers and fathers that bore you, some 800 years ago; ageless, you loom longer than they would like.
Goodbye Prague, battling sleep as the ***** raps for more and more, none that the man has.
Goodbye Prague, the night is curling in as the wave crashes to the short and I am the lost sun looking for a place to rise, trying to get to the sky.
Jo Barber May 2018
Her thoughts
grow like weeds
through swaying reeds.

In her head
exists a garden
as bright and as varied
as the tulips of Amsterdam.
Each canal lined with bikes,
the water flowing from one to the next.

If not careful, though,
that mind will overflow,
overgrow with the seeds
of past ill deeds.

She sits still now,
thumbing through her prayer beads,
pleading for the protection
of some modern-day Diomedes.
Thoughts? It's still a work in process.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2018
/h'americans can call it a striptease, but in amsterdam, with legal self-employed prostitutes? we call it a cocktease: because you'd really visit amsterdam for the ****, these days?

isabella: the french psychology
exchange student -
    hung up on her ex-boyfriend -
really in anime movies -
      and that american i competed
with on an edinburgh pub-crawl
for freshers -
and lost my virginity to -
  
               probably the only time
i had the ontological parameters
of your atypical man -
  "hunting", competing -
   oh so, so, enthralling....
    (spot the irony mingling with
ridicule, when people "know"
how the modern man behaves,
with his caveman predecessors:
dragging a woman
by the hair type of cartoonish
depiction) -

the other fun time i've had
encounters with h'americans
was in Soho -
two colts, texan tourists asking
for directions,
or where this or that place was...
it almost warmed my heart
hearing that twang
                       of the tongue...
perhaps someone from arizona?
that has that - "mid" western
twang of the tongue
                 added to the bite...

snub the Boston high-mind
eloquence, like:
    you really really want
               to sound european...

never mind...
   people say that water is tasteless...
hmm...
    so last night i was heating
up one arm of scissors...
                 and sniffing it...
then licked the other arm of the scissor...

what's in water again?
   minerals... a subtle presence...
magnesium, potassium, iron...
you name it...
   so yeah... water is... "tasteless"...

eisenzahn that i am.
Ander Feb 2014
Walking through rivers in the middle of the street
The deepest of puddles to soak my feet
Pornographic windows with strange girls inside
Naked young women with nothing to hide

A trip to the zoo in the sun and the rain
Rolling up numbers again and again
With time on our side and nothing to lose
The wind in our sails adventure we choose

Psychotropic games to contort my mind
We can't understand them but they're still so kind
Stairs like a mountain so many to climb
We've been here so long for such a short time
A little poem about my trip to Amsterdam with a few friends.
Basko Sep 2014
The Dutch brought art, mud and dirt of the Kathmandu heartland,
With cigarette smoke clouding the air, and pizzas in the oven.
Not overcooked, no medium rare, slight rounded, man-made

The ambiance was now of Rembrandt and Van Gogh,
Yellow with the hint of light.
Perhaps coffee, perhaps tea.
And delight in a conversation of philosophy.
Maybe you'll pay, maybe me.

The open doors swallow in the air of the monsoon,
with the enigma of ever binding books who stuck to the wall
Like wall flowers, some folded papers like petals of an unbloomed bud.
They all had smells better inhaled with tobacco smoke.

The music played, and people dance within the security of their thoughts,
The shelter for their thoughts, the flaws of their speech.
Memories,pure and bright radiated from the lamps above the bar,
Lights which come to us only in fallen stars, but wishful thinking
is dangerous.
Hence forget it like Dutch forgot the wars.

Memories are made here, where the humidity is heavy from the perfume of heavy smiles, or folded chins and forheads from a chess game.
Not hidden, no worries, around the corner.
But yet again man made.
Ramonez Ramirez Feb 2011
Angie works the alleys that reek of greasy sausages and ****,
where beer-bellied men appear
and vanish into doorway varnish of invisible rooms,
spitting on their own doorsteps, stubby fingers
running over stained vests and wire wool guts.

Harry lives out yonder where plastic bags’ ballet shoes are made of glue;
he is sharing a hit
with a dreadlocked kid, just another invisible face,
a phantom-surfer nurse, to assist him in
chasing the ultimate high on highway number twenty-two.

Invisible, hairy hands hold her down; Angie has to swallow,
she can feel the pulsating vein
of a softening **** over her tongue and swollen lips –
she gives it a good old slap against her cheek,
grabs the package, and makes sure no one follows.

Harry’s clawing at a face in that place where reality floats
between the tip of the needle
and the desperate edge of chemical dependency -
his little angel taps him on the shoulder;
he turns around, and stabs her in the throat.
Jurgen Dec 2011
Exotic ladies flaunt their wares
to joe publics wanten stares,
'They' do this to earn their crust
'They' do this out of lust.

In the darkness of the narrow street
the gawping public shuffle feet,
The lights illuminate carnal pleasure
while 'they' peruse at their leisure.

Here is a woman drenched in red
a female who works from her bed,
How did she get here?
Why does she stay there?

A parade of cat and mouse
at the seedy brothel house,
Gestures of blazing desire
fuel the burning ****** fire.
Terry Jordan Apr 2017
Of course it was the wedding
Bringing us together
With Fabian and Karen
The best wedding ever!

Historic and surprising
In the old Lloyd Hotel
Pre-wedding preparations
For a boat ride so swell

Such patterns and colors
Bricks and concrete so define
The old Lloyd Hotel with
A more modern Dutch design

Our Indonesian dinner
That whirlwind tour by Tor
Through shopping streets-The Nines-while
Sharing his family lore

I stood in line for VanGogh
2 hours of rainy skies
All worth it for the time there
His story made me cry

Splendid gardens on display
Row upon row I gazed
A cacophony of TULIPS
The Keukenhof amazed!

We walked for miles & learned the trains
The week flashed by so fast
I wish that Rose and I took time
To take a yoga class

I'd like my morning coffee
Once more before we part
Finished off with Dutch detail
A great big creamy heart

Loving those calming canals
I might go on the lam
Escape from America
I think "I Amsterdam"
A love-letter to Amsterdam, inspired by giant letters spelling "I Amsterdam" outside the airport there.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
.like any western, but unlike every western... the true grit... one eyed... it's not called: i'm blinking... it's called... the blink. the English language can never have... what is it... gender neutrality? the words are already gender neutral! the words in the English are neither masculine, or feminine... it's ******* to ask for something that's already in place! you know what obstructs the gentrification of words in the English language? how the sun is not feminine and the moon is not masculine? the articles... the English orientated their language around a-the        slightly missing the -ism... the English didn't create their language with a gender orientation of nouns, but other European languages orientated their nouns around gender inclusiveness... but you can't just... change the ******* grammar... call a triangle a ******* rhombus on a whim that belongs in the asylum... blah blah do ****... is this how civilized language is supposed to disintegrate into?! this is not religion... you can't simply replace grammatical dogma with heretical "protestantism" to gain something counter to 1 + 1 = 2, or a + t + t + e + s +t = attest... yes, confirm... what with that the politicians are doing in Canada... post-nationalism? post-nationalism, ensured with a post-grammatical structure of what should be the post-nationalist playground of the use of language? the two... together?! so... no nationalism, and no grammar... seems about the right time to separate the state from the state... and call the following dynamic: juggle act: catch one if you can! how can you expect to change the grammatical sub-structure of English?! nouns are not gentrified in the equivalent ontology of other, European languages! how can you expect gender neutrality... when the nouns of said language... are already gender neutral!? and that's because English is particular in the definite (the) and the indefinite (a) article articulation... this is the crux... the pivot... as to why nouns are not associated with either femininity or masculinity... which is why i didn't learn French in high-school... i was taught French from the rubric of grammar... i was taught the rules, before i was being taught to speak, and break the rules of speaking English... who the **** requires to learn a language, having to learn the arithmetic of lettering in the encompassing genesis of staging a craft of the linguist with, said grammar?! language is not universal... noun is no surd... verb is no integer... je suis is no 1 + 1 = 2... but like i said before... you're talking about pandering to linguistic retards... they might not be mad enough to enjoy the rainbow plethora of pharmacology... but sure as ****... they're linguistic retards... sorry, the saddest truth is... somehow... the most fun to attest in concurrence; oh right... that western, true grit... well... whether you're John Wayne or Jeff Bridges... one eye still intact? it's not a blinking... it's called the blink... no, and it's not even a blink... see how English is fascinating when singularity and pluralism enters the arena of the direct / indirect articulation? and to think the English wanted to debate a non-existent gender association of nouns that the French, the Polaks can have... but you sorry *******... ain't getting it!

so...

    a juggling act...

(insert a snigger)

   lindsay shepherd's
video: exposing grad school
(my m. a. experience)

and...............

         bon jovi's
blaze of glory

       bon jovi! wooooooooooooo!

god, i'm so stereotypical.
i should have signed up
becoming a side-burner
for some ******* Kentucky
redneck.

p.s. is stereotypical
synonymous
with predictable?
that's actually a genuine question
of, rather than answering the question
itself, answering the per se
curiosity; savvy?

so what is it... Bub "the blue" Clí 'n' Son?
***** needin'
to ****?
watcha gonna do Bub?
               hold up the, "spanker"?!

---------------------------------------

and some days, in england, and it's june,
and 10pm feels like 7pm in some other season
and it reminds me of the white nights
of st. petersburg....
   insomnia and ******* a girl for seven hours...
oh the ******* bit was fun,
don't get me wrong,
   i had to wait 2 weeks before she let me
do it to her in the bath...
****** ready... she was on her period,
but misguided:
  last time i heard...
            ******* on a period eases
the period pains...
      eh... gritty flesh bits on the rubber...
problem? what problem?!

    no wonder then: i hate drinking buddies...
people dumb down upon ingesting
alcohol, i'm talking: 2D objects in 3D space
akin to fern bushes in the 1st tomb raider
(black holes - a paradox,
   a 2D object spinning really fast in
an infinite 3D space... copernican east?
copernican west? i hope the rabbi knows)...

days like this, oh all the days like this...
when you wake up,
jump out of bed... and dance naked in your
room listening to KULT's
          brooklyńska rada Żydów -
two music genres i never got into:
punk and rap...
   well... "mediocre" punk...
   californian, the offspring,
  the usual suspects of the ramones,
*** pistols, stiff little fingers, mainstream *******...
ska... now we're talking...
hip hop contra rap: now we're talking...

such a beautiful day...
    a chestnut mushroom cream sauce with
snippets of turkey, of course the fresh parsley...
bay leaf, one clove, two all-spice buds...

    and... i'm really tired of looking up
h'america's ***...
    i sometimes thank god that i'm not
english for the sole reason that i don't have
to mind the "special relationship",
like i'm being owed or owning someone
for the respects of sharing the same lingo...

you want the other "special relationship"?
it began with Casimir III...
east... well: central europe...
eastern europe without borders,
purely geographic: is situated somewhere
in russia...
          borders condense...
last time i visited the home away from home
i found new music...
pablopavo i ludziki...
             the polonaise and the jews...
how many terrorist attacks in poland
while the islamists were having a funfair
elsewhere? gullible schvabs and swedes...
  (swabians, that's a slang for the ol' deutsche
deutsche back east - kacap ('tss wet snare
on the c) for the russians)...
       0...
                  funny (even)...
the map of recent terrorist attacks...
     and... the map of the spread of the bubonic
plague... a certain region remains
immune...
       even i agreed with my uncle:
better the catholic ******* than islamic
propaganda... mind you...
        sh'ite islam: thumbs up!
always pay due dues to the underdogs...
and if islam truly was a religion
to gobble up all other religions...
      a schism over such a petty affair
including Ali - the son in law of Muhammad
and Muhammad breaking his promise...

    oy vey!
     how else was i going to get out of bed
to dance naked to anything
but the ska song: brooklyńska rada Żydów?
what other option?
      black ox orkestar's bukharian?
                                             oy vey!
funny story from amsterdam...
me and this egyptian were sharing a hostel
room with these two germans,
who wasted 'shrooms on sitting indoors
watching h'american dad...

   we took a different route...
   he smoked, i drank, he had a bottle of
***** with him,
architect, i can't remember his name,
a keen eye for grand doodles in a notebook...
but then i decided to take a ****
after a few beers while he put
headphones into my ears and played
me le trio joubran's - masar...
        i even managed to attract the attention
of a dutch girl who seemed...
rather gobsmacked...
   i literally went into the nod-state
associated with ****** junkies...
but with eyes closed and mouth agape...
feeding off the ****** of the void...
i.e. the ****** of the void?
    when you're not chained to thinking...
the self disintegrates,
              thinking disintegrates...
and with the music: the void became
pulverizing me with vibration after
vibration echoing a chanced comparison
to a heart-beat mingling with
the fuzzy rippling and vibrating effect of
   the eye-sight of some insect...

yes yes... blah blah...
    boasting... boasting my ***...
am i here to feel sorry for myself,
to drown in my take on some perfect love
i could offer?
      no really...
               i've always had the two best
companions to begin with...
my shadow and a blank piece of pixel
paper perfectly coupled to my idle /
itchy finger-tips...
   well, a third: ms. amber...
                         i learned over a year ago
that drinking with familiar people
****** me off... drinking with strangers?
oh sure, great time...
the best times when drinking in public
are with strangers...
"friends" (fwends) are just too nostalgic,
they want to remind you of something,
notably some micro-aggression nonsense
of a past grievance...
                   don't drink with "friends"...
every time i did: i would wake up
the next morning *******...
cursing them, putting on a mocking voice...

me me me... oh poow meeeeeeeeeeee...
   *******...
               so? i learned to adapt in
liking my own company...
it's not much, but sure as **** beats
listening to a bunch of drunken, nagging housewives;
i'm pretty sure a man should have been
in that slot of the space between my
3rd and 4th pint of guinness;
alas! not to be!

— The End —