Today we shall have the naming of parts. How the opening of that poem by Henry Reed caught his present thoughts; that banal naming of parts of a soldier’s rifle set against the delicate colours and textures of the gardens outside the lecture room. *Japonica glistening like coral  . . . branches holding their silent eloquent gestures . . . bees fumbling the flowers. It was the wrong season for this so affecting poem – the spring was not being eased as here, in quite a different garden, summer was easing itself out towards autumn, but it caught him, as a poem sometimes would.

He had taken a detour through the gardens to the studio where in half an hour his students would gather. He intended to name the very parts of rhythm and help them become aware of their personal knowledge and relationship with this most fundamental of musical elements, the most connected with the body.

He had arranged to have a percussionist in on the class, a player he admired (he had to admit) for the way this musician had dealt with a once-witnessed on-stage accident that he’d brought it into his poem sequence Lemon on Pewter. They had been in Cambridge to celebrate her birthday and just off the train had hurried their way through the bicycled streets to the college where he had once taught, and to a lunchtime concert in a theatre where he had so often performed himself.

Smash! the percussionist wipes his hands and grabs another bottle before the music escapes checking his fingers for cuts and kicking the broken glass from his feet It was a brilliant though unplanned moment we all agreed and will remember this concert always for that particular accidental smile-inducing sharp intake of breath moment when with a Fanta bottle in each hand there was a joyful hit and scrape guiro-like on the serrated edges a no-holes barred full-on sounding out of glass on glass and you just loved it when he drank the juice and fluting blew across the bottle’s mouth

And having thought himself back to those twenty-four hours in Cambridge the delights of the morning garden aflame with colour and texture were as nothing beside his vivid memory of that so precious time with her. The images and the very physical moments of that interval away and together flooded over him, and he had to stop to close his eyes because the images and moments were so very real and he was trembling . . . what was it about their love that kept doing this to him? Just this morning he had sat on the edge of his bed, and in the still darkness his imagination seemed to bring her to him, the warmth and scent of her as she slept face down into a pillow, the touch of her hair in his face as he would bend over her to kiss her ear and move his hand across the contours of her body, but without touching, a kind of air-lovers movement, a kiss of no-touch. But today, he reminded himself, we have the naming of parts . . .

He was going to tackle not just rhythm but the role of percussion. There was a week’s work here. He had just one day. And the students had one day to create a short ‘poem for percussion’ to be performed and recorded at the end of the afternoon class. In his own music he considered the element of percussion as an ever-present challenge. He had only met it by adopting a very particular strategy. He regarded its presence in a score as a kind of continuo element and thus giving the player some freedom in the choice of instruments and execution. He wanted percussion to be ‘a part’ of equal stature with the rest of the musical texture and not a series of disparate accents, emphases and colours. In other words rhythm itself was his first consideration, and all the rest followed. He thought with amusement of his son playing Vaughan-Williams The Lark Ascending and the single stroke of a triangle that constituted his percussion part. For him, so few composers could ‘do it’ with percussion. He had assembled for today a booklet of extracts of those who could: Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale (inevitably), Berio’s Cummings songs, George Perle’s Sextet, Living Toys by Tom Ades, his own Flights for violin and percussionist. He felt diffident about the latter, but he had the video of those gliders and he’d play the second movement What is the Colour of the Wind?

In the studio the percussionist and a group of student helpers were assembling the ‘kits’ they’d agreed on. The loose-limbed movements of such players always fascinated him. It was as though whatever they might be doing they were still playing – driving a car? He suddenly thought he might not take a lift from a percussionist.

On the grand piano there was, thankfully, a large pile of the special manuscript paper he favoured when writing for percussion, an A3 sheet with wider stave lines. Standing at the piano he pulled a sheet from the pile and he got out his pen. He wrote on the shiny black lid with a fluency that surprised him: a toccata-like passage based on the binary rhythms he intended to introduce to his class. He’d thought about making this piece whilst lying in bed the previous night, before sleep had taken him into a series of comforting dreams. He knew he must be careful to avoid any awkward crossings of sticks.

The music was devoid of any accents or dynamics, indeed any performance instructions. It was solely rhythm. He then composed a passage that had no rhythm, only performance instructions, dynamics, articulations such as tremolo and trills and a play of accents, but no rhythmic symbols. He then went to the photocopier in the corridor and made a batch of copies of both scores. As the machine whirred away he thought he might call her before his class began, just to hear her soft voice say ‘hello’ in that dear way she so often said it, the way that seem to melt him, and had been his undoing . . .

When his class had assembled (and the percussionist and his students had disappeared pro tem) he began immediately, and without any formal introduction, to write the first four 4-bit binary rhythms on the chalkboard, and asked them to complete it. This mystified a few but most got the idea (and by now there was a generous sharing between members of the class), so soon each student had the sixteen rhythms in front of them.

‘Label these rhythms with symbols a to p’, he said, ‘and then write out the letters of your full name. If there’s a letter there that goes beyond p create another list from q to z. You can now generate a rhythmic sequence using what mathematicians call a function-machine. Nigel would be:

x x = x     x = = =      = x x =      = x x x      x = x x

Write your rhythm out and then score it for 4 drums – two congas, two bongos.’

His notion was always to keep his class relentlessly occupied. If a student finished a task ahead of others he or she would find further instructions had appeared on the flip chart board.  Audition –in your head - these rhythms at high speed, at a really quick tempo. Now slow them right down. Experiment with shifting tempos, download a metronome app on your smart phone, score the rhythms for three clapping performers, and so on.

And soon it was performance time and the difficulties and awkwardness of the following day were forgotten as nearly everyone made it out front to perform their binary rhythmic pieces, and perform them with much laughter, but with flair and élan also. The room rang with the clapping of hands.

The percussionist appeared and after a brief introduction – in which the Fanta bottle incident was mentioned - composer and performer played together *****’s Clapping Music before a welcome break was taken.

IX

Oh this gradual coming together as sleep lifts away from bodies resting just apart but then a little turn on the pillow knees touch there is the slightest kiss of a nose a mingling of feet hands may rest atop a thigh and touch experimentally This is such bliss all consuming no thought but each body’s press and caress so slightly so gently given until hands and limbs and kisses and the dearest stroking fills us to the brim with that longing which only the deeper kiss can quench Afterwards we watch from our attic bedroom leaves departing their trees

X

The steep steps and Doric pillars eight in all gather us into an entranced gloom only to spill us out into the light and space of galleries filled with Cyprian artefacts an owl with a removable head more porcelain than even your great aunt could look at but in a corner there were these bowls from Syria 12C and earlier Michael Cardew could have thrown and patterned but didn’t One in Iranian green inscribed thus blessing prosperity glory grace joy happiness security and long life to the owner  nothing more surely ever to be wished for ever to be wanted

XI

My Chinese heroine has a soulmate: Jilia’s deer in flight across a page of Somerset Soft White and Tengin mould oh the verse of Hafiz 14C Sufi mystic flowing into the body of this running beast Rejoice you lonely seeker of the scented path out of the wilderness the perfumed deer has come and there was more in different hands paper parchment poems exquisitely rendered into living words In a frame Goethe’s leaves of the Gingo Biloba stuck to his letter of love to married Marianne This leaf from a tree in the East has been given to my garden

XII

Captivating in beauty glowing silvery-white petals flutter down to lay a blanket of snow beneath the flowering trees and miraculously they did and more to make us wonder that negative space could be so powerfully wrought Hiroshige the master in his element of the winter snows eloquent landscapes figures on the Edo to Kyoto road the detail of raised up clogs and warm layered garments of a Geisha walking out with her maid the stone blue waters the pale reflecting skies the delicate embossing of waves and the flow of hillsides the ukiyo-e woodblock prints pictures of the floating world

XIII

Wearing purple and red your near to Advent colours grace this table we lunch at before a final walk through the city full of our time here amongst the towers and chapels and more history and art than we can manage for the time being Again and always whelmed over by your beauty seen against the press and clutter the clustering in the peopled streets the bicycled roads and in this one o’clock restaurant’s clamour how is it that my eyes are wholly on you my ears only hearing your sweet voice my fingers reaching out to touch you again?

Yeah I am young once more morn late,
Call it the year of somebody's lord,
Call it nineteen sixty eight,
Hair to my shoulders
Makes me see better,
Parted down the middle,
The older black ladies,
On the new.york city subway,
One and all, bless me cause this Jew,
Looks just like Our Lord
In them Renaissance picture-books.

Ironically, that winter time,
I wear a white sheepskin jacket,
Purchased in the Old City of
Jerusalem, but don't tell'm that,
Cause they would have marched up to Harlem,
No telling what might've happened next...

Next summer reality intruded,
Money in pocket aid and ain't not enough,
Riding the bus on Euclid Ave.
To go downtown Cleveland, the Flats,
Drag racing and watching,
The river Cuyahoga burn,
Kinda of a bus drag, but very very, kinda cool.


Summer next,
Worked in a Republic Steel mill,
They called me the Macaroni Kid,
Cause stoopidly I told them that is
What I et,, with ketchup Heinz sauce,
Desert, a heath bar!
Cause I was saving my pennies,
This college kid they loved to hate,
Caused he bicycled to work and
Wasn't one of them.


Put me, little ole wiry me,
In the boxcars,
Loading and loafing the
Rebar, twisted and straight,
Came it, sent it all over,
Me, black as a
Pennsylvania coal miner,
A San Fran homeless man.
To this day, can't get my
Fingernails really clean.

At night, me and the boys on the porch,
Gettin ******, ****, music and a view of
Cleveland East, the sirens rushing around,
To the houses on fire, the next ******.

First freaked us out,
Coming to get us,
Then it became the best, finest ***
"That was so stony cool" light show.
The girls looked like Joan Baez,
And if they didn't,
We still took 'em to bed,
Pretending it was Janis,
If Joan was busy
In the dorm room next store.

Hey babe,
Wanna come back to my dorm room,
And drink wine, listen to Blood Sweat and Tears,
Make some of our own,
Cause my roomie gone down to Canton,
To visit his cleaning lady mom.

I loved that guy liked he was the first
Real person I'd ever met.
On my first day, without asking,
Ran his hands both all over my head,
Looking for the horns on the Jews head,
According his parish priest, we all had'em,
God's official representative on the consecrated earth of
Ohio.

In those days, I applied to schools
Farthest away from home,
That the student discounted airfare was no more than
59bucks which I could afford so I could go back to
NYC, and find out what was really
"Happening" man.

The summer next, worked in the East Village,
Summer Office Boy for a big corporation
In a part of town where you could buy
Leather fringed vests and the headshops sold
The paraphernalia to get hookah high,
And if you hookah lookah right,
That wasn't the thing they sold for cash money.

Took my steel mill blues money,
Bot me a '65 red mustang car,
That needed to be jumped to get started,
Courtesy of the Cleveland special hell called
Midwest winter.

That car, the floor was made of cardboard,
The four cylinders were bolted to the car,
So when u opened the hood, you saw mostly
The pavement of the parking lot,
Some tiny engine,
In between holding on for dear life.
Always kept extra brake fluid in the trunk,
In case the leak got bad on the Heights.

Needed to do what I needed to do,
So I wrote a resume of whom I was,
And whom I ain't, so I could get me a
Real big time job.

More on that someday,
When the resume is resumed,
Getting updated, that will be kinda funny,
Cause it will run about 500 pages long.

Right now, strange,
I am hard by hard by the Frisco bay,
The Ferry Building and the tripartite
Disposal systems of three garbage cans,
And who should appear, but
Otis and Sara B., (live from the Fillmore)
Singing to me about a dock on this bay.

Got me those 'high flying blues,'
The kind that say;

"Lord, look at me here,
I'm rooted like a tree here,
Got those sit-down, can't cry,
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues."

Missing that dock of mine,
In the picture next to my invisible head.
You want to know my face?
Maybe when back east,
I'll find that photo of that long haired college boy,
Leaning in on, so proud against that red Mustang.

Right now all I got these here old vignettes,
True stories one and all,
Making me miss my dock, my shelter,
On that old adirondack chair,
Where my **** aches, and my mind fevered
With poems of love children and a life that
Tho dim recalled, I see it all so well.

Dedicated with great pleasure to
Stephen E Yocum and Ilion Gray,
Don fans both.*
---------------------------------------------

Created: Mar 26, 2011 10:56 AM

Written the day after a Don McLean
concert at Town Hall, New York City*
-----------------------------------------------

We stood shoulder to shoulder,
for our voice was soon to arrive,
we were friends of Vincent's friend,
a starry night decorator,
chronicler of our youthful days,
who tonight, returned to us,
harmonizor of memories
of long ago,
one more 'last' time

our bodies we pledged to him,
our allegiance we displayed
via our uniforms,
most of us decorated with badges
of our mutuality,
medals of weary grey,
lives worn, patient sat to hear our
youthful anthems and
dormant dreams,
re-populated in our hearts, live,
alive,  resurrected, babes once more

Chevys and levees and then
by God,
we were dancing in the aisles
Like we used to,
one more time,
grassy odors enhanced our
recharged our voices,
we swore fealty to our memories,
said goodbye one last time, again,
to our youth and American Pie

I swear it's true that
this anthem of tribute and attribute
to who we were, makes
tears stream down my cheeks,
a taste mixed, salty
but also, bel canto sweet,
always simultaneously

forty years blink disappear
and I am ****** on
a summer nite in Sixty Nine,
sitting on my porch,
high up in Cleveland Heights,
and "future," was not yet
a ***** word

My red 65 Mustang makes me
a big shot,
I fall in and out love
and/or so many woman's beds,
pillow talk of how we won't be
like our parents cause
we are gonna make over this lousy world
they bequeathed us,  
how we're gonna let the Cuyahoga River
burn off fifty years of industrial waste,
the future will be born anew,
the urban orbs,
we will plan and rebirth,
they will be human beautiful

Earned my summer wages in
a Republic steel warehouse
where this college kid
who then was car-less in Cleveland,
a sin, hippie bicycled to work where
he was mocked & crowned
on his hard hat,
"The Macaroni Kid" -
he had foolishly revealed
to his ha ha,
Fellow American Co-Workers
his student budget dietary staple

but when in he was deep in the belly
of the railroad cars
where they lowered him
to chain together
the custom shaped steel rods,
on their way to be
the skeleton bones for the concrete blocks
to build the Jane Jacob's
neighborhood-killing bland apartment buildings,
that we both so despised,
building blocks of the
USA's cities of anomie

In the railroad cars, this kid
sang Don's songs softly
to himself and was happy

Lamenting the loss of our
carriers of hope to the
trajectory of assassin's bullets,
I cut my hair, shaved my beard,
for the music had indeed died.

Returned to the NYC in '72,
lived on Bleecker Street,
scrounged the streets
of the Village by nite,
a seeker of urban truths,
loose women, and junk "wood"
to burn in the fireplace of
my third floor walkup

working daytime office jobs,
at night, we drank new drinks of
tunes of english imports
and unbelievably, later on, disco

but we never forgot a single word
of our Bye Bye song,
ode to our wonder years

So on a March chill night, 2011,
the now all grown ups
were petitioned to come,
meet at Town Hall,
on the agenda,
a motion of recall
to bid one last
fare thee well
to the glory days before
we crossed the line from
rebels to voting citizens,
from spirited rock n rollers
to grumbling taxpayers,
from kids to parents

So I weep and smile and
do so for all of us
for I will go out
booming, singing, way too loud,
no decorum for this adult,
bid adieu to our best days,
one more good old boy,
now just a good old man
drinking whiskey and rye
smiling, crying, all mixed up,
sad, happy, touched inside
one last time, by the lyrics,
you know 'em well from
from so long ago,
so long, Bye Bye,
My American Pie

There was a boy
Who had a girl
And in the grapevine,
Hanging by a pearl
There laid a boy
Stripped free and mild
Four laces entwined
And eyes beguiled

He bicycled
Down from the hill
Grasping a gun
And a feathered quill
He spoke in books
And ailing shouts
‘Neath the moon, he shook
And began to sprout

He said,  “Hush you want me badly, I know
But my lone beliefs are bonafide
You found a love a long time ago”
As he turned, the lover cried,

“I dreamt your call
Dressed in a shawl
I’d lie on your head
In a deathly bed
From dust to rust,
I want the boy
In this I trust,
I’ll love the boy”

He struck a pose
Fits in a frame
He ate a rose
Five hearts he maimed
They pranced around
Their stolen tags
And gave their pounds
For fiery drags

On squandered soil
They lift their roots
Their hands unspoiled
And aim acute
“I want you so
You know me well
But love is sold
'Neath hollow bells”

He said “Hush, you want me badly, I know
But why can’t I call you by your name?”
“This is nothing if you only show
Your incumbent shame”

"I want your call
I’ll wear your shawl
I’ll kiss your head
And lull you to bed”
“From dust to rust
I want the boy
In this I trust
I’ll love the boy”

He said, “Hush, you knew me when? I think not”
As he tended to his burning leaf
“Life is sweet, but it too will rot
I won’t be deceived”

“I want the boy
Give me the boy
Don’t be so coy
I want you, boy
I’ll love the boy
I want the boy
There was a boy
Who gave me joy”

Perhaps when it all comes out in the open,
All the white lies, the little lies, the epic lies,
Of how we responded to the crying planet,
All will be said in a courtroom of compassion.
The lawyers remove their heavy wigs
And plead my case of guiltiness-

“Your honor, the defendant was no more
Able to change the tide than a red ant
Among billions on a jungle floor.
He took his few tons from the planet-
He took what he needed but no more;
He attended all conservation events.
He voted to save bees and elephants,
He abstained from swordfish to save the oceans,
Avoided pesticides and toxic lotions;  
He fervently supported free abortions.
And bicycled to save the ozone
(When it was sunny and not too cold).
He purchased ripe fruits from Whole Foods.
He recycled books, old boots and shoes.
He forbade polyester to touch his skin.
He kept his flushes to a minimum.
His got 28 miles per gallon in town.
He never was seen throwing garbage around. "

"Your honor, the murderers of the buffaloes
Have been pardoned by the courts long ago-
It is true, he killed a rooster and a kangaroo,
But evidence shows they were clearly confused
With no reason to be loitering on the roads.  
This man is unjustly accused, and if I must say,
Writes poems about the birdsong in May.
From where I sit, the court must acquit!”  

                                                          
The trial continues daily, like reality TV,
But nothing seems to alter prophecies.
What good if I set myself ablaze
Like the Buddhist in the center of Broadway-
I am haunted by a future I cannot explain
Trying to live out my life without blame.

The next generations are unknowable beings-
They will find their beaches in the rising tides
Made of plastic corals and robotic fish;
They will play in virtual forests with android slaves;
With perfect teeth and perfect pitch
The genetically enhanced go off to the galaxies,
In search of planets to greedily consume,
To spread the seeds of the earth and start anew.
What can a simple man as I know of such things?

The jury gives verdicts dispassionately-
For now I’m out on bail, I’m free to go,
No more guilty than my brethren of old
Who slayed the mammoth and fantastical dodo.

invisible
yet possibly deadly
it empties streets
makes us quarantine
cities  regions  nations
hits us unprepared
reminds us that pandemics
can also happen in our time

a few days ago I walked downtown
a strange quietness filled the air
made me react to noises and sounds
I had not even noticed
when streets were full with people and cars

     even the wail of distant ambulance sirens
     sounded louder and more ominous

I only saw occasional joggers
a few women airing their pet dogs
more bicycled food deliveries than usual

they hardly acknowledged my existence
glances did not meet
my friendly nods were rarely returned

we have all become solitary strangers
keeping their safe distance

we went fishing, we went cycling...
the best years
circa 2002 through to some other
circa...
we went to forever distant places...
we allowed ourselves to
stomach heights of mountains...
now come to "think" of it...
i have tabloid and graffiti where
bow-ties and mourning should be...
the world just preserves
this insistence to continue:
with or without a status quo...
because today i am shuffling into
a currency: the world so happens...
the anglophone sphere is
insomniac awaiting election
results... i'm hardly invested in it...
i wish to be so oh so concerned...
that i might forget - yet now remember:
the reconquista of much
of europe for the ottoman turks...
but it's not like the turks are arabs...
never mind...
               i itch with skin i tease
myself over an asset that's these eyes...
i sip a glass of water,
ciemnota that is gladly ruled over
by counterfeit, bb'ah'ah... bb'ah'ah...
actors...
less of what's to be done
and more of what's to be...
how i imagine myself being (a) man
rather than doing the expected
manly-"thing"...
          if it was oh so simple
that we were all born turtles...
with knowledge of plumbing apparatus....
i am less as being
and forever diminishing as having
done... employed by a "miracle"
of the undo...
               revision quest...
there's no reality of a gaping hole
or: ex nihil stalking me:
  no: born of death....
              latin! latin!
          natus ex mors...
we went fishing and how we bicycled
around a never-ending stupidity
how i extended my youth
while you preserved your old age...

grandma was a ***** to the last...
no?
  3 months to spare...
she could have noted: he's not feeling
well... some aid would be nice...
i feel cheated my heart
thrown into a heap of stones...
i'm expecting a heaving lung
in return...
not this close...
not from family this anger arch... ing
to subdue my unfathomable
shadow, come noon,
come the moon:
puppet! how's lore?!

she could have called and said:
instead of 2 day's worth of baggage:
you're in the hospice breathing
your last...
i wake up to a tomorrow
and hear the north.east.west.south...
apparently you're dead...

for all those estranged examples
of dictated family...
i should have extracted ms. *****
from your wife: my grandmother:
how she would suddenly be found
gloating: pinning you to
a pampers **** soaked... etc.
gruesome details: n'est ce pas?

she was so adamant about inheriting
your pension...
she was moreover adamant
on me taking out 500zł each day:
it's not like you amassed a lot of savings
to begin with...

over 7K... dutiful grandson...
i remember when she first encouraged me....
you were drunk and i would be stealing
pennies from your trouser pockets
left hanging on a chair in a room
of much darkening...

well... there's no unthinking this one
through: i'm the better drunk than
you will ever be: i fathom a need to
write some odd doodle while you
were exhausting the last remains
of memory cinema...

i'm gaining friction from people who
have started to notice:
i am not using english
with any orthodoxy, catholicism or
the sushi entree of protestantism...
looks like this language
i alone must own:
i will not be among the throng
of false prophets speaking
to the natives for corrections...

i own all that is readily available...
the natives can go burn
wickers and churches: in all honesty!

TUMANY...

                   it's theirs? they loosely(,)
just disguised themselves:
as... hinter...
          and the lapsing of aggrieved:
solo quests...
their native language doesn't translate
back...
it's theirs or is it simply mine?
how much this integration will allow...
i need more heads decapitated
saluting lazy tongues on pikes:
i am sure!
before the zombies will start sleeping: again!

if i were to stress my:
formality all too readily...
i remember days when we used to go
to school...
and meningitis was rife...
and a rifle too...
and we complied to the details
of the herd...

but not this, not now...
i can get a haircut i also can:
sure as hell wait for an irritating death
from a toothache!
sooner the pains from
a bad-hair-day...
i'm waiting for my teeth to
grow into fangs...
into elephant-esque tusks...
since my mouth will be unable
to impossibly keep them...
but my hair is more prompted
as: kept attention of "detail"...

suicide never made more sense:
all the excuses are in situ:
on the ready...
and i wouldn't even want
to blame these explorers...

             as ever: english in the "gulag":
how dasein translates into
"concern":
how happiness could ever be
substituted for inquisitiveness...
mind you: my eyes are darting
fathoming a whirlwind...
a roller-coaster...

i was debriefed by happiness
once...
i left the same sullen & sulk
signature as i ever might...
it didn't budge teasing an amassing
zombie-feud...
to begin or end with...
after all... i was born into a land-mass
that once claimed pride...
from sea to sea:
the baltic and the black sea
was, "in question"...

land-locked manoeuvres -
too many ******* vowels!
too many ******* vowels!
              there was a part of me
that somehow understood the genius
of the russians:
hence all that jazz of russophobia...
but there was no need
for claustrophobia and a siberia
pairing...
ugly feelings: mostly hurt...
or somewhat...
the terrible price of disgruntling
a slab of turk:
having confused it with a slobbering
over, over a camel jockey's arab
surprise...

saudi promises regarding
yemen...
                and all that was to remain
of bahrain...
like syria...
thank god for the closures
of the "ummah"...
bite the horn: ring the tonsils:
a church bell's worth of an uvula!
tongue this gluey
extract: my teeth a soothing
coming together: hey presto!
a shell for this slothing cringe
feast...

my grandmother with 3 months spare...
you told me:
ring me each month...
check up on my whereabouts...
i could have expected so much
from strangers...
"fwends"...
not from the ugliest
floral pattern of **** that was
a granny..
you were a drunk:
i'm a better drunk of the whole lot
of us two: twinned...

this unrelenting presence:
to have been allowed witness of your body
so well fashioned for
a funeral: mr. navy...
mr. now...
            
        i suppose a thank you is in order...
81 years in waiting is
the only way to die...
there's no need to tease turtles
with envy that extends into
a century...

now i want to remember edinburgh
through 2004 to 2007...
it could have been manchester...
it could have been an itch
like southampton...
pressure me... creases of
a Penzance... reverse the tide i probably
couldn't...

perhaps i want to chase learning
a game of chess...
perhaps i want to relive those summers
i lay on the balcony and read
the books i read..
in your abrahamic *****...
cheap-chow-mein-of-wording...
here's me... better clued-in...
better suited to sniffing the *****-feel
of 1980s pop music...

little ol' grandma i will hardly:
perhaps at best in my heart
i'll be wanting to **** on her grave...
perhaps i was expecting
something dramatic...
some phenomenon...
naturally... esque-borne revelation...
some earthquake some
waking into...

not how you seemingly "merely", "passed"....
ol' grandma: i wish to have her
shackled into a niqab: because
i last sentence these provocations
when i wilt to solve the crossword puzzles
with a 7am and a coffee...

death didn't rob me of what
you had already stressed:
the mortal feign...
            i had 3 months to spare...
detail for me the breaking
of the riddle of conscience...
                 i have to heave this last
salvage pin-point...

while "we" must be dictating....
people's loop
crescendo limiting bogus....
hey no new presto!
welcome
to grief... the limbo cowing-tie...
my litany of arbeit:
macht... frei...

             now that i dare
merely think it...
robespierre...
                 i heave ol'
yo-yo... because no one
would heave such
exhaustions.

Spare the rod and spoil the child,
Today it is termed as child abuse.
Never hit a child.
Children should be seen not heard,
Now it is one of children's  right-
to be listened to.
if they reply back it is not rude,
They are giving their opinions,
Parents are their worst enemies.
All the neighbour's  children played outside,
Bicycled together,
Today, it is dangerous to play outside,
Paedophiles lurk around corners.
Children drank from the same bottle,
Ate from the same dishes,
Plucked fruits and ate them without washing
Today, bacteria, fungi and virus have taken over their health.
We say today's  children have become smarter,
I say they are more material oriented.

24/6/2019

We roamed the streets of rome
With the ancient sunlight of the city hitting your porcelain skin in the most perfect angles
We bicycled our way  around the
stone fountains and you smiled at me
As the wind played with your ***** blonde weaves
We ran hand in hand around the city
With cobbled roads under our feet and
Vines on the coloured houses intertwined with our fingers
As our laughter got mixed with the italian tunes playing on the street;
We sat in pretty outsides of small coffeehouses enjoying the city thru our taste buds
As night fell upon the enchanting city
We talked about anything to everything
We sat on a cold bench at the crack of midnight
With you playing with my hair
And gazing at me like the beauty of the city didn't suffice your eyes
I think I fell in love with you then
We were strangers in a strange city
But we didn't care
We didn't care that we met just a week ago
We didn't care how we didn't know how 'us' was gonna work
We didn't care that maybe we won't see each other after tomorrow
Maybe destiny will make us cross paths in imminent future
Or maybe not
But
We still didn't care
Because
We wanted to live in a make believe haven
Even if it was not forever.