1561

No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay—
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away—
The Snow and he are intimate—
I’ve often seem them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity—
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent Evergreens—
His Larder—terse and Militant—
Unknown—refreshing things—
His Character—a Tonic—
His future—a Dispute—
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out—

ESSAYS ON
LEADERSHIP FRONTIERS OF AFRICAN LITERATURE
By
Alexander   k   Opicho




Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents                                                                                                                Page
TABAN MAKITIYONG RENEKET LO LIYONG AND PREFECTURE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE 4
THE CURRENT EAST AFRICA IS NOT A LITERARY DESERT 27
AFRICAN WRITERS HAVE CULTURAL RIGHTS TO FORMULATE AND CREATE ENGLISH WORDS 31
LIKE PUSHKIN, AFRICAN WRITERS MUST CREATE THEIR OWN PROFFESSION OF LITERATURE 35
THERE IS POWER IN THE NAME ‘ALEXANDER’ 40
KENYAN COURTS AND PARLIAMENT ARE BETRAYERS OF HUMANE GOVERNANCE 47
AFRO-CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO RADICAL LITERATURE IS GOOD AND SWAGGERISH 50
YUNUS’S SOCIAL BANKING IS A GOOD BENCHCMARK FOR THIRD WORLD ENTREPRENEURS 54
HEROISM IS NOT GREATNESS BUT HUMILITY IN SERVICE TO HUMANITY 57
KENYAN STUDENTS; YOUR MOBILE INTERNET CULTURE IS ANTI- ACADEMICS 61
WHAT IS THE MAGIC IN THE WORD ‘DRINKARD’ OF AMOS TUTUOLA 63
SOCIETIES IN AFRICA HAVE TO MENTOR BUT NOT CONDEMN THE LIKES OF JULIUS MALEMA 66
AMERICA WILL NOT WIN THE WAR ON GLOBAL TERRORISM 69
AFRICA CAN OVERCOME A MENACE OF **** IN EVERY 30 MINUTES 71
COMPARATIVE ROLES OF AFRICAN-BRAZILIAN LITERATURE IN THE POLITICS OF RACIAL AND GENDER DEMOCRACY 76
NEO-COLONIALISM IS NOT THE MAIN VICE TO THE GAMBIAN POLITICS 85
RELATIVE MEDIA OBJECTIVITY IS ACHIEVEABLE IN AFRICA AGAINST POWER CULTURE AND TYRANNIES OF TASTE 89
READING CULTURE IS GOOD FOR BOTH THE POOR AND THE RICH 96
VIOLENT DEATH IS THE BANE OF AFRICAN WRITERS AND ARTISTS 100
AFRICAN WRITTERS AND ARTISTS MUST ASPIRE BEYOND A NOBEL PRIZE 104
WHAT ARE CULTURAL RIGHTS OF AFRICAN ENGLISH SPEAKERS? 109
WHY IMPRISONMENT OF WRITERS CONTRIBUTED MOST TO AFRICAN LITERATURE 113
DORIS LESSING: A FEMINIST, POET, NOVELIST, WHITE-AFRICANIST AND NOBELITE UN-TIMELY PASSES ON 121
Amilcar Cabral: Beacon of revolutionary literature and social democracy 127
How the State of Israel is brutally dealing with African refugees 131
Historical glimpses of language dilemma in Afro-Arabic literature 146
THIS YEAR 2013; IS THE YEAR OF GREAT DEATHS 153
AFRICAN LITERATURE WITHOUT POETRY IS LIKE LOVE WITHOUT VAGINAL *** 156



















PROLOGOMENA
BARRACK OBAMA READS MOBY ****
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
American president is reading Moby ****
Ja-kogello is reading Moby ****
Ja-siaya is reading Moby ****
Ja-merica is reading Moby ****
Jadello is reading Moby ****
Ja-buonji is reading Moby ****
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took his father
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took his mother
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death to his brother
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because untimely death took the grannies
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman  
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Baba Michelle is reading Moby ****
Baba Sasha is reading Moby ****
Baba Malia is reading Moby ****
Baba nya-dhin is reading Moby ****
Sarah’s sire is reading Moby ****
Ja-sharia is reading Moby ****
The ****** is reading Moby ****
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes audacity of hope
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes dreams of fathers
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes yes we can
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because here ekes American dream
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you readings?

Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because American president is like whale hunting
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Obama is a money making animal
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because hunting Osama is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because hunting Gaddaffi is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because coming to Kenya is whale riding
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Guantanamo prison is a bay of whales
Barrack Obama is reading Moby ****
Because Snowden is a Russian whale
Because launching drones is whale riding
His lovely Oeuvre of Melville Herman
And what are you reading, Moby ****?














CHAPTER ONE
TABAN MAKITIYONG RENEKET LO LIYONG AND PREFECTURE OF AFRICAN LITERATURE

I am writing this article from Kenya on this day of 23 September 2013 when the Al shabab, an Arabo-Islamic arm of the global terrorist group the Al gaeda have lynched siege on the shopping mall in Nairobi known as the West Gate where an average of forty people have been killed and a hundreds are held hostage. The media is full of horrendous and terrifying images. They have made me to hate this day. I hate terrorism, I hate American foreign policy on Arabs, I hate philosophy behind formation of the state of Israel and I equally hate religious fundamentalism. Also on this date, all the media and public talks in Kenya are full of intellectual and literary tearing of one Kenyan by another plus a retort in the equal measure as a result of the ripples in the African literature pool whose epicenter is the Professor Taban Lo Liyong .He is an epicenter because he had initially decried literary mediocrity among the African scholars and University professors, Wherein under the same juncture he also quipped that Kenya’s doyen of literature Ngugi wa Thiong’o never deserved a Nobel prize. Liyong’s stand has provoked intellectual reasons and offalities to fly like fireworks in the East African literary atmosphere among which the most glittering is Chris Wanjala’s contrasting position that; who made Liyong the prefect and ombudsman of African literature? This calls for answers. Both good answers and controversial responses. Digging deeper into the flesh of literature as often displayed by Lo Liyong.
Liyong is not a fresher in the realm of literary witticism. He is a seasoned hand .Especially when contributions of Liyong to east African literary journal during his student days in the fifties of the last century during which he declared east Africa a literary desert. In addition to his fantastic titles; Another ****** Dead and The Un-even Rips of Frantz Fanon, Professor Taban Lo Liyong also humorously called Amos Tutuola the son of Zinjathropus, what a farcical literary joke? I also want to appreciate this Liyong’s artfulness of language in this capacity and identify him in a literary sense as Taban Matiyong Lo   Liyong the son of Eshu. He is an ideological and literature descended of the great West African Eshu. Eshu the god of trouble which was dramatized by Obutunde Ijimere in the imprisonment of Obadala and also recounted by Achebe in the classical essays; Morning Yet of Creation Day. I call him Eshu because of his intellectual and literary ability to trigger the East and West Africans into active altercation of literary, cultural and political exchanges every other time he visits these regions. Whether in Lagos, Accra or Nairobi.
Now, in relation to Ngugi and intellectual quality of Kenyan University literature professors was Liyong right or wrong?  Does Liyong’s stand-point on Ngugi’s incompetence for Nobel recognition and mediocrity in literary scholarship among Kenyan Universities hold water. Are Liyong’s accusations of East Africa in these perspectives factually watertight and devoid of a fallacy of self-aggrandizement to African literary prefecture as Professor Chris Wanjala laments. Active literary involvement by anyone would obviously uncover that ;It is not Liyong Alone who has this intellectual bent towards East Africa, any literary common sense can easily ask a question that; Does Ngugi’s literary work really deserve or merit for Nobel recognition or not ? The answers are both yes and no. There are very many of those in Kenya who will readily cow from the debate to say yes. Like especially the community of alumni of the University of Nairobi who were Ngugi’s students in the department of English in which Ngugi was a Faculty during the mid of the last century. Also the general Kenyan masses who have been conditioned by warped political culture which always and obviously confine the Kenyan poor into a cocoonery of chauvinistic thought that Ngugi should or must win because he is one of us or Obama must win because he is one of us or Kemboi must win because he is the son of the Kenyan soil. These must also be the emotional tid-bits upon which the Kenyan Media has been based to be catapulted into Publicity feat that Ngugi will win the Nobel Prize without reporting to the same Kenyan populace the actual truths about other likely winners in the quarters from the overseas. I am in that Kenyan school thought comprising of those who genuinely argue that Ngugi’s literary work does not befit, nor merit, nor deserve recognition of Nobel Prize for literature. This position is eked on global status of the Nobel Prize in relation to Ngugi’s Kikuyu literary and writing philosophy. It is a universal truth that any and all prizes are awarded on the basis of Particular efforts displayed with peculiarity. Nobel Prize for literature is similarly awarded in recognition of unique literary effort displayed by the winner. It is not an exception when it comes to the question of formidability in a particular effort. However, the most basic literary virtue to be displayed as an overture of the writer is conversion of theory into practice. This was called by Karl Marx, Hegel, Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire, especially in Freire’s  pedagogy of the oppressed as praxis.History of literature and politics in their respective homogenous and comparative capacities has it that ;There has been eminent level of praxis by previous Nobelites.Right away from Rabitranathe Tagore to Wole Soyinka, From Dorriss Lessing to Wangari Mathai.Similar to JM Coatze ,Gao Tziaping,Alexander Vasleyvitch Solzhenystisn and Baraka Obama.This ideological stand of praxis is the one that made Alfred Nobel himself to to stick to his gun of intellectual  values and deny Leo Tolstoy the prize in 1907 because there was no clear connection between rudimentary Tolstoy in the nihilism and Feasible Tolstoy in the possible manner  of the times .In a similar stretch Ngugi wa Thiongo’s literary works and his ideological choices are full of ideological theory but devoid of ideological praxis. Evidence for justification in relation to this position is found back in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century, When Ngugi was an active communist theoretician of Kenya. His stature as a Kenyan communist ideologue could only get a parallel in the likes of Leon Trotsky and Gramsci. This ideological stature was displayed in Ngugi’s adoration of the North Korean communism under the auspice of the Korean leader Kim Yun Sung. This is so bare when you read Ngugi’s writers in politics, a communist pamphlet he published with the African red family. By that time this pamphlet was treated equally as Mao tse Tung’s collected works by the Kenya government which means that they were both illegal publications and if in any case you were found with them you would obviously serve nine months in prison. And of course when the late Brigadier Augustine Odongo was found with them he was jailed for nine months at Kodhiak maximum prison in Kisumu ,Kenya .O.K, the story of Odongo is preserved for another day. But remember that, this was Ngugi only at his rudimentary stage. But when Ngugi got an opportunity to get an ideological asylum, he did not go to Russia, nor East Germany, Nor Tanzania, nor China but instead he went to the USA , a country whose ideological civilization is in sharp contradiction with communism; a religion which Ngugi proffessess.In relation to this choices of Ngugi one can easily share with me these reflections; is one intellectually  honest if he argues that he is a socialist revolutionary when his or her employer is an American institution like the university of California in Irvine ?
Ngugi was not the only endangered communist ideologue of the time. There were also several others. Both in Kenya and without Kenya. They were the likes of; Raila Odinga, George Moset Anyona, ***** Mutunga and very many others from Kenya. But in Africa some to be mentioned were Walter Rodney, Yoweri Museven,Isa Shivji,Jacob Tzuma ,Robert Mugabe and others. The difference between Ngugi and all of these socialist contemporaries of him is that; Ngugi went to America and began accumulating private property just like any other capitalist. But these others remained in Africa both in freedom and detention to ensure that powers of political darkness which had bedeviled Africa during the last century must go. And indeed the powers somehow went. Raila has  been in Kenya most of the times,Anyona died in Kenya while in the struggle for second liberation of Kenyan people from the devilish fangs of Moi’s dark reign of terror and tyrany.Walter Rodney worked in Tanzania at Dare salaam University where he wrote his land mark book; How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Later on he went back to his country of birth in Africa, Guyana where he was assassinated while in the revolutionary struggle for political good of the Guyanese people. Yoweri Museven practically implemented socialism by fighting politics of sham and nonsense out of Uganda of which as per today Uganda is somehow admirable. Isa Shivji has ever remained in Dare salaam University, inspite of poverty. He is now the chair of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere school of Pan African studies. Jacob Tsuma and Robert Mugabe they are current presidents of South Africa and Zimbabwe respectively. The gist of this reference to African socialist revolutionaries as contemporaries to Ngugi wa Thiong’o is that a socialist revolutionary must and should not run away from the oppressor in to a zone of comfort. But instead must remain and relentlessly fight, just like in the words of Fidel Castro; fight and die in the battle field as long as it is a struggle against the enemy of the revolution. This view by Castro is pertinent as it’s a Revolutionary praxis which actually is redolent of practice of an ideology that has to be held for ever above ideological cosmentics.Ngugi scores badly on this. So if the Nobel academy looks at Ngugi in terms of defending human rights then it must be reminded that Ngugi have no marks on the same because he only ran away from the practical struggle. Anyway, Politics and ideology has its own fate. But let us now come back to literature. Ngugi and his books. As at  this time of writing this essay  Ngugi has published the following works; Weep not Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Black Hermit, Petals of Blood, Devils on the Cross,Matigari,Homecoming,Decolonizing the Mind, Writers in Politics, Ngugi Detained, Pen Points and Gun Points, Wizard of the Crow,Globalectics,Remeembering Africa, Dreams in Times of War and I Will Marry When I Want as well as the Trial of Dedan Kimathi which he wrote along with Micere Githae Mugo.Out of this list the only works with literary depth that call for intellectualized attention are ;A Grain of wheat, Wizard of the crow and Globalectics. The Grain of wheat is simply a post colonial reflection of Kenyan politics. Its themes, plot, lessons and entire synechedoche is also found in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomie as well as Achebe’s Anthills of the savannah. My argument dove-tails with those of Liyong’s stand that rewarding Ngugi’s Grain of wheat and forgetting Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and A man of the people would be a literary ceremony devoid of literary justice. Wizard of the Crow is indeed a magnum opus. I am ready to call it Ngugi’s oeuv

1545

The Bible is an antique Volume—
Written by faded men
At the suggestion of Holy Spectres—
Subjects—Bethlehem—
Eden—the ancient Homestead—
Satan—the Brigadier—
Judas—the Great Defaulter—
David—the Troubador—
Sin—a distinguished Precipice
Others must resist—
Boys that “believe” are very lonesome—
Other Boys are “lost”—
Had but the Tale a warbling Teller—
All the Boys would come—
Orpheus’ Sermon captivated—
It did not condemn—

1177

A prompt—executive Bird is the Jay—
Bold as a Bailiff’s Hymn—
Brittle and Brief in quality—
Warrant in every line—

Sitting a Bough like a Brigadier
Confident and straight—
Much is the mien of him in March
As a Magistrate—

Spine clamped,
blurred sight,
and choked.

Brow furrowed
like an indignant dog,
or a suicidal brigadier ****
commanding failure.

Paralyzed in those
Past and future
tsunamis of shame.

At the ending of the world
there is a great unraveling
that celestial bow, wound into heartsong
and maestrate the caring music of things--
with these passions of the mind,
God seeking to unravel himself in the ever-fleeing
moment of philosophy, a Persephonic instance
in the archetype of love, psychotic and misnamed,
strait-jacketed in sin and given nothing but sweet
momentary decay

all the powerful souls connect sexually with the cosmos--
payed off, bastardized with a cigarette between their whispered lips
we hold no wealth but the ever-shifting dollar of life.

Fat Jack, fondly Catholic with angel smiles-- holds a rock of God in his hand, rocking softly
in god's busted gut-belly
spread like butter amongst the stars, asking all the same questions of Nirvana--
The last rumble of a skin-tight drumskin wrapped within a screaming symphonic twang of remnant souls--
Walking the notochord of corporeal form
the fantastic drone of rotorcraft, taunting the angelic lads and their brigadier God, singing psalms of limerence
Charlie Parker, musical sadness
Jack-man gladness
Don't forget them in the moment of monastic incantations

High-risen pyramidicals
Euclidian pitter-patter against the gusts and rains
in familiar, repetitive shapes the droplets of ichor
elucidate the frowns of downtown humanity
the locked door at the edge of the room, the air evacuated in fear,
seeking safety in the favorite belfry of an ancient wailing abbey
the dusty oil-towns of century ago
Imbibes the modern-day Maricopa plain
folk digging for dino-rock and black gold, selling dreams to downtrodden lost boys
the mistakes of RV park families

Farmland road
in Louisiana brew
the atmosphere, keeping personal thoughts trapped
a high-pressure zone
the ever-wandering
churning winds of eventual hurricane
the sequence that tickles Fibonacci's fancies and
calls us to dream--
a great Babel of God's consistent scattering heart.

in this great combustible chamber, loud obnoxious gaseous veils
in a low sigh our precipitate souls
smog on the failed shackles of stale blood
dripping this oil on the lips
holding friendly smiles
hiding sickening grins
callous, angry, the honey-chalice sought be not by man or God
alike;

Charlie Parker, playing the world's instrumentation
a track to follow
faded as the ancient road roaming
Rome's wet snail trail
blinking and shimmering into existence
a dewlit morning
the conglomerate rock is a cradle for human discomfort
admitted and hidden
to be a better hold than the hands of the earth
in these cornmeal roads,
digging out sugars from her *****
and sipping on the liquor of life in classic fermentation

to hold the road in your hands, the world on your lips
to tell the catacombs of love you would be her hostess,
seeking answers in the bones of ancient souls and refining
in deep sighs,
loving the things we cannot be.

i was wrong when i said poetry is dead, i'm more right in saying that poetry is ****** - everyone's eager to lip-up and de-numb the english stiff upper-lip with rhymes; but poetry became overly technical, and the study of it became an abomination in terms of dissection, unnatural medicine: too technical, too rigid as to be conscious of techniques by way of defining what poetry is... hence most schoolchildren put off by it... too technical, too grammatically-akin-to-technique laden... but i ask you, have you ever paid an extra £10 to a ******* to perform oral *** on her? have you ever eaten this forbidden fruit, and later kissed her lips? have tasted the forbidden flower, oiled up prior with cream to ensure that even if she's not in the mood she's still working and can provide the synthetic ***** juices of arousal? have you? we'll have a chat when you do, after eating that forbidden fruit, and then becoming a thief by kissing her against those absurd codes of conduct of prostitution.

this is the only method i see fit
for filtering our scientific facts
and going at it alone:
mishearing lyrics of songs,
turning them into humble mumble,
like in the song *alive alone
by the chemical brothers from the
album exit planet dust...
'and she shines, she shoe-shines for me...'
then the stitches on the abdomen
and a Chelsea grin...
my grandfather worked in the steelworks,
happily retired after being a brigadier
on one of the production lines,
resory (springs) for trains and tanks
and steel pillars for the stade de france,
pretending to be death, but actually
filtering out what he wants to hear -
you know, after years of working
among sounds of clatter and clamour
hammering and molten iron sizzling -
older men have the benefit of the doubt
of others, seeing old age gracefully,
while old men have the benefit of denial;
and indeed true virtue isn't afraid
of critique... it's afraid of compliments...
the last to learn this are actors
who loath hecklers...
if i were an actor, i'd ask a heckler to come
on stage and act with me,
i'd become the sufler (prompter);
ever heard of the band (the) prompter's booth?
you know, in theatre, the guy in a shady
place unseen with a manuscript whispering
out lines to actors should they forget them...
thank god politicians have the autocue...
because imagine in the democratic model
how many people would have to fit
into the prompter's booth, and they'd hardly
whisper out lines for the grand act...
they'd be screaming like lunatics criticisms.

i was in a pub once, talking to a friend, among other things,
the european union came up, i said: i can understand an economic union,
so that economic migrants are no more, i rather like talking polish after all,
but a political union, with so many contrasts?!
that'll never work. then i hear the news,
and the heavy burden of saying things before they happen;
and unlike the insinuations between philosophy
and conversation, with that one mundane origin
of philosophy known as dialectics,
i find writing necessary in prophesying,
indispensable you might add -
when governing to say: the old roman said to the
new roman: the old member boarders want inclusion,
they want the slavs gone, the dream to unfold by their
terms from carthage! i want carthage gone, erased,
gone from the dream of unification, but there's
carthage dictating to the old frail rome known as the vatican!
no! carthago delenda est!
but no, they are replicating a deletion of the past -
russia predates them in propaganda as necessarily
nibbling and knitting so that, as i might add -
old bulgars and roma will testify in fright to the yugoslav -
why such northern expansions?! the whole revelatory book said
concisely enough to market a roman revival as was first insured by
pestering russia with that famous abnormal foetus collection
of peter the great, who was the sole saint in petersburg -
saint built a city! saint built a city! how can francis assisi ever compete
to sainthood by merely talking to sparrows and squirrels
when peter the great built a city?!
well, carthage moved to raqqa - that's how!
or spot me distancing myself from the bookworm moth
philosophies of the library with shush rather than: two for 'un yer bananas!
i am that i am said: it is what it is, a god speaking of the creation,
but then the interaction within it is what it is -
the predation of all ideas and associations, a single noun, moses.
so i am that i am said inside it is what it is to
a noun who had no cartesian relevant past  in terms of
refraining from swish buckle cat's in high-heels and tutu - ***** up! you
break a spine introducing me, forget the family and the child,
you me, we encounter the world changed -
what i said prior: it is what it is will become it is what it's not really.
hence enter the philosophical lexicon: reality... perception...
bulls buckling against *******... enter moses the grand oration
of this famous dusty lexicon bettered. bettered? no really,
just us the same monkey flashback drunk with barbers and better beards -
maldives under the armpits!
i tell you, there are two kinds of world spirit like that quote
about hegel on foot and napoleon on hoof -
one spirit of the world is shrouded with, is cloaked in philosophies,
in thoughts, in the oughts and the morals of DON'T DO!
the other spirit of the world - filled with musketeers and other
pawn shrapnel - expendable creatures to conform to the dictatorial ditto:
napoleon said: marshal ames said: general maccabee said:
lieutenant general nadim said: major general eban said:
major general saburo said: brigadier taavi said: colonel yakov said:
the rest were man of cadet worth with fancy pink ribbons to sport
the wide mouthed bartender of shell-shock and etc.
those are the two spirits, while in the second realm
we have the false prophets governing - with the residing "god" as devil,
but imagine fooling a false prophet from this realm, e.g. jesus to
descend, what would the devil think?! oh ****, 2d!
so a third realm reveals itself - the pseudo edenic ****** ciphered
in the koran disappear, and we salvage ourselves by not imagining
eternal sundays, eternal idleness in such with such a realm: ***** ***** frisk frisk, lubricant;
what, a ****, eternity, as dictated by the kingdom and the koranic gardens;
peasants' eternal fill, no lion, the witch and the wardrobe in sight -
no valhalla! boring! (insert family fortunes' buzzer of x).
i want to be as worthy as a tree to rejuvenate each day after slaughtering
hel's and loci's spawn!

152

The Sun kept stooping—stooping—low!
The Hills to meet him rose!
On his side, what Transaction!
On their side, what Repose!

Deeper and deeper grew the stain
Upon the window pane—
Thicker and thicker stood the feet
Until the Tyrian

Was crowded dense with Armies—
So gay, so Brigadier—
That I felt martial stirrings
Who once the Cockade wore—

Charged from my chimney corner—
But Nobody was there!

Or ce vieillard était horrible : un de ses yeux,

Crevé, saignait, tandis que l'autre, chassieux,

Brutalement luisait sous son sourcil en brosse ;

Les cheveux se dressaient d'une façon féroce,

Blancs, et paraissaient moins des cheveux que des crins ;

Le vieux torse solide encore sur les reins,

Comme au ressouvenir des balles affrontées,

Cambré, contrariait les épaules voûtées ;

La main gauche avait l'air de chercher le pommeau

D'un sabre habituel et dont le long fourreau

Semblait, s'embarrassant avec la sabretache,

Gêner la marche et vers la tombante moustache

La main droite parfois montait, la retroussant.


Il était grand et maigre et jurait en toussant.


Fils d'un garçon de ferme et d'une lavandière,

Le service à seize ans le prit. Il fit entière,

La campagne d'Égypte. Austerlitz, Iéna,

Le virent. En Espagne un moine l'éborgna :

- Il tua le bon père, et lui vola sa bourse, -

Par trois fois traversa la Prusse au pas de course,

En Hesse eut une entaille épouvantable au cou,

Passa brigadier lors de l'entrée à Moscou,

Obtint la croix et fut de toutes les défaites

D'Allemagne et de France, et gagna dans ces fêtes

Trois blessures, plus un brevet de lieutenant

Qu'il résigna bientôt, les Bourbons revenant,

À Mont-Saint-Jean, bravant la mort qui l'environne,

Dit un mot analogue à celui de Cambronne,

Puis quand pour un second exil et le tombeau,

La Redingote grise et le petit Chapeau

Quittèrent à jamais leur France tant aimée

Et que l'on eut, hélas ! dissous la grande armée,

Il revint au village, étonné du clocher.


Presque forcé pendant un an de se cacher,

Il braconna pour vivre, et quand des temps moins rudes

L'eurent, sans le réduire à trop de platitudes,

Mis à même d'écrire en hauts lieux à l'effet

D'obtenir un secours d'argent qui lui fut fait,

Logea moyennant deux cents francs par an chez une

Parente qu'il avait, dont toute la fortune

Consistait en un champ cultivé par ses fieux,

L'un marié depuis longtemps et l'autre vieux

Garçon encore, et là notre foudre de guerre

Vivait et bien qu'il fût tout le jour sans rien faire

Et qu'il eût la charrue et la terre en horreur,

C'était ce qu'on appelle un soldat laboureur.

Toujours levé dès l'aube et la pipe à la bouche

Il allait et venait, engloutissait, farouche,

Des verres d'eau-de-vie et parfois s'enivrait,

Les dimanches tirait à l'arc au cabaret,

Après dîner faisait un quart d'heure sans faute

Sauter sur ses genoux les garçons de son hôte

Ou bien leur apprenait l'exercice et comment

Un bon soldat ne doit songer qu'au fourniment.

Le soir il voisinait, tantôt pinçant les filles,

Habitude un peu trop commune aux vieux soudrilles,

Tantôt, geste ample et voix forte qui dominait

Le grillon incessant derrière le chenet,

Assis auprès d'un feu de sarments qu'on entoure

Confusément disait l'Elster, l'Estramadoure,

Smolensk, Dresde, Lutzen et les ravins vosgeois

Devant quatre ou cinq gars attentifs et narquois

S'exclamant et riant très fort aux endroits farce.


Canonnade compacte et fusillade éparse,

Chevaux éventrés, coups de sabre, prisonniers

Mis à mal entre deux batailles, les derniers

Moments d'un officier ajusté par derrière,

Qui se souvient et qu'on insulte, la barrière

Clichy, les alliés jetés au fond des puits,

La fuite sur la Loire et la maraude, et puis

Les femmes que l'on force après les villes prises,

Sans choix souvent, si bien qu'on a des mèches grises

Aux mains et des dégoûts au cœur après l'ébat

Quand passe le marchef ou que le rappel bat,

Puis encore, les camps levés et les déroutes.


Toutes ces gaîtés, tous ces faits d'armes et toutes

Ces gloires défilaient en de longs entretiens,

Entremêlés de gros jurons très peu chrétiens

Et de grands coups de poing sur les cuisses voisines.


Les femmes cependant, sœurs, mères et cousines,

Pleuraient et frémissaient un peu, conformément

À l'usage, tout en se disant : « Le vieux ment. »


Et les hommes fumaient et crachaient dans la cendre.


Et lui qui quelquefois voulait bien condescendre

À parler discipline avec ces bons lourdauds

Se levait, à grands pas marchait, les mains au dos

Et racontait alors quelque fait politique

Dont il se proclamait le témoin authentique,

La distribution des Aigles, les Adieux,

Le Sacre et ce Dix-huit Brumaire radieux,

Beau jour où le soldat qu'un bavard importune

Brisa du même coup orateurs et tribune,

Où le dieu Mars mis par la Chambre hors la Loi

Mit la Loi hors la Chambre et, sans dire pourquoi,

Balaya du pouvoir tous ces ergoteurs glabres,

Tous ces législateurs qui n'avaient pas de sabres !


Tel parlait et faisait le grognard précité

Qui mourut centenaire à peu près l'autre été.

Le maire conduisit le deuil au cimetière.

Un feu de peloton fut tiré sur la bière

Par le garde champêtre et quatorze pompiers

Dont sept revinrent plus ou moins estropiés

À cause des mauvais fusils de la campagne.

Un tertre qu'une pierre assez grande accompagne

Et qu'orne un saule en pleurs est l'humble monument

Où notre héros dort perpétuellement.

De plus, suivant le vœu dernier du camarade,

On grava sur la pierre, après ses nom et grade,

Ces mots que tout Français doit lire en tressaillant :

« Amour à la plus belle et gloire au plus vaillant. »

Cuando ya todos los héroes
Que con Hidalgo surgieron,
Quedaron frente al «Destino»,
Aprisionados o muertos,
Sólo un tenaz insurgente,
El indomable Guerrero,
Sostuvo entre las montañas
La libertad y el derecho.
Él, desde ochocientos once
Que entró a servir con Morelos,
Asistió a muchos combates
En que demostró su genio.
Y el año de diez y nueve
Fueron tantos sus esfuerzos,
Que alcanzó veinte victorias
Contra el virreinal ejército.
Más tarde cuando Iturbide
Salió para darle encuentro,
Siendo por él derrotado
Del sur en los campamentos,
Se le ofreció por amigo,
Se le entregó como adepto
Y al fin en una entrevista
Celebrada el diez de enero
Del ochocientos ventiuno
De Acatempam en el pueb'o,
Juráronse en un abrazo
Obrar de común acuerdo
Para proclamar muy pronto
La independencia de Méjico.
Guerrero fue como el águila
Altivo, incansable, fiero,
Halló nido en la montaña,
La caza le dio alimento,
Jamás lograron rendirlo
Y cuando en calma le vieron
Era porque ya la presa
Había en sus garras deshecho.
Tal era ei bravo insurgente
Que, por sus brillantes méritos,
Figuró luego en la Patria
Como Jefe del Gobierno;
Dejándonos por memoria,
Y por glorioso recuerdo
La victoria de Tampico
Conquistada en dos sangrientos
Combates, que aniquilaron
Al invasor extranjero.
Fueron Terán y Santa Anna
Quienes con gran ardimiento
Alcanzaron el triunfo
Contra un brigadier ibero
Que vencido y desarmado
Con su flota dejó el puerto.
Cuando ya sin ingerencia
En asuntos del Gobierno
Tranquilo en el sur vivía
El indomable Guerrero,
Por temor a su fiereza
Un crimen se tramó en Méjico.
El general Bustamante
Y sus ministros, creyeron
Oportuno darle muerte
Al soldado de Morelos;
Y hay quien diga que hubo alguno
Que así exclamó en el consejo:
A este suriano terrible
Hay que quitarle de en medio.
No era fácil darle alcance
Ni era posible vencerlo,
Y a un genovés, Picaluga,
Corazón infame y *****,
Como a Judas lo compraron
Para consumar el hecho.
Picaluga tenia surto
Un bergantín en el puerto
De Acapulco y era amigo
Del bravo adalid del pueblo;
Lo convidó una mañana
A principios de febrero
A almorzar en el Colombo,
El héroe asistió al almuerzo
Y en cuanto le tuvo a bordo,
Se dio a la vela ligero,
Y fue a entregarlo en Huatulco
A las fuerzas del Gobierno.
Por aquella negra infamia
Cobró cincuenta mil pesos;
Y nadie supo a qué sitio
Huyó el traidor marinero.
En tanto al héroe suriano,
A Oaxaca lo trajeron,
Lo juzgaron a su antojo
En ridículo consejo;
Mil crímenes le imputaron,
Mil faltas le supusieron,
Y ya sentenciado a muerte,
Lo fusilaron enfermo,
En la villa de Cuilapa
El catorce de febrero
Del año de treinta y uno...
¡Año en nuestra historia *****!!
Cuando en el Almirantazgo
De Génova, conocieron
La infamia de Picaluga,
Publicaron un decreto
Declarándolo ante el mundo
Traidor, villano y artero;
Sentenciándolo a que muera
Por la espalda, sin derecho
A sepultura sagrada,
Ni a luto ni a testamento
Breves pasaron los años
Y el más profundo misterio,
Veló a todos el destino
Del infame marinero.
Contábanse mil consejas
Que amedrentaban al pueblo,
Pero la verdad, lo triste,
Lo horripilante, lo cierto,
Era que el héroe de Tixtla,
El soldado de Morelos,
Gozaba en humilde tumba
Del último de los sueños
Causando duelo a la Patria
Y rubor a su Gobierno.
Cuando cayó Bustamante
Y que los años corrieron,
Uno de sus más adictos
Hombre rico y de provecho,
Hizo un viaje a Tierra Santa,
Pues era cristiano viejo.
Llegado a la Palestina
Fue a visitar el convento
En que moran los trapistas
Pensando ganar el cielo.
Al atravesar un claustro,
Dicen que salió a su encuentro
Un fraile, cuyo semblante
En amplia capucha envuelto
Velaba con blanca barba
Que le bajaba hasta el pecho.
-¿No me conocéis?- le dijo,
-No- respondióle el viajero.
-Pues llevo aquí algunos años
De rogar al Ser Supremo,
Que a Bustamante y sus hombres,
Y a mí, que fui su instrumento,
Nos perdone compasivo
Y nos absuelva en su reino
Del crimen que cometimos
Con el general Guerrero.
Soy Francisco Picaluga...
-iPicaluga!!
                    -Humilde siervo
De Dios, a quien lo devora
Un tenaz remordimiento.
Sin decir una palabra
Y de admiración suspenso,
El viajero conmovido
Salió del triste convento,
Y después de algunos años
Al referir el suceso
Temblaba cual si estuviera
Junto al traidor marinero.

found in Styron's darkness visible... he survived auschwitz... but said adieu to life: by throwing himself down a flight of stairs.

millennial, generation y, huh?!
    also called the:
bearable heaviness of non-being...
   say: survivors of auschwitz,
and apart from Kundera,
i'm fudged into this stealth-culprit
     hangover...
   and when i speak the native tongue
i use double emphasis...
everything suddenly becomes italic...
    gówno... or ****... teutonic: gavron, ja,
ich habbe schtabbe ga ga, magpie on
              a licky-sticky schtaisse:
vroom bog-tie boom boom...
   everntually language is just that:
   magnifique sounds, mein herr,
    be that a cello i hear?
                      nada... mindlessly i too
  feigned a farting brigadier, farting into
       a brass horn: worth a gingerbread /
pumpernickle        marching rhythm.
yes, double emphasis in the native...
kosz (koš)... bin...
    trza błagać... błagać!
        o śmierć... beg for death...
             but hetman cossak said *smerc... and it
sounded altogether better.
   a household argument,
   after prawn-pasta was cooked throughout
an afternoon of general bewilderment:
        a heap of pebbles makes more sense
than the Orion constelation...
              given the mathematical approach
to the situation, and subsequent mapping...
   because they really did drop a bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
                and that's why 21st creativity
is trapped in a hamster's routine...
    karaoke is standard...
                         this insissting plagiaristic zeitgeist!
so i said: you really think you conquered
yapan?            jesus, je suis, zeus, yesus, jamaican
                              jah jah *** buck...
      rasta root mon, rasta root.
    battered and bruised...
               someohow this whole dating scene
passed me by...
                     and what happened to me aged
21... is strangely becoming the norm
                       of giving the circumstance:
  i can't remember being of any age, particular.
  the quicker argument would coincide with:
    give me a machinegun, and march me into
a Latvian forest...
                   because, right now, it's
a scenario of being coerced into donning a leash
   or more like a leech,
                         and an afternoon spent
pulverised by a pneumatic tsunami
                     of adverts... calling it a job done,
with a siberian brew: cow juice in
                       tea...
                     liquid werther's original.

Cuando fue el bravo Guerrero
Presidente, yo era un chico
Y en aquel tiempo a Tampico
Llegó un general ibero.
¿Barradas?
...Justo; esto es;
Barradas precisamente
Queriendo, audaz y valiente,
Ser un nuevo Hernán Cortés.
Entonces, sólo al decir
Que extraña tropa llegaba
El Gobierno ya miraba
Enlutado el porvenir.
Y por prudencia o temor
Cesaban goces y fiestas,
Haciéndole mil protestas
A cualquier embajador.
Barradas, bravo y experto,
Vencer a Méjico anhela
Y entra altivo a toda vela,
Como virrey frente al puerto.
Santa-Anna, a la patria fiel,
Tan audaz como animoso
Derrotó al jefe ambicioso
Ganando eterno laurel.
Fue una derrota ejemplar
Que no olvidará la Historia
Pues allí alcanzó la gloria
De hacerlo capitular.
En Méjico ¡Qué ansiedad
Por saber el resultado!
Estaba en completo estado
De agitación la ciudad.
Una noche, a ver un drama
Guerrero fue al Coliseo,
Un teatro tosco y feo
Que «Principal» se le llama.
Llegado el acto tercero,
Ve con asombro la gente
Que al palco del Presidente,
Entra, con traje de cuero,
Un hombre y le da un papel;
Guerrero al leerlo llora;
Y el público en esa hora,
Enternecido como él,
Presiente lo que le avisa
Al Presidente el pliego
Y queda mudo, en sosiego,
Entre lágrimas y risa.
Cuando acabó de leer
Guerrero, se levantó
De su asiento y así habló
Sin poderse contener:
«Si con frases no me explico,
El llanto lo hará por mí...
¡Me comunican aquí
La victoria de Tampico...!
Vencido está el jefe ibero,
Santa-Anna lo derrotó...»
Y un gran grito resonó:
«¡Vivan Santa-Anna y Guerrero!»
Guerrero con alegría,
Dijo enseñando leal
La faja de general
Que en la cintura tenía:
«Mando al brigadier Santa-Anna,
Esta faja, no os asombre,
Para que la porte en nombre
De la Nación Mejicana».
Volvió el público a gritar
Nuevos vivas y a aplaudir,
En unos era el reír,
En otros era el llorar
Y no hay mármoles ni bronces,
Ni existen tinta y color,
Que puedan pintar, señor,
El patriotismo de entonces.
Tu buena memoria pasma
A cualquiera, mi sargento,
Tu relato da contento,
Enardece y entusiasma.
Cuando el teatro dejaron
Todos con gran ansiedad,
¿Sabéis lo que en la ciudad
Con asombro contemplaron?
Adornadas con festones
Todas las casas vecinas,
Con faroles y cortinas
En cornisas y balcones;
Sobre las torres bermejas
De los vetustos conventos,
Gallardetes, ornamentos,
Guirnaldas y candilejas.
Las calles... ¡que animación!
Las gentes si se encontraban,
Entusiastas se abrazaban
Con lágrimas de emoción.
No se escuchaba un reproche,
Todo era franco y sincero,
Que estaba Méjico entero
De triunfo en aquella noche.
¡Y todos los mejicanos
Que un mismo placer sentían,
Entonces sí se querían
Como si fuesen hermanos...!
Me enternezco cuando pienso
En esto, porque señor,
No he visto un modo mejor
De dar a un bravo un ascenso,
Ni un modo más natural,
Más franco y más elocuente
De expresar públicamente
El contento nacional.
Glorias del pasado son,
¡Mas para un viejo soldado,
Esas glorias del pasado
Dan vida a su corazón...!

and sometimes magic, a scene from the book
of genesis, chapter verse whatever,
buying whiskey and beer in a supermarket,
the cashier, Tara, knows me,
she's my gym coach,
she tut tut struts and tuts when i buy
beer telling me to keep the beer off -
i told you alcoholics are mobile,
we go sightseeing most of the time,
on a double decker bus we bemuse and
lipread: and here's the Elizabeth tower (formerly
known as Benjamin "big ****" Disraeli -
the English by the French after the 100
year war: if they're not retards, they're perverts) -
****! that ****'s brushed off on me! am i a *******
if i hold dear a British passport? phew! no? yes? huh?!
i must be a Mr. Khan in waiting...
no, but seriously, a scene in the cave of an iceman,
5 lasses buying wine lonely,
me my beer my whiskey,
i get a lemon added / ****, i told you it was a lime not
a lemon on the conveyor belt -
i get a lime, lucky Adam got an apple
and one asking, i'm doing double-up fevers waiting
for Saturday night with Paris, Hilda, Venus and Hera..
Adam gets an apple from smooch slick Eva
naked and i get a ******* lime on a conveyor-belt
in a supermarket while buying whiskey...
Jonah! call the whale! i'm sure we'll both
be calling it Noah's ark when tomorrow comes;
**** you not, we'll be boarding dry-land at
Arsuk - ****, send a message to Columbus -
we discovered North America via Greenland
like you discovered the same via the Caribbean Islands,
ha ha! call it dynamo of Erik versus Kristopheren;
i just got a lime on a conveyor belt in a supermarket,
Adam was handed an apple in Eden -
i guess that's worth a 50 50 chance of coincidence
with my ***-starved libido and the English "roses":
not that i'm guarantying anything good either,
it's not like i'm a vacuum cleaner based guarantee -
but **** me, the ******? **** wrinkles and all,
bamboozle clad the salutary march for applause -
and the fainting bearskin trumpet-brigadier at
the ro- -yal parade onto Buckingham Ponce;
n'ah n'ah n'ah n'ah n'ah.

.what's that Jack Kerouac book? Buddha of suburbia? more like Hospitaller of suburbia, by the looks of it...

and there's drink and there's drink,
and there's drink drink drink,
and drink...

              am i in Valhalla already?
what's up with ms. Amber?
  that liquid deity of whiskers & the ost key?
****!
    another loose cannon!
           but not orthodox canon, though?
good...
  sign me up for a power nap...
     back in 15... once all the fame game
fizzles out...

      **** me... back on the ***!
like i said to this black guy
  going out with a white girl
in a Liverpool St. pub...
  so... watcha drinking?
   *** & coke...
oh come on...
  that's a ****** name...
   so i eyed him,
thank god he was donning an excuse for
****** hair...

  look!         blackbeard!
you're drinking a blackbeard!
       what was i supposed to say?
nice minstrels?!
the girl giggled,
   the pair left,
but i was still stuck with this
Irish Indian mongrel who asked
the Wong question...
   where you from?
Essex.
  but really really from?
some people put me down as
a German, either the hairline,
the crop itself, the cheekbones,
of the jaw line...
pedigree...
           **** ****** off before
i even began to express my like
for the engineering that wernt
into the Hindenburg,
before, you know, Led Zeppelin
took off...
  
   ha ha!
i'm starting to appreciate
the dementia cinema of old people...
better than LSD...
these memory flashbacks...
           i could pig snout that ****
all day long...
      oh right...
i have half decent memories...
my bad...

   i'm not english but i do know
that when a casual strange
expresses "sorrow" with the word sorry,
the act that appeases saying
sorry, if half intention,
but the sorrow in the word
utilized? it's not there, never was...

or how about -
that's nice: ridicule, par excellence...
does engish have to boil down
to Darwin and not ontology?
which means?
i guess ontology is frightening
to certain peoples,
other than the jolly rogers of
being constantly bothered by it,
like the german...

wait... i thought the Anglicans
were cousins with zee Germans?!

my bad...

           as the saying goes:
either one liners at the Edinburgh
festival, or a decent narrative,
no punchline,
      a disorientating coming together...

dating?
     last time i checked...
walked to the supermarket, passed
a tom boy on a bench imploring her
phone for ****** expression...
walking back with *****
of decent 7% beer, asked to sit down...
offered a lighter...
talked for about 1 minutes,
asked it - not yet her
to come back to mine...

played her some jazz... drank
a bit, smoked...
ended up ******* her in
the garden...

****-naked in the moonlight...
instead of ******* into her mouth,
pulled out, did it in my hand,
and then threw it aside...

walked her home...
while she drowned in my hoodie...
she implored me not to drink...
   i said thank you,
but that's not going to happen...
kissed her forehead,
received a ring
    woven by a neck bracelet...

turns out she was a she...
a transgender
   Filipino tom-boy wearing
a sports bra...
          messy ****...
as all pick-ups are concerning
a public space like a park,
and 2 hours later... ******* in the garden...

but i have to admit...
   i was waiting for the Thai surprise
once i reached into her underwear...
lucky me or thrilled me...
what's it going to be?
       an oyster...
  or floating Alaskan timber?!

dating... ha ha!
    Camden Town...
      next to the station...
sly drinking a pouch of *****...
    oh yeah yeah,
trying to write a poetry  book...
     blah blah...
so what's more important to you
than accompanying two girls
to this other nightclub?
no much...
    but i hate being late...
  i decided to have a drink with
this guy who asked if i was gay
as we discussed whether
Rick Rubin was a better produced
to Timberland...
      ending with:
   why do people stare at you?
with the reply: i just have one of
those punching bag faces...
so she gives me her number...
          i text it the next day...
ghost.
                            
             hey, ms. Amber is always frisky...
with, or without the Valkyries...
  whoever they are...
     if are, at all...

       and thank god i actually competed
with an American over a French
exchange student when i did lose
my virginity,
                then the desert...
then a brothel in Poland,
with a centipede of Ukrainian girl's legs...
way past the Moulin Rouge cancan
dance...
                       2 hours...
              no ******* at any time...
*******...

           but please! Sancha!
  Sancha! i want my DVD back!
         i want the Machinist back!
                 couldn't you have at least
had the *******'s decency after 4 *****
with me the 5th...
to lubricate?
               what was it, ****?
          that's the second girl i slept
with that somehow appreciated
both a dark room, and doing it under
the bed sheets... ****!
can't breath!
     how can cocoon *** with the already
dark room, rather than darkened
say, dimmed lights, candlelight ever
produce arousal?
      
               *** education has,
suddenly, become, much more intricate,
point break, standard...
        Sancha, a Boer South African
didn't have, the same ******* courtesy of
a Puerto Rican ******* in Amsterdam...

****...
                   hence my query about ****...
no ****** would ever go along
and shove his gangrene phallus into,
what feels like... a ******* sandpit!

                  we cooked dinner together!
we watched a film together!
she invited me back to her abode!
then again...
   ah!
        you know where she was hoarding
her ***?
  
    in an all-male boarding school...
the boys were on holiday...
   THAT'S WHY SHE WAS DRY
down below!
                 **** me! what a revelation!
spending all the year
with adolescent boys...
   a man older than hear
didn't excite her!
           ****! **** **** **** ****!
i never saw that coming
at the most reasonable explanation
why i was pseudo-***** by
a dehydrated oyster!

             if you spend so much time
with boys who have only just
embarked on a journey of testosterone...
and you're getting all that
schoolboy affection from them?
no wonder a man who's older than
you will not turn you on!

          that **** i went to a *******
and know what the etiquette is
like, when you've just ****** 4 and you're
about to **** a 5th...

       good to know...
                         what's MGTOW again?    
does it have anything to do
with listening to a choir of monks sing?
Byzantine, Templar... anything?
oh right... not really...
          oops... i'll be on my way...
right about...           NOW.

. a month spent listening to (a) grandfather's medley of memories, an eroded imagination, an inversion of a figurative- something of other... a month spent with the breath of Shiva... dementia... no wonder my use, subsequently, does not represent the vitality of a springbok... less a torrent of a waterfall... and more... heavily reliant on: perpendicular and subserviently cryptic.

what came first:

   the vowel,
or the consonant...

|    standing ground...

figments
of the imagination -
vowels

and the rigid
   arches of
huddling
consonants...

unkept lockets
of birches
woven
in pine forests...

dead to humor
English oak:
numbed
a'pathos
           vater...

vague wounds
caressed
by the winds...

in beast: siamese -
no differential,
unto a blast from
a sputnik's
starry baron knead
of the knee

   third letter:
surd...
            what the eye
and the aye does
see...

  but the: hushed
agreement bypasses...
to 'now
is no sentiment of
a nauw...
  Cymry:

                     piquant,
the difference
between
  (k)now
   and  n              A             w

no... 'now...
   brigadier is
not (a) /
     no              trumpet-tier /
player...

            -teer...

         a vowel,
a consonant,
a surd...
                          
                  and if...
VII were again,
and 7 far from F...

         tickling e. e. cummings...

translation?
missing...

                  the obscurity
of the concept of flesh
when wearing
a pair of gloves,
the Sait Paul & Peters...

flesh disintegrates,
what remains is...
the mediating
numb between gloves
and the "abstract"
of skeleton...

            what came first...
the "vowel", or "the" consonant?
past the moral "question":
the glaring contort...
a letter - L, 90°...
   that gave birth to
               the Girth of Delta?

360° and the "missing" 5...
   Kant: negation = 0,
reply...
                    Λ = sanction.

Ding **** bell
***** in the well...

But
Let me tell
This fat man's tale was hell.

In Melbourne's city main street named Pell
Into a manhole he fell
It took six men under Brigadier Mac Mell
To rescue him--he survived a trauma but was physically well.

Once brigadier in evil empire new
Took with her Heart as sweet as sultry sun
Sees other souls as twins, yet one
Be guide by creed that hate in vain not knew
She walks in foregrounds noisy, sandy, blitzed
******* to God's sky, slightly apart
Sweet speech of peace spoke from a hearing Heart
Turns my own from forlorn blue to red
Beau not made for fetid empire's boots
For all she tires, not selfish needs
To wise to be conduit of empire's deeds
Aghast, in tears, at wily war cahoots
Nakedly brave she shames treacherous truths
Bared for all the world to see
When truth-tellers in fraternity
Unite to lay bare war's same forsooth
Perhaps example will teach us how
Us, deceived flock, fleeced and eaten
Us, cheering war sulphurous molten
Teach us to Love a sister now
She dances sober past those drunk on death
Those novices of life yet still to Love
Within their prison walls beau turtle dove
Did take flight yonder with laughing breath
So as she lives, she to love obeys
So when she's not she, she lives yet everyday

title: \scrap\
body:
/methods/
|in|
/to/
|and| \back\ - a 502 bad gateway bypass

well, you drink, get up, you drink some more,
you vacuum the house,
you correct the tomato soup your father has
started, blitz it up, sieve it,
add more Kashmiri chilly powder, sugar,
two chicken stock cubes: the sour cream will
be served individually... you'll cook the vermicelli
later on...
maybe it's just me: my parents instilled in me
a sense of dis-belonging to my fatherland...
since i left Poland when i was 8 years old...
they instilled in me the "argument":
what has Poland ever done for you?!
well... when the regime changed...
and my father married up... my mother's father:
my grandfather, was a known Communist Party
member, that's why he rose in rank
to become a foreman: brigadier in the metallurgy
industry... so after the regime change:
stigma... obviously...
what did Poland ever give me? erm... ah ha...
a childhood... my memory bank goes as far back
as being 4 years old... that's the expanse
of my consciousness... 4 years old... standing in
a darkened room... watching a football match...
Lothar Matthäus was my hero...
Germany was my favourite team...
          maybe because his surname sounded like
my name... maybe i'm just a reincarnated German...
even though: i don't believe in reincarnation...
an abhorring idea... i.e. there's only a fixed number
of souls... migrating from one zombie body to
another... but i'm thinking... Poland has always been
human traffic junction...
name them: Mongols, Huns, Goths, Vandals,
Russians, Swedes... there was even an elected Saxon
king... Scots... perhaps an ancient past has woken
up in me... "my" people once spanned the lands
between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea...
"we" used to own Kiev...
        so my father left me when i was 4... he in turn
was abandoned by his parents: raised by his grandmother
and her second husband... so not really his grandfather...
first grey hairs at 18 taking care of him...
an alcoholic father who was a diligent worker
but who tended to sleep on park benches completely
out of it: my father would get the grunt and jokes
about his father: who abandoned him... blah blah...
oh, my father's a ****** when it comes to drinking...
a complete teetotaler... i haven't been so "lucky":
i just enjoy it too much... esp. when cooking or doing
household chores, gardening or... ahem: this...
doodling...
my mother left me when i was 6... we were all reunited
all the way in England when i was 8...
allegiance? well... perhaps if we weren't deported
when i was... starting year 7 at Canon Palmer R.C. School...
i had to lie that my grandmother died...
i just remember punching the wall... crying...
giving the Home Officers a death-stare when
he commented on me having a nice p.c. -
watching my father and mother get hand-cuffed...
we left two weeks later and i spent a year back in
Poland watching the 1998 world cup,
reading Umberto Eco, the Little Prince...
     was home-schooled... focused on the math...
again... thrown back among people who
didn't speak English... a bit like being thrown among
people who didn't speak any Polish...
ping-pong! even my grandmother remarked
that i was losing my capacity to speak my mother tongue...
all in all? i reckon it was a good thing...
since i doubled down in my "schizoid" bilingualism...
i wouldn't speak English in private... i still don't...
no chance am i going to play the atypical immigrant
plotline ranging from India to somewhere
in Africa where first generation immigrants
don't teach their 2nd generation immigrant children
their mother tongue: to fit in... to "integrate":
while those kids rebel against the whole establishment
and blow themselves up: why? out of spite for
their parents... unconsciously... they might think it's
against their host country... but it's unconsciously
against their parents... for not leaving them an open
avenue with a chance to return: should they wish...
to speak their mother tongue...
  but now i wake up... hmm... what did Poland ever
do for me? i remember being spat in the face...
by fellow countrymen as a young boy...
my grandfather's reputation as a Communist Party
member spread? who knows...
children are cruel... the change of guard was certainly
the pivotal reason why my parents immigrated...
fun facts from world war II...
it took **** Germany and Soviet Russia longer
to subdue Poland...
than it took **** Germany to subdue France...
i mean... France... Napoleon... a colonial superpower...
but that's how it goes... i'm sniffing gunpowder
on the doorstep... what does Poland owe me?
what do i owe, though? splendid first 8 years of my
life... childhood was more fun in Poland
than it was in England, there was a sense of community,
of belonging... all that shattered: disappeared in
England... even though... those weekends spent
with Peter Richardson and Kieran O'Mahoney...
yeah... no complaints there... we used to run round
5 storey car parks and play a game of spitting
down on people walking in...
   this one time i managed the impossible... my phlegm
landed on a guy's head... oh the joy we shared...
a security guard caught up with us: but we blagged
our way out of it...
whatever my feelings concerning Ukraine: historically...
the UPA genocides of Galicia...
and in general... but at least... we're taking in refugees...
women, children... unlike Western countries with
their superiority complex... we're better... because we've
been taking in... cultural enrichment gangs
of fighting age men... where was that?
                           Cologne? hmm... my my...
                      ref-u-gee?! i'm gleeful at the irony in all
of this... but i'm waking up thinking... **** me...
explosions as far west as L'viv... hmm... that's what?
2 hours from the border from the fatherland?
should i be thinking about conscripting?
      well... if i still didn't have a job... by now...
                         i'd be thinking about nothing else...
but it's on the cards...
       hard to imagine... but that there's a real chance
of me conscripting to go to war...
like: i would never celebrate war in poo'etry...
      venerate the warrior... i'm far too an existentialist
to give into the myths of war...
it's just new... there was never a prospect akin to this
ever... for me at least... but now it's on the cards...
would i pledge my allegiance to England
as more important than pledging my allegiance
to Poland? should the most horrible happen?
      being a dual-national... i have all the paperwork...
i have the tongue... the prospect of me settling
down with an English girl fizzled out completely with
Jeminah and that trio of storms that raged over
England days prior to the Russian invasion...
i translate that as a butterfly effect...
a broken heart in England and elsewhere... Russian troops
stomping their boots...
   and believe me: there are more deluded people out
there... western leftoids who are just a headache when
it comes to this subject matter...
for me... even contemplating conscripting in the ******
army feels... rather... surreal?
    but if one has to level a few КAЦAП heads
so be it...              whatever needs to be done...
etymologically, i think this intra-racial slur lent itself
from the word: KAPTUR... meaning hood...
   since... it would almost take forever for England
to be threatened and i still hold a little grudge
against England for being deported when i was a child...
2nd time: oh... all manner of legality...
but seeing how England started treating ethnic minorities
(even though i am, technically an ethnic minority,
ethnicity comes prior to race)
sort of ****** me off, a little, an itsy-bitsy bit...
esp. how these ethnic minorities started gloating
and boasting, blowing themselves up...
   eh... just an itsy-bitsy bit of me tells me:
i might just have to pledge allegiance to a country
i only spent 8 years in... and the summers with my
grandfather from the ages of 13 to... 21...
even though i'm not equipped with those people's
mentality... i don't know... i really don't...
but pandering to racial minorities: that are no longer
******* racial minorities...
whenever race comes to the fore and ethnicity is
ignored... it's a bit like telling a Welshman he's English...
just because they're both white...
****** me off... big time...
  you go to Africa and learn: the Kenyans are
importing timber from Ghana... well...
because a Kenyan is a Kenyan and a Ghanaian
is a Ghanaian... who gives a **** whether they part
of the same race... a Kenyan is not a Ghanaian
and vice versa... that's how you spot the real racists...
on the western front... child-speak...
roses are red, violets are blue...
                                   all felines... all canines are...
Alsatian shepherds... it's almost like an inability
to see a three-dimensional object in two-dimensions...
ha! that's exactly it! these people can't see
a cube on a piece of paper!
i'm still trying to figure out who subverted these people
to this level of nonsense...
the old Soviets?! the proper left, all those years ago?
you think?
i don't know... i'll let the ideas ferment a little...
see if there will be any Russian teasing with lead
on the Polish Ukrainian border...
                           but it's going to be hard...
i don't really have a tongue to defend...
          that fear of being made extinct by either Russian
or German in the years prior to independence of 1918
is long gone... given the ****** diaspora across
the world being as prominent as it were of the Hebrews...
i clearly don't have a ******'s mentality...
the only person of importance for me back there
is my grandmother... and that's about it...
fight for... a memory of a place from when i was 4 through
to 8? is it really worth fighting for?
i'm not going to move back there...
                            fickle... fickle little me...
i would have more concern to fight for England
than i would for Poland...
just like in the old days...
England states that it will make war against
Germany for having invaded...
yet no English soldier fought on that land...
while ****** soldiers were involved on English soil
in the air-force...
                     such are the days...
                          then again: i can't imagine fighting
for anything as obnoxious as LGBT+ rights either...
for the grand dodo project... no offence... sure... be gay...
have your kinks... but... fight for these rights?
as a man who has been stripped of the possibility
of starting a family based on the fickleness of women...
i'm more of a free agent of any idea i wish to will...
and will it to my advantage...
                oh it's a bit different, right? when it's on
your doorstep...
    can't exactly hoodwink it... can't put it to the back
of your mind... it's staring you right in the eyes
and you're not expected to blink...
                well... the cards are on the table...
                 thank god Ilona got engaged with me and later
broke the engagement off...
like i said at work... 2 weeks ago...
having a Russian girlfriend, right now... would be sort
of problematic...
yes, yes: NOT ALL RUSSIANS...
                         but... yeah... whatever.

you've never experienced hell,
if you haven't sat through it,
unless standing,
        muddied foot,
            soaking rifle,
              all because some serb
shot, the franz, the ferdinand,
the kneeling austro-hungarian
alliance...
                tod hat ein atem...
           name me the three
witches of Hamlet...
                  i can name you one
i can name one for you...
                   horpyna...
                a dog barks,
a son falls to his death in
a bike accident...
                  one now prays
for a worthwhile attendence
to encompass mourners...
                  circling,
            *****-pyna..
           or -pýna(h)
                          otherwise...
are we all actually
                              literate?
         are you sure?
i'm not so sure...
                   but i find the ones
who are not so literate
to be soft cuddly avatars of
   panda...
                    dried out U
in the centaur vision of bow,
and arrow: V...
                    death doesn't hunt,
death, stalks...
          tod tut nicht jagd,
                    tod stengel...
            otherwise known as:
                             schnüffelngriff...
mein schnout...
                      brigadier hooond over 'ere
made a perfect
                      Peckham accent...
      hiding the H
    really allowed the yew...
to sprout...
               tender living beast,
what will you do without
this ukrainian witch
           believed to be a 6ft man?
               point being...
how do you actually hollow out
the Y in hush on a leash,
                          beginning with eng-?
surf the big or little dipper
sort of phrase...
                             how?!
not once did, hail zeus!
         mention this tetragrammaton
construct!
                   je sui(s),
                            hail zeus!
and the son of?
                    thitch quang duke?
you know, that burning monk...
           no point mentioning
anyone post-script
               malcolm browne...
now...
     smoking pieces of salmon flesh
is fine by me,
        but doing
the same to, whiskey?!
                shim-shimeney
shim-shim: **** surreal...
                        mary *******
poppins dropped in on this antic
and, herself asked,
       stop this ****** perfume
crafting;
              well, that really wasn't
a question,
      but neither was 1950s
experiment with cinematic
    application
of technicolour,
      notably: ooh...
           glocke, buch und kerze
      (bell, book and candle)
       nineteen... fifty... eight...
    or as otherwise stated:
           god, hates, the lords, of salem...
   never spent an hour
with a bulgarian ******* then,
i gather?
                then you probably don't
know,
               what the madonna-*****
complex is...
             point being:
     i know what a flacid,
           compared to an ***** phallus is.