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Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
the war has already begun
and it's not like
you're asking me: are you wearing shoes?
but, rather,
asking whether my shoelaces are
tightly spun, or whether i have
any... like the saimese soviets
at Stalingrad: one with
the ammunition, the other with
a rifle... or the joke above the bacon
concerning the police:
one is only able to write,
the other is only able to read.
i still don't know what you're asking me,
not since they had that proud attire
in napoleonic fashion, and my,
didn't ****** dress them well enough
to reach a heart-throb status?
clad black SS mon: it seems i'm always
a beggar at the feet of women,
but i don that: i'm Humphrey ******* Bogart!
yes, the uniform, the prestige,
and then they were thrown into the trenches
in the khaki resembling more
diarrhoea than muddy camouflage...
and so came dada saying a big massive
huh? after a while the major powers
didn't catch the drift from a keen libido
and trench-warfare and what came from
guerilla warfare... namely terrorism...
should i write this cheque out to the sound of
courgette... or couliflower,
mein herr?
and so it came: the time when the civilians
started their own war, and warred
among themselves, ensuring that
no army could penetrate, which paved
the way for terrorists only able
to usurp the contract of fine wine Friday
evenings by the Eiffel tower
with the burp ultimatum...
   so we're at war...
  and god only know how guerilla
evolved into terrorism, or should it be
called: the other Vietnam?
  and perhaps too: a baguette ripped
like it might have been a vulture's wake:
or a hyennas' party of giggles and hecklers...
but such days are other,
the Paris i remember isn't the Paris i'd
like to visit...
            no one really asked for this...
but it is, what it is...
    and it's hard to see the fact when there
are no glorious marches, no youthful men
strapped into galant uniforms...
    a bit like that advert for bus inspectors
in England: they wear no uniform,
they're dressed just like you and me...
     because that's how war translates to
civilians... that civilians learn the covert
art of war... meaning that all other wars
reminiscent of past wars are nothing
but proxy wars, they're not akin to a Trojan siege...
proxy... there's no identity in war anymore,
there's no Persian empire, nor a Roman empire...
proxy wars, given the internet
and how we throw so much intimate information
into a web before we meet a person,
and then perhaps lie about the fantasy of
that representable self...
     in saying that, Daesh is unique in that
it doesn't have an identity crisis...
     it doesn't have a facebook or a twitter
or a McDonald's hovering above it...
    of all the wars currently staged, it's staging
an antithesis to what was once merely
proxy... i find it hard to believe that
nations exist... given the power of corporations...
a belief in nations is a return to feudalism,
serfs at football matches, later enslaved
by the necessary dependencies and easy-to-reach
fruits of internet-service providers that
makes me laugh at the idea that Argos (a
highstreet retailer) still ***** into advert schemes
and thinks it will survive the pulverisation
and high street turning into cul de sac....
   but hey, i'm not clapping...
       you'll find more applaus in an opera house...
i'm just trying to find the coordinates that
i can navigate with...
     it would be hard to believe in an all-out-war...
given the warring civilians...
        in whom the notion of war has
imploded, and who might attest to revenge ****
as a medium of releasing an arrow from a bow...
it's hard to create wars these days,
it's hard to create a pair of trousers to march
in when all you have is a knitted pocket...
   how did they ever find war so glorifying,
so ****** romantic? i'll never know...
     but it really is hard to wage wars these day
given the civilians are paranoid and feel
no safety... at all...
            and yes, nuclear weapons make no sense
of the arms trade... drop a nuke and you
undermine about a 1000 arms dealers...
   so forget the u.z.i. and the kalashnikov deals...
it's really panic not from a perspective of
extinction, but a panic based upon dealing arms...
not selling enough weapons, bullets, grenades...
  nukes are a great deterrent, but also a great motivation
for dealing in arms...
but it's war,
    perhaps in closed-off communities of the urban
hipters it's still only about selling the most
obscure type of cereal... lumberjack and all, beardy...
but out here, on the peripheries of large
city-states, it's tribalism thrice over...
        e.g. i laugh on the windowsill at night
the next day my neighbour comes over
talks to my relative and wonders whether she's
o.k. because he think i might **** her...
        and so he complains: he had to move
rooms in our house because of the laughter,
it cost us a lot of money...
and i'm sitting there, shrouded by the fact
that he can't see me and i can hear him and wonder:
so you're not homeless, yes?
       i think my neighbour is mad because
he wants to know me now,
after living next to me for 5 years... and not having
bothered to have anything to do with me,
wants to know me now... mate! tangens!
       do i really give a **** your wife is
pregnant? no...
                             and this is how puny
life and narrative can become... so knitty-gritty...
so ant-like prone... i have no airs to not
meddle in the grit, but the fact that i have to meddle
in it: is a right ol' bollocking...
   it could have been a nice: cheese & ham sandwitch...
instead it has to be this...
   so if this isn't war... why would i be asking
you about you asking me whether i'm wearing
shoes? the topic of shoelaces and noodles...
or as i like to put it: big gob west
       squint eye funny east...
   there is absolutely no better nations to pacify
the warring hoodlums of the west
than 1 billion chinese or 1 billion indians...
that's what i call a proper rebellion...
i mean, picture 1 billion chinese and 60
million germans...
      it's almost like tickling Genghis Khan...
it will always look like a chiquaua (west)
barking at a Rottweiler (east) ... and i can't help but
laugh at the change.
Faiza shekh Feb 2021
To the boy who can't express his feelings,
I understand you.

To the boy who wants to cry but forcing himself not to,
It's really okay to be emotional. You're not weak. You can cry.

To the boy who have so many responsibilities on his head,
I see you're trying and I'm proud of you.

To the boy who is dealing with anxiety and depression,
I'm listening you

To the boy who've been abused,
I stand with you.

If your voice is squeaky.
If you're not a beardy.
If you're skinny.
If you have a big tummy.

IT'S ALL O-K-A-Y.
You're perfect in your own way.

— The End —