Part 1 At the Saint’s Book Store (Singapore, 1970)


when I was just 15
and just after
a trip to the National Library
I saw a slim volume
at the Saint’s Book Store
(named after a TV series
and true to the borrowed name,
a second-hand book store)
and its spine said: Kama Sutra


Now that’s a title
they don’t have at the National library,
I mused
and I took it down off the shelf
and stood, agape -
transported to Ancient India
by the very seductive picture
on the cover page;
didn’t make me feel like a saint at all


but my reader’s instinct
got the better of me
and so I opened the book
in which the Introduction
ran boringly longer
than the main meat of the text
and so I went on to
Vatsyayana’s
own enigmatic words


This I must have-
I said to myself,
after only five pages of Vatsyayana
and the sticker label on the
used book replied: $2.50
I bought the book
and walked home
and had no lunch that day






Part 2 ***** Science


What are you reading?
asked little Somu,
a year younger than I was


It’s a Science book,
I said, turning away from him

If it’s a Science book,
the little rascal said,
why are you hiding it behind
another science book?


Mind your own business,
I said,
Hardly taking my eyes
off Vatsyayana’s classic


I’ll mind my own
if you tell me what it is;
otherwise dad
will come to know of it-
and you won’t be able to tell
him to mind his own business


Oh! I said, angry and afraid,
and I threw down my books
(the cover book and the hidden book).
You’re too young for such things.


But he looked at me
as only a dangerous blackmailer can
and I yielded to his request -
I would summarize aloud each chapter
for him as I finished reading each
(That’s the trouble when
fate throws you in
with siblings who don’t read)



And day in and day out
over the next few weeks
I summarized the Kama Sutra –
no, I don’t think I summarized,
I extemporized,
I added details, I confess –
for the benefit of non-reading Somu
that silly pumpkin of a brother
who didn’t understand a word of what I said!






Part 3: Weird History



That night as we lay
on our mats on the floor
Somu asked me:
You know…I was thinking.…
ever since you provided
your summary of the Kama Sutra
delivered in such melodramatic actor’s voice…
I’ve been wondering….Do you think Dad knows
the Kama Sutra?



Oh, I said immediately.
How would
dad know
about the Kama Sutra?
It’s been banned In India
since the middle ages.
He only knows
Hare Rama, Hare Rama…
Now, maybe it’d do you good
to repeat the mantra 100 times
and go to sleep…
You might end up in Vaikunta.


And then insomniac Somu said:
What’s that book you were reading
this afternoon
covered behind your
school History Text Book?


Oh God! Nothing escapes the eyes
of this sibling who came a year after me;
and I had to make an honest reply
or he’d pursue me to the ends of the earth:
Oh, it’s another book
I found at the Saint’s Book Store;
it’s called The Perfumed Garden;
it’s in Arabic and you won’t understand a word;
you can read it when you’re fifty
because that’s how long it’ll take me to translate the work


Somu, the silly sibling ever,
sat up on his mat and looked at me suspiciously:
When did you learn Arabic?
You can’t even read Tamil properly,
you monolingual Indian!



And irritated, I said:
Oh shut up and sleep…
Don’t you go digging into what I do.
I learn all sorts of things in my own time –
and you’re best, little brother,
to stick to Hare Rama, Hare Rama
Or Hara Hara, Siva Siva…




And for that,
the traitor of a brother told all our school mates
I was reading ***** Science
and weird History!







Part 4: The Puritans Come Home



What is a young boy
just turned fifteen,
said the outraged visitor to my father
doing with a copy of Kama Sutra?
And he pointed his bony finger
at me, sitting with my brother Somu
and his thirteen-year-old son Kittu;
we kids sat on the floor
and the dignified adults
sat elevated on the sofa

And he continued:
So, tell me,
what is a young boy like
that doing with erotica?
Is this the time for him?
This is the time for him to study
his textbooks and do his homework.
And the outraged father
pointed his finger at my sheepish father
and he continued:
Your son goes to the same school as my son –
and I’m afraid he’ll be a bad influence.
At History lessons and Literature class,
my son reports,
your boy asked the teachers why
they don’t teach Kama Sutra.
This is outrageous and crazy!



My father looked at me
but couldn’t see my eyes
thanks to my state-welfare
horn-rimmed glasses
and he said to the outraged visitor:
I don’t know…
He reads all sorts of stuff…
He discovers all these books
at the National Library
and bookshops…
He’s read Gandhi’s biography…
and now it appears
he’s discovered Kama Sutra…
Should we really stop him?



The uncertain father slumped in the sofa;
but the outraged father jumped up
dragged his son Kittu to the door
and he turned around and said:
You call these discoveries?
Get him to stick his nose
in his school textbooks!
He will come to no good!
He will bring you shame!
You call these discoveries?
I’m not coming here anymore –
and turning to his son
he said:
Don’t ever talk to that boy;
don’t you ever be near him!

And off they went,
Outraged Father and Trembling Son
into Dusty History.





Conclusion


My father and I looked at each other;
not a word was said –
and he is not here today
for a translation of what I write here now


As for my little brother
that traitor who had told Kittu,
I took both books
The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden
and hit him smack on his head:
and he has remained
stunted physically and mentally ever since








Postscript



What’s that thick book,
said Somu two weeks later,
on the shelf?

That’s Origin of Species
by someone called Charles Darwin,
I said.

Is it one of those ***** books?
he asked.

I think so, I said. I heard some religions
have it blacklisted
so it must be *****.

And what’s that one beside it?

That’s Shakespeare, I said. Complete Works.

Is it another of your ***** books?
said Somu.



Well, I said to this juvenile sibling
just a year younger than I.
There must be many ***** parts in the volume…
You can never escape dirt…it’s all part of life.

I scribble on
With a half lobotomy;
A radar seeking Hell by looking up
And another dictionary
From another time and place;
An alternate timeline
Reaching right and left
As well as fore and aft;
The beard of a ******
And naïveté too;
Undiscovered depths of emotional manipulation
Unseeing, unthinking,
A new old structural familiarity
To abduct and probe
The time-honored, vacuum-sealed
Ineptitude of ideology
Whose meat is sweet
But suits the skeletons of standardized educational theories
Like a pair of jeans at age eleven that you expect to grow into;
In hope of justifying
Overuse of monetary resource
For the sake of bonus states of mind;
Scouring the depths of discarded everything
With hooks catching on to all the similarly forgotten names
Who live in fear of obscurity
Clinging, not unlike insects
To their sixteenth minute of fame;
Finding in myself no way but out
To understand that which lives inside;
With disregard for any thread which weaves past me and takes no hold,
And loathing for the ones that do but unravel before the eyes;
Lightheaded, ending any sense of continuity
When, prostrate in the comfort of another tapestry
I stand abruptly, let my dreams be drained from me through tendrils
Like the passing of a temporal existence;
Drinking in the dust and glue of crowded bookshops
In fear of losing inspiration
To the insatiable jaws of my consumerist natural state;
Rummaging in a bargain bin
In search of someone to tell me, “Stop!"
With heads in clouds and bodies in ice trays,
Stealing lines of logic and lyric,
Throwing down and hacking into
Elemental bits which fit into my own vernacular
Sacrificing beauty for originality and vice versa;
Choosing idols idly with the tides
Of knowledge and of art
Rising and falling without fail
Never apparent and never blurred by motion;
Searching for a style like an odd-numbered jean size;
Finding greater inspiration in waves of unopened mysteries;
Following examples laid by unsuccessful fictions;
Learning ethics only from the prologues of ****** novels,
Unsuspecting victims snuffed in interesting and lurid ways;
Letting technological distraction detract from the projections of psychological complexity
Which I, from atop the high horse of my own pretensions
Pretended to embrace;
Committing massive acts of thievery, fraud, and infinite lethargy
For the sake of juvenile, illegitimate art forms;
Seeking other seekers who exist autonomously
For the sake of personal independent credibility;
Leading unsuspecting, overreaching, overeating, understanding, undemanding,
Too forgiving, not forgetting,
Victims of domestic warfare
To a loveless watery grave
For the sake of my own loneliness;
Patronizing every segregated buffet
With courage enough only for a small taste of everything;
With the flavors of the day swirling around
For me to shoot them down
And pin their carcasses to elementary school walls
And Mormon tool sheds
And nature centers
And all the forgotten places of summers past
In the hope of rediscovering
Some old buried treasure
Be it wondrous or worthless;
With the uneasy insincerity of a rodent who pretends to understand a city;
With adopted methods
And repeated thoughts
And ideas which came to me in waking dreams of my own retirement;
Sharing, for a captive audience,
The formidable giants which
Inform our common denominator
Searching through myself for only the most indecipherable
With the fear of being understood
And the fear of being ridiculed
And pretensions of some preternatural predetermination for greatness;
With acceptance of predisposition for obscurity,
The cost of the inundation of the new airwaves.
The series of tubes that feed us intravenously
With information, information, information,
Having killed God and left material validation in His wake;
It could be that new gods are born in the minds of the innovators,
Those wonderfully wealthy
Whose social structuralism
Was a beacon to us all;
In the darkness of an architectural anomaly
Where lights extinguish as my body lies dormant
Alone and abandoned
Only by my own subversion;
Confined ever to a convolution of passages
While above me all my peers still carry on;
Overstaying welcomes
And letting emotionality
Color conversation
A sicklier green,
A green of a tree only just sprouted,
A green of a new recruit,
A green of an inexperienced schoolboy
Faced with the daunting and timeless act
Of copulation;
Somehow taking in the sights and sounds and smells
Of advanced mathematics
Even occupied, as I am,
With explaining my actions
Most eloquently;
Devoting myself to another cause,
Another, another, another
Always relaxing my grip by losing focus;
Desperately hoping not to let my fellow travelers
Lose their innocence
While I reluctantly, dogmatically
Keep mine on a leash;
Always keenly aware
Of the universe of worlds
Beyond my control,
And even my understanding;
On the increasingly frequent
Intrusions of risk
Into my significant reality
And the iota of explainable truth which guides the motion of my body but most frequently my mind;
Questioning the meaning of all words
Without thought or coordination;
Considering another restful journey
To clear my mind of human language
And in its place acquire thoughts and emotions from the street;
Without foreseeable direction,
Malice aforethought
Or noticeable signs of critical reaction
Giving birth to litter
Forgetting articles
And floating my sense of time up the Ganges;
Taking only seconds to counter the possibility of
Accepting more responsibility for myself;
Complicating matters with an interesting or bitter goodbye.

Oh ferocious angels,
lionesque children of Eden
on narrow streets and polluted alleyways
whispering cruel things to each other,
you're radiant in your belligerence
and as my enemies you are virtuous.
Beside me in this carpeted rectangle room
a faint glow exhales
from the tall alpine ivory lamp illuminating
firefly wings of blossoms
alluringly exuberant in the afternoon sun-ray
diamond shine and shimmer.
Dusty tin roofs billow
firewood smoke in the thick violet shade fog over-top cabin potted
mountains and hills sprouting firs and rose bushes abounding.
Spectrum cast chandeliers echo staircases which
jot up and up arduous ruby landings,
hardwood floor cracked
and stacks of novels ballast the senescent hallways
of bookshops where poets works and journals diaries and memoirs blur
the serpentine walls with memories.
Angelic the soul which is too often contaminated with
avarice rebellious to concord living
harmonious midst dew grass and calm waters in residential lakes
empathy equanimity, far from Bodhisattva.
Few kinds of darkness transcendental
subduing other darkness to a weak shadow.
There's an importance to admiring the delirium of metropolitan roads on roads
this intricate unspoken connection to those who
rest by stoplights and crawling traffic metallic molten aura of
cars in July heat.
Paying attention to the open window of adjacent apartments
where Mr. Norris waters his tulips and shares this moment
modern meditations practiced
finding a balance in such an anxious
volatile world like this.
Oh ferocious angels, impetuous
forlorn seraphs,
sing! sing and soar!
Boundless is our ardor
and our passion.
Unenclosed is the lion
in it's bloom.

Far from the
restless boom box blare
jazz blue ****
city lights and guitars on fire

miles from the urban smell
of opulent people, pierced armpits
bulldog buildings pressed
together in a dead-heat

many asphalt moons from
quaint village cafes
Yankee Stadium, Central Park,
Queens Boulevard
and downtown mystical bookshops

I found a clear, pure halcyon stream
hewn from stars,
trickling down from Heaven
an affluent vision of strength
gushing over the softer
translucent parts of me

gentle Yogi yodeling through
my alpine heart
lets sail upstream to the roof of your
prayer washed Zen mountain
offer lotus garlands and incense
at sunrise we kneel in the
Temple Alucinante

(Please share the warm embrace of my new Poetry book:
108 Bhakti Kisses, The Ecstatic Poetry of a Modern Day Gopi
http://amzn.com/0984787216)

Crossroads are a particular

kind of place where mythology

and actuality combine,

mix and dance with your shadow.



Limitlessness has a name

and social security number

in your restlessness

and your ambitiousness.



I've performed in cafes and on street corners,

In bookshops and depots,

woods and public restrooms

with the junkyard profits

desperately clutching to my clothes,

refusing my money

but begging for my love.



But now I am at the crossroads.



The smoke from my soul

comes in, forces me to turn around,

turn around turn around,

and see the faces,

so many different faces,

all those who have

loved me,

mocked me,

befriended me,

mentored,

hated,

changed

maimed

spit in my eye

called me what they thought I was.



So many faces.

So many eyes full of dreams and ire.



How many would I come to know again?



Who would become fortune tellers

blues-men

teachers

cops preachers

mathematicians builders destroyers

soldiers of fortune

businessmen liars or junkyard prophets?



Who will become like smoke in the fog,

slightly hazy lost-boys

off to never-never land,

never to be seen or heard from

except for the cries that whisper

the time?



So many faces.



What will I be to them?

A companion

friend

liar

hater

lover

brother

sideshow

an I knew him when

a face that looks at their back

at the crossroads,

a wisp of smoke?



I turn again,

turn turn,

a cymbal shot

pushes me forward,

left and right,

but I can never go back behind.



Johanna whispers

Even salvation must get old.



I know she must be correct,

at least as far as I can turn my head.



The right is barred,

the left is guarded by the beasts,

the faces hum a dirge or a lullaby,

I straighten my jacket,

pack my self into a slip bag,

and blow away with the smoke.

I’d trace your spine until you felt the love from my fingertips burn hotter than the pain shrieking in your bones.

I’d fiddle with your lamp until it was the perfect shade of indigo.
I’d keep watch for you in the dark and shield you in the blinding light.
I’d run you baths that made you feel pure.

you’d never sleep alone,
unless you wanted to.
even then,
I’d be sitting against your door
with a glass of tea,
fruit,
and your pills.

I’d write you pathetic sonnets.
I’d sing you off-key songs.
I’d read you poetry that brought us both to tears.
I’d draw you stupid doodles and try to make you laugh.

you’d never be alone
on the miserable floor.
those *******,
with all their relentless,
maddening buzz
wouldn’t be heard over me.
louder,
or more demanding.

I’d feed you Nutella: my very last spoonful.
I’d clean your room as often as you wanted, or never.
I’d take you to bookshops and cafés and nowhere at all.
I’d sit with you and play with your piercings.

you wouldn’t be alone,
staring awake at dawn.
the dark,
it wouldn’t be spent so restlessly.

I wouldn’t quieten my desire.
no.
not this time.

I’d say I’m sorry when I laughed so hard I spit.

I’d love you when you couldn’t love yourself.
I’d care for you when all you saw was waste.
I’d carry you wherever we went and tell everyone you’re mine.

The High Street at first was marked
with Charity Shops forever in lieu
came the Pound Shops.
Old Brands stayed with us
but in turn the internet compounded the decline
perhaps cyber shopping is akin to playing pong,
the familiars, like a fire-storm evaporated,
music, bookshops, photography
whose to know the next stage?
but I bet the inner city will be hamlets
of chiefdoms,
Gertrude the concrete cow
adorned with Golden paint
and urban Cowboys
duelling in Midnight Charades

You don’t choose to go into bookshops anymore,
you don’t read much,
you hear about calories and five-a-day but you don’t stick to it,
you say you’ll exercise but you never seem to do any,
you notice a blossoming paunch but choose to keep it,
you lose friends and rarely gain any,
you don’t make much of an effort and rarely care,
you don’t sleep as much as you should,
you don’t like the job you’re in,
you don’t know what job you should be doing,
you only work for the money,
you don’t have enough money,
you buy things you don’t need,
you don’t talk to your parents enough,
you don’t talk enough,
you spend too much time on your phone,
you care more about technology than your friends,
you don’t look where you’re walking,
you moan about the youth of today,
you aren’t as mature as you could be,
you still live at home in your thirties,
you see your friends getting married and having kids,
you watch too much *******,
you haven’t travelled as much as you’d like,
you are quick to body-shame,
you don’t understand what LGBTQ+ means,
you can’t tell the difference between Conservative and Labour,
you wear the same clothes day in day out,
you are not the best driver,
you have social media pages but aren’t sociable,
you sigh when girls you like get into relationships,
you know you never stood much of a chance,
you have too many fillings,
you don’t celebrate birthdays much,
you are getting lazier all the time,
you haven’t had a long conversation in ages,
you hate your neighbours,
you don’t know your neighbours,
you get angry playing video games,
you order takeaway food rather than cook,
you say this is my year when you know it won’t be,
you haven’t told anybody this,
you haven’t even told yourself,
you are not sure you need to.

i will admit
i am not the type of girl
to go to a bar and sit in a cloud of smoke
and listen to music purely because it is live
and i apologize if that is what you were expecting of me
but that is just not me
i am the type of girl
to go to old hidden bookshops and inhale the scent of literature
i am the type of girl
to sit on my bed at 4 am and talk about all the thoughts to a friend
i am the type of girl
who is more interested in sitting around a bonfire than going to a mall
i am sorry to any human expecting anything more or less of me
but i am not like that, it's just not me
i am a homebody, i am an lover of the arts, i am an introvert
i am a lot of things, but i am not a loud and extroverted human
i love my comfortable home and my few friends
now you are aware of my awkwardness and inability to be uncomfortable
i refuse to do something i don't want to
i am not going to do something purely because of the view of others
i am me, i am not going to change
and you are you, and you shouldn't have to change to get along with me
i apologize for expecting that of me, but then again
i am not going to apologize for being me

Paul Andrew, Scott Schuman, Anton Magnani, Frank Charriaut
Paul Andrew, creator of his eponymous line; Anton Magnani, chief executive officer of Sutor Mantellassi; The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman, and Carvil artistic director Frank Charriaut packed into Colette on Saturday afternoon to debut their collections for fall.

“They’re very different,” said Sarah Andelman, creative director and purchasing manager of the Paris concept store. “The only thing they have in common is ‘made in Italy.’ You have the American brand, the Italian brand and the French. We don’t want shoes that are too classic. We’re trying to find our feet.”

Andrew was debuting his first shoe collection for guys during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. “Before I started my own brand four years ago, I designed shoes for 15 years for several other designers. I was doing men’s shoes for [Alexander] McQueen and later for Calvin Klein, so I have experience in men’s shoes and I loved it. I remember that time so fondly,” he said.

Colette stocks 12 men’s styles from his label. “This shoe, which may look like a classic shoe from the bottom, [actually has] four layers of leather to the sole, which makes it more aggressive, but still in a very refined way,” he explained, also pointing to sneakers bonded with neoprene and deer skin, “which is super luxurious leather – very light, but it’s also breathable.”

Following Colette, Andrew’s line will roll out to other stores, including Barneys.

Meanwhile, Magnani and Schuman presented their collab0ration — a chic sneaker style in four color ways.

“I really wanted to have something that would have interesting color combinations because, you know, I wear blue, gray, black, taupe a little bit [when it comes to clothes],” said Schuman. “I don’t wear like crazy colors. But for shoes you can do something a little more interesting.”

“Scott really came up with the good idea of making the stripes without seeing the stitch. You can see it’s all folded,” said Magnan, referring to the sneakers priced at 425 euros, or $471 at current exchange.

The duo just unveiled at Pitti Uomo spring 2017 styles, which are white but with “more summery color combinations,” explained Schuman.

Will the pair doing more collaborative projects? “We’re not just dating, we’re married for a little while. No Brexit between us,” Schuman said.

Charriaut presented his first collection for recently revived Carvil. “Carvil is a Parisian brand that was back in the day very chic and hip, for elegant men,” he explained.

Marc Jacobs, who was at Colette Saturday for the launch of Lorenzo Martone’s new eyewear range, purchased a pair of Carvil boots. Charriaut noted they were the style designed for Bob Dylan.

Meanwhile, downstairs at Colette, fans were lining up to get a signed copy of “Undercover Jun Takahashi,” published by Rizzoli. “There’s 25 years of history in it,” explained the designer.

The book, whose release comes following the retrospective dedicated to Takahashi at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery last October, is chockablock with his sketches, graphic work, pictures and essays. After a stint at the specialty store, the tome will roll out to bookshops in July. It’s priced at $65.Read more at: www.marieaustralia.com | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

I don't quite remember that
Pretty projection or dubious construction.
The dream that kissed with tangible lips

I cannot elicit
A lazy shape of limbs
Sprawled across threadbare blankets.
Warm hearts and cold feet.

Bookshops piled to the rafters;
Places of whispered exchanges
And smiling, arm through arm.

I can't conjure up
The taste and stain of cheap red wine,
A tongue that laughed and sung  
To Louis Armstrong, on the radio.

In cold Septembers
And aching Decembers,
Left to my reckless imagination...
I wish that I couldn’t remember.

Imagine a world without hope;
No dreams
No wishes
No expectations

Imagine a world without romance;
No Romeo and Juliet
No Beauty and The Beast
No Jack and Rose

Imagine a world without books;
No libraries and bookshops
No bedtime stories
No writers

Imagine a world without music;
No songs
No live shoes
No dance

Imagine a world without sugar;
No cookies and cream
No icing and candy
No untimely deaths

Imagine a world without social media(
No quick access to information
No unwarranted comparison
No cyber bulling

Imagine a world without hate;
No discrimination
No racism
No fright

Imagine a world without poverty;
No children dying of hunger
No one working instead of schooling
No preventable deaths

Imagine a world without science and religion

Imagine a world which can never exist.

sometimes my first thought is still you
but it is dull now
like a toothache

sometimes my mind says your name
in the same tone it uses
for poetry

sometimes i sit in bookshops
and catch the ghost
of your lily perfume

but it is a distant thought
a faraway noise
an ephemeral scent

and it is like you are here, yet not
as if you are sharing your essence
with another plane of existence

barely here in your translucence
you sit between realms
equidistant over the edge

it is okay, my love
you can let go now
i am not where you left me.

today philosophy is unimportant! - completely correct: for the things of "importance" today.

                              - heidegger, ponderings iv, aphorism 75 -

it's morphed, or let us say, this observation from germany,
in the year 1936, has morphed, drastically...
                            philosophy has become so unimportant,
that book shelves in either libraries or bookshops,
stock more *self-help guides than actual books in the criterion
   of what could, otherwise be, easily identifiable.
            but this easily identifiable is lost, for many reasons,
                     one of them being the hijack of the word itself...
who was it hijacked by? psychologists! mainly.
          the word, as noun, can no longer be dissolved
                    and reconstructed into a verb...
                                             because who does that, these days?
the psychologists know all to well, this weird, weird, weirder
still "defence" of grammar, but evidently there is no defence...
            they cite philosophy in casual inferences of a,
well... a meaningful dialogue...
                         philosophy is doubly unimportant these days...
since its primordial basis for existence,
              has become a conversation coordinate to bounce off...
namely: it has become an adjective -
        as people reference it:        philosophical...
   or         philosophically (adverb form)
                                as with ad-                toward what action?
what nietzsche plagiarised concerning god from diogenes?
      nietzsche's version invokes a man
   walking into a market square at noon, with a lantern,
asking people for god... but that's simply on a page in a book...
      diogenes? he actually did this exact act,
   but he wasn't looking for god...        he was looking for,
                             an honest man.

I.
Stretched days are too long,
like some sort of ****** dub step playing on repeat at the back of your head. Soapy touch of bluish air (or kitchen light, I suppose), and soft cracking sound of ice in glasses, the scent of rose water and virtual vision of your skin against my skin/
                          your hands on my hands. (And we might be humming some out tuned songs  in languor, sloppy voices).

II.
Too long,
             I think of old weekends.
Where me and my cousins used to meet up at some fancy cafes/ random bookshops/ or maybe just my house or their house. And we'll talk a lot or nothing at all. Sometimes, me and N, my closest cousin---childhood playmate to be precise, would just sit beside the floor windows and sink our bodies in the blurry, grained afternoon sunlight. I'd sit with my legs crossed, dry hands holding some novels (which I pretend I'm reading) and N would put a pillow on my thighs and sleep on it. We both felt secure and very, very exhausted, as if we've travelled back to our child days, then to the present time again. Strange enough that we're both people who have cold hearts but still share a bond with each other.

III.
I keen-eyed, knuckles-snapped
staring into the.......long tunnels.
Look how quick the shapes can shift in the dark, but can you get away with it? Can you get away from all the morphing and deformation before it turns into some kind of tragedy? Some kind of blood wash?
You think you're fast enough
    but there'll always be something quicker, something that'll wait for you one step ahead.  
Throw your hair behind, feel the speed, and jump on it, if possible.
(Ps I  wonder who am I when no one's looking. )

let's travel
visit little french cafes
find old bookshops
wander through countryside
explore beautiful towns
you and me

This is America
Where the rich only get richer
And the only thing that’s free is poverty
Where a single mother cooks Spam out of a tin can
In a 30 cent dented frying pan
Where little black boys clutch their guns to their hearts
Loaded and cocked;
Ready for the **** to drop

This is America
Where everything costs more than a dollar is worth
And even the dollar stores are 99 cents and up
Where Asian schoolkids get called Ching Chong
By fat middle class white boys devouring Ding Dongs
Where women’s bodies are controlled by men
In Ralph Lauren suits;
Spewing their propaganda on love and hate

This is America
Where the devil’s truly in the details
And if you want to make it big, you better have something to sell
Where healthcare is monitored by the government
Siphoning out your drugs like a treat for good behavior
Where crackheads and dope fiends and pill poppers
Are one in the same;
Minds and bodies and spirits riddle with addiction

This is America
Where jail time is a punishment not rehabilitation
And broken men evacuate our prisons with nowhere to go
Where incarceration is code for a controlled population
Killing culture and cops and citizens like a gnat between your fingers
Where higher education is a necessity but only somewhat free
Pell grants and work studys;
Graduating and finding yourself with a useless degree

This is America
Where immigrants seek asylum
And we call them bottom feeders and lazy day laborers
Where the borders “need” be stronger
Assigning them men with dogs and guns trained to shoot to ****
Where little Mexican girls traipse across the desert
Bare-footed and thirsty;
Hiding in the brush to avoid the copters

This is America
Where freedom isn’t free
And the only thing worth a buck is your soul
Where underage girls give a quick **** for a quicker bump
Abducted from their Kansas white neighborhood
Where **** is prevalent in a Christian society
******* and *****;
Always searching and seeking for the money shot

This is America
Where money is handled by crooks and thieves
And the poor, cold and hungry, suffer on the streets
Where panhandlers and beggars flood the suburbs
Abandoning their upside down mortgages for a solitary corner
Where every single material thing is a luxury
Taxation on *******;
Living paycheck to paycheck for a box of tampons

This is America
Where the middle class barely exists
And it just doesn’t cut it, your 40 hour work week
Where your earnings are garnished by social security
But the elderly are still struggling to make ends meet
Where retirement means a part time job
Office work or retail;
Dealing with the public for the next 15 years

This is America
Where free speech isn’t so free
And censorship exists despite our history
Where college kids speak their minds in poetry slams across campus
But the working class chit chat about television
Where hipsters and deadbeats stake their claim on
Restaurants and bookshops;
With ironic names in Helvetica print


This is America
Where we shed our blood for the greater good
And send our young and naïve to the front lines
Where soldiers come home to their families
Now realizing the only thing they know how to do is ****
Where they watch their children play in the streets from their bedroom window
Suicidal and Homicidal;
Placing the end of a shotgun in their mouth

This is America
Where reality TV reigns supreme
And more people know the name Kardashian than Einstein
Where kids are taught by underpaid unionized men and women
Holding the future of the country within their poor hands
Where schools can barely feed their students
Stomach and mind;
Both empty and starving, craving for attention

This is America
Where ignorance is the greatest epidemic
And keeping your mouth shut is the greatest sin
Where you gotta stand up and shout the truth
From the rooftops of Brooklyn to the sandy beaches of Pasadena
Where you gotta write and sing and rap and talk and feel
Pour it out and soak it up;
The true loss of the American dream.

The Great Man

Harry Lesly Smith was born poor in a slum
he had no education but rose above because
he was of a sunny nature.
I read excerpts from his book (he wrote several)
and he expresses himself in a pure working class
vernacular way and since he was not a famous
literate one thinks his book sells modestly.
I too was born in the slum and Homes, finally
ending my boyhood at a farm for the rebellious.
By nature, I’m five minutes before midnight
and tend to see the darker colour of the time
we live in, these the last hours before the world
explode and hurtle through space.
I too have published several books of what I call
“alternative poetry” I can't even give my books
and have never sold a book through Amazon
or bookshops.
I liked Harry he represented the excellent human
and I will remember him well

/ kant famously didn't marry (and that's prior to attacking modern globalißation).

why is it that i find it so, comfortable,
listening to horror movie
soundtracks while falling asleep?

                                  ah!

     you won't find either the ukranian
or the bulgarian prostitutes
that (a) i was good,
                    and (b) i was nice...

sorry, middld-earth utopia of
the: within confines of
    of a sub-urban home...
                       high-rise in such
places like richmond,
and elsewhere in the vicinity
to compensate utilißing
richmond as "the" bad example...

ah, once more!

    "apparently" i was giving a free-b
when it comes to conservative values...
although: i was lied to...

apparently her, daddy,
   did sell out the idea,
  and projected keeping it...
as if he didn't sell it off,
and she was just a miser
Hackney chimney-cleaner!
shim-shim-shee-m'eh-k'nee...

p'ooh b'wear woman!
                        p'ooh p'ooh oh oh!
give me your little **** scouts!
before they start slitting their
wrists on a whim, to just pretend,
before they start applying
the razors...
     i'll tell them...
   heat up a pair of scissors with
a cigarette lighter...
    and then sear! implement the heated
object: onto the softest skin
accomplished to be composed of
the definition of an arm....
   then come back to me with
your razors' manure weeping
sound: such that i might cut...
                           into your: tongue!

like, really like watch the little
mouth-off retards marching
on youtube...
                    it's almost like a fetish
for seeing, them....
                      
                            ploop

                           (oh look,
                                'ere's a puddle)

they're trying to be second-hand bums?!
seriously?!
but they are second-hand bums!
they are bums!

           apparently begging isn't allowed
in public...
   but apparently it is,
   if you, make, certain "improvements"
of the naked and starving:
can you at least feed my dog
placards...

                WHIBERTY!

and if someone from Bristol says
that, you'd quicken "wit" on wanting
to punch them in the face
and line up for a law-suite.

  ching-chang-w'ah'lah...

  the ****'s a ******* doing
in the result of fist (stone),
    K O.K. churchill's index & middle (scissors)
an open hand (paper)?!
        
   i guess it means: the ******* begin with?
probably means: guillotine...
    am i supposed to do a middle-class
hoorah chant when oxford competes
with cambridge over who can roll
100 habana cigars quicker, in a team
consisting of two?!

next, serious question:
    want to me to **** you off or something?

- I'M NOT, LAUGHING!

    - but then again i am...
          
what laughable excuses to
                     execute constraints.

erm... *******? is that the appropriate
expression?
    i've seen modern people in bookshops:
they turned them into
******* coffee shops!

          who reads, lives:
who doesn't?
                 dies...
              counter the "passing of the genes"
argument,
that... "everyone gets a prize when involved"
******* argument
of "being", involved...
i have bad chernobyll genes...

                       if i really wanted to pass
that **** on, i'd pass on the bubonic plague...
or a mental virus-spawn
to make replica of: the jacob of whitechapel...

and i'm supposed
to be the "bonkers" type...
                        fair enough, christian, english,
western society, chemically castrate me,
as you already have, brain downward...
oh... look...
    
      'ere we go 'ere we go...

   poetic as ****... do you trust this, cupbearer?
sure as **** you trusted christ;
   as i'd like to trust youtube
not obliterating
slayer's mandatory suicide,
                      for reasons plain to all...

come on! hanneman died not so long ago!
and he wrote most of the song...
is this some sort of vengænce from the grave?

it's not like i'm dyslexic,
i just don't know what the fashion is sometimes,
sometimes an A, sometimes an E...
**** it... apply the latin grapheme...
   might as well...
   i'm already invigorating english with
the german es-zet (ß)... oh right...
             es-zee: sorry for *******
up attesting: courteous formality...

but sure as ****, i spelled better if not
akin to the king-in-waiting.

flight from Jerusalem to Vienna
the fam asleep, so I wanderwinterwalk
hot chocolate, bookshops, sparkling snow

St. Stephandsom sublimely above
      Me solo in the photo below
          House of Hapsburg
               gone long ago:


Yes, Dr. Freud:  to love and to work.

St. Stephansdom above
Me solo below
Chocolate, bookshops, snow

               Yasager

From the damp dark recesses
Of cloistered bookshops
Into the blinking glare
And thronging crowds,
We are all unfocused
And unrecognised except
For our reflections
In shop windows.

Down newly cobbled streets
Walking at your speed now
Whistle, guitar and violin
Offer original renditions
To down and outs and drunks
Who dance where they slept
But quickly if you want
To hear some real music
For the Incas are in town.

Wheelchairs and children
Are politely ushered to the front
Gathering around
Standing next to me;
Until the shouting and screaming starts
His shots indiscriminate
Knocking me over.

It was snowing when I was in Vienna
Cathedral, bookshops, hot chocolate
A bit of a fairy tale to me
But ordinary for the Austrians

I've been to Trappist monasteries
And Thai temples
And the San Francisco Zen Center
And the ocean alone

America began in genocide
All those tribes
Decimated
Reservations remain

Salmon today
Phone calls to my sons
Ice on my windshield
No nay never nay

        Callooh! Callay!