Inconspicuous, his presence noted only by the obscurity and the ever growing number of spent cigarette stubs that littered the ground.  It had been a long day and the rain, relentless in its tenacity had little intention of stopping, baleful clouds still  hung heavy, dominating the lateness of the afternoon sky, a rain laden skyline broken only by smoke filled chimney pots and the tangled snarl of corroded television aerials.

     The once busy street was fast emptying now, the lure of shop windows no longer enticed the casual browser as local traders closed their premises to the oncoming night, solitary lampposts curved hazily into the distance, casting little more than insipid pools mirrored in the gutter below, only the occasional stranger scurrying home on a bleak, rain swept afternoon, the hurried slap of wet leather soles on the pavement, the sightless umbrellas, the infrequent rumble of a half filled bus, hell-bent on its way to oblivion.

     In the near distance as the working day ended, a sudden emergence of factory workers told Beamish it was 5-o'clock, most would be hurrying home to a hot meal, while others, for a quick drink perhaps before making the same old sorry excuse... for Jack, the greasy spoon would be closing about now, denying him the comfort of a badly needed cuppa' and stale cheese sandwich.  A subtle legacy of lunchtime fish and chips still lingered in the air, Jack's stomach rumbled, there was little chance of a fish supper for Beamish tonight, it protested again... louder.

     From beneath the eaves of the building opposite several pigeons broke cover, startled by the rattle as a shopkeeper struggled to close the canvas awning above his shop window.  Narrowly missing Beamish they flew anxiously over the rooftops, memories of the blitz sprang to mind as Jack stepped smartly to one side, he stamped his feet... it dashed a little of the weather from his raincoat, just as the rain dashed a little of the pigeons' anxiety from the pavement... the day couldn't get much worse if it tried.  Shielding his face, Jack struck the Ronson one more time and cupped the freshly lit cigarette between his hands, it was the only source of heat to be had that day... and still it rained.

     'By Appointment to Certain Personages...' the letter heading rang out loudly... 'Jack Beamish ~ Private Investigator...' a throat choking mouthful by any stretch of the imagination, thought Jack and shot every vestige of credulity plummeting straight through the office window and amidst a fanfare of trumpet voluntary, nominate itself for a prodigious award in the New Year Honours list.   Having formally served in a professional capacity for a well known purveyor of pickled condiments, who  incidentally, brandished the same patronage emblazoned upon their extensive range of relish as the one Jack had more recently purloined from them... a paid commission no less, which by Jack's certain understanding had made him, albeit fleeting in nature, a professional consultant of said company... and consequently, if they could flaunt the auspicious emblem, then according to Jack's infallible logic, so could Jack.  

     The recently appropriated letterhead possessed certain distinction... in much the same way, Jack reasoned, that a blank piece of paper did not... and whereas correspondence bearing the heading 'By Appointment' may not exactly strike terror into the hearts of man... unlike a really strong pickled onion, it nevertheless made people think twice before playing him for the fool, which sadly, Jack had to concede, they still invariably did... and he would often catch them wagging an accusing finger or two in his direction with such platitudes as... "watch where you put your foot", they'd whisper, "that Jack's a right Shamus...", and when you'd misplaced your footing as many times as Jack had, then he reasoned, that by default the celebrated Shamus must have landed himself in more piles of indiscretion than he would readily care to admit, but that wouldn't be quite accurate either, in Jack's line of work it was the malefactor that actually dropped him in them more often than not.

     A cold shiver suddenly ran down his spine, another quickly followed as a spurt of icy water from a broken rain spout spattered across the back of his neck, he grimaced... Jack's expression spoke volumes as he took one final pull from his half soaked cigarette and flicked it, amid an eruption of sparks against the adjacent brick wall.  Sinking further into the shadow he tipped his fedora against the oncoming rain, then, digging both hands deep within his pockets, he huddled behind the upturned collar of his gabardine... watching.

     It was times such as these when Jack's mind would slip back, in much the same way you might slip back on a discarded banana peel, when a matter of some consequence, or in particular this case the pavement, would suddenly leap up from behind and give the back of Jack's head a resoundingly good slapping and tell him to "stop loafing around in office hours... or else", then drag him, albeit kicking and screaming back into the 20th century.  This intellectual assault and battery re-focused Jack's mind wonderfully as he whiled away the long weary hours until his next cigarette; cup of tea, or the last bus home, his capacity to endure such mind boggling tedium called for nothing less than sheer ******-mindedness and very little else... Beamish had long suspected that he possessed all the necessary qualifications.  

     Jack had come a long way since the early days, it had been a long haul but he'd finally arrived there in the end... and managed to pick up quite a few ***** looks along the way.  Whilst he was with the Police Constabulary... and it was only fair to stress the word 'with', as opposed to the word 'in'... although the more Jack considered, he had been 'with' the arresting officer, held 'in' the local Bridewell... detained at Her Majesties pleasure while assisting the boys in blue with their enquiries over a minor infringement of some local by-law that currently had quite slipped his mind at that moment.  Throughout this enforced leisure period he'd managed to read the entire abridged editions of Kilroy and other expansive works of graffiti exhibited in what passed locally as the next best thing to the Tate Gallery, whereupon it hadn't taken Jack very long to realise that it was always a good place to start if you wanted free breakfast, in fact the weeks bill of fare was tastefully displayed in vivid, polychromatic colour on the wall opposite... you just had to be au-fait with braille.
                            
     No matter how industrious Beamish laboured to rake the dirt there always appeared to be a dire shortage of gullible clients for Jack to squeeze, what would roughly translate as an honest crust out of, and although his financial retainer was highly competitive he understood that potential clients found it bewildering when grappling with the unplumbed depths of his monthly expense account, which would tend to fluctuate with the same unpredictability as the British weather, the rest of Jack's agenda revolved around a little shady moonlighting... in fact he'd happily consider anything to offset the remotest possibility of financial delinquency... short of extortion... which by the strangest twist was the very word prospective clients would cry while Jack beavered around the office with dust-pan and brush sweeping any concerns they may have had frantically under the carpet regarding all culpability of his extra-curricular monthly stipend... and they should remain assured at all times... as they dug deep and fished for their cheque books, and simply look upon it as kneading dough, which eerily enough was exactly the thick wedge of buttered granary that Jack had every intention of carving.

     Were there ever the slightest possibility that a day could be so utterly wretched, then today was that day, Jack felt a certain empathy as he merged with his surroundings... at one with nature as it were.  The rain, a timpani on the metal dustbin lids, by the side of which Beamish had taken up vigil, also taking up vigil and in search of a morsel was the stray mongrel, this was the third time now that he'd returned, the same apprehensive wag, yet still the same hopeful look of expectation in his eyes, a brief but friendly companion who paid more attention to Jack's left trouser leg than anything that could be had from nosing around the dustbins that day... some days you're the dog, scowled Beamish as he shook his trouser leg... and some days the lamppost, Jack's foot swung out playfully, keeping his new friend's incontinence at a safe distance, feigning indignance  the scruffy mongrel shook himself defiantly from nose to tail, a distinct odour of wet dog filled the air as an abundance of spent rainwater flew in all directions.   Pricking one ear he looked accusingly at Jack before turning and snuffled off, his nose resolutely to the pavement and diligently, picking out the few diluted scents still remaining, the poor little stalwart renewed its search for scraps, or making his way perhaps to some dry seclusion known only to itself.
  
     Two hours later and... SPLOSH, a puddle poured itself through the front door of the nearest Public House... SPLOSH, the puddle squelched over to the payphone... SPLOSH, then, fumbling for small change dialled and pressed button 'A'..., then button 'B'... then started all over again amid a flurry of precipitation... SPLASH.  The puddle floundered to the bar and ordered itself a drink, then ebbed back to the payphone again... the local taxi company doggedly refused to answer... finally, wallowing over to the window the puddle drifted up against a warm radiator amidst a cloud of humidity and came to rest... flotsam, cast upon the shore of contentment, the puddle sighed contentedly... the Landlady watched this anomaly... suspiciously.

     The puddle's finely tuned perception soon got to grips with the unhurried banter and muffled gossip drifting along the bar, having little else to loose, other than what could still be wrung from his clothing... Beamish, working on the principle that a little eavesdropping was his stock-in-trade engaged instinct into overdrive and casually rippled in their general direction...  They were clearly regulars by the way one of them belched in a well rehearsed, taken-a-back sort of way as Jack took stock of the situation and was now at some pains to ingratiate himself into their exclusive midst and attempt several friendly, yet relevant questions pertinent to his enquiries... all of which were skillfully deflected with more than friendly, yet totally irrelevant answers pertinent to theirs'... and would Jack care for a game of dominoes', they enquired... if so, would he be good enough to pay the refundable deposit, as by common consent it just so happened to be his turn...  Jack graciously declined this generous offer, as the obliging Landlady, just as graciously, cancelled the one shilling returnable deposit from the cash register, such was the flow of light conversation that evening... they didn't call him Lucky Jack for nothing... discouraged, Beamish turned back to the bar and reached for his glass... to which one of his recent companions, and yet again just as graciously, had taken the trouble to drink for him... the Landlady gave Jack a knowing look, Beamish returned the heartfelt sentiment and ordered one more pint.

     From the licenced premises opposite, a myriad of jostling customers plied through the door, business was picking up... the sudden influx of punters rapidly persuaded Beamish to retire from the bar and find a vacant table.  Sitting, he removed several discarded crisp packets from the centre of the table only to discover a freshly vacated ashtray below... by sleight of hand Jack's Ronson appeared... as he lit the cigarette the fragile smoke curled blue as it rose... influenced by subtle caprice, it joined others and formed a horizontal curtain dividing the room, a delicate, undulating layer held between two conflicting forces.

     The possibility of a free drink soon attracted the attention of a local bar fly, who, hovering in the near vicinity promptly landed in Jack's beer, Beamish declined this generous offer as being far too nutritious and with the corner of yesterdays beer mat, flipped the offending organism from the top of his glass, carefully inspecting his drink for debris as he did so.

     A sudden draught and clip of stiletto heels as the side door opened caused Beamish to turn as a double shadow slipped discreetly into the friendly Snug... a little adulterous intimacy on an otherwise cheerless evening.  The faceless man, concealed beneath a fedora and the upturned collar of his overcoat, the surreptitious lady friend, decked out in damp cony, cheap perfume and a surfeit of bling proclaimed a not too infrequent assignation, he'd seen it all before... the over attentive manner and the band of white, Sun-starved skin recently hidden behind a now absent wedding token, ordinarily it was the sort of assignment Jack didn't much care for... the discreet tail, the candid snapshot through half drawn curtains... and the all too familiar steak tartare... for the all too familiar black eye.

     To the untrained eye, the prospect of Jack's long anticipated supper was rapidly dwindling, when it suddenly focused with renewed vigour upon the contents of a pickled egg jar he'd observed earlier that evening, lurking on the back counter, his enthusiasm swiftly diminished however as the belching customer procured the final two specimens from the jar and proceeded to demolish them.  Who, Jack reflected, after being stood out in the rain all day, had egg all over his face now... and who, he reflected deeper, still had an empty stomach.  Disillusioned, Jack tipped back his glass and considered a further sortie with the taxicab company.

     "FIVE-BOB"!!! Jack screamed... you could have shredded the air with a cheese grater... hurtling into the kerb like a fairground attraction came flying past the chequered flag at a record breaking 99 in Jack's top 100 most not wanted list of things to do that day... and that the cabby should think himself fortunate they weren't both stretched flat on a marble slab, "exploding tyres" Jack spluttered, dribbling down his chin, were enough to give anyone a coronary... further broadsides of neurotic ambiance filled the cab as the driver, miffed at the prospect of missing snooker night out with the lads, considered charging extra for the additional space Jack's profanity was taking...

     And what part of 'Drive-Carefully', fumed Beamish, did the cabby simply not understand, that pavements were there to be bypassed, 'Nay Circumvented', preferably on the left... and not veered into, wildly on the front axle... an eerie premonition of 'jemais-vu' perched and ready to strike like a disembodied Jiminy Cricket on Jack's left shoulder, looking to stick its own two-penny worth in at the 'Standing-Room-Only' arrangements in the overcrowded cab... and at what further point, Jack shrieked, eyes leaping from his head as he lurched forward, shaking his fist through the sliding glass partition, had the cabbie failed to grasp the importance of the word 'Steering-Wheel...' someone wanted horse whipping, and as far as Beamish was concerned the sole contender was the cab driver...

     In having a somewhat sedate and unruffled disposition it had fallen to Beamish... as befalls all great leaders in times of adversity, to single handedly take the bull by the horns, so to speak and at great personal cost, alert the unwary passing motorist...  Waving his arms about like a man possessed whilst performing acrobatic evolutions in the centre of the road as the cabby changed the wheel came whizzing around the corner at a back breaking 98 on Jack's ever growing list... and why, Jack puzzled, why had they all lowered their side windows and gestured back at him in semaphore..?  Rallying to its aid, Jack's head and shoulders now joined his shaking fist through the sliding glass partition and into the cabby's face, "Who" Beamish screeched with renewed vigour ,"Who Was The Man", Jack wanted to know... *"a

Dear Poet Friends, I conclude this series on The Enigma of Time by mentioning few important features about the concept of Time according to Modern Philosophy and Science. I have used a
simple format, and also tried my best to simplify the concepts for your kind appreciation. Unfortunately, there is no provision on this Poetry Site to show Diagrams to elucidate! If you like this one, kindly repost the same for wider circulation! Thank you, Raj Nandy, New Delhi.
            
       CONCLUDING THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE:
                      PART THREE – BY RAJ NANDY
              
              TIME ACCORDING TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY

UNREALITY Of TIME : Mc Taggart’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ Series:
Now skipping through the pages I come to Modern Philosophy, with Mc Taggart the British philosopher of the 20th Century.
He had acquired a substantial following with his 1908 paper on the ‘Unreality of Time’ initially.
With his quibbling argument he states, that moments in his ‘A’ Series of Time are either of past tense, present tense, or of future tense.
It is all about human perception, since we experience the past through our memories;
Become aware of the present through our senses, while future is pretty unknowable.
Here time appears to be flowing through us, as nothing remains stable around us!

In his ‘B’ Series of Time Mc Taggart expresses differences in moments of time as either Before or After,
Without using the tenses used in his ‘A’ Series of Time.
All parts in time can be expressed equally as points along a time line, in the absence of past, present, and future tense;
While here we appear to be flying through time in a metaphorical sense!
Thus in the ‘A series’ time appears to be flowing through us, but in ‘B series’ we seem to be flying through time on a timeline created by us!
Therefore, Mc Taggart finds both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ Series describing Time to be inadequate and also contradictory;
And he finally concludes that Time is unreal and does not exist in reality!

How Mc Taggart’s Theory Was  Updated :
Modern Philosophers have re-casted Mc Taggart’s theory in term of findings of Modern Physics.
His A-Theory is updated into ‘PRESENTISM’, which holds that only thing that is real is the ‘present moment’.
In ‘Presentism’ time has no past or future, and time has no duration either!
All things come into existence and drop out of existence, and past events no longer exist;
And since the future is undefined or merely potential, it too does not exist!

His B-theory is re-formulated into ‘ETERNALISM’ or the ‘Block Universe’, influenced by the later Theory of Relativity.
‘Eternalism’ holds that past events do exist even if we cannot immediately experience them, and future events also exists in a very real way.
The ‘flow of time’ we experience is just an illusion of consciousness.
Since in reality, time is always everywhere in an eternal sense!

Theory of Growing Block Universe:
It was proposed by the Englishman CD Broad in 1923, as an alternative to ‘Presentism’ where only the present exist;
And also as an alternative to ‘Eternalism’ where past, present, and future together also exist.
In ‘Growing Block Universe’ only the past and the present exist, but not the future.
Since the growing of the block happens in the present, with a very thin slice of space-time continuously coming into existence;  
Where consciousness as well as the flow of time are not active within the past,  
But they can occur only at the boundary of this ‘Growing Block Universe’!
Few scholars this concept did criticise, saying that in this theory the word ‘now’ can no longer be used to define Time!

But according to Einstein, this perception of ‘now’ that appears to move along a timeline, creating the illusion of ‘flow of time’, arises purely as a result of human consciousness;
And the way our brains are wired due to our evolutionary process, enabling us to deal with the world around us in a practical sense.
“People like us, who believe in Physics, know that the duration between the past, present, and the future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,’’ said Einstein.

A poem on ‘The Paradox of Time’:
Now to lighten up my Reader’s mind, I present only the first three stanzas from ‘’The Paradox of Time’’, composed by the British poet Austin Dobson:
  “Time goes, you say? Ah no!
   Alas, Time stays, we go;
      Or else, were this not so,
  What need to chain the hours,
  For youth were always ours?

  Ours is the eye’s deceit
  Of men whose flying feet
     Lead through some landscape low;
  We pass, and think we see
  The earth’s fixed surface flee,
     Alas, time stays, we go!

  Once in the days of old
  Your locks were curling gold,
     And mine had shamed the crow.
  Now, in the self-same stage,
  We’ve reached the silver age,
  Time goes, you say? - ah no!
       Alas, time stays, we go!”
            
HOW LIGHT IS CONNECTED WITH THE CONCEPT OF TIME:
Brief Background:
I commence with quotes from the ‘Book of Genesis’ - Chapter One, along with my thoughts about Light and Time,
Before concluding this series with Albert Einstein’s concept of Space-Time.

“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. ……And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so.”
                                                      - BOOK Of GENESIS Chapter One.

Since ancient days, Light had acquired a religious and a spiritual significance.
Since Light became associated with goodness, intelligence and ultimate realty;
Light accompanies transcendence into Nirvana of Buddhist religious philosophy.
In due course the Sun began to be worshipped as an important live-giving deity.
As seen in the symbolic form of Egyptian Sun God Ra, and the Greek gods Helios and Hyperion as the Sun god and god of Light respectively.
In Hindu mythology Surya is the Sun god, and Ushas the goddess of Light.
Huitzilopochti, both the Sun god and god of War of the Ancient Aztecs was kept pleased with human sacrifice!

SOME PROPERTIES OF LIGHT:
Plato, during the 5th Century BC said that God was unable to make the World eternal, so gave it Time,  - “as the moving image of eternity.”
While some seven hundred years later St. Augustine in his ‘Confessions’ said,
That when God created the universe out of darkness with light, “the world was also created with Time, and not in time.”
Thus along with light, time also began to flow, while our scientists discovered a connection between the speed of light and time, few centuries ago!
To understand this connection between light and time, we must first understand something about the properties of light.
Light is the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum* which can be perceived by our human eye.         (See Notes Below)
As seen in the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet colors of the Rainbow in the sky,
When water droplets acting like countless prisms break up white sunlight!
Now this electromagnetic spectrum also contains the ultra violet and infra red spectrum which our eyes cannot see.
But this entire electromagnetic spectrum contains Photons, which are discreet packets of zero mass less energy.
In a vacuum light photons travel at 186,000 miles for second, which Einstein declared as the cosmic speed limit, and as an universal constant.
When a photon strikes the eye, it is turned into electrical energy that is transmitted to the brain to form an image which we call sight.

NOTES : Gama-rays, X-rays, Ultraviolet lights, have shorter wave lengths & more energy than Visible light. But Infrared, Microwave, Radio waves, with larger wave lengths are less energetic than the Visible spectrum of light. Sir Isaac Newton using a prism had discovered the spectrum of visible light, & used the word ‘spectrum’ for the first time in his book ‘Optick’ in 1671.

EINSTEIN'S SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY 1905 :
In his Special Theory of Relativity of 1905, he stated that nothing can move faster than speed of light which is 186,000 miles per second.
This speed of light always remains the same, irrespective of its source and frame of reference.
Now the mass of an object would double if it travels at 90% of light’s speed.
But if the speed of light is reached, mass of an object would become infinite!
Since photons, the quantum particles that make up light have a zero mass, they move at the speed of light.
Even inside the World’s Largest Particle Collider (LDC), located near the French-Swiss Border,
Experiments are carried out only around 99.99% of Light’s speed, in accordance with the Laws of Physics.
Einstein had also shown mathematically that on reaching Light’s speed, Time will come to a standstill!
And should this Light’s speed be exceeded, then Time would start to travel backwards, which becomes a mind boggling concept!
Here we enter into the realm of science fiction, which has been described by HG Wells  in his popular novel ‘The Time Machine’.
But to become a time traveler shall always remain our cherished desire and dream!

NOTES: Only mass less particles like the photon can travel at light speed, photons experience no time, they do not age. Objects with mass cannot reach the speed of light since in that case its mass will become infinite. Also, one cannot see the fourth dimension because of Lorenz Contraction, which is also related to stopping of time, for at the speed of light an object will shrink to zero length! Also, particles interact with the Higgs' Field present all around to pick up mass, excepting photons which do not interact with this Higgs' Field.

Now Einstein’s theory of 1905 is called ‘Special’, because it explains how space and time are linked for objects that are moving in a straight line at a greater speed but which is constant.
Time moves relative to the observer, and objects in motion experience ‘Time Dilation’.
Meaning, time moves slowly when it is in motion, as compared to one who is standing still, -  a relative comparison.
This can be further explained by the ‘Twin Paradox’, where a 15 year old travelling in a spaceship at 99.5% speed of light for a period of 5 years,
Returns back to Earth to find himself to be only 20 years old.
But to his surprise he finds, his twin brother on Earth who was left behind, has reached the ripe age of 65 !

Limitations of Special Theory of Relativity:
It was confined to non-accelerating bodies only, and after ten years of deliberation,
Einstein added gravitational force field, space-time curvature, and acceleration, -
To formulate his General Theory of Relativity with satisfaction.

   SPACE-TIME & GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY 1916 :
Isaac Newton during the 17th Century spoke about 'absolute time' and 'absolute space', accordance to the understanding of science of his Classical Age.
Space was the arena where the drama of the universe was played out, and this arena was passive, eternal, and unchanging no doubt.
Time too was absolute with an independent existence, and continued to beat independently like the heart beat of Space!
Newton also gave us the Laws of Motion, and Gravity, with more massive objects exerting more Gravity than a less massive one in reality.
Now one aspect of Special Relativity is that space and time are merged into a four-dimensional space-time entity,
They do not exist as separately as envisaged by Newton and Descartes during the 17th Century.
Some 250 years later Albert Einstein, defined Gravity as a curvature of Space-time.
Einstein also tells us that gravity can bend light, which travels along the curvature of this space-time.
Gravity is flexible, it could stretch like a fabric warping of space-time caused by objects present within it, in fact Gravity is the shape of space-time itself!
The Moon rolls around the curvature created in space-time fabric by the heavier object the Earth,
Just like the massive Sun which creates the depression and curvature around it for the planets of our solar system to orbit round the Sun. *
Einstein’s space-time has been likened to a stretched out vast rubber sheet,
Where heavier the planet, more depression it creates on the fabric of space-time along with its own gravitational field.
Einstein’s Space is not passive like that of Newton, but has a dynamic presence.
Interwoven with Time, Space tells Matter how to move, while Matter tells Space-Time how to curve - in this dynamic presence!
The constant speed of light at 186,000 miles per second, is just a measure of space of something which travels over time;
But both space and time had to adjust themselves to accommodate the constant speed of light!
Thus space, time, and the speed of light are all unified in the General Theory of Relativity,
We owe all this to Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of our Century.
NOTES: **Planets orbiting the Sun do not fall back into the void of space due to the attraction of gravity, and also due to their individual speed of acceleration maintained in orbit as per Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion. Mercury has the fastest orbital speed of 48 km per second, Venus at 35 km per sec , and Earth at 30 km per sec. as their orbital speeds. Planets further from the Sun require lesser orbital speed.

UNFINISHED WORK OF EINSTEIN:
During his later years Einstein was secretly working to find a ‘Theory of Everything’,
Which would ultimately replace the erratic tiny micro world of Quantum Mechanics.
His Theory of General Relativity had dealt with the functions of gravity at the greater macro level of the universe only.
So he hoped to extend this theory to find an all embracing Unified Field Theory.
For at the subatomic quantum level, as the Englishman Thomson discovered in 1897,
The electrons inside an atom at times behaved in an alien fashion and were very unstable!
This world of the subatomic particles is a wondrous world where time becomes chaotic;
Where the position of the electrons cannot be predicted with certainty!
Einstein called this unpredictable and unstable behaviour of electrons as "spooky action at a distance"!
In the ‘double-split experiment’ it was seen, that the light photons behaved both like waves and as particles, -
Even though the speed of light remained constant.

EINSTEIN'S NOBLE PRIZE For PHYSICS AWARDED IN 1921:
Now despite Einstein's dissatisfaction with Quantum Mechanics it is rather ironical,
That the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Einstein for his work on the ‘Photoelectric Effect’ at the Quantum level;
Which for the first time had suggested that Light travelled in Waves and also as Particles ( i.e. as photon)!
This observation led to the development of electron microscope, solar panels, night vision devices, at a later date.
Since his Special and General Theory of Relativity considered as ‘The Pillars of Modern Physics’, was still being examined by the Scientific Community;
And they could be proved and accepted only subsequently.

'STRING THEORY' PROPOSED AS THEORY FOR EVERYTHING:
During the 1970s the proponents of ‘String Theory’ had claimed, They found a Theory of Everything, following Einstein’s quest.
They claimed that micro vibrating open and closed looped strings gave rise to some 36 particles at the subatomic level;
But also required 10 dimensions for this 'String Theory' to operate!
In our Standard Model of Physics we have only 18 particles as on date, therefore due to lack of scientific evidence,
There was no Noble Prize for those ‘String Theory’ proponents!
Efforts are on to find a Unified Theory of Everything, and to understand the mysteries of God’s infinite universe, -
We finite humans have just made a beginning!

Now, to reduce the length of my composition I conclude with a short verse by the famous novelist and poet DH Lawrence, -
Who had shocked Victorian England with his explosive ****** novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”,
Which later inspired Hollywood, and a film got made.

               RELATIVITY
“I like relativity and quantum theories
because I don’t understand them,
and they make me feel as if space shifted about like
a swan that can’t settle,
refusing to sit still and be measured;
and as if the atom were an impulsive thing
always changing its mind.”  – DH Lawrence.

Thanks for reading patiently,
‘All Copy Rights Are With The Author Only’, - Raj Nandy of New Delhi.

THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE: PART TWO
Dear Friends, having introduced ‘The Enigma of Time in Verse’ in Part One, along with few selected poetic quotes, I now mention what some of the important Philosophers thought about Time down the past centuries. But while doing so, I have tried my best to simplify some of those early concepts for better understanding and appreciation of my readers. If you like it, kindly re-post the poem. Thanks,  – Raj Nandy of New Delhi.

          THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE : PART TWO
   I commence by quoting Sonnet 60 of Shakespeare about Time,
   Hoping to seek some blessings for this Part Two composition of
   mine!
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
  So do our minutes hasten to their end;
  Each changing place with that which goes before,
  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
  Nativity, once in the main of light,
  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
  Crooked elipses ’gainst his glory fight,
  And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
  And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
  Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.”

              PHILOSOPHY OF TIME
Animals are said to live in a continuous present,
Since they have no temporal distinction of past, future,
or the present.
But our consciousness of time, becomes the most
distinguishing feature of mankind.
Though we are mostly obsessed with objective time, -
As the rotation of our Earth separates day from night.
With the swing of the pendulum and the ticking of clocks,
Which regulates our movements, while we try to beat the clock!
But the ancient theologians and philosophers of India and
Greece,
Who were among the first to ponder about the true nature
of all things,
Had wondered about the subjective nature of time;
Was time linear or cyclic, was time endless or finite?

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS ON TIME:
I begin with Heraclitus, the Pre-Socratic philosopher of 6th Century BC born in Ephesus.
He claimed that everything around us, is in a constant state of change and flux.
You cannot step into the same river twice Heraclitus had claimed,
Since water keeps flowing down the river all the while and never
remains the same.
This flow and change in Nature is a process which is ceaseless.
The only thing which remains permanent is impermanence!
Here is a quote from poet Shelley reflecting the same idea:
“World on world are rolling ever
  From creation to decay
  Like the bubbles on a river
  Sparkling, bursting, borne away.”

Now Heraclitus was refuted by Parmenides, born in the Greek colony of Elea,
On the western coast of Southern Italy, as his contemporary.
Parmenides said that our senses deceive us, since all changes are mere illusory!
True reality was only eternal and unchanging ‘Being’, which was both indivisible and continuous - filling up all space.
Zeno, a pupil of Parmenides, through his famous ‘Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise’ had shown, that when the tortoise was given a head start,
Swift footed Achilles could never catch up with the tortoise,
Since the space between the two were infinitely divisible, resulting in the impossibility of movement and change in motion!
Now the Greeks were never comfortable with the Concept of Infinity.
They preferred to view the universe as continuous existing ‘Being’.  
However, unlike Heraclitus’ ‘world of change and flux’,
Both Parmenides and Zeno have presented us, with a static unchanging universe!
Thus from the above examples it becomes easy for us to derive,  
How those Ancient Greeks had viewed Time.
Time has been viewed as a forward moving changing entity;
And also as an illusory, continuous and indivisible Being!
To clarify this further I quote Bertrand Russell from his ‘History of Western Philosophy’;
“Creation out of nothing, which was taught in the Old Testament, was an idea wholly foreign to Greek philosophy. When Plato speaks of creation, he imagines a primitive matter, to which God gives form as an artificer.”

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE ON TIME:
For Plato, time was created by the Creator at the same instance when he had fashioned the heavens.
But Plato was more interested to contemplate on things which lay
beyond the sway of time and remained unchangeable and eternal;
Like absolute Truth, absolute Justice, the absolute form of Good and Beauty;
Which were eternal and unchangeable like the ‘Platonic Forms’, and were beyond the realm of Time as true reality.
Plato’s pupil Aristotle was the first Greek philosophers to contemplate on reality inside time, and provide a proper definition as we get to see.
He said, “Time is the number of movement in respect to before and after” - as a part of reality.
To measure time numerically, we must have a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, and also notice the difference objectively.
Therefore, time here becomes the change which we see and experience.
Time takes on a linear motion moving from the past to the present;
And to the unknown future like a moving arrow travelling straight.
Aristotle had developed a four step process to understand everything inside of Time and within human experience:
(a) Observe the world using our senses,
(b) Apply logical rules to these observations,
(c) To go back and consult past authorities, if your logic agrees with their logic,
(d) Then only you can come to a logical conclusion.

No wonder in our modern times, experiments conducted by the LDC or the Large Hadron Collider, located 100m underground near the French-Swiss border,
By going back in time simulates the ‘Big Bang’ conditions, that moment of our universe’s first creation.
The scientists thereby, study the evolution of our universe with time, which  resulted in the  finding of the Higgs Boson !  (On 4thJuly 2012)

NOTES :  All elementary particles interacting with the Higg's Field & obtain Mass, excepting for photons & gluons which do not interact with this field. Mass-less photons can travel at the
speed of light with a mind boggling 186,000 miles per second! Now this LDC is a Particle Accelerator 27 kms long ring-shaped tunnel, made mostly of superconducting magnets, inside which two high-energy particle beams are made to travel close to the speed of light in opposite directions, and the shower of particles resulting from the collision is closely examined, presuming that these similar shower of particles must have been produced at the time of the ‘Big Bang’ some 13.8 million years ago, at the time of Creation! Sound like fiction? Well, Prof. Peter Higgs got the Noble Prize for Physics, for locating the particle called ‘Higgs Boson’ among those shower of particles, on 10th Dec. 2013.

NOW TO LIGHTEN UP MY READERS MIND, FEW TIME QUOTE I NOW PROVIDE :

“TIME WASTES OUR BODIES AND OUR WITS,
  BUT WE WASTE TIME, SO WE ARE QUITS!” – Anonymus.

‘Time is a great Teacher, but unfortunately it kills its Pupils!’ – HL Berlioz

“Lost , yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two
   golden hours,
   Each set with sixty diamond minutes.
   No reward is offered, for they are gone forever!” – Horace Mann


PLOTINUS & ST. AUGUSTINE ON TIME:
Now getting back to our Philosophy of Time, there was Plotinus of the 3rd Century AD,
The founder of the mystical Neo-Platonic School of Philosophy.
He had followed Plato’s basic concept of Time as “the moving image of eternity.”
Mystic Plotinus tried to synthesize both Aristotle and Plato by saying that the entire process of cosmic creation,
Flows out of the ONE  through a series of emanation!
This ONE gave rise to the ‘Divine Mind’ which he called the ‘Realm of Intelligence’ and is an aspect of reality,
When everything is understood in terms of Platonic Forms of Truth, Justice, the Good, and Beauty.
However, the later Christian theologians had interpreted this ONE of Plotinus, -
As the Christian God, the Divine Creator of the Universe.
For God is eternal, in the sense of being timeless, in God there is no before or after, but only a timeless present.

Now this lead St. Augustine, to formulate a very admirable relativistic theory of Time!
St. Augustine, the greatest constructive teacher of the Early Christian Church, had written in Book XI of his ‘Confessions’ during  5th century AD, -
His thoughts about the enigma of Time which had perplexed the Greek philosophers of earlier centuries.
To simplify St. Augustine’s thoughts, I now paraphrase for the sake of clarity.
Time can only be measured while it is passing, yet there is time past, and time future in reality.
To avoid these contradictions he says that past and future can only be thought of as present: ‘past’ must be identified with memory, and ‘future’ with expectation.
Since memory and expectation being both present facts, there is no contradiction.  
“The present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight; and the present of things future is expectation,” - wrote St. Augustine.

This subjective notion of time led St. Augustine to anticipate Rene Descartes the French philosopher the 17th Century,
Who proclaimed “Cogito, ergo sum” in Latin, meaning “I think, therefore I am”, and is regarded as the Father of Modern Philosophy.

Now cutting a long story short I come to Sir Isaac Newton, well known for his Laws of Motion and Gravity.
Newton speaks of ‘Absolute Time’ which exists independently, flowing at a consistent pace throughout the universe, which can only be understood mathematically.
Newton’s ‘Absolute Time’ had remained as the dominant concept till the  early years of the 20th Century.
When Albert Einstein formulated ‘Theory of Space-time’ along with his Special and General Theory of Relativity.

Now the German philosopher Leibniz during 17th century, had challenged Newton with his anti-realist theory of time.
Leibniz claimed that time was only a convenient intellectual concept, that enables to sequence and compare happening of events.
There must be objects with which time can interact or relate to as ‘Relational Time’ he had felt.
Ernst Mach, like Leibniz towards the end of 19th Century, said that even if it was not obvious what time and space was relative to,
Then they were still relative to the ‘fixed stars’ i.e. the bulk of matter in the universe.

CONCEPT OF TIME AS 'SPECIOUS PRESENT' :
During late 19th century, Robert Kelley introduced the concept of ‘spacious present’, which was the most recent part of the past.
Psychologist and philosopher William James developed this idea further by describing it as ‘’the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’’
William James also introduced the term “stream of consciousness” into literature as a method of narration,
That described happenings in the flow of thought in the mind of the characters, - likened to an internal monologue!
This literary technique was later used by James Joyce in his famous novel ‘Ulysses’.

TIME CONCEIVED AS DURATION: HENRI BERGSON (1859 -1941)
Next I come to one of my favourite philosopher the French born Henri Bergson.
The Nobel Laureate and author of ‘Time and Free Will’ and ‘Creative Evolution’.
Will Durant in his ‘Story of Philosophy’ says Bergson was ‘the David destined to slay the Goliath of materialism.’
It was Bergson’s ‘Elan Vital’ that life force and impelling urge, Which makes us grow and transforms this wandering planet into a theatre of unending creation.
For Bergson, time is as fundamental as space; and it is time that holds the essence of life, and perhaps of all reality.
Time is an accumulation, a growth, a duration, where “duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances.
The past in its entirety is prolonged into the present and abides there actual and acting.
Duration means that the past endures, that nothing is lost.
Though we think with only a small part of our past; but it is with our entire past that we desire, will, and act.”
“Since time is an accumulation, the future can never be the same as the past, -
For a new accumulation arises at every step, and change is far more radical than we suppose…the geometric predictability of all things, Which is the goal of a mechanistic science, is only a delusion and a dream!”  
Bergson goes on in his compelling lyrical style:            
“For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature,
to mature is to go on creating one’s self endlessly. Perhaps all reality is time and duration, becoming and change.”
Bergson differed with Darwin's theory of adaptation to environment, and stated;
“Man is no passively adaptive machine, he is a focus of redirected force, a centre of creative evolution.”

Martin Heidegger, the German thinker in his ‘Being and Time’ of 1927, had said:
“We do not exist within time, but in a very real way we are time!”
Time is inseparable from human experience, since we can allow the past to exist in the present through memory;
And even allow a potential future occurrence to exist in the present due to our human ability to care, and be concerned about things.
Therefore we are not stuck in simple sequential or linear time, but can step out of it almost at will!

CONCLUDING  PART  TWO OF ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE
In this part I have tried to convey what the Ancient Greek Philosophers had felt about Time in a simplified way.
Also some thoughts of Medieval and Early Modern philosophers and what they had to say.
Where Sir Isaac Newton stands like a colossus with his Concept of Time, Laws of Motion, and Gravity.
Not forgetting Henri Bergson, one of my favourite philosopher, of the mid-19th and the mid-20th Century.
All through my narration I had tried to hold the interest of my readers, and also educated myself as a true knowledge seeker.
In my concluding Part Three I will cover few Modern Philosophers along with the relativistic concept of time.
Certainly not forgetting the space-time theory of our famous Albert Einstein!
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
  *ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY

When I was younger, I had this wild imagination that never stopped. I was constantly dreaming, constantly in a whole different world. This imagination was born out my hopeless desire for all things unrealistic and this burning determination to always be the best. See, if I was a princess for the day then you can bet I was the best **** princess around. No princess was nicer, more beautiful or more desperate for a prince than me.

And this imagination really helped me because inside my head, I’ve always felt lived all these different people. Now these people all look like me because they are me but all of them have polar opposite personalities. They all represent all the different personalities I have. And in this world I created they would all meet together and sit around a table at a tea party and talk and debate with each other. And this escape was crucial to my childhood because I was the kid who always failed personality tests. Now how this was possible, I wasn’t sure. I was always the last to finish them because each question was like its own test to me. One answer never applied because it was either all of the answers or none of them. When I finally submitted the test the results would always come up as “not available” or “try again.” And for so long, I wanted to know what personality type I was but I was never able to fit into these boxes that people had created. And when you’re in middle school, all you ever want to do is fit into this box. A box.

And I always had a hard time with the saying, “Be true to yourself!” Because I never understood which “self” they were talking about and I still don’t understand what that means actually.

But in my world, there were no personality types or “self-s” because all of my “me-s” got to be whoever they wanted to be. And there was no confusion or embarrassment or suppressing any of the people who lived inside me. And when I was meeting all the different people in my head I got to experience all the different aspects of me that when I was around people, I tried to hide because not all of them were “nice” and “polite.”

And while I got to know all these people, I realized that all of my stronger personalities were the rebellious, outspoken and not really “socially acceptable” ones. And during these encounters I realized that one was very ******. Now no one knows me as a “******” person or whatever that might mean. And my whole life I’ve struggled with trying to conceal this person inside me because I grew up in this environment that was scared of women sexuality. The church I grew up in, the youth group there had this, “*** outside of marriage will **** you” policy and only marriage *** is good *** and everything else is the devil and you will blow up if you have other ***. Now ironically, we had three girls in my youth group get pregnant that year which destroyed this perception of *** outside of marriage makes you blow up that I had, had. And it began this process of my really beginning to understand my sexuality, and not in the sense of like, feminist, claiming my body, I-can-do-whatever- I-want sexuality, but understanding what I liked and what I found attractive and really beginning to comprehend this personality that I never thought I was aloud to talk about. This environment that my youth group had created made me believe that I wasn’t aloud to have this personality, which was really hard for me because I thought, “well if this person is bad, then who else inside of me should I never show?”

And I began, “experimenting” I guess you could say—secretly—and I discovered at thirteen while I loved kissing boys that was all I liked. I remember the first time a guy wanted to do something more than kiss and I was utterly traumatized and confused. And while I loved one aspect of sexuality I realized that *** itself, absolutely repulsed me. Like the idea of seeing a boy naked terrorized me and thinking about being that vulnerable and open around another human being had no appeal to me whatsoever and it wasn’t until I was seventeen actually that the idea of *** actually had an appeal to it. Now I never told anyone this because I thought that this wasn’t normal at all and I wasn’t aloud to talk about it. I saw all these girls around me having *** and talking about it and I just sat there like a lost sheep trying to imagine it and wanting to curl into the fetal position.

And to this day, this idea of being so open about sexuality is so foreign to me. And along with discovering this, I also discovered that I loved being rebellious and taking a stand and “fighting for justice.” Now this was absolutely contrary to what I had been taught. I was taught to respect any authority figure no matter how dumb they were. And this concept was just mind boggling because while I had this intense need to please people and be the favorite, I also had this insane impulse to constantly question and debate authority. Which, this ended up being a game to me because I got so good at “respectfully” being a rebel—or a **** in my teachers eyes—that none of them could punish me but they would groan as I walked into the classroom. Now not being the favorite was a totally new concept to me that was introduced in high school, and I struggled for a long time with this idea that I couldn’t be this strong questioning person who couldn’t be concealed. I was constantly getting in debates with my mom or family members over “knowing your place as a teenager” which to me is the dumbest excuse for anything. Nothing ****** me off more than that saying because they act as if I’m less of a person with less of an opinion because I was a teenager. And this idea that this personality wasn’t aloud to be created one of the biggest internal conflicts I’ve ever experienced. Because while one person in me desired to please, this rebellious person was quickly taking over and I was testing out the “be true to yourself” philosophy.

For so long, I believed I shouldn’t have all these different personalities and I tired to tailor to the ones which people liked more while trying (and failing) to ignore the ones that people didn’t. And for so long, I believed that I was the only person with this problem and it wasn’t until way later in life that I realized that everyone has all these different personalities inside them. We are taught that we have to choose who we are and be “true to that self” when in reality, that is about as wrong as it gets. We are told to whom we are supposed to be true to without being given any room to test who we are and figure out which sides of us need to be let out. And don’t give each other the room to change everyday and to allow each person inside of us the room to breathe.

So my challenge is to be true to your imagination, because that’s where you get to discover all that’s inside you. And once you begin allowing yourself to be all the personalities that live inside you, you get to experience all the different aspects of life and this world that you need to. Hiding from these people inside you only makes them louder. So go on, give it a try.

We are all human beings
We all have our own lives
And different ways we live them
But each one of us is a writer
And this poem is for all of you

All of you who have virtues and use them in your writing
Those who use flashbacks and revisit mental photo albums

Beginning the story from the middle for that’s usually where you mind is at
Looking back then looking forward
Studying the past so you can be ready for what is to come

Recording catastrophes with a number two pencil

Tales and blurbs of tragedy
Caused by love or the lack there of

Rewards and punishment
Self-reliance and self-fulfillment

We are mere narrators
Humble, maybe unreliable
Equipped with numerous devices
Ironic Paradoxes
Red herrings
Fortuitous plot twists
Metaphors
Allegoric hyperboles
Analogies
Oxymorons and onomatopoeias

We sling Chekhov’s gun like bandits of literacy

We’re visionary revolutionaries
Revolution of the mind, body and soul

Changing ourselves and examining who and what we are
To become what we are destined to be
The best

Rejecting convention
Building our own paths
That lead to cliffhangers

Romantic lust
Comedic affairs
Dark massacres
Spiritual healing

Religious speculation
And the questioning of the way we, the people are being governed

We use the tools we are giving to sculpt new art that the world can stand in awe of

Personification
Symbolic imagery

Practicing pastiche with respect
Dionysian imitatio

Surreal reality
Defying mortality

Reiteration and retort

Using nature to express emotion and thought

Doubts and fear

Opposites
Morals and ethics

Satisfying curiosity

Parodying what we see
Embellishing just a little

We us word play to dive deep into the topic of conscious, subconscious and unconscious thought

Using satire to poke fun at the human condition,  its senses and perception of the universe to get readers thinking

Expressing our anger, our boundless joys
Desiring unknown pleasures

Seeing past the fallacies put before us

We write with great candor about war, personal conflicts, and self-abuse

With hinting undertones to give these ideas a second thought

We write of the supernatural, metaphysical mysteries
Outlandish, obscure mind boggling theories

As the clock ticks too fast for us and the characters we’ve created

Demolishing the fourth wall with a sledge hammer of defamiliarization

Epiphanies in a parking lot
Speaking in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person

Using fun things like anagrams and palindromes
Candy for the lovers of such things

Spontaneity is an understatement
Nonsense is an insulting overstatement
Absurdity seems to fit just right

We are chameleons
We can write in various forms
Streams of gratifying consciousness
Brilliant prose
Beautiful poetry

And chose to use or merely acknowledge the ways to achieve these forms
Rhetoric, rhythm  and rhyme
Meter and mora
Conceit and consonance
Assonance
Intonation
Working with phonaesthetics  

And accenting aesthetics

A poem can or could not be organized as such
If we want to get technical about it

We have a poem
With a number of verses
And in those verses
Are lines
And those lines might rhyme
And have a meter or rhythm
Stressed or unstressed syllables

In contrast to that we may write
Without all of that and use emotion
Feeling and structure our work with what we feel is the best way
Line breaks
Pauses and puns
Silly similes
Ambiguous antonyms  
Intonation, linguistics
Fight against the fascists of grammar and conservative correctness

So, in the end we are writers of a rainbow kaleidoscope forms, devices, ways and ideas

But we alone are the ones who make the world think
Make it move
Revolt
Renew
Learn
Look back
Remember
Cry
Smile
Forget
Ease

Write my friends write until your mind explodes and your fingers bleed

Read, read and become inspired
Even if what you’re reading is bad cheese

Forget getting published it’s the writing that matters
Disregard the off-putting, critical chatter

And if you think no one reads
Than be the seed and sprout a tree of astounding artistry
And let’s begin a new movement composed of ideals that will hold true forever
I might be preaching to the choir but it must be said that poetry; literature isn’t dead

"I just spasmed
As my life force left me.
At a rate of 2.3 pictometers per femtosecond."

"I hide behind the tears
Of a pretentious *****
Who laments himself at
Every
Available
Opportunity"

"Your premise assumes
That writing poetry
Would mitigate my boredom."

"Doing things you do not enjoy
Will serve no purpose
Other than remind you of how bored you are."

"I feel my life force
Being ****** out of me
Minute
By
Minute"

"Each minute that I endure
The mind-boggling ennui
Is another brain cell
That commits suicide
In order
To save
Its self."

"I may have to resort to poetry soon."

I was brought into this house
Ordered from the local furniture shop
Made to order according to specifications
I am a wingback,
Upholstered in full-grain leather  
True to my rich heritage
I was placed in the library
Amongst the illustrious works of famous writers
Half- a - century have passed, providing support
To the backbone of the family
Although tired, he finds solace in my cozy embrace
I give him my wings to fly into the world of literature
Cervantes, Bunyan, Bacon, Goehte, Dostoevsky, Chekov, Tolstoy
Some of the names from the illustrious collection
Not all were privileged to have a seat here
He was transported to each era, savoring the rich legacy
Of literature down the centuries
I was privy to the mind-boggling debates
Which he conducted with himself
Trying to reason each work of literature
A mere wingback rose to be a companion
Providing sturdy support on the mahogany legs
One fine day the reading session ended in deep slumber
Five decades of bonding and companionship came to an end
Now, I stand here, forlorn, at the corner of the library
Reminiscing the reading sessions, and siesta
The wingback does not have the wings to fly away from this bond




© Amitav (Radiance)

To my innocence, naivety, and viridity
Childish ways, high school days.
A mere three weeks, I say good bye
With a cry, a tear, a sigh.

To blue slacks, and a polo
Black shoes and white socks
To my pink skirt, and white blouse,
Pleated, soon to be folded.

To the OHS rooms of our first and second years:
The broken windows, and tantrum-kicked chairs,
The broom box behind the spider webbed chalkboard,
Messages on the wall hand printed in red and green.

The broken doorknobs, and broken floorboards,
Carved armchairs, and eaten chalks,
Missing brooms and dustpans and garbage cans and rugs
That show up in who knows where
Stolen by jani- we know who.

The witnesses and victims
To our random laughter (from some Chinese-looking girl’s corny joke).
Our random tears.
Our not so random learnings.
The pillars of our memories.

To the PF rooms of our third year:
The storage room turned gigantic garbage can and dressing room (maybe because ours keep being stolen)
The exploding socket causing sparks to fly (and us to fly away from it), and
The amazing “alambre” lock; who knows who installed (as if that could keep us away).
The earthquake resistant rooms would be missed.

To the New High School Building of our last years:
The kicked door (not our fault!), and cancerous blinds (like hairs falling after chemo),
The jigsaw floor (not sure if better than broken floorboards),
The “Halayan 2012”, and
The mind-boggling “no key needed” lockers.


The UTMT with its fair share of mango sentences,
The old guidance office now turned “tambayan”, and
The Computer lab with its fragile yellow chairs and bruised bums.

To Ibong Adarna plays, and the half cooked uncooked Teriyaki,
Generation X (and Generation NOW! and Generation Facebook),
Jai ** dances, and cheerleading,
Kalagon Kamo Namon,
And Mickey Mickey Mouse Kabit-bintana memories.

To the NikJep Tandem,
Kanlaon Boys Behind the Flowers,
D.H.A.I.N.G. (not sure if they remember this),
Fred vs Gino version
And DewBheRhieTart.

Keep the volcanoes of memories burning.

To blue paint, and blue shirts,
And Geometry teaching us
“There are a lot of solutions to a problem.
We just have to find one that suits us.”

To saying “***”,
And cooking imbutido.
And wearing (for some designing) reduced,
Reused, recycled clothing.
And dissecting.
And parrot-Filipino teachers (she gave me P30 for load though).

Keep the river of rumination flowing.

To being scared of one whole sheet of paper,
Two becoming one,
Party rocking to make up for the tears,
And knowing we should have won.

To the hand sanitizer girls,
The Cream-o-holics,
The Canterbury Crusaders,
The Valenciana eaters.

May our tree of friendship continue growing.

To our winnings!

The glow in the dark madness,
The Lakan at Mutya clutch-heart-moments,
The Sports Fest *******,
Basketball girls’ coronation!

To the fieldtrips and failed trips,
To air conditioned crammings,
And space and time bending
To comparing notes (and sometimes other things)
Copying notes, sometimes photocopying
(Not Xeroxing)
Sharing words, phrases, sentences
And giving pictures (via Bluetooth).

May you keep walking on the right direction,

To the expectations achived,
Broken, overtaken.
All the skepticism,
Constructive criticism.

All of it.

The in-your-face-we-did-it-baby-
We-are-awesome-you-can’t-bring-us-do­wn-
Coz-we-rise-back-up-attitude.

To Arielle
And Mhae

To Amica
Marie
Narzcisa
Cyan
Fred
Theo
Alvinson
Anthony
Faith
Karmil­la
Matt
Jeffson
Lourince

To Carolyn

To Makayla

To the thirty-five castaways in this room
The thirty-five castaways who struggled
The thirty-five castaways who persevered
The thirty-five castaways who fought, cried, made up, laughed, shared, gave, back-stabbed, and front-stabbed, celebrated, suffered, passed
Thirty-five
Thirty-five castaways who loved,
Thirty-five

Thirty-five castaways who made it, who did it.

To Nikki
Hazel
Alyssa
Gef
Veni
Alex
Jaykee
Bernard
Myra
Vince
Chanta­lle
Josen
Jerian
Shaira
J
Uriah
Ihra
Renz
Bless
Steffany
Angel
Fl­orey
Bernadine
Antonette
Rency
Owen
Majah
Gino
Marcelo
Ney
Keith
­Joselle
And Jessa,

We did it guys.
We really did.

We are all sad, broken, shy
Caught up in one boggling goodbye:
That was not said, or heard
Or meant.

We are all shy, broken, sad
Counting at night what in those days we had:
What was stolen, taken, sent
No good meant.

We are all broken, broken, broken.

(Descendant of the Eight Small Furies)

Cold frigged and wet but not icy and not yet. Two laborers at docks
find camaraderie in talks, tho’ their neighbors bustle by as they unload shipping stocks,  

For the kinsfolk miss a nothing a light mist of breath when huffing.  
The women like to pout as the crassy men do shout, shine on awhile whistling, Inn-keepers at shops coo their bristling and Old Wicca ones seen hissing from low, low talk in whisperings,

Although the morning bright the seas are high and not retreating, weather cool and fleeting, the peoples sounds a blend of bleating, as wily sheep would gather to speak about a matter for it is not the people’s spoke of that draws faint sorts of blather.

On this day...rains are much to rather, feigning raspy talons cloaked in chatter and from stores to shores to boat, seas, lakes, lochs, bridges over moat, not as to say they gloat, or ramble to invoke which fear of and from it stoke the gossip on one surly bloke…

For on this day everyone is talking in this seaside town in Eire. A hero undone by gossip but none can be called a liar. For about whom and what of -a man of such great fire.

Celebrity renown, born and raised but not settled down. Within its boundaries a-proper but of such character to copper, to change tasty meat to fat and bone, awe in disposition down to tone, mind boggling this gent whose life god gave as a gift of own.

In a perplexity of fright, brought tragedy each night and none could get away, from the obvious decay, due brutal awful fray, to make a beast from a shining dove, what the hell was God thinking of?

The crisper ears do so hear though not quite enough to whet, the imaginings to happenings they speak about just yet.  So hastily move spies, as I tell you of the sighs, the indignity and pride, swallowed with a town’s growing angry tide,

Upon this night so they see a man, creep who once the pride of Dan, loved more above all here in Tan, his birthplace this old briny-land but lately fondness on the wan, oh here he comes to close in again, to wane and wax vaudevillian, end up by dark a plain villain, as his face turns a shade of vermilion, electric ghost of Kirlian, eclectic host of deviling and calculated mind disheveling,

Pumped of mead or whiskey arguments are risky. Against his manner and girth, intoxicated nature -or mental worth. Sheer size attests his power, muck and mirth to fallen valor, the change is said to wow us, proven brute against all prowess, as such preferred and fight and such to nightly fright,

Béarthr is this man of once, of promises found to be just fronts, hanging around a town's high perch…though seen at the bar as sulk and lurch, or testy to some called a sailor who know not the fear of old dear Balor?

Sullen rent asunder, quick to wit when buntered, try with fists this skunkard; you brought low as a punter, hail to hell with such a drunkard! To stand and watch in awe, as blood and cracks and calls with cries and screams at falls, at doors torn from building halls, no end or stop to pause, sheer terror fighting brawls with fists he lays the laws, a violent testament to theater,

The burly beast named Béarthr!

Eight levels down to hell with him, each evening a town made grim but not tonight and nevermore, a double barrel out missing door, a silence from frosty place our cavern and dead beast felled on floor of tavern!  

If you find yourself frisky one night and driving through our Tan. If you’ve got salt are brisk for fight and hold your weight in sand…
…then make your way to such a place, renowned for such a meter,

You’ll find a name above the door;

O’ Ochtar beag the Béarthr!

The first afternoon I can recall,
you grabbed my hand
and took me outside.
You surprised me, I said.
Because that noon
is the first time
I saw that lake.

The second afternoon I can recall,
you called me by name
and we went outside.
I brought you lunch, and
we drank some
mind-boggling liquid
which you stole from that old man
living beside that lake.
We lied on the grass, and
if that was not a dream, I hope not,
I felt your breath with mine, and your lips
on mine.

The third afternoon I can recall,
you went to my bed
and shook me awake.
I was mesmerized to see you again,
but you’ve changed.
The colour in your eyelids, your cheeks,
and your lips was artificial.
If you haven’t spoken, I
wouldn’t be able to recognize you.
Sitting at the edge of my bed,
you’ve said the name of that lake,
and I knew  it was you still.

The fourth afternoon I can recall,
you were 18 and still cried on my shoulder
not because you were hurt, but
because you were happy  getting married.
Flowers, chairs, and a priest
waited  for you beside that lake.
I was about to cry at that moment, knowing
it wasn’t me you were marrying.

The fifth afternoon I can recall,
you yelled at me,
“I can’t live this way!”
I asked you why, but
you didn’t tell me, you showed me.
That kiss beside that lake was wrong.
In all of the reasons why it was wrong,
I found one which is right.
You loved me the way I loved you.

The sixth afternoon I can recall,
you left me
alone beside that lake.
Yes, you loved me, but
as you have said you need to love yourself more.
I can’t hold you any blame for leaving,
I understood, and I lived with the promise
that you’ll come back to me –
in one piece or even in ashes.

The seventh afternoon I can recall,
you were barely alive.
You looked old, with dark circles around your eyes.
You hid them with glittery make-up.
“This lake haven’t changed.” you said.
I looked at that lake,
its beauty and all its glory
looked nothing
next to you.

The eighth afternoon I can recall
was the worst of them all.
You didn’t call, you didn’t leave,
you didn’t cry, you didn’t go to my bed.
And you weren’t barely alive.
Someone wrote me a letter, not you,
to take you where you and bring you back home.
You didn’t find yourself, you’ve lost it
To yhe hero
in your veins, who ate you in your sleep.

This afternoon,
I carry you, with all but  my shattered heart,
inside a jar.
My tears are one with that lake,
but I’ll bury you beside it.
I know you’re happy.
Your soul one with that lake.

too many options and the head keeps swivelling
and choosing the way to go can be boggling
in the end despite yourself you find your deepest self has carried you forward and
its your deepest self living the present moment

and what is the only variant of classical
music, heard on a radio?

    well... there's the fama radio night
sessions - with not adverts
   radiofama.com.pl -

it might be your take on what the french
tell the english, i.e.: euro-trash...

but no adverts...

                          and there is no reason
to concede to reviving punk,
hippy music didn't see a revival,
why should punk?

   a variant of classical music radio,
akin to bbc 2, or classic fm...

       that "oddity" of a morphed bbc 4
internet coverage, akin to lionel nation...
and what i mean by that,
is not h. d. thompson's gonzo...

          the allure of the, un-scripted...
and all of this is raw, flesh,
language at a smithfield
                   or a billingsgate...

talk-radio as the logical conlusion
of exposing your child to classical music...
it's genius -
   reverting back to classical music
once you're older, and don't play
an instrument?
                      what's the point?

dr steve turley bashing out a medieval
mash-up on the guitar...
            and that's "not" even
inspiration for a rock star status...
i like his smugness -
    it's... zesty, lime-like:
             certainty of the twinkling
of the eye that consists of:
    a remaining - intact, i.e., sane.

bbc radio 4?
      what, with zee archers nonsense?
this radio novella
that keeps propping itself up
like a bad take on eastenders without
the kray brothers?
          
                  talk-radio is all about
a non-existent "script":
       the flamboyance of spontaneity...
with the crux, being?
                
                                     ensō -

the only aspect of ζεν, a ταoιστ might
respect.

      p.s.
                  do i believe in u.f.o.  s?
(****, acronyms and the plural article
attached to them, mind boggling)
     no... but i've seen one, so the belief impetus
is, kind'ah missing in me...
             i've transcended speculation,
a question-worthiness on the matter...
since the question no longer manifests
      itself in the narration impetus?
the impetus for narrative, is narration per se;
and how lovely, it is to see
a noumenon...
      when the world of phenomenons
reads like this:

  the times newspaper, saturday, july 21,
2018,
               OVER 70,000 CHILDREN
PUT ON PILLS FOR DEPRESSION...

great headline...
     alas, a chemistry degree (3rd)
from edinburgh uni.,
     am i chemo-phobic?
                 i should ask myself that
same question, when i next
brush my teeth, apply shampoo to
my cranium,
   or wash my hands.

apart from genitals -
   i'm having this sensation of a tongue
contra mind "dysphoria"...
                 it's not exactly a limb...
it's not like an amputee with
a ghost limb...
                         more like:
                   a mind, a body,
   a soul... and then the wriggly worm,
raised up on high in novels...
and then groveling in areas
where rabbis didn't take to revision
with a pair of scissors...
   buttermouth from the oral ***.

When I was chief creative officer for Liz Claiborne Inc., I spent a good amount of time on the road hosting fashion shows highlighting our brands. Our team made a point of retaining models of various sizes, shapes and ages, because one of the missions of the shows was to educate audiences about how they could look their best. At a Q&A; after one event in Nashville in 2010, a woman stood up, took off her jacket and said, with touching candour: “Tim, look at me. I’m a box on top, a big, square box. How can I dress this shape and not look like a fullback?” It was a question I’d heard over and over during the tour: Women who were larger than a size 12 always wanted to know, How can I look good, and why do designers ignore me?

At New York Fashion Week, which began Thursday, the majority of American women are unlikely to receive much attention, either. Designers keep their collections tightly under wraps before sending them down the runway, but if past years are any indication of what’s to come, plus-size looks will be in short supply. Sure, at New York Fashion Week in 2015, Marc Jacobs and Sophie Theallet each featured a plus-size model and Ashley Graham debuted her plus-size lingerie line. But these moves were very much the exception, not the rule.

I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women. It’s a puzzling conundrum. The average American woman now wears between a size 16 and a size 18, according to new research from Washington State University. There are 100 million plus-size women in America, and, for the past three years, they have increased their spending on clothes faster than their straight-size counterparts. There is money to be made here ($20.4 billion (U.S.), up 17 per cent from 2013). But many designers — dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk — still refuse to make clothes for them.

In addition to the fact that most designers max out at size 12, the selection of plus-size items on offer at many retailers is paltry compared with what’s available for a size 2 woman. According to a Bloomberg analysis, only 8.5 per cent of dresses on Nordstrom.com in May were plus-size. At J.C. Penney’s website, it was 16 per cent; Nike.com had a mere five items — total.

I’ve spoken to many designers and merchandisers about this. The overwhelming response is, “I’m not interested in her.” Why? “I don’t want her wearing my clothes.” Why? “She won’t look the way that I want her to look.” They say the plus-size woman is complicated, different and difficult, that no two size 16s are alike. Some haven’t bothered to hide their contempt. “No one wants to see curvy women” on the runway, Karl Lagerfeld, head designer of Chanel, said in 2009. Plenty of mass retailers are no more enlightened: under the tenure of chief executive Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch sold nothing larger than a size 10, with Jeffries explaining that “we go after the attractive, all-American kid.”

This a design failure and not a customer issue. There is no reason larger women can’t look just as fabulous as all other women. The key is the harmonious balance of silhouette, proportion and fit, regardless of size or shape. Designs need to be reconceived, not just sized up; it’s a matter of adjusting proportions. The textile changes, every seam changes. Done right, our clothing can create an optical illusion that helps us look taller and slimmer. Done wrong, and we look worse than if we were naked.

Have you shopped retail for size 14-plus clothing? Based on my experience shopping with plus-size women, it’s a horribly insulting and demoralizing experience. Half the items make the body look larger, with features like ruching, box pleats and shoulder pads. Pastels and large-scale prints and crazy pattern-mixing abound, all guaranteed to make you look infantile or like a float in a parade. Adding to this travesty is a major department-store chain that makes you walk under a marquee that reads “WOMAN.” What does that even imply? That a “woman” is anyone larger than a 12 and everyone else is a girl? It’s mind-boggling.

Project Runway, the design competition show on which I’m a mentor, has not been a leader on this issue. Every season we have the “real women” challenge (a title I hate), in which the designers create looks for non-models. The designers audibly groan, though I’m not sure why; in the real world, they won’t be dressing a seven-foot-tall glamazon.

This season, something different happened: Ashley Nell Tipton won the contest with the show’s first plus-size collection. But even this achievement managed to come off as condescending. I’ve never seen such hideous clothes in my life: bare midriffs; skirts over crinoline, which give the clothes, and the wearer, more volume; see-through skirts that reveal *******; pastels, which tend to make the wearer look juvenile; and large-scale floral embellishments that shout “prom.” Her victory reeked of tokenism. One judge told me that she was “voting for the symbol” and that these were clothes for a “certain population.” I said they should be clothes all women want to wear. I wouldn’t dream of letting any woman, whether she’s a size 6 or a 16, wear them. Simply making a nod toward inclusiveness is not enough.

This problem is difficult to change. The industry, from the runway to magazines to advertising, likes subscribing to the mythology it has created of glamour and thinness. Look at Vogue’s “Shape Issue,” which is ostensibly a celebration of different body types but does no more than nod to anyone above a size 12. For decades, designers have trotted models with bodies completely unattainable for most women down the runway. First it was women so thin that they surely had eating disorders. After an outcry, the industry responded by putting young teens on the runway, girls who had yet to exit puberty. More outrage.

But change is not impossible. There are aesthetically worthy retail successes in this market. When helping women who are size 14 and up, my go-to retailer is Lane Bryant. While the items aren’t fashion with a capital F, they are stylish (but please avoid the cropped pants — always a no-no for any woman). And designer Christian Siriano scored a design and public relations victory after producing a look for Leslie Jones to wear to the “Ghostbusters” red-carpet premiere. Jones, who is not a diminutive woman, had tweeted in despair that she couldn’t find anyone to dress her; Siriano stepped in with a lovely full-length red gown.

Several retailers that have stepped up their plus-size offerings have been rewarded. In one year, ModCloth doubled its plus-size lineup. To mark the anniversary, the company paid for a survey of 1,500 American women ages 18 to 44 and released its findings: Seventy-four per cent of plus-size women described shopping in stores as “frustrating”; 65 per cent said they were “excluded.” (Interestingly, 65 per cent of women of all sizes agreed that plus-size women were ignored by the fashion industry.) But the plus-size women surveyed also indicated that they wanted to shop more. More than 80 per cent said they’d spend more on clothing if they had more choices in their size and nearly 90 per cent said they would buy more if they had trendier options. According to the company, its plus-size shoppers place 20 per cent more orders than its straight-size customers.

Online start-up Eloquii, initially conceived and then killed by The Limited, was reborn in 2014. The trendy plus-size retailer, whose top seller is an over-the-knee boot with four-inch heels and extended calf sizes, grew its sales volume by more than 165 per cent in 2015.

Despite the huge financial potential of this market, many designers don’t want to address it. It’s not in their vocabulary. Today’s designers operate within paradigms that were established decades ago, including anachronistic sizing. (Consider the fashion show: It hasn’t changed in more than a century.) But this is now the shape of women in this nation, and designers need to wrap their minds around it. I profoundly believe that women of every size can look good. But they must be given choices. Separates — tops, bottoms — rather than single items like dresses or jumpsuits always work best for the purpose of fit. Larger women look great in clothes skimming the body, rather than hugging or cascading. There’s an art to doing this. Designers, make it work.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

the heart is the most deceitful thing there is.
the brain knows that.
we just find it hard to understand.
  
what we generally perceive as love is nothing
but a mere illussion of what we're missing,
what we want.

the rush of emotions we suddenly experience
is so overwhelming that we can't grasp
its true intention.

we are building false hope in ourselves,
and we feed the thought
and excitement.

when we deeply think about it,
we are just inlove with the thought
of being in love.

it's more of a feel-good trigger
we unleash if we lost that
adrenaline.

it's that fairytale ending we have in our
imaginations that waters the seed
of romance in our hearts.

sad thing is we don't live in a fairytale.
i might insist pessism in your thought,
hey i don't write your love story.

blame it all in the confusion and lies
about love and your fairytale dreams,
your ever-after might not be within reach.

love is an illussion.
a trickery even rocket scientist can't explain.
mind boggling fantasies about prince and princesses.

but there is hope. ( an accomplice)

hope that even if you don't live in a castle nor rule a kingdom
believe that someone will treat you as the princess
far better you imagined yourself.

and when that day comes you might want not stay in neverneverland.
you don't grow old there.
what's the point of i-wanna-grow-old-with-you line?

love is a dangerous and a beautiful thing to enjoy.
its like sinking in a quicksand of bliss.
or swimming in a sea of chocolatey sea of tears.

but remember that in the midst
of everything you
beLIEve
in is a
LIE.

be careful.

I seen a empty bottle in the trash.
There was also napkins next to the trash.
I wondered how many people use these napkins..
It's stated recycle. Recycle what ? Trees? Regurgitated garbage we eat over and over again ? How do we still have a mountain of trash. Plato and Socrates knew something. Perhaps eject it to space. Maybe we can **** our ozone if we just burn it. Cause earth swallows anything including pasts and futures. Who's in control of Earth's health. Cause we **** on it. And that bottle... Of course is full of **** and vinegar. Release all tension and let's rise to the stratosphere. Floating cities above Earth's gravity.. no pulling of our new system down.  Elisium on the moon. Perhaps a ride in a roller coaster to the darkside will thrill you more. Maybe it's not as cold and chilling as we thought.. and Earth's warmth and feelings will make a change like a landmass arise or one to fall..
I've fell many times. Now I've married the other half of my mind.
People climbing out of oceans asking about ships.. but my dreamscape makes me the hero in my pirate flag informaniac boom. Cannons and truth. My voice in thought and control of the room.
I blow horns like harps of trains and riots of mind boggling facts. I am and Lord knows Jesus will help me like a snub nose I tuck. I'll play gangster while my inner ghost fires the bullets..
I'm not violent as what sin runs in his blood. I'm just everything else and it's time I leave after passing and giving peace to my son. His family is mine and we deserve heaven.. same as 144 thousand.. all for order of the Bright Apollo flights and fry minds in a hystaria historical society of terror. Longer days hotter with white out snow. Raining tears and explicit when our children explore.
Yes I ******* .. it's better then the alternative.. making more humans live... rebirth and love now Is in a different narrative.

.with rob zombie's: ***** liquor in the background,
a man perched on windowsill,
              one foot tapping along,
                                 the other foot folded
and sat on...

    come to think of it,
                 why am i not bothered,
   not bothered by the neighbours?
well, one ****** tried it,
complained about me smoking out
of my window,
   and that one time i was making a b.b.q.
and he said: 'you should have warned
us!'               the ****?
            all beause he had been doing
his washing and was drying his clothes
on a washing line, 20 metres from my b.b.q.,
and now they're moving house.

the english,
     they always want a house with a garden...
in the vicinity?
    you know how many times i've
seen the english use their gardens?
              roughly 5 times per year...
they rarely even attempt to switch
the garden to a ******* venture when
the one toilet is occupied by someone
taking a shower...
                      for all the wants of a garden,
i haven't seen anyone around here
take to planting a cherry tree,
            or burrying their cremated cat...
i guess i must be the odd one out...
            i mean: i'll integrate up to a point,
but then... well there's just me,
               rumours...
rumours...
      apparently donald tusk got
the job as the president of the european
council, because he mingled
   with frau kanzler
   over the position...
                     **** me...
        27 prime ministers,
    but only 1 chancellor...
                  who said the stereotype
of jews being good with money,
never made it to the stereotype of germans?
   the rumour is...
   he got the job...
       only because his father was
in the wehrmacht...
             after all, he did write
a bestseller book about the city of Danzig...
no surprise there,
  given that Danzig was reminiscent
of a city-state akin to Athens or Sparta...
mind you, better than any movie
on a friday night,
   tuning in on the 66th minute
of Liverpool vs. Southampton...
                waiting for the 1 - 1 draw...
but the genius of jürgen jürgen (klopp)
came through...
                     funny that,
people with funny surnames...
             dialect distinctions...
      klop in western slavic implies
the ******* - ide na klopa -
      i'm going to sit on a toilet...
            ****** must have been a funny surname
before its notorious prominence...
but rarely do you get to see 28 minutes
of a football match of this sort of quality...
    wolverhampton wanderers...
they're playing a very interesting piece
of football this season...
very portugese barzilian-esque...
      everybody knows that
        italian football is boring
  (too many passes),
   and german football is just too predictable...
but how the hell did Liverpool
come up with 2 goals in a period of 28 minutes...
mind-boggling...
       i'm always there for the sport per se,
i don't really feel inclined
to have a vested interest in the sport
as to pick a side,
               what once was
          religion, now becomes infused
in sports... seriously...
  count me out of this secular take
on religiosity...
            i'll pay my dues: were deserved
dues are due...
                   that's probably i much
prefer the olympics to this coming farce
of a world cup...
   how many footballers are going
to drop dead, from heat exhaustion?
we must thank our camel cockey bwovers
for cracking up the heat
          in air-conditioned stadiums...
once upon a time, the arabs had,
enviable traits...
   now? with all that wealth?
                                         take a guess;
if muhammad was raised from
the dead?
                     you'd see a forest
of pikes, on top would sit, decapitated heads
of his own people...
         but that's a wild idea,
perhaps even he, couldn't avoid
the temptation;
nonetheless, is it wrong to say that some
sports are over-represented?
   well, d'uh!
                 olympics comes,
and i always look forward to classical
wrestling matches,
    archery,
                             ha ha... ping-pong...
sure... none of the tennis allure...
  but it's a welcome break from
mainstream sports...
                                 and this whole
team religiosity influence...
                  that **** bores me to death...
clearly religion didn't die,
it just morphed...
                oh, really? it's that time of year?
the one time of the year
where i become a gambler?
   what? it's the quiche thing to do
in england, a bit like sipping
                 pimm's and eating eaton mess
at wimbledon...
       the grand national...
   betting on a horse...
                     and just to prove i'm no
gambler - why would i dream about
going to las vegas?
                   that shitshow of a town?
all the best strip-clubs in the world:
but no brothel.
      eh?!
                 tiger roll (7 to 2)
is attempting to make history,
     by clinging to: two years in a row...
i only have 4 quid to spend on the bet...
   so 2 horses...
               2 quid each...
                         hmm...
                      'further rain would help
him to step forward'
             i checked the weather forecast
(the grand national happens somewhere
south of liverpool, i think)
                     rainy...
overcast...     step back (25 to 1)...
                         now a compensation
horse...
                          i'll need a few more whiskies
before i make this blind bet lucky hope...

i'm not betting on tiger roll (7 to 2) -
the odds are not wildcard enough...

mind you, not being a gambling *****:
i do know that rolling tobacco
needs to be fresh,
   slightly moist, in order to roll it,
you can still roll the dry tobacco,
but then you'd also require
obc cigarette tubes,
         and one of those "gizmos" /
machines, to pull off
             a perfect match...
no in a millions years will you get
out a perfect rollie
with dry, pall mall tobacco...
when no golden virginia is available...
point: but you're also
not going to **** dry the filter
with dry tobacco...
harder to roll,
               but an easier smoke...

anyway...
   back to the grand national...
look, i'm no dustin hoffman
rainman hack...
         i felt like ******* away
4 quid's worth on an event, sue me...

   1             up for review (25 - 1)
         'could relish this test;
      must be a contender'

2a            folsom blue  (50 - 1)
          'mud-lover; stays well
   but at veteran stage'

2b           general principle (40 - 1)
     'best not ignore this irish
national winner'

3            ramses de telilee   (25 - 1)
             'welsh national second;
               stays well and improving'

4   ballyoptic    (28 - 1)
   'scottish national second;
                   cannot rule out'

  5a       mala beach (50 - 1)
               'fresh; could suit;
              a lively outsider'

    5b go conquer      (33 - 1)
         'bids to give his trainer
a third national'

      5c     lake view lad      (14 - 1)
             'improving steadily and
this trip should suit'

   5d jury duty    (16 - 1)
     'should relish this trip.
         could get a positive verdict'

6 vieux lion rouge             (33 - 1)
     'has tried three times in
this; fourth time lucky?'

   7       bless the wings                (66 - 1)
              'would be the oldest winner
       since 1853'

so...
      gambling, fascinating,
   how there's no objectivity argument,
and all the sort of superstitions associated
with it... a truly, magnanimous,
secular age...
   football as a religion,
   gambling on horses as the trials
of fate / luck / whatever belief...

       truly... gratifying...
   and i don't imply that in any pompous
sense, i'm about to invest 4 quid
in the whole affair!

   my pick?
              step back 25 to 1 odds
first choice...
   so it's either between
the mud-lover folsom blue... 50 to 1 odds,
ah... i'll need more wizard like
uncertainty when it comes
to gambling,
repeating to myself:
   there's no such thing as luck,
there's no such thing as luck,
gambling is only subjective,
gambling is the reiteration
of a religious experience,
        it's the sensible option,
it's the sensible option, ****...
i'll just split the 4 quid over 4 horses
rather than bet 2 quid on 2...

per quid:
                      step back
                      jury duty
                      up for review
                      go conquer / folsom blue

****...
                   no wonder i never got
into gambling...
         i never fathomed the aspect
of winning
as much as i never fathomed
the aspect of losing,
   or how they're paired up
     and consecrated on the same
altar of, "thrill"...

    that cut               /
betweeen
       go conquer  and folsom blue...

horses have the oddest names...
          dogs?
                 probably the shittest names
in the whole of the kingdom...
oscar darshan...
                            quorus...
these being cat names...
                                           go figure.

Doors slide open, you walk out in slow motion.

Just another day,
Trying to find a way
To make the pain subside
But you're broken inside
Trying to find a place to hide, but no need.

You're invisible. In your mind, you live life unseen.
Why does it hurt?
Why does it feel as if your shirt's too tight at the collar?
Struggling to breath.
Struggling to leave.
This space inside your heart.
Trying to forget. Undecided. Confused. Lost. Regret?

People fly by, trying to get by
Pushing their way through
Pushing right past you
Right by you
Right through you.
Fighting back to hold those tears
Trying not to show those fears.
Why? How? Does it have to be this way?
Why is there nothing left to say?
These thoughts float around in your mind and
Your life becomes simply... Grey.

Make a left around the corner,
Brush your hair aside,
Now you can't hide
Maybe it's time to start over...
Maybe it's time to let go...
Not everyone is angry
Not everyone is horrible
Not everyone is mean.

While you tried to go unseen, I saw you.
I saw you.
I felt what you were, heard what you thought, tasted what you craved
You're beauty so rare, so unique, so breath-taking, so mind-boggling, so heart-wrenching.
Did you think the world is blind?
Do you think for one second that you can stay out of my mind?! What mind..?
I lost that when I saw you.
And with my mind, my heart went too.
And crazy dreams I started chasing...
How did you expect to go unnoticed, when you're just so **** amazing?
Like black on white.
Like dark on light.
With strength and might you snatched my heart
Without realization of the cost.
Could it be that you're just a part of my imagination
Or is this just my hopes flying too high?
It can't be, not I. This isn't like me.
Why can't I see anyone but you?



You carry on through life
People pushing past you, flying by
And you think you're unnoticed.
Well how can this be?
Because the thing YOU didn't notice
Is that the one going unnoticed
Just so happens to be *me.

variation in what's dyslexic in English:          roy-     (+)     -al - like Al Pacino - or? roy-       (+)        -all - a different slug for a tongue caged behind the 32; alternatively say: casino royal - two pronunciations of the same word, and no distinctive two-lane stresses added to say them intentionally with variance - basically one variation is missing an acute a (á) - alter to acute: dentistry's alphabet - say A - you end up adding an invisible hark of prolonging a sound from ~aye into ahhhh; the tetragrammaton is more than a noun, the Hebrews didn't see it coming, the two H variations are involved in how diacritical marks are asserted and used - i too thought it was something to do with déjà vu  - but it turns out it isn't that simple - how diacritical marks are asserted and used, or upon second suggestion: how they're not used, and what complications arise from omitting them.

for someone as concerned with people's ****** lives
as *richard von krafft-ebing was,
with his mangum opous: psychopatia sexualis -
i'm surprised he didn't throw a *** party -
stage an **** - richard brautigan apparently read
this Victorian - may i say trash? -  compendium
and giggles with friends; modernity has no stamina
for the seemingly idyllic *** lives of bowler hat
gentlemen - a sample from psychopatia sexualis:
homosexual feeling as an acquired manifestation
of box sexes (the androgynous stipend to exercise
all mouth **** and ****) - however you like it,
quote: almost every self-****** individual (originally
masturbator) at last reaches a point where, frightened
on learning the the results of the vice, or on
experiencing them (νευρασθενια), or leg by example
or seduction to the opposite ***, he wishes to free himself
of the vice and re-instate his ****** life.
you could say that, unless of course you're put off
when a girl reads you a questionnaire from the cosmopolitan
magazine, and you've seen too many Jame Bond movies,
or heard stories - or how you figured: well,
totalitarian governments aided heterosexual marriages,
championed them with the standard myths,
democracy doesn't really do that... democracy likes
the odd fetish... hence with the aid of science the fetish
marriages - surrogate prostitutes aplenty -
that's not ONE HOUR AT £120 A POP... THIS IS NINE MONTHS!
someone once lived and said: Jews and homosexuals run
the show - i think it might have been a Bukowski citation -
yeah, but who's the audience and not the puppets?
the politically, what's the word? ah, uncomfortable -
there's a strategic unit in medicine that's not the MI5
or the MI6 that deals with them under the alias P.S. -
not post-scriptum, but paranoid schizophrenic -
formerly known as premature dementia -
to me creative, to others worth sedating - meaning:
why would i write about western society in defence or
in apologetic language like C. S. Lewis and his love
affair with Christianity when i'm pretty sure i'm not
writing about utopia? why? oddly enough niece is also
said likewise for Nice - or 'aw, how nice.'
staged on the promenade des anglais - is this a clue?
anyone in touch with the security forces?
could be a pattern clue - now there are two fronts to be
worried about, the achoo right - boy, what a sneeze,
and the already involved actors -
mind boggling, how, ever, could, it, have, happened?
and i swear language was intended to be flexible,
like a gymnast - flex flex flex - which is strange that
the unimaginative always attack from their rat cages
bewildered at seeing a way out of a maze and then blocking
it (e.g. Ezra Pound, mm, the prime fascist of them all) -
it's called censorship, but in the west it's hardly a Stalinist
plot (believe, it's not utopia, i don't understand this
collective delusion that it is - somehow - and indeed,
somehow it isn't - it's called a superiority complex -
the same happened in Iraq - coverage almost zero -
subterfuge requests all over the media - now i have to live
as ethnically placed in close alignment with the people
that regurgitate all this hype - i have absolutely no reason
not to fake a clownish tear and whatnot -
it just is. so yeah, why didn't rich von krafft-ebing throw
an ****? a swingers' ball to cure all the pathology noted?
even now, or *** lives are hardly concerning -
why poets **** over the book of genesis
and leave the other books to themselves - reducing
the book of exodus into only one pair leaving -
it becomes harder and harder to relate to these books
and the people that venerate them after reading Don Quixote -
it really does - it's almost like talking to an illiterate literate
person - as agonising as it is to say it, it's exactly that.
i wonder if anyone bothered including the prefix in-
to all the scientific words in the dictionary - denoted:
in-pathology, in-sanity etc. - i.e. the first person accounts -
i do it because i would hate to go back to the gym
and complications of talking over a sunday roast -
my life in a nutshell? my laptop was so ***** that i decided to
clean it today - anti-bacterial wipes and dried with kitchen towels -
i thought the mouse of the laptop was broken,
ages ago i bought a mini-mouse with a USB port -
after cleaning the laptop, to my disbelief, the laptop mouse
started working (you know, that little touch-patch of plastic
towing two clicks) - that's life, uncomplicated -
a marvel to behold such daily problems - bound by choice
we choose what is to worry us - the next
chapter in my adventure with Kant?
the critique of all theology pouring out from the
speculative principles of the mind -
so for i've passed the ontological, the cosmological
and the theologically-physical impossibilities for the
existence of an absolutely necessary being - even if atheists,
we're all chipping in - basis? presupposition of such
a being and argued counter (cf. Satanic rebellion) -
not the agnostic quasi-supposition (basically speculative
tact) - at 274 (page no.) ending at 442 (page no.) -
oh i'll finish it - transcendental methodology should
be interesting - it's just a question of how much distraction
becomes fused with blank pixel pages and my irritability
as to how or why poetry ought to be stripped from
banal / predictable technique - rhyme is definitely go,
listen to BBC Radio 1 at any time and you can just hear
rhyme ****** - well, if painting could be stripped down
further than cubism - i don't see why poetry
can't have conversational overtones to it, one of the few
unearthed secrets of modern intimacy, just sitting there,
like ducks.

Told dumb ***** I didn't write nothing about her.
Did dumb ***** believe nobody is ignorant like her?
Hell no dumb ***** started robbing and stealing and lying
about how poems of all on here are hers and said hell no when
all on here asked dumb ***** to remove poems.
That returned me to thinking all blacks do **** like lie and steal.
I don't have black friends and none live in my neighborhood
so how the hell do I know what blacks do and how they are?
People where I live are mainly ignorant cause we ain't
exposed to much except for seeing a lot of trees and white people like us.
Somebody explain to ******* ***** in broken speech and her native
English my objective for posting ****** cl posts on here.
******* ***** learned nothing from ignorance I copy pasted
off craigslist the home of biggest populations of dumb *******
in the history of the internet and the world.
If I was still on craigslist I would have called her some names
for going after me and stealing my freaking poems.
Thought about calling her a stupid n word but
I learned her ignorance got nothing to do with race.
She is ignorant because she was born that way.
Mind boggling how someone can get mad and go mad
over minor **** like what she went all whack job over.
I don't like that ignorant ***** and she's embarrassing to her race.

Philosophical epistemology strumming adventures
Albeit, coherent mental decoding stratifications structured
Supposedly our world rests in our minds, revolving knowledge
An entwine of conceptual abstract flowing within oneself
The mind in the “I” the “I” a reality lived in my experiences
George of Leontini, a mine mind approving solipsism exploring innatism
Imaginative insights that nothing exists, the secrets secreting secrets
The knowledge behind the veils that remains un-communicated
A reverse of normality and known existences, moral disposition
Hypothesis of depersonalizations, adventures of self internalization
Justifications for what lies outside the Medulla Oblongata
Skepticism and just alternatives to western philosophy
Subjective unapproved experiences only robust in one’s mind
Descartes abstraction of inner experiences, reciprocated paradigm
Intuitively, perceived lived formulations of "Cogito Ergo Sum"
Psychological conscious undoubted individualistic thoughts
Berkley explored perspectives that physicality is an embodiment of the mind
The mind a decoding visualizer, that encompass the non-existent
An idealism marriage of ‘metaphysical’ and epistemological philosophy
The intense esoteric “dualism” verses the fiery “monism” reality
Mind boggling differentiated truths bleeding with blinking unresolvable hypothesis
The jiggered methodological, streamlining the un -logic sequential beats

March 3, 2004**

It was a cool night. We sat bundled up sweat pants and hoodies. She lived in a trailer (a mobile home for those who dislike such terminology) on the outskirts of town, on a farm to market road that many blunts had been smoked on. One of our favorite activities was piling into my four door compact car and rolling up delicious strawberry Phillies or Swishers filled with half brown, half green **** of the earth bud. But that’s a different story…
Her parents and sisters were gone for the evening. The porch swing was situated in the backyard just outside the sliding door, beside the riding lawn mower, ratty trampoline which had been bounced on one million and one times (she even broke her tailbone on that stupid recreation device), and the newly constructed chicken coop. The swing creaked every time we swung, but we didn’t mind. I’m sure a small spritz of WD-40 would have cleared it right up but our teenage minds were incapable of such logical decision making.
It was not the first time we had partaken in such events and it certainly would not be the last. The canister was plastic, red, and a familiar sight for most. Anyone who uses a combustible engine fueled by such a horrific liquid knows what I speak of. However, when you’re sixteen and too broke to buy *** and too young to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, sometimes your options are limited. But we must have a vice. It’s a requirement for all humans, regardless of what some might say. Being the reckless young woman I was at the time, I had many of them, and honestly, I still do today. On this particular evening, the heavenly aroma of gasoline was both our friend and our savior. We would inhale and then pass the canister to one another, over and over again. Between the intense sessions of déjà vu and cat naps, our night was a blur. Incessant giggling and talks of silly adolescent affairs was all that occurred. The feeling of being somewhere you’ve been before a thousand times in a row is overwhelming and really makes one question the concept of time and experience. How can I be somewhere now and have been in the exact same position before? How can I experience something that has potentially never occurred because of the inhalation of a substance? It is quite boggling really. After exploring the realm of drugs extensively, it is quite odd to look back at a night in question like this and wonder how a substance can do what it did.
My best friend and I sat there for hours on end, inhaling and chatting. We would occasionally salvage a blunt roach to smoke on or steal a cigarette from her older sister or father. They were never my choice in brands but it’s difficult to be picky when you’re a thief. Up until this point in time, I had always enjoyed the aroma emitted from gasoline. However, this night would mark a change in perception.
The majority of what occurred is not only uninteresting but extremely hard to remember. Gasoline has a way of doing that… expelling memories from your brain in a whirlwind of déjà vu and uncontrollable nap taking. But, at some point in time we decided to take our little private party inside; perhaps because of the weather but more likely because of a lack of clear reasoning.
All I can vividly remember is that we both woke up to her father beating on the window of her bedroom to let him inside the house. We were both so startled by this event occurring that she knocked over the canister filled with the petroleum based product. Quickly scrambling to resolve the issue, we hid the gas can in her closet. We then looked at each other in pure disbelief over the situation. Not only was it scary but it was also quite amusing. The situations we would put ourselves in were always quite delightful, even when they were horrific beyond belief. We tried to muster up a plan of action but it was no use.
She then ran to unlock the door to let her dad in. The first thing he asked upon entrance into the house was, “Why does it smell like gasoline in here?” Obviously we did not have an adequate answer for him other than, “We don’t know, we were wondering the same thing,” The best part is that he never even questioned us. Why would he? We were just sweet teenage girls with smiles plastered across our faces because we had been huffing gasoline all ******* night.
On a night not too far in the future, we would partake in the same type of inhalation but because there was not a canister at my house, we would huff it straight from my grandma’s van. Our neighbor saw us doing it and called the police. For the rest of my grandmother’s life (six short months) she passionately believed that people in our neighborhood were trying to siphon gas from her Chevy Astro. She made me go to an auto parts store to purchase a gas tank lock to deter such activities. That marked the end of our gas huffing days.

https://soundcloud.com/spiritbarehear/meta-4-4-time

meet me at the morphosis
suckin on our cherry pits
sun melted away our icycled veins
clorphylled up minds
unconcerned with measurement
leave our woes behind
to wither with our precedents

our guards are on vacation
changing of a nation
through the power of
this entity of love
my love
it's not for me it seems
not to guide me to prosperity
not to satisfy my wants

give yours away and you'll get more of

the winds of change are blowing here
tell your girl she's not to fear
the ending of a page
the boggling of brains

london bridge is falling down
but we'll make a louder sound
to create a wave

we'll struggle a lot but they'll wash away

we will be the living dream
forever to grow
already blossoming
our hunger will sustain the changing of this game

explode implode cause a scene
ignorance is all they're conducting
the pyramid design was fine
8 billion sheep all fed with lies

but the winds of change are blowing here
tell your girl she's not to fear
the ending of a page
the boggling of brains

london bridge is falling down
but we'll make a louder sound
to create a wave
we'll struggle a lot
but they'll wash away

"Attention! Attention!"
"This is the final call for Space World Airlines flight SW406 direct to Earth. Could all passengers for this flight proceed immediately to Martian Lounge 3. Thank you for your kind attention and we hope you have a safe flight. You will be missed!"

Seven months later...

So I inhabit the quaint hamlet of Earth,
Whose streets I have wandered,
Breathed their oxygen,
Felt their dirt and grime in my skin.

**** sapiens are pitiful organisms
Which are plagued by deficiencies in bottle green pigment.
They are just plain nonsensical and silly
With a passion for rather outlandish hairstyles.
All of us have zero wild hair from where I originate from..
Possessing formidable odours,
Mysterious in their temperaments,
Endless bickering and ticked-off outbursts,
Endeavours to implement their godly theories,
404 Not Found Error.

The females bear a gadget
Identified as a handbag
It ought to be alive
Since it is secured around their necks
And is clutched solidly.
In the event that others investigate
I presume these others desire to set it free.

They must absolutely have deplorable eyesight
As when a number of them are
Stepping down and up a street,
They have a tendency to head straight for each other.
Some of these humans occasionally bump
Into one another and they surprisingly
Accuse themselves and each of them apologises.
Mind-boggling, isn't it?

The majority of them seem to have one hand
Attached to the right or left side of their skull
And chatter to it..
How bizarrely ridiculous!

It really is crazy just how this planet is indeed so gigantic,
And features such an abundance of land,
But yet most of these pathetic creatures,
Will never grant you any without money.
Of course, this is obviously a bit of paper!
You will discover an awful lot food everywhere,
But nevertheless countless **** sapiens go hungry;
Thanks to the worship of this outrageous paper..
They don't permit these flying feathered beings
To ascend the heavens,
Shooting them down nutty humans,
To make shoes and boots and mittens!
They cut down all the big trees,
To construct infinitely more dwellings.

Tick tock, Tick tock..
Where is that mystical melody emanating from?
I felt so faint and dizzy..
That sound..
Then, I spotted a crystal face
With a pair of hands and eye ***** moving right and left
It seemed similar to a bomb and gazed ominously at me,
Did the inexplicable humans plan to eradicate the entire alien population?
Have you no mercy?
O, when shall my spaceship arrive,
And take me away from this perilous planet?

I'm merely a martian exploring this space,
So absurd, so preposterous
Do visit us one day, we will greet you hopeless humans,
And reveal to you the splendid planet we reside in.

there it is again that first hit
its like an ******* that takes me to a place such as heaven
drugs why do you have me against my will
wanting to stop but you your like just take your pill
mind boggling how when i leave you alone i only want you more
friends say go to rehab i say hell nah
drugs youll be the death of me, maybe then ill be at peace
i just want the pain to cease, pulling me
the relationship was good at first , there when i needed you
had me on cloud nine my first impression was **** friends, **** men even my mom
not that you failed to do your job
its just that im always high
i dont club or go out to dine, i just sit in my boom boom room and gaze at the sky
thinking could i get as high
nighttimes are the worst stuffing feeling in the dirt
waking up is as dull wishing id died the night before
drugs ******* and what you've done to this mess of a life that i have to clean up
there it is again that first hit.

What is reminiscing?
Is it thoughtful, memory-filled wishing?
Is it toxic to one's mind?
Is it safe-zoned distancing?
Two paths to look upon..
one of the past, one of the future
Both with pointed signs
Can't the two just blend,
and make everyone happy, in this world of mine?

What is reminiscing?
Is it a fatal, mind-boggling blow?
To me, it's daydreaming of the past..
and imagining yourself with the things you still don't quite know

Skim milk masquerades as cream
Wolves self-ordain themselves as custodians
Of the “good” of sheep and that they’re a team
In the quest for universal good, poor proletarians.
A fattened up emaciation
That derails the pursuit for accountability
Paving way for many a loophole
A stranglehold on emancipation
The sheep simply merely sign a treaty
With fate to elongate their back breaking life before taking a stroll
In either heaven or hell, that’s if an afterlife exists.
The wolf menace is thus a malignant cyst
To “body politic”
Posing mind boggling potential harm, worth incisive critique.

Last night - no, wait, this morning - I swore I heard thunder and I wondered where I was for a moment, as I had never slept through wind and rain in this place, and in fact, there are many things I have not done in this place but would like to do, and maybe I won’t get through all of those things in my first year, but I’d like to check some things off my list, you know, stay out all night, be able to say I stayed sober, sleep in all morning, watch all nine seasons of Criminal Minds on Netflix (bless), wonder if he likes me too, know he likes me too, try sushi again since I just tried guac again and ended up loving it, try loving again and maybe end up feeling okay after, not used or tattered or torn, not in the way some people do of course, but really only just scratched up, or maybe I’m shattered, who’s to say how broken someone is, and more importantly, who’s to say they can’t be fixed, and maybe I’m already on the mend, away from many of the things that pulled me down, left me floating in the ocean (i’ve always been afraid since The Fish Incident), just the front of my face above water, struggling for air, a fine line of salty water creating a border between skin and ocean, and who knows where this is even going or what I’ll draw from it but I love the possibility that even a few words could form something great, in the same way I love the possibilities here, because last night while my roommate was sleeping I realized that one day my work may be on a bookshelf - should they still exist come the publication of my novel - and my dreams could very well come true, quite soon, with just a little help from the people and places i’ve been waiting so long to discover, and another thing, another realization: it is possible that my future husband is somewhere on campus, oh my, how mind boggling, do people even say mind boggling, probably not, I don’t usually but then again I don’t usually do this and look where that’s gotten me, but in all seriousness, I know people joke about finding it difficult to believe someone would want to marry them, allow you to share their last name, have a family with you, genuinely want to spend the rest of their life with you, but that really is a problem for me, because I’m strange, but not in the way you’d think, or maybe in the way you think, I don’t know how you think, after all.

For the past two years, I've written parts of this in my mind and it never felt right to put pen to paper until now.
I needed to reach a place of peace and full forgiveness to fully express to you the language of my heart, in a way that would voice transparently true and real.
Whether I ever send this to you or not, it's finally on a tangible form of matter and emptied from my busy mind and heart, making room for more of what matters.
I hope this finds you well.

Written below is life.

The fear, desolation, loss, pain, abandonment, loneliness, sickness, regrets, rejection and utter disbelief, became a platform for growth.
Stretching my mind and heart to endure more than I thought I could handle and the belief that I could possibly die from a heartbreak, built me.
You've missed out on beauty.
Watching Gavin grow from the daily tears of losing his pawpaw and wondering when you were going to come back, to the occasional question about his past and he's grown into already completing multiplication equations at the age of 6. He aspires to be a paleontologist and travel the world, with a map tacked large across his bedroom wall, nestled in our home, the one that overflows with unconditional love. That allows breakdowns to happen, because we've all been there. He's come from daily tears to hilarious mannerisms and has a personality that every person, from his barber to his Taekwondo instructor, have fallen in love with. He still wakes up to silly songs every morning and is known as Best Buddy because he's the best boy that's ever lived. He knows he  is loved, despite the small ache that I know still gnaws at his tender heart from time to time and I've built a community of strength around him to assure him that he's safe.
Emily has grown into a strong beautiful almost woman. She's already chosen a career path and she strives daily to achieve small goals in order to reach the large ones. Mapping out her sophomore and junior year to be completed in one with home studies, and I'm amazed at her drivenness. She is kind, sincere, forgiving, understanding, smart and wonderfully gracious and thoughtful. She battled with severe anxiety after losing our home and went through months of cognitive therapy and medications to help her sleep. To now having voluntarily stopping the therapy, weening off of the medication, working out daily, eating healthy and taking on multiple babysitting jobs. This life pain has taught her that people make mistakes, that nothing in life is certain and to cling to your family tight because it's all that matters.
Kaitlyn still has her peculiar Ramona Quimby mischievous traits and never fails to ask the same mind boggling questions at the most in-opportune times. She's as tall as Emma and is drop dead beautiful. Her grades are exceptional and she's passionate about fitness and loves her friends. She was one of three 6th graders to make the competitive cheer team at her school, that cut 15 girls at tryouts.
What I Love most about her is her genuine thankfulness. Every time I check out a register at the grocery store or buy her things as simple as a toothbrush, she expresses gratitude like no one I've ever known.

The sleepless nights spent tossing and turning crying myself to sleep, replaying the story over and over in my head, have now turned to bright beautiful mornings.

I wake up to a person that makes it his daily goal to remind me that I matter & that I'm loved.
He's endured the tears flooded that followed with anxiety drenched vomiting, held me and told me that I'm the most beautiful, even in those states.
He's made me laugh from deep down in the belly, accepted all of my flaws and encouraged me like, never before.
He hides notes throughout the house and in my personal belongings so that I'll read them. In hopes that the words he's written will sink into my subconscious, the same way that the ink sunk into the paper and I'll finally believe my worth.

So, thank you.
For pushing me out.
For giving me the opportunity to see even more immense beauty in my children, forcing my heart to become bold and strong and giving me the die or fight strength to blossom into the Fierce woman that I've become.
I needed to prove you wrong when you spoke words of death over my life, "you're children will never amount to anything, because they have you as a mother".
Every new friend that I meet and families we befriend, are in awe of my relationship with my children and always congratulate me on having raised them into kind respectful people.
Thank you, for shaking my life so heavily that I was able to really know who God is, more deeply than ever. Forgiveness became a whole new meaning to me and my kids watched as all of the pieces healed and they've been able to heal right along side of me. Loving flawed and leading with love has become a staple of our home and lives and this learned trait will be inherent within them for the remainder of their lives. So once again, thank you.
I am where I'm supposed to be.
It's not unfinished business.
The pain is almost fully healed and I'm grateful to have experienced the pain and loss.
So that I can grasp what's at hand whole heartedly.
The sun still continues to rise, as you used to say and the morning fog lifting daily stripped the hardness from my heart.
You came into my life for a reason and a season and I wish you nothing but prosperity, love and happiness. Best wishes on the remainder of your life journey and I hope you have found peace, love and all of the wonderful joys that God freely gives.
Farewell.

Sincerely,

Natasha Ivory Evans

Beware of them
As a lover or a friend
As a family or a foe
As a passerby or a neighbor

Because they hide as they stand on the stage
They put you on a mind-boggling maze
They set you on an endless chase
With no one else but with your own tail

Because they shout in silence
They scream using pen
Using only pseudonyms
They want you to both understand and not understand what they mean

Because they conceal as they express
Behind figure of speeches
They'll have you take a guess
When you do, you're already checkmate in chess

Beware of them
Because they are contrasting beings
Living in a world of what-ifs
Living between reality and dreams

Dreams for family, rage for a foe
Feelings for lovers, concern for a friend
Observation in a passerby, rumors from a neighbor
They turn it into words, rhyming at the end

Because they are but they are not
Because they do but they don't
Because they are cowards but they have guts
Because they will but they won't

Because they are two-faced people
Because they are at different places at the same time
Because they push and they pull
Because they have truths and they have lies

Oh beware of them
Because they're simply complicated
Because they're famous yet anonymous
Because they'll always have you choose

Questions are mind boggling!
The key, However.
Is within the answer.
Of your mind.

R.J Calzonetti


Screaming cross the skyscraper’s windbreaker tapering

Aether vapour- trailblazing ****-sapien wafers

Of machinations psychotropic doppelgängers

Aristotle throttling menagerie’s philosophically hypnotic obelisks

Mind-boggling astronomical chronological esophagus

Antioxidants phosphorus catastrophic mitochondria

Beyond anaconda onomatopoeia

Of hallucinogenic Armageddon biblical umbilical cords

Swarming northern lights of aurora borealis

The chalice a battleground of Evangelion belladonna

Metalica candelabra swallowing the monochrome Hanukkah

Of a cold winter’s eldritch disintegration photosynthesis

Of innocent infinity stretching wretched beckoning requiem

The words that fall upon my page, are really just a shallow grave

Of the dawn of nighttime in my eyes, calm upon the twilight sun

Wrong is done draped on the blood moon wraiths

Skyscraped fields dusk a hollow thud below the dunes

That thumps the consumption of our fate, fumes to glow in darkness loom

Left blind in light of day you cannot see, the little pieces silver sheen

For blinding light may fade to grey, and I will never have my way

Nightfalls on another daybreak, dawning darkness, sundown on another day

Twilight plays with sparkling haze, the sky a wildfire made ablaze in patchwork scarecrows

Who etch rainbows black as a heart of coal, sold flatlining railroads

Gold wraithlike halos of stained-glass cathedrals unreal in the fever-dream of human beings

Bleeding Elysium from the seabed of dead worlds, gourds of incorporeal cornucopias

Born orchestra morsels of sorrowful oracles predicting crucifixion of ellipsis’ antithesis


(MC) Aurora


Absonant  as my pen writes the twilight, the red swallowed on horizon and bright

As through a sea of blood under my feet and shrinking mast of my mighty ship

A shadow I make on that red snow and peep into my heart’s hollow

It’s deep as much as my pen spake of grief.

I blinded in that last light and hurled like a beast dreading the songs of holy lies

That have just pained in bright and made me grieve.

They dragged me on my wings and deplumate  me as so fallen humans

They wrenched my limbs and rive my heart out and flinger me in air and I laid forever

On the stones that dank my blood.

I wait for the troth  of  demise but betrayed as it didn’t come to detract,

I laid when the horizon grinned red on my face and poured the last ale

And brutally drank the last sip of me.



R.J Calzonetti


People are sleeping under the blankets of a tranquil streetlamp

A sunflower in the damp bed of concrete

Soon they’ll be pushing up daisies

Underneath the foundation of what I stand for

Nip the bud of the flower pedalling the root of all evil like fallen leaves

Breeding paraplegic freedom from the pollen melancholic

Anarchistic polycrystalline shapeshifters drifting vilified

Buried alive like asphalt constellations crowning metallic gallows alcoholic in my solitude

See the clouds bury the ground in half a heaven’s heartbeat

Limbo’s limitless abyss the photosynthesis of the sepulchral diablo

Revenants of redemption dancing with death

Evanescent in its bioluminescent crescent moon spooning illuminated illustrations

Of Himalayan mayhem cremated avarice of ethereal onomatopoeia unravelling catacombs in God’s palindromes

Homeopathic saplings decapitated in the dismembered September wastelands defibrillator

Invigorating the nightshade white wraiths plane-walkers of Apocrypha documenting entropy

Pent up sentience avenging the endless demigods of discombobulated proclamations nocturne graceless, octaves eldritch, evangelic

Elegant elevators to flights of staircases where the air is fragrant with the fragments of stagnant stained glass asterisks

Written gospels to masquerade hostage to the faith the man misplaced the sacred hate, the passageways of apathy apostrophe

Apartheid of serpentine survivors carving smiles on the sidewalks

Farming diamonds and their detox

Arming giants like a phoenix

Carnal nihilists with their secrets

Stardust quiet as the bleachers

Start defiant still a reject

Art discipled to our freedom

Shattered hearts pick up the pieces

Jigsaw puzzles, smothered treasons

Sow the seeds and **** the reaper

Even legions rhyme and reason

Tattered flags without a penance

Good men do not go to heaven

Buy your burden at 7-11

Your exit is the only the next entrance

Resurrection prepubescent

Asymmetric biomechanics

Anguish to be reprimanded

Megalomaniac in our sabbath

Living life is just a sentence

Psalms of seance death’s senescence

Baptize vengeance lest it ventures into heaven

Ventriloquist omniscience of rhythmic equilibrium

Earthly hurricanes reemerging insurgent as the sugarcane purgatory

Primordials metamorphosis contorting rigour Mortis oracles horoscope cloaked in cloaca hallucinations

Induced irradiated amalgamated retaliatory incorporeal chlorophyll

Born from the sorcerers' spell, the cathedral of doubt

The only darkness is within oneself, light shed within a holy shell

Isolation is a lonely hell, scythes of moonlight blight of bells

Nightingales fail to halo word of mouth

Enveloped in the clouds cast shadows hex

But resurrection cannot hide from the eyes of death

Fresh as babies breath

Rank as the body festers effigies

Bless the Nephilim the questions beck

And call for some god to collect the rest

Is there any answer?

Even growth can be a cancer

Lifeless corpses once were dancers

Devils waltz on top of canopies

Heaven’s hands have touched serenity

****** brands that crushed His enemies

Stained glass sanguine dismantled entropy

Calamity ran dry insanity dabbling in humanity

Unravelling the candy wrapper saplings of happiness

Pitch black irradiant dull edges sharpening archangels, darkness reincarnating

Blinding bioluminescent glistening abyssal rakshasa sarcophagus parting monarchies

Metamorphosis coruscating fornication immortalization Tartarean

Reverberating ****-sapien scintillating hurricanes palpitation circulating ricocheting oblivion

Shining crepuscular homunculus dully illustrious

Sunless avatars, mannequins of Abaddon stygian as fallen leaves on the breeze of Avalon Evangelion

Incarceration breeding Elysium’s jailors in the cathedral of double helixes

Bethlehem's’ new genesis of Lucifer’s crucifixion

Brighter than a fallen star

Mourning in the dark

Doppelganger apostles night stalkers of phosphorous

Pockmarked arcanum bloodstained in gravestone Salem

Where the braves’ halos dined on maelstroms alone

Heirs succeeding failures of the empty throne

Filled with nothings’ own

Brimming bound by Babylonian poems

Deus ex Machina's apocalypse coughing prophets of Samsara blossoming diabolic

Life is but a Holocaust

Death the moment God forgot

Breath the only psalm we sought

Kept within a hollow box

Shedding devils, angelic, lost

Finding metamorphosis


(MC) Aurora


A world often synonymous with beauty on the horizon,

Meet my eyes you mourned demon load the strength on thee.

Crestfallen light on your wrist burns down your girth

And you can plead, just plead your twilight sun.

Watch the dead sea swallow you in the salts of agony

And drown in the anguish, hundreds of angelic bloodsheds,

Press hold of the thumbprints on your throat, you can't roar.

Sore lugubrious melancholy aired atmosphere,

And downhearted souls dispirited dragons dragged along.

The sob grim hiding in a blue funk rusty smog choking wind,

The nyctophilliac animals howl long the cold-blooded love song

In your lungs and burn.

It's the twilight sun,

Just that twilight sun.

In a chaotic
world of
media hungry
oil dumping
maniacs
We all seem to
build a
liquidized
bubble of opinions
that form
around our
bulbous heads
as infants
spewing knowledge
like an uncontrollable
spring

Our ideas
chopped down
Like oak trees
in a sparse
forest
No longer holding
that nostalgic
dream of
fighting dragons

Now only holding
what seems to
be a building
of self crippling
worthless merchandise
and rotting wood