60,3913  N, 5,3221 E, Bergen, 22.05.17

The Germans wear you down spiritually. They look through you with eyes of ice. It hurts when you see your friends turn their back on you. When you see the girl you loved, kissed in the canteen by a *****.  Your heart burns. What has he got that I haven’t? Apart from the muscle that pads out his boiler suit. No-one wants an intelligent man. I sit here sipping coffee in a fishing village café in Bergen. The coffee is hot and my heart aches. Soon we will be making our way up through the fjords to Geiranger. The beautiful fjords that embrace you. There is not so much to bear witness to here. The Gravlax is poor and overrated. Everything is shut. The dreary rain comes down on * A colleague drove me all the way to Hardanger Bridge. The bridge that connects Oslo and Bergen is truly breath-taking. I have seen the Milau Bridge in the South of France, the Somerset Bridge, Clifton Suspension Bridge. However, this is really the highlight of Bergen; unless you are drunk.
17.00 - we leave for G.
62,1008 N, 72059, E, Geiranger, 23.05.17

I wrote to Nan last night. I asked for her guidance. I want everything to be okay with Aline. 05.00 hours I got up to see the Geiranger fjords. They were breathtaking; we passed the Rock God in the cliff face. Or rather; he let us pass. Norway is really a paradise. I think how people only think with their bellies. Helen the nurse abandons us half way up the waterfall. I turn back. The Germans have an acute interest only in themselves. One wonders where love lies. I have found Ole’s café – at the base camp of the waterfall. It is here I feel at home. At this coffee shop I must remember everything properly. I must also forget Helen and how angry she makes me feel.  Mr. Edin said: “It’s the system that makes them so. Everyone is born the same.”

62,0861, N, 6,8687 E, Hellesylt, 23.05.17

I hate my life. I hate my inability to fall in love with anyone and anyone to fall in love with me. These days I can’t stand to look at the face that I see in the mirror. Parts of me crumble away to dust. I feel more and more bitterness, in port, towards couples that have found love – to the point of absurdity. Ice-skating; I drift slowly around the rink. It is the only real time I feel complete when I am alone. I see a couple kissing and happy in love. I feel anger and a bitterness burning up within me.  Why can’t I find someone that loves me simply? Why do I have to do all this **** – the garbage of personal relationships. Hellesylt is truly beautiful. At least I feel at one with nature; even if I don’t fit in anywhere else.

59,4136 N, 5,2680, E, Haugesund, 24.05.17

The war against fat, like finding love, is ongoing. I always feel I am the loser. I am a loser. I am sat in a coffee shop overlooking the red and yellow houses. I try and chat up the waitress;  a beautiful Norwegian blonde. I try and embody the image of a sailor. It works to some extent, but actually only reflects back on myself as a person. The aching has grown less. The coffee helps to balm the dissatisfaction I feel with life; as does the view across the river. There is an English couple opposite. How can you complain with that view out across the river? Twenty-five degrees, surely we must be able to leave our pain behind? I feel myself become more and more alive; back to life. The wounds are healing again. The pain passes.

5,89700 N, 57331, E, Stavanger, 25.05.17
We are going to sit and hammer this out. This book, this journal, bears witness to life. That is its meaning.  Why is it so hard to find love and to be loved? I am only an anatomical structure – corruptible, breakable flesh. Stavanger is quite simply a boring town. You can walk from one end to the other in thirty minutes. There is a church; a freedom monument and slated, wooden houses. Yuliana the Belarusian pushes her body onto mine, beneath the Northern Lights like a teddy bear; she hugs me again and again, never letting me go. I kiss her delicately on the ear. She giggles. I can still hear her voice now and the smell of her sweet perfume. Oh, how I burn inside. How many thoughts and feelings wheel in an instant. How capricious this heart is. I must drink another coffee.

59,9139 N, 10,7522,E, Oslo, 26.05.17
I am on the hunt for a Durian fruit in Oslo. My hunt for Hardanger Beer with the appropriate label also continues. We dock right in the centre of Oslo. The sun warms me. Trust me to fall in love with the only lesbian on board. In Oslo’s most popular café, Kaffebereint,  I think how I get myself into such situations. Maybe it’s because I love long nails on a woman. She has forgotten her scarf. I should really do more sit up and visit the gym. My feet are too busy wandering. Sauna Night takes place onboard – a reward for all those who helped out at the party below the mooring deck. I serve punch and party the night away. For a while I forget the disappointment of people and the strangeness of my body. Oslo is beautifully serene. I walk in the footsteps of Ibsen. I try and make my writing smaller and smaller so that it is almost like Chinese ideograms. I close the gap. I try to be neater; to be better. I walk along the boulevards of coffee shops, wondering how I can be better.
53,35 N, 8,35 E, Bremerhaven, 28.05.17
I am back home (in home port) from the Nordic Voyage. I need to rest up in Hamburg before embarking on the next adventure to the Northern Cape. 21.06.17 at 1700 hours – Bergen. What else is there to report on as we approach the quaint fishing port of Bremerhaven? Home. Only that my ex-girlfriend from Algiers has given birth to a baby girl; she wrote to me. Two years old. Name: Eline. Letters are wonderful. The waves lap gently at the boat. If you ever thinking about writing a letter, you should; we haven’t spoken for two years and she writes to me, out of the blue, because of a Christmas card she picked up in Dar Es Salaam. That is life; life on a boat; life at sea; life on the breadline. A sailor’s life is a funny thing; full of unpredictability.  Even as an enthusiastic merchant sailor I can see the draw of this life. – as tough as I am, what else is there to say? Only that another adventure waits me in Hamburg –

The rest of this transcript, as subsequent potential voyages is lost.

Easter Monday (2015)


The silence
It was the silence
As we entered the gates of hell.
Then…
The bird song,
It was the bird song
That chorused our way
To the well
Of tears at the wall
Of many tongues
That speak to the silence still,
Of the voices that cried
For the people who died
The void only time will fill.

The sun
It was the sun
Shining on the wooden cross.
And…
The sky
It was the sky
So blue, and flecked with the floss
Of clouds so white
So pure in light
That the wall of the well of tears
Transfigured the sin
We heap on Him
Whose loss for many
Is the only way
To feel the void time fills.

The woodpecker drummed a beat
On the trunks
Of the trees so parallel still.
A whisper of wind
That rebounds the sound
Of innumerable roll calls
Of the thousands who now
Lie deep in the cradles of mounds
Stone faced, inscribed Toten
With the number interred within
Verboten… now
But why not then?
In that world of men
And women, when humanity’s meaning
Was turned on end.
And a godless creed
That shadowed the world with grief
Which now for many,
Is beyond belief.

The stillness
It was the stillness
That gave silence the space to breathe,
To remember the times, the godless times
That now are so hard to believe.
But silence and stillness envelope the House
A silent place to be
To hear the past that shows the present
The prayers for a future that sees
What could be,
What can be
But will we
Learn, the history from then to now
To forge that future for future’s sake
And answer the question…
How?

David Applin
… late afternoon and evening of Easter Monday 6th April 2015 following a visit to Bergen-Belsen earlier in the day, completed 7th-9th April.

15th April 2015 … 70 years after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the British Army.

David Applin (Copyright 2015)

Won boxing matches with Lewis , Lasky, Corn Griffin, Swiderski,
Then many more titles with Griffiths, Farr, Stillman, and Levandowski,

Jackson, Caggiano, Darnell and Dobson
Something he could tell his grandson

His greatest match of all was the title he earned against Max Baer
The fight was the ultimate win at Gardens of Madison Square

A very passionate man for his wife and children he went to great lengths
To keep his family together during the depression, even in times of brink

Served honorably in WWII as a 1st Lieutenant
Owned a surplus supplier of marine equipment

Helped to construct the bridge Verrazano
It was the proud city’s beautiful Picasso

Gone is Jim Braddock, a movie about him, CINDERELLA MAN to be sure he’s not forgotten
His Granddaughter Rosemarie Dewitt  played his neighbor Sara Wilson, who was downtrodden

Copyright 2014
All Rights Reserved
Biopoem

Quincy Valero
Everybody’s best friend
Jet black hair
Shiny brown eyes
A boyish smirk
Standing six foot something
Coming out of catholic school agnostic
Attending state college

Every word that came out of his mouth was a riot
A funny story of a bad situation he was in that he can laugh at now
An awkward moment with a girl he tried to get in bed
God awful train rides with a clueless conductor

Quincy Valero
A wanna-be Casanova
The irish-italian self-proclaimed “Don Juan of Dumont”
Roaring down the suburb streets in his bright yellow mustang
From Bergen county to Trenton
Edgewater to Ewing
Bumping R&B; from the 90's

A main girl
A side chick
And a few back pocket broads
Leading them on
To where?
I’m not even sure he knows

Quincy Valero
My best friend since I’ve been here in Purgatory
My lifelong cellmate
My hetero life mate
My brother of second thought
Our token white boy

He’s had his ups
Wild ragers until day break
A four way with me and two girls in my four door sedan
He’s had is downs
Falsely charged with domestic abuse
Community service, endless court room hearings, suspensions and a whole bunch of nonsense

Quincy Valero
The quintessential example of the modern day male
Stays up all night
Sleeps all day
Opportunistic
Egotistical
Miserly
*****
And hungry

Always aching to put in his two cents
And leaving everyone in a howl of laughter
An Adderall popping
Seasoned drinker
A professional *** smoker, coached by yours truly
Fast talking baritone voice
With a half serious tone

Yes, Quincy Valero
The tight plain white t-shirt wearing
Chino sporting
Nostalgic, slightly racist, sexist, anti-semitic
Bust usually honest, friendly and apologetic
Good hearted dude we all love to hate
And hate to love

Bed-headed
Pajama bottom ***
Talking about his Svedka regrets
And we laugh and laugh and the stupidest things
Then remember events that seem so long ago
And then make plans for tomorrow
Yeah, one of my best friends
My oldest friend
That’s Mr. Quincy Valero

in our
besieged republic

snipers are
popping up
everywhere

taking ***
shots

ending lives
with a well placed
head shot

active shooters
star in
world premier
events

jokers
rise like
dark knights
casting large
looming shadows
on real 3D cinemax
multiplexed screens

sprinkling overpriced
buckets of popcorn
with generous
dollops of blood

others
head back to
school
still ******
about missing
recess and
excessive
sentences
to detention
halls where
bullies tortured
scrawny inmates
with wedgies
and painful
***** twisters

they’ve
come back
to even the score

leaving
bullet hole
pockmarks on
Sharpie smudged  
smart boards
declaring endless
summer vacations
for classrooms
of children
who don’t
give wedgies
and only dream
of soft *****

these
urban guerillas
are now working
to liberate airports
from the tyranny
of TSA agents
fulfilling
PATRIOT ACT
duties for
10 bucks
an hour

and
last night
the latest
active shooter
showed up at
the Garden
State Plaza,
-my hometown
mall of america-
mumbling about his
Grand Theft Auto
score, strung out
and crashing
from an unfilled
pharma addiction
script

he grew
up as a
Highwayman
in Teaneck

a former
classmate
working
at Nordstroms
said he was
a really good kid

he was,
one of the good ones,
he could have shot
some people
but the only
person he
shot in the head
was himself

legions of
police officers
surrounding the mall
stood down
grateful for overtime
milling about
in the flashing
red strobes
inhaling the heady
blue fumes
rising to commend
Bergen County
Blue Laws and
next Sunday’s
time and a half
active shooter
training day

Jimi Hendrix:
Machine Gun

Oakland
11/5/13
jbm

(Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas.
I was a plaything, a rat's neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff.
Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon.
Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky,
A night harbor, blue dusk mountain shoulders against a night sky,
And a circle of lights blinking: Ninety thousand people here.
  Among the Wednesday night thousands in goloshes and coats slickered for rain,
  I learned how hungry I was for streets and people.
  
I would rather be water than anything else.
I saw a drive of salt fog and mist in the North Atlantic and an iceberg dusky as a cloud in the gray of morning.
And I saw the dream pools of fjords in Norway ... and the scarf of dancing water on the rocks and over the edges of mountain shelves.
Bury me in a mountain graveyard in Norway.
Three tongues of water sing around it with snow from the mountains.
  
Bury me in the North Atlantic.
A fog there from Iceland will be a murmur in gray over me and a long deep wind sob always.
  
Bury me in an Illinois cornfield.
The blizzards loosen their pipe ***** voluntaries in winter stubble and the spring rains and the fall rains bring letters from the sea.

The year was nineteen forty six, the memories still raw,
Europe’s Jews were still encamped as they had been before.
True, they now had food to eat and decent clothes to wear,
But in that Displaced Persons camp, little else to spare.

When Lilly told her fiancé about her dream one night;
her standing beneath the chuppah in a flowing gown of white,
Ludwig promised Lilly that her vision would come true,
but in a displaced person’s camp that might be hard to do.

A former Luftwaffe pilot proved an angel in disguise;
Ludwig traded, for his parachute, some coffee and supplies.
Miriam, the seamstress, swore to do her best
to fashion the silk parachute into a wedding dress.

Some miles from Bergen Belsen lies the little town of Celle
Its desecrated synagogue would serve the couple well.
They made an Aron Kodesh from a kitchen cabinet
A Rabbi, flown from England, would officiate their fete.


Lilly’s gown was beautiful, the bride felt like a Queen
Within the battered synagogue, her wedding matched her dream.
Miriam’s creation would be worn by many more;
Girls from camp made brides in white that year after the war.

The Gown’s in a museum now, the bride now old and gray.
She lives nearby in Brooklyn in a house down by the bay.
Her lovely great granddaughter, her loving heart’s delight,
now has the dream of being wed in a gown of flowing white.

three of four funerals
gun collection, gun
long narrow boxes in the trunk of my first car

Dad’s dad, Bergen-Belsen, babbling
Dad’s mom, floorboards
Mom’s dad, collectibles
Mom’s mom, alcoholic

obituaries, guns, boxes, garages
adults, guns, St. Peter, Joni

Dad’s dad, lessons, dreams
Dad’s mom, cabbage recipe
Mom’s dad, extra hugs
Mom’s mom, low blows

memories, value, months
A pawn shop good rate
moral boundaries:
kids on the street, no parents

I speak of fear, sheer limbic,
Reptilian fear, and there’s the rub:
Obliterate thought and all that’s left is fear,
And fear’s known associates & cronies:
Hunger, Thirst, *** & everything else
Triggering our amygdale nether brains,
Each synapse a single primal scream,
Rich Reichian fodder and sacrificial yawp,
Whitman’s bleating syllable, straight bedrock,
Down low on the Hierarchy of Human Needs.
Abraham Maslow: another shrewd Jew from
Brooklyn, New York. Atta boy Abe:
Adrenaline pure and simple,
An instinct for survival.
I suppose my only regret in life,
Was that I was not old enough to be
A victim of the Holocaust.
I mean nothing facetious or disrespectful by this.
(Like Jesus, I was born a Jew.)
All I mean is that a stint at Auschwitz or
Bergen-Belsen, might have done wonders for me,
Saving me much time, given the number of books
I’ve read on the subject, just trying to get my heart &
Mind around the throat of evil.
My story is truth, not science fiction.
Yet, I confess to having some difficulty
Discerning the difference lately.
Perhaps this is why my mind wanders.
That’s probably what I love best about Stanley Kubrick—
Another insightful New York Jew.
His vision of space, namely the shrewd perception,
That after 5,000 years of recorded human history,
It was going to be difficult.
It would be a challenging enterprise,
Noodging the human race to choose,
A more cerebral path;
A state of mind & brilliant grace,
Embrace a kinder, fearless self and future.
Kubrick understood he must first take us to Odulvai,
Our primal anthropological killing fields,
Then he could transport us to outer space.
Only then, could we evolve,
Adapt to cooperation and tolerance,
Shift our future focus,
Our natural and spiritual resources,
Our potential.
Collaboration not competition.
2001: A Space Odyssey: released
A year before the Apollo program
Put a man on the moon, five years
Before the space station Skylab.
Kubrick’s gift to mankind was a clear new perspective:
Man in space looking back at a very small holistic Earth,
And an infant self, both diminished,
Made insignificant in a vast cosmic context.
Other forces were at work, of course,
Lying in wait as always, global forces
Co-opting the vision, drowning it in an old
Unabashedly mercantile reality.
That Darwinian old world order,
Again, reducing human existence
To an economic absurdity.
Globalism: the scariest Bond villain yet.

***** Jersey
You are unworthy
From the infamous Jersey shore
To the depths of Bergen county
You hound me

Thank god sandy got rid of that cesspool by the way

Anyone ever hear of Lodi?
No?, ok...     Moving on,

New Jersey, the ideal place for parents who have small children

Once they are teenagers
They will rip their parents apart for condemning them to a suburban hellhole

For sentencing them to an infernal purgatory, where if you have no car, you are stuck at home, and unless you walk to a bus stop and take the bus somewhere else, you have no job

So you find your best friend...

Marijuana

And then you start selling it and you now have a job

Drug dealer.

Find a pill counter who works at Walgreens pharmacy and you have now
expanded your market

Oh ***** Jerz, for grey-ish skies
For sewage waves of stain,
for unemployed and worker slaves,
all for minimum wage.

How alike--both born in Bergen County
among mansions and stone-lined yards,
but my childhood had been framed with lace,
yours a light bulb broken before tasting electricity.

My mother called me your “moral compass.”
My sister said I kept you from disappearing--
as if you were born from leftover ashes
smearing the stone hearth black

as the nights we’d lie awake and you’d
asked me what color to repaint your bedroom
and how to talk to that boy from your class.
You insisted I spend every night at your house.

Sometimes, we’d race our fourwheelers wild,
I always lost, far behind you--and further still
when you found that skin-and-bone crowd with
*****-stained clothes, their teeth and eyes

yellow as their cigarette-tarred fingertips
and when they stumbled near, I smelled
breath foul as the stench of a mouse
dead in my car’s engine--slowly burning out.

Shut your bloodshot eyes
Release your tight fists
Take a deep breathe
And come to your senses

No not sight
Not hearing either
Neither taste nor touch
But something more

A gut feeling
Instincts
Emotions
Instinct

Listen to your heart
And your unconscious mind
Thoughts can betray you
Or can they aid you

There it is again the question
The quandary that’s reoccurring within me
Do I go on emotion or thought?
Feeling or thinking

If I close the door the room shall implode
But I want the door shut
Maybe threes a way
Can’t talk it out

The volume turns up
The blood boils and my nerves percolate
Howling obscenities then hyperventilate
Striding in a cloud of lust searching for an outlet to release my demons

The walls shake
The sound bouncing off of them
Tears fall to the floor
Bonds are broken

The table does 360 in the air
Who had done that I have no idea
I am grabbed
No way

Fighting and grappling slamming against the walls
Pulling screaming
Punching

Pushed into the door
Push through the TV
Runs to the phone
To alert the police

Cast out
Forced to leave
Out in the streets
Presenting to the neighborhood our dysfunctionality

A heated punch to the car
A bone broken
A bridge burned
I walk away

I sit on the curb
To catch my breath
To calm down
3 cops pull up

Hot and ready to bust some heads
Firing questions
Ulterior motives are obvious
I can see their 2nd face

They come as friends and open ears
The tale is told
And their friendly aura disintegrates
And they treat me as a criminal

Putting me down
Talking down
Looking down
I spit at them

No respect
Talk to me as if I was a human
An equal
Not some animal

Come back to earth
You say the same thing
You think I’m on mars
But you’re all the way on Neptune
And I’m right here on a curb in a suburb
Of the county of Bergen

Or were both lost
Deep in the Milky Way
Neither is right
Let’s agree to disagree

My hands busted
My family’s torn
My girls crying
I fall

This is where going on emotion got me
There was no thought
And if there was it was evil
And spiteful

I begin to think
Using logic
Reasoning with all that occurred
I’m caught between the two

Can’t have one without the other
In all decisions
Over thinking
Over emotional

Balance
Balance is key

After “lo fatal”

When I read you first I was living in Bergen.
Pretending at translation
and going up scree, clutching at conifers
in a painted flaxen sun.

I'd imagined you’d given up on being Modernista
to settle for a quaint shack—
for the hardness of the carved fjord.

Now if you were to arrive in the wild
where I have kept this place
strangely similar by the pine, blue herons,
               Mount Ozzard over the dandelions,

how would you come walking down the road?

Would deer pause to smell your tracks
or the cedar cutter look up as he heard you pass,

or these coal-black snags
which guard the lot’s entrance
          and haven't swayed in so long
groan?

Dichoso el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo.
Happy is the tree, you said. Scarcely sentient.

Ruben Dario: what is the tree
which rushes through this poem?

~
Bring your whirlwinds with you;
in the snow angel summer
bring Margot the sun.

In the hour of red glare
a rush to pick slowberries
before getting caught up in the silk.

Prisms, mirrors, lenses!
strategies for combatting visibility:
keep your eyes closed,
face away from the window.

The myriad threads of people in hiding,
they eat their own web each day,
and yet something always shines
in the heart's secret annex.

Men and women are
separated from each other,
the girls are on a train
to the Bergen-Belsen,
"white founts falling
in the courts of the sun."

Margot now cries quietly;
so silently she weeps over
sunshine and hate.
~

De spelonken van jouw bestaan zijn meer dan alleen diep, mijn lief. Ondoorgrondbaar, niet vindbaar, met zoveel omwegen wegleidend van her hart.
Soms vraag ik me af hoeveel tijd je aan het graven hebt besteed.

Soms ga ik het gevecht aan, neem ik een schep mee naar je toe. Dan delf ik in je bestaan, delf ik naar je hart. Maar dan verleid jij tot een herberekende route of uitweg. Af en toe spring ik in het diepe en vind ik een robijn, maar ook die zal niet lang van mij zijn.

Je hebt gezorgd voor een hele hoop spelonken, vergetelheidsrivieren, bergen en dalen en grotten bovendien.
Meestal wil ik ze doorgronden, maar soms?
Soms hou ook ik het voor gezien.

Cultured from the same petri dish of indifference that provided the
Comfortable Wall
Of willful ignorance for Bergen-Belsen’s neighbors,
The nation tunes in to another weekend of football and half-truths.
I lead the charge.

Sterne sonder Zahl aus der Nacht aller Zeiten
in einem klaren Ozean bewegt ihr euch
wenn ich euch mit menschlichem Zeitempfinden betrachte
seid ihr im Rhythmus der Jahreszeiten ewig
doch wenn ich in längeren zeitlichen Dimensionen an euch
denke so weiss ich euch sterblich.
Die entfernte Stadt löscht ihre Lichter
in der dichten Nacht erscheint ihr mal zögernd,
mal überzeugt über den Bergen wohlgesinnt.
In eurer Herrlichkeit findet mein Herz seine Ruh.

STELLE

Stelle, innumeri dalla notte dei tempi
in un liquido oceano vi muovete
se con il mio tempo umano vi guardo
al ritmo delle stagioni eterne siete
ma se con altri e più lunghi tempi a voi
penso come cose mortali vi so.
Spegne la città lontana le sue luci
nella densa notte incerte qui e là sicure
sopra i monti benevole apparite.
Nella vostra gloria riposa l’animo mio.

Static crackling ecstatically; manic pop
Transistor hissing and spitting; sideboard atop
                                      First when there’s nothing…
                                      But a slow glowing dream…

Pirouette such as whirling dervish makes
Adolescent prancer twirls; leg warmer fakes
                                      All alone I have cried…
                                      Silent tears full of pride…

Breathless incantation; future forged in dance
Performance fascination; leap upon the chance
                                      What a feeling...
                                      Bein’s believing…

Neon flashes bedeck wrists and bonce
Peers laughter flash like fire; a ponce
                                      Take your passion…
                                      And make it happen…

The music shields, deflects. Antacid; taunts abate
Rhyhmic dreamer energized; blind to all the hate
                                      Pictures come alive…
                                      You can dance right through your life…



As Bergen-Belsen ghost yet still aware
Lost dreamer segues silently on fetid air
                                       Bruised and battered, I couldn’t tell what I felt…
                                       I am unrecognizable to myself…

Shuffling as garish Geisha; white but not with paint
Breathless as fifties bombshell; heaving sick and feint
                                      At night I could hear the blood in my veins…
                                      It was black and whispering as the rain…

With steel partner; straight firm and slim of hip
Rigid in rigor’d waltz; moving labouredly with drip
                                      I walked the avenue, ‘til my legs felt like stone…
                                      I heard the voices of friends, vanished and gone…

Faithless rusting engine combusts toxic blood
Failing sack of sinew lies where dancer stood
                                      Night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake…
                                      I can feel myself fading away…

Monotone white noise; assuring beep
Dancer dreams in endless sleep
                                     There was a time when men were kind…
                                     There was a time when love was blind…

©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness – 2018 – All rights reserved)

Acknowledgements:

1. Flashdance… what a Feeling (1983 – Giorgio Moroder, Keith Forsey & Irene Cara)
2. The Streets of Philadelphia (1993 – Bruce Springsteen)
3. I Dreamed a Dream (Les Miserables – Claude Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer & Alain Boubil)

In the stillness of a teacup morning
in Amsterdam a crowd with yellow stars
query each other, a collapse of
suitcases and stuffed pillow cases
huddled under a gas lamp at a corner square,
while those in the stories above slowly turn away.

A few days before the yellow stars were
twenty-one children with backpacks
dreaming of a long field trip to Deventer.
The school picture they posed for would
be discovered fifty-four years later
under the frame of an oil painting
of the freedom monument in Dam Square.

Sieg, wandering in the fog of Bergen-Belsen
his classmates part of the mound
of George Rodgers well published frieze,
the only one of them not camera shy,
made it back to his mother and sister,
forever now a New York Jew.

Before them the square hosted
the frail bones of yellow star seniors,
their children depositing them
silently and hurriedly under
the hiss of the lamp shutting
off from the night watch.

Daan sewed the photo
of his yellow star grootmoeder
on a wooden chair staring into the sun
into  the lining of his jacket
and felt its pressure on the day
when the train arrived for him too.

The freight train to the Westbrook stockyard
the stench of manure, ****, fetid hay,
the old scent of cattle mingling with man,
fear embedded in every board,
was, as always, on time.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Bergen-Belsen,
Buchenwald, Chelmno, Dachau, Dora-Mittebau,
Flossenburg, Gross-Rosen, Janowska, Kaiserwald,
Majdanek, Mauthausen, Natzweller-Struthof,
Neuengamme, Oranienburg, Plaszow, Ravensbruck,
Sachenhausen, Sobibor, Terezin, Treblinka, Westerbork.

There were more than 15,000 of these death camps
spread over ****-occupied Europe. In addition to Jews,
other groups murdered were homosexuals, the physically
and mentally infirm, political and religious dissidents,
Gypsies, communists, socialists, Afro-Germans, Soviet
POWS, intelligentsia, beggars, alchoholics, prostitutes,
freemasons, and trade unionists.

It is estimated that between 15,000,000 to 20,000,000
human beings were murdered by Nazis during the
Holocaust. ****** assumed power in 1933, **** Trump
in 2017.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Onder de oppervlakte
borrelt de opper zwakte
van de verborgen
bergen van zwart
en wit. Je ziet dat verbergen pas
wanneer je zelf onder de grenzen
zit.

I blew through that little coast town so fast I never realized you didn't love me.

I wasn't the other girl for once, not that I knew of at least. I was just a blip in your timeline, somewhere lantern-lit and overripe. Wooden stairs and open ceilings and terracotta tile and *** and coke; I was Eden beneath banana leaves.

All on your back in life and death
Weight of the world on your bare back
Carrying a nuclear backpack for Cuban Soviet missiles
Darling lady riding your back in the dawn surf
Tiger clawing your back as you flee the jungle
Car engine weighing you down back style new parts
Bust your back bend your knees picking up your cat
Bergen on your back as you hike the Eigar North face
Weight of dead souls pushing you back down
Rugby playing popped your spine like piano keys
Take care of your back or its chair time

Charon:

churning memories
from a black
tide fleeing
   with a voice upon
the wind.

this is a perfect example of what happens when you're a "poet" and not a novelist and you take an entire day to finish some scribbles... i have a principle to follow... that's the uninterrupted pillar from Japan that's ensoo (i won't bother employing the macron o)... エンソ... drawing the circle in one smooth motion... i literally can tell you: the circle is there... but few can draw it perfectly without some variability to detail signatures of an ellipse... somewhere between Omicron and 0... squashing a doughnut... blah blah... i can't be a novelist... i figured out this impasse from the very beginning... i sit down... write... i'm out... i couldn't possibly interrupt myself with daydreaming and writing about drinking coffee, romancing the typewriter... well... beside the design of QWERTY... and... why is it that there are 2x shift buttons?! well... like the Marquis de Sade's uncle's library: of books to be read using only one arm... ahem... the other used to *******... when you're trying to type something verbatim... it makes perfect sense to have two shift buttons for the uppercase sentiment of aesthetic, esp. when employing italics...

well then... imagine my surprise...

ok baby
i tell you Sunday night
kiss (heart)

     (kiss)

come Sunday night...
i send her...

     ...

that's all i send...
and she replies...

    yes tomorrow i'm off

i seriously wasn't expecting that... i thought she was
going to dump me like Jemminah...
but then again: she's not an English girl...
she's not a European girl to say the least...
i too have my roots in the Caucaus steppes...
she's Turkic i'm a hybrid of Aryans and Mongols and
**** knows what... great... now i can plan
booking that hotel room...
             i am surprised... time to bend this universe
into a surprising night of love making...

reply:

yes tomorrow i'm off

i've found this one hotel in Barking with a Parkside view...
i'll make a booking in the morning / noon...
we can go for a meal at some restaurant...
i'll buy some brandy, or whiskey, proseco, strawberries...
once i book the room i'll text you and we can meet up,
how's that?

good baby
i mesaj to you when i'm up

   well then... until tomorrow (kiss)...

and that's how it should have been for... donkey's years...
i'm a woman... ****... ha ha... sorry...
i'm a man... she's a woman...
                          i give her what she wants...
she gives me what i want...
and what do both of us want?
    to escape the ugliness of this world...
the ugliness that's not inherent to this world per se...
well... beside gangrene, cancer... parasites...
people make this world ugly for other people...
we're here to make this world... slightly more bearable...
i stopped caring... she did too...
i'm a "poet" she's a "*******"...
                  but: we're not into the thrills of
                                    cheating on monogamous partners...
that's for the disappearing middle-classes of
"journalists"...
                  i'm done playing mr. nice...
i'm about to embark on playing the role of herr freiheit!
i want to resurrect myself into the memory
of myself climbing the rooftops of Edinburgh's
Prince's St. after yet another disappointing night out
dropping bricks from the roofs
and screaming an ancient call for war...
                                 i'm done with social standards...
hell... if everyone is breaking norms and etiquettes...
hmm... stand back? relax?
   n'ah... n'ah ah...
                                          i'll better them...
                      i'll destroy them...
                                       i'll make them timid...
scared... obscene... fringe...
                                              i'll go right to the source
of my "cis-normative-binary" blah blah alphabet soup
antithesis! it's going to look ugly...
a bit like... the ***** of Babylon riding the Hydra
beast of revelations... Babylon... aren't all the tongues
suspended in time in London at this very time?
Turkey... Iran... Iraq... eh...
                             she sure as **** isn't going to be attired
in the sun... and an iconoclast that i am...
   but that's what i love about ****'ite Islam...
that's why i think there needs to be a third branch of
this religion: to stabilise it...
    i lost hope in Christianity when i thought:
well... not another Jesus imitation...
     this religion is pretty much... this religion degenerated
into a polytheism with the number of schisms it has
"celebrated"...
                   lucky me: born into Catholicism...
yet? against my will: the baptism...
                             even Richard Dawkins was confirmed:
him being an Anglican and all...
me? i haven't... i couldn't have a church wedding...
i haven't been confirmed...
i don't have a confirmation name!

*******! another two exhibitions that i really want to see...
art and sensuality in the houses of Pompeii
at the archeological park at Pompeii...
oh ****... i thought it was in London...
    mind you... not everything comes through or to London...
the whole world might come...
but Pompeii's erotica hasn't...
        well... there's always Edvard Munch: masterpieces
from Bergen at the Courtauld Gallery until Sep 4...
but recently i've been having too much fun
watching sketches from South Park...
    i was never a big fan... well... apart from Team America
and that one line: Matt Damon... ha ha...
but those sketches of Tuong Lu Kim
   vs. Junichi Takiyama...
                        well... i have a nickname for my female
cat too... hell... i'll even employ the Katakana...
ヤマモト: empress - ya-m'ah-m'oh-t'oh...
   the male cat meows constantly: i want food...
let me into the house... please come upstairs turn on
the light and let me sleep in your bed...
but this "empress": i don't think i heard her meow...
she sort of... no: i have no access to the sound...
a bit like with a crow's croaking... it's croaking
but it's also a KRA- prefix of sorts that morphs...
just like you couldn't really write down a transcript of
Mongolian throat singing...
oh right... etymology...
     two words...
       yamamoto... i know where that comes from...
motać się... i.e. to struggle...
                 the additional letters hide the original intent...
because... unlike my male cat...
she... doesn't meow to indicate what she wants...
esp. when wanting to be let in from the garden...
hence...
             but she also does this truly weird thing...
imploring for food... she will stand on her hind legs
and with her front legs she will make a...
imploring gesture... as if testing: amen...
   or some Buddhist / Shakespearean kiss metaphor...
rubbing her paws together...
another word... KACAP: Кaцaпы (plural)
KACAPY... because what would a ****** think of
the current conflict between the Russians and the Ukrainians?!
aren't they both Cyrillic?!
i started wondering... maybe the etymology of
this intra-racial slur is derived from kaptur (hood)...
no... it's not...
it's derived from KAC (Кaц) - which means?
hangover...  
         meaning? even i know that Polacks have a reputation
for being drunkards... but...
the slur is derived from: but at least we retained
some civility - joviality in our drinking ****** -
the Cossacks and Muscovites were brutes when drunk...
the suffix -py (-пы) is unimportant...
     empress yamamoto (cat)...
                   well... i should text her around 12am tonight
asking her if she's available to spend an entire night
with me in a hotel...
   for £70 i found this decent one in Barking...
            hell... even if i throw in extra for wine, strawberries
and a dinner... it will come cheaper than
paying £120 for an hour in the brothel...
she might bring some ******* and i'll be like:
you know... like with those two Irish guys who thought
i was an undercover journalists...
that hit in the head from laughing gas...
see... i'm on the borderline of inherited a faulty gene
of high-blood pressure...
   so... too much coffee and mix that with nicotine...
i'm sort of immune to the effects of *******...
or laughing gas...
         with ******* i can do with coffee and a cigarette
after "fasting" from smoking for an entire day...
and laughing gas?
   i can myself laugh... on a whim...
   i just think of something absolutely stupid like:
i think i'm in love and i'm already giggling...
    eh... the mantra of: laissez faire sexuality...
it's so much easier with women when it ****** OBVIOUS...
well she can't "somehow" hide her over partners...
virgins and nuns aside: it's so much easier
to heave a hardened phallus and a hardened heart...
there's no allure of the western concept of romance...
there's absolutely none...
but you couldn't do that with European women...
and i won't go as far east into Asia as say...
beyond Iran... Turkic women...
    after all... i'm looking for a second schism in Islam
to be spearheaded by the Turks...
why? well... if Moses was the grassroots Messiah:
a proper fighter and a poet...
    a philosopher-warrior... then Hey-Zeus Crissy
was a cosmopolitan messiah...
the Turks? the Turks bring cosmopolitan Islam
to the fore... the right sort of levelling Islam...
they drink beer! they're the best barbers known to man...
****'s sake... even that beer of theirs:
Fiçi? probably the best beer in the world...
and no... i'm not into memes or emoticons...
that, above, in the title, in the (brackets)?
that's an ideogram for cat... most probably borrowed
from Chinese by the Japanese...
               the Manchurian crisis and speedboats...
it's truly fascinating... given the Chinese ideograms
are probably just as old as Egyptian hieroglyphs...
but more: x-ray vision than using actual forms
and adding colour...
could i conjure up the idea of a cat from that little scribble?

J++
  ロ      that's the simplified version... in addition
       to perhaps adding elements of T, ð and F...
cupboard... nope... i'm too European too Latinized...

no surprises elsewhere...
notably with the fact that we're not that much different
to the ancients...
modern times reflect the trials and tribulations
of emperor Augustus...
abortion was common in Rome...
lex julia de maritandis ordinibus (18 b.c.)
& lex papia poppaea (9 a.d.)
the arguments haven't changed...
extinction contra: not allowing such VIPs to emerge
akin to Newton or Achilles...
personally? fat chance of me reproducing...
from observing who actually reproduces...
sorry... life is remarkable in and of itself...
                 but sometimes people disappoint...
i too have been prone to have disappointed
based on the investment in what was expected of me...

lucky for some to have the attention span of moths
and be content with watching the daily news...
that's what turned me off from furthering
the relationship with the first girl i pair bonded...
we broke up... well: me doing it on the sly...
she doing it blatantly: in mutual agreement
when she said the following words:
i just want to sit down with someone to old age
and watch the news on television...

               **** me: i was quicker than a lightning
bolt bailing out!
me? i want to close my eyes and listen
to fire... i want to close my eyes
    and hear as fire nibbles on wood...
how much sloser is a lightning bolt from
light? and how much slower is fire from a lightning bolt?

stupid questions: but also awe-inspiring questions...
because what is question-worthy
and what is philosophical, these days?
it's not something anti-scientific...
it's more... post-scientific...
                         a bit like post-modernism...
i'm writing (or at least i hope)
writing some post post-modernistic in that
it's post-scientific... because? objectivity is a ******* drag...
it's so unlike the pretentiousness
associated with associating subtle scents and taste
hues of a wine:
   instead: calling it the ****** obvious:
a cherry's a cherry...
    eh... it only goes as far as that...

trouble obviously comes with time...
       because we're bound to be plagiarising each other
after enough times passes...
or we relegate someone for someone else
out of spite... out of jealousy... out of material gains...
out of sycophancy...

time's dearest slow trickle of foundation,
unlike the already established unfathomable
extent of space...
one can find a claustrophobia among
the stars with the magic trick of the ego
dying and being reborn toward
the practical activity of thought...
one can find that parallel when coupled
to demoniac sexuality hang-overs...
sleep-walking through, a thorough rereading
of Ovid...
    i'm in disagreement with myself...
Horace... or Ovid?

  a bit like saying: Hades? or Cronus?
        the old gods haven't died... no Hebtew deity
would or therefore could undermine
the gods of these letters...
no sacrifice could outlive its sacrificial rite of passage
for the sacrifice per se,
      Latin scriptum is and forever will be unlike
the Hebrew conquest of the Cuneiform
or the egyptian hieroglyphs...

i drank a little... i'm happy... tipsy...
i'm going to text her come midnight... are we on for tomorrow
night?!
   i don't mind rejection...
my cats like me... and i like drinking...
so... it's still 0 - 0...
i just wanted to paint a picture of
omicron zero, degrees superscript...
etc. bubbles... all is bubbles...
and 8... and B... and... the infinity symbol...
an eight reclining...

      ...someone always wants to be the one who
wrote the lyrics of Aud Lang Syne...
   that one song... ritually song on these beautiful isles...
just give me that... and all of Shakespeare can
hide in a library and never reach the stage of
a theatre...

unlike tennis players... we don't bow out...
we die... either by our own hand
or by the fading light of prescribed dementia...
we didn't allow ourselves to live
on easy terms... we certainly will not die:
allowing others to think we died on easy terms...
k'oh-g'oh yamamot'oh...
empress "?!" cat...

        neko...

               while time stumbles on a repeat...
everything: yet nothing... ever changes...
fashion changes... we're still the same creatures
from 2000 years ago...
simple pleasures... simpler deeds...
yet all the more complicated complications
of life's adorned schematics...
life is still life...
only now life's become the individualistic
horror-show of:
the re-established focus for "transparency"...
for...

             something is truly new...
   unknown prior...
                   there's a shift... it's almost quasi-tectonic...
it suggests to me the sentiment / statement of:
i'd be sooner dead than be in want
of learning about it...
  to be able to solve it...
                       i've had my problems...
i think i solved them...
Turkic women were always more...
appealing to me than European "royalty"...
if a woman has enough bravado
to tell you: men are better cooks than women...
right... sorted...
    i don't need to compensate chasing
after women already ***** by Afghan migrants...
to hell with that sort of crap!

nein! das ist der zweite diktieren!
amerikanisch-frauen "denken"
ist nein: universalübersetzung...
no... it's not...
that **** can stay localised in New York...
help me?! help me?!
help yourself...
     that's the message i heard...
right... so?
               **** the ******: forgo the virgins!
don't touch the European women...
go for the exotica of Turkic...
Arabic...
                Pontius Pilate says: 'ello from 'ell...

well... tennis...
   female tennis vs. male boxing...
like for like... i really don't understand why it's so...
just like i don't understand:
well, i do now...

    i just managed to watch the Matrix resurrections...
yep... i'm on board...
  i believe in gender dysphoria...
                         it's very much clarified for me...
only a woman in a man's body
    or a man in a woman's mind could have written
this sort of movie...
   it's basically a romance story
              with zombies...
                       the hive mind: zombies...
since there's no longer a chance to liberate anyone...
no one is an individual in the Matrix resurrections...
since? the hive mind can be switched on...
ergo? you don't even require agents to do anything...
it's a very ****** up sort of romance...
it's like... what comes after the Matrix resurrections?
the Matrix: reincarnations?
   i.e. only a limited number of "souls" exist
   in this world while the rest of the people are:
de facto - defaults?!
        i always found reincarnation to be a cruel concept...
it's elitist in that: perhaps there's no
European ****** royalty at hand...
    Tsar Nicholas II and King George V...
or that wild-eyed half-breed (sorry) -
   you'll see the picture if you type in...
       oh ****... can't find it...
   some half-wit related to Mary of Teck or someone...
or the Habsburg Jaw... infamous...

    it is: what it is... and i will use this language because
it's the necessary language to use...
but at least some royals are sensible enough
to untangle themselves from that vile practice
of breeding within a close-knit community of relatives...

the rest of us have been politely asked to breed
within the confines of scientific sensibility...
    why should they be allowed to continue that vile
act of tititalitng ******?!
hell... if they want to try the route of ******:
no problem... as long as they do not reproduce...

i know: who would have thought that the new
Matrix movie would spawn such emotions and thoughts
in me... completely "unrelated"...
well... it's not like in Plato's "theology" it isn't
mentioned that as punishment by the gods...
men would return in the bodies of women...
this story is as old as... the memory of ancient Greece...

i was hoping for some nostalgia...
i got nothing... just a confused narrative...
      because there really wasn't anything convincing
about this movie: beside the fact that
gender dysphoria is authentically: real...
in its unreality when based on a former architectural
logistics of the constraints of man...
   i should know... being a man...
i'm fixated on things remaining things...
esp. concerning inanimate objects...
           no need for telekinesis...
   "i", personally idealise the movement of traffic...
a cyclist can become a traffic-shepherd if he knows
his way around... say...
cycling behind a truck or a bus outside
of the realm of the blind spot... on the outside
of a large vehicle... being in full-view of the driver's
rearview mirror...

since i took up cycling in central London?
i cycle aggressively...
    how many stories of cyclists being rammed...
minced under the wheels of a truck have i heard of?
zilch! nada!
          that's a good thing...
i'm not saying that's because of me...
but... you need to teach people some *******
etiquette... an etiquette of movement...
the laws of traffic are pristine...
   i don't need some oblivious, solipsistic sacred cows
to **** up my bicycle-ride into central London...
pretending that they are pedestrians on wheels...
learn, your, *******, place...
respect... larger, moving, objects!

Ennio Morricone
Collaboration with Sergio Leone
Whips And Whistles
New sound to background
Sphagetti Westerns backbone
Never left Rome
Music his home
400 plus films scored
Distinct sound endured
Many Auteurs frequently collaborated
Fan favorite for decades
Won Oscar for The Hateful Eight
One of two to
To get the honor
Lifetime Oscar
For Composer extraordinaire
All roads lead to Rome
All notes lead to Morricone

Lalo Schifrin
Argentinian Pianist
Cult following with memorable Scores
Jazz themed band and Grammys Galore
Television Series & Movie themes
Added value with his Name
Superstars  first choice
Studios rejoice
A list Star to Act
Lalo to compose the Soundtrack
Fans across the world
Saw movies for his score

Henri Mancini won 4 Oscar's
Immortal theme for Pink Panther
Baby Elephant Walk
For Howard Hawks
Romeo and juliet love theme
Number one on the Billboard scheme
Partnership with Directors
  Everlasting music created
Deserving Hall of Famer
Years later for many
Still the favorite composer

Elmer Bernstein
Creme de la creme
Only composer
Nominated for oscar
Every decade since the 1950s
Won for Thorough Modern Millie
Versatility the key
Budget did not  affect
Genre did neither
The Magnificent seven & The Great Escape
Tunes stand testimony
For creativity and longevity

Dave Grusin patnership with
Sydney Pollack cruising
Director Composer  combination
Last of the Finest
Grammy s lost count
Oscar made the count
Composed the music for
Columbia TRISTAR logo
Outstanding musical score
Grusin music totally pure

Roy Budd Composer
Who learnt by ear
Could play by Three
At birth a Prodigy
Soldier Blue with Candice Bergen
Gave him the due recognition
Best Pianist Award
5 years consecutive
Soundtrack for films
Each one Superlative
Score for Get Carter
In our memories forever
Brain hemorrhage
Took him away  at an early age

Jerry Goldsmith debuted
in live television
Rambo and Star Trek
Franchise to name a few
His compositions always new
Composers like him
A very few
The Omen finally
got him his due
Paramount & Universal pictures
The music accompanying
The logos of the Studios
Jerry doing his wizardry
With the audio
Grammy and Oscar nominations
To be counted
Four more pairs of hands
Need to be included

Marvin Hamlisch winner
Of three Oscars
All in the same year
The Sting and The Way We were
Nobody does it better
Only one after Richard Rogers
To win The Grammy Tony Emmy Oscar and the Pulitzer

Bill Conti score for Rocky
One of the most Remembered in movie history
Replaced John Barry
In For your eyes only
Scored for the Oscar
Ceremony
19 times a record
envy of many
Won Oscar and Emmy
No Dynasty or Cagney & Lacey
without Conti

John Barry score for Sean Connery as James Bond
The super spy
A permanent legacy
Created by the supremacy
Of his musical ability
5 time oscar winner
From North Yorkshire
Illness threatened career Came back better then ever
Sold out concerts
Arena sized halls
Glory again after a fall
Oscar for The Lion in Winter
His personal favorite Goldfinger

Maurice Jarre  Composer and Conductor
Won 3 Oscars
All collaborations
with David Lean
Big Budget Films
His speciality
The Themes popularity
Showcased his versatility
His music told the story
Close your eyes and
You will know the reality
Appealing to every taste
Was Jarre's forte

David Shire
Winner of the Oscar
For Norma Rae
Composer & Songwriter
Streisands Pianist
Scored for Television & Movies
Conversation and Pelham
Musical confirmation
That his compositions
Will bear the
Test of time

Michel Legrand
son of a Composer
Winner of 3 Oscars
Conductor for many of
The French New Wave directors
Founder of the French Musical
Windmills of your mind
Forever etched in our minds
Over 200 films in a career
Prolific in nature
Select from his repertoire
Of music
Fill the air with Legrand magic

Michael Small son of an actor
Became a composer
Parallax View & Night Moves
Provides you with the mood
Alan Pakula & Arthur Penn
Directors for whom notes he penned
Sidney Lumet Bob Rafelson & John Schleisinger
Legends in their own right
Small' talent shined bright
Prostate cancer
Took away this Great Music Director

Charles Bernstein used Music & Sound effects
To maximum effect
Oscar Winning Documentary
Which had no oral commentary
To tell the story
Scored for horror genre
A cult in the sub culture
Burt Reynolds in White Lightning first chance to
Score for a feature
Charles Bronson in Mr Majestyk
Made these films click

John Williams pianist for
Goldsmith Bernstein & Mancini
Second only to Walt Disney
In Oscar Nominations
52 and counting
Winner greatest Soundtrack
Of all time
Star Wars earned him that name &  fame
Widely regarded as most successful  Musician
Positivity is the key
Particular theme  for different characters
Greatest ever

that our apartment unit B44
received thumbs up
meaning that we passed
the grueling, and harrowing yearly inspection
three days ago - May 28th, 2024.

About a week prior,
when notification circulated
(validating horror about to befall us
as averred courtesy the rumor mill)
courtesy requisite yearly inspection
property manager Kathleen Bergen
placed rolled up
printed one page important bulletin
in respective door handle
of each occupied apartment,
where an individual resident
or married couple - like us – lived),

yours truly and the missus
immediately sprung into action
whereby each of one our
separate nervous systems
underwent uncontrollable bouts
triggering violent expansion and contraction,
where we both made simultaneous
beeline for the bathroom
synonymous with severe bout
of irritable bowel syndrome.

Premonitory signals foretold
the approaching day of reckoning
vis a vis ominous hellish havoc
tell tale warnings since the beginning of time,
whereby frightful visitation
of inquisition videlicet triumvirate
would manifest headless horseman,
as a supernatural entity,
representing a past that never dies,
but always haunts the living.

“The headless horseman
supposedly seeks revenge—and a head—
which he thinks unfairly taken from him"
according to one Franz Potter
additionally equally as unwelcome
as one of the feared biblical plagues
id est: Some of these include:
(1) water turning into blood;
(2) frogs and arov (which arrived together;
arov supposedly originally meant

a mixture of creatures that came
to oppress the Egyptians
in the fourth round of the plagues
nobody knows any more,
but usually translated
as flies or wild animals);
(3) a swarm of locusts;
(4) a destructive hailstorm;
(5) an outbreak of cattle disease
(technically the text says “hail” again …

like totally obscuring
artificial or real illumination
hiding looming dark shadows
edging ever closer
portending, presaging, and pummeling
worse fate than death
rivaling close encounters of the third kind
outer limits of the twilight zone
monstrous sinister forbidding shapes
blotting sunlight plunging
highland manor apartment in total darkness.

Our rented one bedroom unit
b44 spruced up in ship shape,
thus me and the wife
cautiously optimistic figurative campers
worse case scenario
possibly find us forced to live in a tent
among bunch of other homeless people
along skidrow,
thus we felt fruitless effort to yield,
and appeal to top banana
who would love nothing better
than to witness mister and missus Harris
precariously perched on horns of dilemma

spurred me to posit supposition,
whereby sympathy for the devil witnesses
battle of pitched forks among towering inferno
greater likelihood versus wordsmith
unsuccessfully, nevertheless creatively
blindsiding anonymous readers
spellbound to empty ***** nilly
bajillions of dollars
from their pocketbooks
and mail blank checks to yours truly
before coming to their collective
sense and sensibility bound with
pride and prejudice.

A real hunter (and huntress), she stands five feet
and tips the scales at most one hundred pounds.

Despite looking like a little girl, her stock in trade
masks that diabolical mean mien streak evocation.

Said bipedal hominid creature haunts outer limits
of the twilight zone, where dark shadows hoover
along the edge of night spooking the missus who
turns white as a sheet temporarily immobilized.

Rumor circulates ghastly nightmarish & fiendish
creature, whose food intake subsists on liquid diet
of worms offers exemplary shoe-in character qua
zee ideal incarnation starring as lead actress within
popular television series Fear Thy Neighbor just
so occupies apartment adjacent where yours truly
and the missus live days of our lives as the world
wide web (planet earth) turns about 23.5 degrees
around an invisible axis analogously squished at
the poles courtesy hands of Jolly Green Giant -

It goes **...**...**, which roaring echoes across
the cosmic realm controlling marionette like all
the Beatle browed lonely people unbeknownst
to them their omnipotent viz master of puppets
actually a bonafide muttering mixed breed dog
named Pooch, one smart canine, whose training
at the Royal and Lovely Bow Wow Barks Place
where man's best friend of all sizes and stripes
enter the select school as newborn puppies, and
endure rigorous education become highly prized

well healed hounds with scents and sensibilities
to sniff out handy dandy blues clues linkedin to
sinister intimations secreted away within demonic
dogma exemplified courtesy alluring, captivating
aging demoiselle impersonating Goldilocks whose
faux façade as a young lass, when in truth babe in
beguiling beauty at heart a cold blooded killer dead
set and capable to shapeshift in blink of an eye into
curtly vile incarnate poised to strike at my woman,
who vows to go on the warpath after being falsely

accused of stealing packages and jewelry creating
an extremely untenable environment, and just wait
until property manager Kathleen Bergen gets wind
of vicious verbal vendettas vehemently lobbed at
mine counterpart, who feels threatened as does the
author of these words, i.e. the mister re:guy whose
guise of neutrality experiences smoldering bubbling
rage against unnamed antagonistic tenant violating
the restraining order of sorts imposed on brutality,
albeit nasty invectives precipitating severe threat

to our safety goading me to craft this plea for some
altruistic, fantastic, humanistic respondent to help
us secure a much more amenable place to live here
in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania predicated on
marginal rent since I and the missus solely rely on
my social security disability monthly allotment just
enough money to meet the cost of living expenses.

A worse fate than death being hull hive,
I just realized after a surprise inspection
our opportunity to relocate cursed
after yours truly and the missus
subjected to vitriolic wrath
(okay hyperbole employed
for poetic effect)
will exhale his last dying breath
condemned to reside within unit b44,
however many orbitz remain,

whereby yours truly already misspent
six and a half years
since exiting the birth canal
sixty five January thirteenths ago,
and set his sights
on a two bedroom apartment
named Hillcrest Manor
located in Boyertown, Pennsylvania,
which cautious optimism (door) dashed
because housekeeping tasks

not a strong point
with neither myself or thee missus
subsequently prospect to move
found us frantically using elbow grease
to make the bathroom,
(especially the toilet -
thank ye dear wife)
sparkling clean plus she applied
vigorous exertion to scour the freezer
(prior to said effort, the refrigerator

and upper compartment for frozen food,
on par to be qualified as FEMA* site),
meanwhile slender arms
of a former slender man (me)
energetically swept the floor
comprising area designated
for multitudinous accommodation
(with intent to vacuum
said carpeted quarter),
cuz invariable the recently hired warden

one frumpy office clerk Kathleen Bergen,
will report back to her supervisor,
which expected escalation
of our abominable negligence
could spell (worse case scenario)
becoming homeless in Schwenksville,
but predicated on past encounters
of the third kind
with similar lease violation,
we got granted grace period

to buckle down
and plug away with responsibility,
which translates as
getting down to brass tacks
and voluntarily keeping
our living space tidy,
an object lesson learned late in life
remembering the house of my boyhood
(324 Level Road)
a sprawling mansion

populated with mice and squirrels,
(the latter making quite a racket,
particularly at night),
plus a truckload of cats and dogs,
which latter profusely shed thick fur
(enough to make a coat)
helping beget dust bunnies galore,
subsequently nurturing a healthy rapport
with ***** deeds done dirt cheap and true grit
while traveling along the highway to hell.

*Federal Emergency Management Agency
an agency of the United States Department
of Homeland Security, initially created
under President Jimmy Carter
by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3
of 1978 and implemented
by two Executive Orders on April 1.