Canto I: Exposition

A dampened quill and wrist unstill
Dare gallop ‘cross the page
Scribbled lines in black do shine
With much and fervent rage

And without fail, they tell their tale:
A passage tried and true
Lasting years, through hopes and fears
On page of yellow hue

Epic tales and loss at sea
Are listed in its text
The hand that writ this hallowed script
Can be no less than hexed

It begged, it sailed, it led a crowd,
It took a lady’s life
It stole, it smote, and always wrote
In volumes more than rife

He took this hand to unknown land
To carve a profound path
He set the sail for times to come
Yet tore himself in half

He lay awake in warm Toulon
In misty-morning May
The yellow birds in shrillest words
Alert him to the day

For too long days and longer nights
He’s waited for the word
The morrow here will mark the first
Of correspondence heard

Bonaparte has rallied here
To Toulon’s bustling bay
Three-fourths a score of battleships
To Egypt make their way

Before the high and mighty men
Joined with the water’s ebb
A note was slipped beneath the door
Assigned to M. Lefèbvre

Finally, a true decree
Has blest his merry course
Soon, eagerly, he’ll set to sea
Lost time his one remorse


Canto II: Aleron

Out to sea are thirty-three
That with me sail the tides
With these men, I trust my life
They follow where I guide

And so we’re gone from warm Toulon
Just days from the decree
Noble men off far ahead
And me with bourgeoisie

Bonaparte has aimed his fleet
To Egypt’s sandy shores
Through pirate gangs and ill intent
His roaring cannons tore

We follow in this taintless route
As far as we can trail
But soon we’ll turn half-way to stern;
To Gibraltar we shall sail

Days upon the Aleron
Are short but riveting
My men maintain their cheery air
And working still, they sing

No more of cloudy restlessness
No more of shady days
The blazing sun and windy waves
Have chased off my malaise

We pull our sheets and head from east
To curve around southwest
Past Ibiza, whose northern shore
Our Aleron caressed

The choppy sea grows thinner
And our nerves become unstill
The pirates of the Barbary Coast
Could leap in for the ****

And now, a sign above the line
Where water meets the sky
A tow’ring plume of certain doom
Is growing ever high

The heavens choke with blackest smoke
As fires burn a boat
The raw, impending fear of Death
Is clawing at my throat


Canto III: Skull and Bones

‘Tis hours later and we’re chased
Beneath the star-dogged moon
We tried to break away to north
But broke away too soon

Unknown, we tailed the pirate ship
Then saw the far black dot
The crow’s nest signaled skull and bones;
We held onto our knot

We much too late had turned around
My Aleron spun slow
Sheets so white in plain of sight
Had sold us to our foe

Our heaviest of itemry
Into the sea we cast
Rusty tools and iron spools:
Submerged, and sinking fast

Yet still we could not make a pace
To lose the rotten crew;
On our backs, they sailed our tracks
And split our wake in two

And so the misty moon is here
And watches like a ghoul
As we divorce our southern course
For Pillars of Hercule

The flick’ring light behind us
Like a glimmer in an eye
Stares and preys upon us
In cover of black dye

It grows and throws upon our ship
A light of fear and blood
It digs into our drowsy eyes
With sharpness of a spud

We hold on to our frantic pace
Till night invites the day
When to our right, in bright sunlight,
An ally heads our way

With Godly sound the cannons pound
The scoundrels far in back
Our brothers there in ship so fair
Repelled the foul attack


Canto IV: Gibraltar

In safer seas, our Aleron
Met with Le Taureau Bleu
We buy and sell and trade our stock
And praise and thank the crew

For safety’s sake, along we take
Two cannons of our own
We’ll stand a better chance against
The skull and crosséd bones

On we sail, on more and more
On through the placid day
No longer faced with poor intent
We make our merry way

Finally, from the vociferous chum
Upon the tall crow’s nest
“Land **! Land **!” Enthused, we know
Gibraltar’s over the crests

I decide to park (good-will flag on ark)
At the British colonial base
With cannons in stow, civilians are we
Attacking is surely bad taste

Just then, as I stood face-front on the deck,
A shrill squawking was cast
To the back I turned, and quickly discerned
A yellow bird up on a mast

How dare it perch there! I’d **** it, I swear
But I’d fire not a gun
Britons who spy me would surely deny me
Fair entrance, if that’s what I’d done

Instead I’ll sit tight; my crew is all right
They don’t mind the bird at all
I’ll listen and bear it, and try to forget
That the bird is the cause of my fall

Closer we draw to Gibraltar’s port
The Britons are within clear view
With a wave of a flag, they accept us in
But my anger cannot be subdued

I ready my gun; to the bird I have spun
And fire my shots to the air
The Britons, upset, rush onboard and get
Me constrained; and ensued despair


Canto V: The Crimson Owl

Silver chains kept me detained
As questioning carried on
Was I a spy for whom I ally?
Or was I simply a con?

I kept face as the questioner paced
And the brute slapped me around
Lastly, I smiled, as after a while
They had no evidence found

With regret, they set me free
Determining I was no harm
But seconds before I went through the door
A fellow rushed in with alarm

Cannons, found inside my ship
As rifles point at me
Again, they had me cuffed and chained
And threatened hostilely

“Smuggling arms to enemy ships”
Was written in their book
Chained and gagged and stowed was I
No better than a crook

Between the pillars I was passed
But not as I had hoped
Both my arm and legs were bound
My fragile neck was choked

In the bowels of The Crimson Owl
I slept in dark distress
No other day, with truth I say,
Had I known such duress

The days had passed and I’d amassed
A hunger, fierce and true
All my thought was set aside
To find something to chew

When suddenly, the shrillest sound
Came flying from afar
A cannon shot had hit its mark
The mainmast it would mar

Sounds of death came all around
And finally toward me
My blind removed, I held in view
The pirates of this sea


Canto VI: Captain Riceau

I stepped aboard by point of sword
And left the burning Owl
“Bienvenue à Le Chat Fou”
Said a fellow through his scowl

But when I talked, they stopped and gawked
Surprised at me they were
A fellow French, I was embraced;
The Crazy Cat could purr

They brought me on, my captors gone,
And took me as their own
And for the time, I went along
And made this Cat my home

I was kept live, and was used for
My knowledge of the sea
For vengeance ‘gainst the Britons
I complied happily

For months - perhaps three seasons passed
I rode upon this ship
Captain Riceau valued me
He named me second skip

For cause unknown, we crossed the sea
Old Captain held his tongue
He would not tell us why we trekked
And chased the setting sun

He brought us ‘round the chilly tip
Of Chile’s southern shore
No reason from his crazy lips
Though long did we implore

Then at last, the day had passed
When Riceau caught a cold
His eyes were red, his limbs were dead
His breathing: hoarse and old

I became the skipper then
And buried him at sea
We cut up north to flee the cold
But at a loss were we

Confused and crazy we’d become
Just like the Cat, rode we
I thought to keep Old Captain’s path
And that meant mutiny


Canto VII: Mutiny

Two days it’d take for them to make
The foul and bitter plan
That I’d be through with Le Chat Fou
And they’d return to Cannes

I lay asleep, in sleep so deep
Dreaming of Calais
The maiden fair with yellow hair
Who one day would betray

In this dream, I heard her scream
And went to touch her cheek
But standing as a statue does
Her gaze was still and bleak

They dragged me back into this world
Then dragged me off the port
My lungs too filled with shockéd air
To object to this tort

They threw my pants and diary,
And sandals, as they laughed
For shoes could serve no purpose
On the ocean’s liquid draft

The flick’ring light before me
Like a glimmer in an eye
Stares but grows more distant
And retreats into black dye

An injury had placed me in
A lesser swimming league
Then again, it’d only serve
To cause me great fatigue

Three days, I had rode the tide
Of the western ocean’s waves
No shark, no squid, no slimy thing
For my flesh did crave

The crests came up like daggers
And fell like hulking trees
I prayed to God almighty
I survive the vicious seas

Finally, I set my stare
Upon the northwest sky
Far away, but clear as day:
An object in my eye


Canto VIII: Abyss

Although I swam me ‘cross the sea
As fast as my arm can
Dry throat and sun win victory
O’er me: a fainted man

Trapped in darkness once again
I spy my fair Calais
Screaming, shrill in bleakness then
With not a word to say

Over me her head hangs low
Her arm is slightly raised
Blood drips off her elbow
Her expression leaves me dazed

She’s gone; the air is hard to breathe
The wind is biting cold
A canopy of restless leaves
Is stirring uncontrolled

Lost inside this world of wood
I struggle to emerge
Feels like years have I withstood
While searching for the verge

No chirpings from my yellow bird
No noises all around
Not a sound is to be heard
But footsteps at the ground

No rodents gnawing at the bark
No insects in the trees
Alone I sleep in brush so dark
With nobody but me

In the drying mud I’m laid
Despondent of my fate
Looking through the verdant shade
The sun does penetrate

Streaming down, the light is rich
Bespeckled on the floor
Dancing ‘round without a hitch
Its presence I implore

I call upon the pouring light
To lift me from this hell
To nullify the chilly blight
Incite the warmth to swell


Canto IX: Land Forgets Itself

The burning light lends me its faith
Yet suddenly absconds
The dulling light projects a wraith:
My soul from the Beyond

The day retreats and turns to night
The moon in place of sun
Mute, and without touch or sight
I desperately run

Fleeing from my fading soul
Myself, I do berate
For no such being should extol
Escaping from my fate

Luscious leaves all turn to brown
They wither and fall fast
Suddenly, upon the ground
A dune of sand’s amassed

Crawling on the desert floor
And shaking from the cold
I hate and bitterly abhor
The night’s begrudging hold

In the distance, at the line
The land forgets itself
The beaming rays of light do shine
And warmth indeed does swell

Basking in the drenching sun
My coldness is expelled
Frigidity that night had won
Has fully been repelled

In the sands, I’ve laid to rest
To steal the heat of day
Yet no sooner had the sun caressed
Than sourly betray

Melted on the scorching sands
My body burned and scarred
I cannot lift my torrid hand
My feet have both been charred

The burning heat has ripped my lust
For life and will to live
My last resolve is brutely ******
Through Death’s unyielding sieve


Canto X: L’Oiseau Jaune

I coughed and spat the water that
I swallowed with my snores
Upon the sand my hand did land;
I’d made my way to shore

The beach was bright with fiery light
My skin was hot and red
I tried to get out of my head
Those visions that I dread

A novelist I once had been
Writing was my joy
With pen in hand, I could withstand
Each plot set to destroy

Yet Calais came and stole my heart
But also my free time
We wed and had a baby boy
Our life was too sublime

I raised my pen to write again
To feed the family right
I spent my days filling the page
And toiled all the night

When finally, she’d lost her mind
She needed to be loved
I tried to calm her shrill attacks
With no help from Above

My raging wife had grabbed a knife
And stabbed my writing hand
Yet somehow I had speared her eye
I couldn’t understand

At the elbow, I was chopped
And no more could I write
The widespread fact I’d killed my mate
Had augmented my plight

I beached onto an island;
This was no Chilean land
I walked around the grainy ground
And found nothing but sand

But soon a rescue ship had come
I was not too long gone
I read the name upon the port;
It was l’Oiseau Jaune

You brave heroic minds,
Worthy your country's name,
That honour still pursue,
Go, and subdue,
Whilst loit'ring hinds
Lurke here at home with shame.

Britons, you stay too long,
Quickly aboard bestow you;
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretched sail,
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.

Your course securely steer,
West and by South forth keep;
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals,
When Eolus scowls,
You need nor fear,
So absolute the deep.

And cheerfully at sea,
Success you still entice
To get the pearl and gold;
And ours to hold
Virginia,
Earth's only Paradise.

Where Nature hath in store
Fowl, venison, and fish;
And the fruitfull'st soil,
Without your toil,
Three harvests more,
All greater than your wish.

And the ambitious vine
Crowns with his purple mass
The cedar reaching high
To kiss the sky,
The cypress, pine,
And useful sassafras.

To whom the golden age
Still Nature's laws doth give,
No other cares attend
But them to defend
From winter's rage,
That long there doth not live.

When as the luscious smell
Of that delicious land,
Above the sea that flows,
The clear wind throws,
Your hearts to swell,
Approaching the dear strand.

In kenning of the shore,
(Thanks to God first given)
O you, the happiest men,
Be frolic then!
Let canons roar,
Frighting the wide heaven!

And in regions far
Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came,
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known unto our North.

And as there plenty grows
Of laurel everywhere,
Apollo's sacred tree,
You may it see
A poet's brows
To crown, that may sing there.

Thy voyages attend
Industrious Hakluit,
Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame,
And much commend
To after-times thy wit.

From the patriotic song--verses 4 and 5, followed by three of my own verses:

   * Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
    All their attempts to bend thee down,
    Will but arouse thy generous flame;
    But work their woe, and thy renown.

    "Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
    "Britons never will be slaves."

    To thee belongs the rural reign;
    Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
    All thine shall be the subject main,
    And every shore it circles thine.

    "Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
    "Britons never will be slaves." *

When the international banks decree
that commerce belongs to them, not thee,
thou wilt arise and set things straight
and take back thy rightful fate.

When Brussels, and Germany insist
that immigrants from every shore
should find a home inside your door
(despite the people's cry--"No more!)
you quietly vote to resist.

What fire will flame from Britain's spark?
The division has been now made stark:
On one side, the elite's intent--
the other way, the people went.

Written in April 1798, during the alarm of an invasion

A green and silent spot, amid the hills,
A small and silent dell! O’er stiller place
No singing skylark ever poised himself.
The hills are heathy, save that swelling *****,
Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,
All golden with the never-bloomless furze,
Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell,
Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate
As vernal cornfield, or the unripe flax,
When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve,
The level sunshine glimmers with green light.
Oh! ’tis a quiet spirit-healing nook!
Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he,
The humble man, who, in his youthful years,
Knew just so much of folly as had made

His early manhood more securely wise!
Here he might lie on fern or withered heath,
While from the singing lark (that sings unseen
The minstrelsy that solitude loves best),
And from the sun, and from the breezy air,
Sweet influences trembled o’er his frame;
And he, with many feelings, many thoughts,
Made up a meditative joy, and found
Religious meanings in the forms of Nature!
And so, his senses gradually wrapped
In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,
And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark,
That singest like an angel in the clouds!

My God! it is a melancholy thing
For such a man, who would full fain preserve
His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel
For all his human brethren—O my God!
It weighs upon the heart, that he must think
What uproar and what strife may now be stirring
This way or that way o’er these silent hills—
Invasion, and the thunder and the shout,
And all the crash of onset; fear and rage,
And undetermined conflict—even now,
Even now, perchance, and in his native isle:
Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun!
We have offended, Oh! my countrymen!
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven!
The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,
Steamed up from Cairo’s swamps of pestilence,
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,
And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint
With slow perdition murders the whole man,
His body and his soul! Meanwhile, at home,
All individual dignity and power
Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,
Associations and Societies,
A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,
One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,
We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,
Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth;
Contemptuous of all honourable rule,
Yet bartering freedom and the poor man’s life
For gold, as at a market! The sweet words
Of Christian promise, words that even yet
Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,
Are muttered o’er by men, whose tones proclaim
How flat and wearisome they feel their trade:
Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent
To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.
Oh! blasphemous! the Book of Life is made
A superstitious instrument, on which
We gabble o’er the oaths we mean to break;
For all must swear—all and in every place,
College and wharf, council and justice-court;
All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,
Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,
The rich, the poor, the old man and the young;
All, all make up one scheme of perjury,
That faith doth reel; the very name of God
Sounds like a juggler’s charm; and, bold with joy,
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
Cries out, “Where is it?”

Thankless too for peace,
(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!
Alas! for ages ignorant of all
Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,
Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,)
We, this whole people, have been clamorous
For war and bloodshed; animating sports,
The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,
Spectators and not combatants! No guess
Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,
No speculation on contingency,
However dim and vague, too vague and dim
To yield a justifying cause; and forth,
(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)
We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect’s leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning meal!
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
And technical in victories and defeats,
And all our dainty terms for fratricide;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o’er our tongues
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
We join no feeling and attach no form!
As if the soldier died without a wound;
As if the fibres of this godlike frame
Were gored without a pang; as if the wretch,
Who fell in battle, doing ****** deeds,
Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed;
As though he had no wife to pine for him,
No God to judge him! Therefore, evil days
Are coming on us, O my countrymen!
And what if all-avenging Providence,
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words, force us to feel
The desolation and the agony
Of our fierce doings?

Spare us yet awhile,
Father and God! O, spare us yet awhile!
Oh! let not English women drag their flight
Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes,
Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday
Laughed at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, all
Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms
Which grew up with you round the same fireside,
And all who ever heard the Sabbath-bells
Without the Infidel’s scorn, make yourselves pure!
Stand forth! be men! repel an impious foe,
Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,
Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth
With deeds of ******; and still promising
Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free,
Poison life’s amities, and cheat the heart
Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes,
And all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth;
Render them back upon the insulted ocean,
And let them toss as idly on its waves
As the vile seaweed, which some mountain-blast
Swept from our shores! And oh! may we return
Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear,
Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung
So fierce a foe to frenzy!

I have told,
O Britons! O my brethren! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or fractious or mistimed;
For never can true courage dwell with them
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices. We have been too long
Dupes of a deep delusion! Some, belike,
Groaning with restless enmity, expect
All change from change of constituted power;
As if a Government had been a robe
On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged
Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe
Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
A radical causation to a few
Poor drudges of chastising Providence,
Who borrow all their hues and qualities
From our own folly and rank wickedness,
Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile,
Dote with a mad idolatry; and all
Who will not fall before their images,
And yield them worship, they are enemies
Even of their country!

Such have I been deemed.—
But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle!
Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy
To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,
A husband, and a father! who revere
All bonds of natural love, and find them all
Within the limits ot thy rocky shores.
O native Britain! O my Mother Isle!
How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,
Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,
All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
All adoration of the God in nature,
All lovely and all honourable things,
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel
The joy and greatness of its future being?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
Unborrowed from my country! O divine
And beauteous Island! thou hast been my sole
And most magnificent temple, in the which
I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,
Loving the God that made me!—

May my fears,
My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts
And menace of the vengeful enemy
Pass like the gust, that roared and died away
In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard
In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass.

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad
The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze:
The light has left the summit of the hill,
Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful,
Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,
Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot!
On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,
Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled
From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me,
I find myself upon the brow, and pause
Startled! And after lonely sojourning
In such a quiet and surrounded nook,
This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main,
Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty
Of that huge amphitheatre of rich
And elmy fields, seems like society—
Conversing with the mind, and giving it
A livelier impulse and a dance of thought!
And now, beloved Stowey! I behold
Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms
Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend;
And close behind them, hidden from my view,
Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe
And my babe’s mother dwell in peace! With light
And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend,
Remembering thee, O green and silent dell!
And grateful, that by nature’s quietness
And solitary musings, all my heart
Is softened, and made worthy to indulge
Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.

(for Nietzche, who cowers behind art.)

The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every night yearns

to rise, to rise, to rise

when there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing.
Yet still it yearns

to rise, to rise, to rise.

The world called Canaanites ******
while they traded and toiled along the shores
of land promised to the aged heretic of Sumer,
whose wife could give only love.

The world called Hebrews ******
while they raised Pharoah tombs
Provided respite from the eastern chariots
Stubborn in refusal of the living gods
Drinking only Eloheim's bitter grape
That provides brief respite from his decrees
When delving deep in one's cups.

The world called Britons ******
When flogged Boudicea fought and fought and finally fell
To Roman spear and gladius
When Angles and Saxons raided then stayed
When Cromwell climbed the pale cliffs

The world called the Iberians, Gauls and Teutons ******
when Caesar crossed the Rubicon
Pax Romana for Citizens born
Land for the wealthy, voting rights too
Taxes and tithes from their toil.

The world called the Khoikhoi of South Africa ******
From the VOC to fatal Apartheid
Up rose a man
The heart of the land
A man named Nelson Mandela.

The world called the Viet Minh ******
from Can Vong to Dien Bien Phu
'till they slogged howitzers above
to reign Napoleonic terror below.
And to them it was just
The American War
After the world called them
Vietnamese.

The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every day yearns

to rise, to rise, to rise

When there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing
yet still it yearns

to rise, to rise, to rise

'though it never watches its own rising
undoing raiment of fading embers
swimming naked in the royal blue
bathing all with daily newborn naked glory
chasing the celestial tidal tease
that seems to wander where it please
reminding that all are born free
but can grow into ignorance
and be called ******.

Seek truths
that hold in unity;
that provide nourishment
beneath the lash
allowing one

to rise, to rise, to rise.

Boudicca, long hair tangled and bunched; fiery flame red hair.

Warrior queen of the Iceni, daughter of these isles of tin.

Defender of freedom, leader of men, slayer of legions.

Through the mist the Britons, Celtic in origin; saw the legions.

Row upon row of tightly packed troops, shields locked together!

Flanked on either side by cavalry.  Above the silence orders could

Be heard echoing across the field, the leather harness’s creaked

Metal chinking, horses stomping and snorting, in the stillness.

Through the mist came the first rays of sunlight glinting on sharpened

Swords and spearheads; horns began to blow as the steady

Stomp of the legions moved forward in formation.

Boudicca’s eyes peered out from a face of blue woe. Bow strings

In turn began to creak death, as archers pulled back on their bows.

A slow chant from the Iceni, slow at first, began to build into a crescendo

Of noise, as the boom, boom of sword and axe rapped against wood shields.

Boudicca flame haired warrior queen stood proud and fearless on her chariot;

Daughters on each side of her, defiant against Gaius Suetonius Pauline’s

And the might of Rome.

Oh what a sight it must have been!

i remember the meningitis scare:
   oh... it was very real...
i guess it was supposed to affect a niche
proportion of the population...

so much for the "scare":
they would vaccinate us in the schools:
since children were more prone
to succumb to: and inflammation of
the lining around your brain and spinal cord...

and all that: press a thumb against
a skin... and if the skin returns to its original
colouring: there's no blemish of applied
pressure... pressing glasses onto the skin too...

the aesthetics have changed so drastically:
what can **** you is so subtle these days...
it's hardly a case of leprosy...
or... eczema of the zombie plague:
or miniature lilal mushrooms growing
out from your armpits:
suddenly breaking into song:
  'steve told us to sing... so we have
sprouted: to sing!'
       no... celeriac sized warts... hell...
i haven't seen any pictures of covid-19...
as i never saw pictures of ebola...

            death has been given: an anonymity...
but what's still kept in reserve?
shingles...
     like: hyper-eczema...
                i'm having to consolidate myself
on the luck of being 30+ and still having...
a skin on my face that i can't peel:
but i'm sure that belzeebub took a dump on...

they're either dead maggots
or dead white blood-cells...
        i guess i have so many of the latter that...
my immune system is constantly
on a over-charge mode...
          
    where are the lilac mushrooms about to grow
out from out of my armpits:
when will death become visible again:
outside her womb:
without any anonymity to behold:
when will everything... "ev'fing"
  return to the obviousness of a guillotine...
a hangman...
      a... hanged, drawn and... quartered?

the improved aesthetics of the threat is hardly
be sitting in an armchair...
welcoming this: paranoia precursor...
there's no phosphorescent yellow-green phlegm
being shot through the air with a sneeze...

i'm quite disturbed about all this...
        "sterility"...
                      well thankfuly i know that
a schizophrenic can't beget a drone-replica:
dead'ed brain: "schizz"... zombie-cult-esque
   brain: riddled with parasites like...
a disciple of burrough's fever might provide:
subsequently... by...
   by caughing a splitting-headache that might:
somehow: "later": arrive at some variation
of bilingualism...
          but never will... perhaps it should...

because: right now: i want to wrong about everything...
i want to ****** with a hard-on of doubt...
and perhaps: tease negation a little...
or rub-rub-'er very much...
but i do: most honestly...
    want to be wrong about everything...
esp. when it comes to...
   the aesthetics of the "problem":
    it's a problem-solution: solution-problem
  quadratic...
           i mean: if it was truly cosmic... and original...
would it really care for much of aesthetics...
can viruses becomes stealth assassins?
   is a virus a misnomer of plague?
or is... a virus a former case of plague...
  that couldn't be: prior... weaponized?
   the rampant exfoliation of: the obliterated
concern for aesthetics...
   oh sure... it's clean cut...
           god knows what happened to those old
curiosities of medicine...

otherwise...

   what will 3 hours spent reading nothing but
Dickens do to you...
me? i "somehow" managed to miss / forget
about a sunset...
   came the night and... yeah: when meningitis
hit...
   and i guess after the mad-cow disease...
break-dancing limp feet cows...
drunk cows... morbidly drunk cows...

      there was always that postcard reference:
now?
you could obviously see the bubonic plague
from a mile away...
you could see eczema...
you can sure as **** see a shingles belt...
        would a virus even care...
to appease the aesthetic concerns of man?
how doesn't cancer do that...
well... i just start thinking about...
the botanical cancer... viscum...
hardly seen in western europe: tree-foundation
societies... etc.
   half an hour on the road outside of warsaw...
that's enough...

oh sure: because of covid-19:
who could, "somehow" forget about...
                  metastatic tumors!
oh the joys of... <cough cough> the carousel
or that ol' chestnut!
            come to think of it...
    would ingesting a tapeworm make thinks and things
more real?
what wouldn't be bad
about acquiring a symbiote these days?
     all: postulations of the mundane...
without yet within the science-fiction universe...
the facts will simply not stand the test
of time... or will... but will be shelved...
given to the bookworms and their placenta
worm-queen...

it's actually becoming a sieving tool for acquiring
nothing lost: of the old mundane...
the sterile aesthetics of the whole under-taking...
it's too: invisible: too pure...
to be... a freakish byproduct of nature...
sending us back in time...
as the original: single-cell organism
about to usurp the crown of creation...

    my list of conspiracy theories begins
with: catcher in the rye "coincidences" and...
that david copperfield sort of *******...
      because if it's not Pickwican...
it's certainly not an account of count
smorltork:
        peek - christian name
                weeks - surname; good, ver good...

otherwise these days:
the intellect has become a sponge...
and the supposed underlying:
because it is "supposed" and there's an
"underlying" aspect to all of this...
that there is a "dialectic" and...
otherwise: the bestest of the best kind
of...            soap...

is it a revival of an "empire"...
when at the height of its decline...
there was that motto:

     panem et circenses...

     what's underlying in Dickensian prose?
well... some of the words used...
i'd sit with a page and check the dictionary
3 times on average...
because there's still that underlying:
we, Britons, prior to the "english"...
the anglo-saxons... are the Afghanistan
oopsies of the ancient world...
there are so many words with direct
connection: etymologically "speaking"
with latin...

now: the bread is still "here"...
   of the 20th century... you could see a ****
coming way back in 1933...
and the communist... whenever that happened...
and you could subsequently trickle the "evil"
archetype into movies... into gaming...
and have people hooked on a bullseye of evil...

now? greyish blips and blobs of
Kantian bureaucracy...
    
o.k. panem et circenses...
looks to me...
like the circuses are long gone...
the bread is still here...
but... of all the seismic shifts this is...
hardly a ffffffffffff-ucking Pompeii!
riddle me this: riddle me that...
what can possibly become so... overly entertaining...
about eating a slice of bread?
why are the vermin: multiplying:
what's with all this: "huddling" at a distance?
need a cape with that: herr ubermensch?

last time i checked: rats do no operated
under herd scriptures...
there's not need for a shepherd...
there is: fire! scramble!
peep-squeak and more!
          
    an impeding confrontation with a pack of wolves...
a vegetarian lion convert...
                 the bubonic plague: lack of aesthetic...
and now this...
this supreme aesthetic of: when the ancient greeks
thirsted to conceive of the existence
of atoms...
          not that i require proof...
what so of circus: though...
      is, this?!

- yes folks... in the current climate of labyrinths...
the Minotaur isn't here...
and we're out of stock on smoke...
and... mirrors...

citations of a possible prediction to allign with
some variation of borrowed horrors:
to usurp the status quo and sentences us for:
there's no "third time lucky" therein...

all that's happened though:
mental people who would never allow
their minds to riddle them...
become claustrophobic by mere thought...
can you?
translate thinking into claustrophobia?
oh god... no... we haven't reached this nadir...
have we?
thought didn't imply θ(ought)!
that erotica of a would be pronoun:
the moral quest...
                  not because i did something bad
in the past...
but because:
i did what others didn't do prior to me...
i ride the wave of what a *******
said to me once:
after an ******:
this is only the second time it has happened
to me: hello ***** envy thrown out of the window!
hello sisters of mercy in some convent
in Limerick!
'allo! 'allo!

beside the moral conundrum of θ(ought): ought i?
this narrative of the ol' 'ed...
is... claustrophobic?
             spread this negation-of-ease further:
dear kin!
   dis- prefix that denotes negation...
ah... and -ease! the suffix that complete the circle:
no contemplation is necessary!

i'm still seeing bread, though...
oh mein gott! die zirkusse! die zirkusse!
what can be done about the circuses?!

people are coupling thinking with claustrophobia...
people are implored to read
for at least 3 hours a day!
a dickens! a tolstoy! a dumas!
and then relax from congesting paragraph strain
and explore the airy side of what was
written into prose and paragraph with
the aid of poetics: that non-exclusivity of rhyme:
always missing... best missing!

i too abhor this synonym:
poetry is what rhymes...
            a set list of: knock-knock jokes...
about as tasteful as...
               roast beef: done well done...
eating the bark of wood:
now that's an adventure!

            or what's... the adjective riddle / riddled...
of: now...
permanent - adjective... these days a host
of "calling scheitmeiser for all his worth"
and what not...      
                               now: the experimental
history of yesterday and "oops"
now: the cameo cinema of yesterday...
and god willing:
you have a "savings account"
of: memories that can...
suffocate the future: the imagining...
of and for the nought of nothing...
the "conundrum": of being...
such and such... and somehow...
retain: personhood...
rather than... a mere... citizentry "status"...
of the ebbing flow of cattle meat and dung:
itsy-bitsy spider teeth itching...
before the bone!
and... after the bones!

load of crock-**** Lombardy is not
Italy... mantra...
and those rites of rats from
the sinking ship that's Wenice...
much too... quasi-important...

      H - surd of a letter...
but the skeleton supposed to behind:
laughter...

the hibernian folk know it...
the english: eh... somewhat...
          bound to θ and bound to φ...
in t'ought... but not in: t'aught...
who needs the apostrophe?
no me: not "you"...
         third: or... θird:
or... ****... or τ(au) says: "herd"...
                             and what's "spezial"...
the surd worth of π (pi)
     in ψ...
                    or      'sychology...
              then there's "all that" with...
chrome: the χ that becomes a kappa (κ)...
but not... exactly the...
the...      ah!                   CHisel!
chasing dog's tails?

                            but a hardy: hibernian:
it's not an F... it's a T...
we have to expose the H-surd! primo
pronto!

    but ψ can afford...
          πσι in that...
                      either the π... or the π...
is treated as a surd..
cited: the whittle canyon of eta (Ηη)..
            ha: if it's a definite article in 'ebrew...
or ha: if... you need a consonant
skeleton... to breathe when laughing...

toes when marching: chin ching chatter...
otherwise "K / kappa" the matter...
taught to think it all but a massive:
****!
   or... a θurd... which is exfoliating in
the gaellic concept of: third...

i'm not from 'ere...
              mind you...
              this is all disneyland for m'eh et moi...
hello whittle atom me...
hello whittle atom you...
hello: hyvä aamu... susie 'ere...
       rakastaa... että ulvonta...
                 "unohti" haukkua:
fins... drawfs... and other whittle people...
eskimos of the "narrative":
   "kaikki alkaen apinamaa"!
    pωl pυt ***...
             and there's "3" of 'em!
exactly... what about the V'em...
             perhaps a F'ought...
      but: V'ere!
            V'em!
                            who the **** gets to
assure me: this language "ving" or "thin"...
sure hands... sure hands...
it's not all grafitti from chernobyll!

and what if... Joycean would 'ave to begin
its pilgrimage toward Dickensian?
this Ezra of ours: what of this...Ezra of
Fahrenheit of "ours"?

           my atom "versus" your... "atomized" man?
my spaghetti english
versus your... i'll sooner choke on ß...
or SuS...
         or SaS
                  SeS...          sayß...
h'american spaghetti english... *** riddled:
ghetto crown-tongue...


me and finding a juggling of chuckles
with: wit... hiding the ha ha...
when θ = τ...
hibernian...
poland the playground of god:
greek... the plaground of men...
esp. those as being cited:
with origin of the barbarian tinge...

  exatly! what of WH when TH are....
thought of "wen":
this grafitti phpneticism...
this barbarism...
no code of "conduct":
what should have:
and did "have": a happen to...
when it came to the ratio
of consonants to vowels...
  of the latter there was a supposed more...
or the latter a less...

    h.i.v. vampirism romances
would have to die...
  a death... most... closely associated with:
psychopaths: or...
the general pathology is: soul-quests...
all "things" considered...
there is no "grand-Σ"
        "past-participle":
of the unconscious-conscious liver...
does the part: actor... functions
of... i robot: you, not here...

the liver does what a liver does:
even if: i r woke...
and i r: sleepz...
               eyes only on when...
orientating myself around:
a failure of a distinct "individual":
moi foie premier...
   moi estomac premier...
and of "me" or... a me...
given that... there's no: "the me"...
            load of ******* and a chewing tube
of "worded"... "circumstances"...
as: "the alternative" to...
sorry... no other alternative...
was... or would ever... be given...
errror message 404 commences: as of: now!

- or... can you?
compensate a word like... draconian...
with a word... the periphery word...
akin to... byzantine?!
the kite's high up in the ******* air
my dear lad...
can you? "compensate" this...
marry of all other:
never-poppin' up 'ins?!

that's one way of minding:
a grey-ginger...
or an albino-masai...
for "good luck"... of all t'ings:
the lerprechaun 'ucking charm brigade!
that's just 'ucking necessary: that is!

as.... the people have already mentioned
their freedom: to cite and keep up to
the rigours of salutations...
they said and they said... and they:
sad but nonetheless: they sad-***-made-"truth"-of...
"it": 'ucking wombat
multiverse l.s.d.: me typing on an old... cranky...
soviet "qwerty" imitation...

the freedom prior to the plague:
i am yet to see...
the **** covid... and the leprechaun...
and the tarantula...
and the... leech...
   **** me: raining cats and dogs:
what a scenario!
     i was supposed to get...
               not leech: not *****...
those fidgeting terse quizzes...
          *****... no... leech... no...
leprechauns: double no...
             szarańcza... old mother-tongue:
ah yes... "these":
                                 locust!

the third of the lard off the herd of the most:
"likely"... nosense to me:
something for you:              up!
otherwise know as:
quiet a bollocking... wouldn't you,
somehow... please... stage:
an agreed to?
               ****'s sake...

  tyrd the triddle twiddle torn und
towing: dublin the sorry-eye: und sore...
you freckled maverick salt
burner you... and... it's a ginger:
stick-prone... keep y'er eager distance...

eh? that's true: is what's through...
**** paddy **** and a poor ******
walk into a bar...
and the bartender is... a kippah-don
of a rastafarian:
the jokes end...
and there was never a conversation
to begin with... ha ha!
now that's a joke... to wake up...
a frankenstein!

      ginger pleb: ginger poodle!
the new africa: the new eskimo...
or... the finnish gateway: etymologically speaking...
an alternative to... *** and...
              the leftover mongols
stranded by the waters
of the empire: receding...
          the...        no: not the croats...
the...
          a very much elongating concept
of pause....
              "d" or the "v" of: v'eh...: the...
the  immortal savages
of: crimea...
      ah yes!
                  those...            tar-tars!
like the tartare steak:
or what was forever available as
the alibi for: sushi!

        because tokyo is just one of those...
forever huan: new... beijing chicken shacks...
and "tokyo"...
or some other anime typo *******...

irish catholic intellectuals...
and... the none existence of whatever
would have required a magna carta:
believe it or... eat **** sort of
mentality...
            the russian doctors
are already abiding to be hunted
if not huddling in churches...
because: co-vex said: co-vid...
co-vid: sharing blockbuster intrusion
pokes was: that last resort to
mortality: and oh...

          this should have happened a long...
a long long time ago...
  transparency tourism...
where you going?
nowhere...
  and "where" is "going"... "nowhere"...
a bit like france... and the eiffel tower...
and there's no speaking french to have
to be resolved...
because like: "**** it" and what?

the ginger-ninja... the ginger-ninja...
the ginger-ninja and...
when the reality of *****...
reaches... an escalation "reality"
of: synonym with... oh god! beards!
ugh!           vot                          ven?!

yep... and the irish were always:
the horse-breeders..
they always were...
always the catholic-intellect juggernauts...
because the hey'talians and
the spoon-innards...
and... mon deu: zee: fwench!
forget the ****** cathos-pathos...
*******-of-os...

and in me:
the gravitas for a disconcerting ambivalence...
almost a compound:
misnomer... but no...
i like the spaghetti though...
yeah: it looks nice on paper...
and off paper...
and anything to cite: the godfather with...
because: boo is a ghost story
that a solo would sell... and ******* like
that...                   yup...
which is a word: to replace the ideal trajectory of:
would be: ghost limb...
james bond...
                          roulette...
you the actors "faking it": no of course...
dylan thomas bob dylan...
"faking it" i.e. stunt actors!
what's "bob": when there's a ******* roulette:
and a devil's dozen of rich, russian...
oligarchal chick... pretending plastic is not...
new world... ******: comb-over...
creaking chair... stlye-on... style-off...
plastico-supermanoh... dynamo-oh-oh...
those "soz" and "whatsevers"...
works well...
the times column...
when your parents are... conscripted...

             mammoth playdough oh oh oh...
irish is cheap...
catholic is cheap-oh...
******...
ha ha... let's not go there...
becauße that's like...
   goldberg variations: the bwv 988 aria...
   yeah: "soz"... but... i'll ******* eat you:
if i have to: for the purpose assigned
to a hard-on... most associated with...
sparrows...
and... the pirates of the confines...
the magpies...
          
             in every period of congregational
"sanity" there's that interlude into:
madness...
howl how! oh dear world of:
that lost appetite of surprise!
        you begin to wither... and die off:
by the slow culmination of hours...
like... a picture to entomb the perfecting
affair of a decaying pear... or apple...
               and...

            and....                 and...
trickling of sentiments...
and sounds...

                           and there are commentaries...
and there are... catholic bishops...
and protestant cardinals...
and ****** popes!             ah ha!
am i to.. truly... die... from laughter?!

Spring. Same plants, same order.
Monday morning, open for business.
Tractor-trailers, day care centers.
Every leaf that’s coming out is out.

To tonight’s town meeting I will go unaware and foolish.
It’s delicious, the unimportance of my feelings.
Even our particular war was small.
Europe had one last a century.

Hubble photos of events 13 billion years ago
Do not put me in mind of the species’ insignificance.
Just the opposite having witnessed the universe’s birth.
But birth from what preceding state? God again rears his hoary head.

They say one must let go and will let go,
God will decide what tragedy you need.
Not every seed becomes a flower,
Not every branch breaks out like a prosthetic trombone.

While the ancient Romans wrote of love
The ancient Britons wrote of war.
The Romans should have been perfecting their republic.
No god could do that work for them.

The November moth's the fall cankerworm--Alsophilia pometaria--
Slender-bodied, beige, beginning life as the well known inchworm.
In our war more children may have died than would have had
      the tyrant lived in fear and awe.
We can never know because we conquered.

Caedmon's Hymn: a Modern English Translation of the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Poem

"Cædmon's Hymn" was composed sometime between 658 and 680 AD and appears to be the oldest extant poem in the English language. Information follows the poem for anyone who’s interested.

Cædmon's Hymn (circa 658-680 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Humbly we honor heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the Measurer's might and his mind-plans,
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established earth's fearful foundations.
Then he, the First Scop, hoisted heaven as a roof
for the sons of men: Holy Creator,
mankind's great Maker! Then he, the Ever-Living Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty!



Bede's Death Song (circa 731 AD)
ancient Anglo-Saxon/Old English lyric poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Facing Death, that inescapable journey,
who can be wiser than he
who reflects, while breath yet remains,
on whether his life brought others happiness, or pains,
since his soul may yet win delight's or night's way
after his death-day.



Translator's Notes: "Cædmon's Hymn" is one of the oldest surviving examples of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. By way of illustration, in the first line I have capitalized the repeating sounds:

Humbly Now we HoNour HeaveN-kiNGDom's GuarDiaN

In defense of my interpretation that Caedmon may have regarded God as a fellow Poet-Creator, please let me point out that the original poem employs the words scop and haleg scepen. Anglo-Saxon poets were called scops. The term haleg scepen seems to mean something like "Holy Poet" or "Holy Creator/Maker" because poets were considered to be creators and makers. Also the verb tīadæ has been said to mean something like "creatively adorned." So I don't think it's that much of a stretch to suggest that a Christian poet may have seen his small act of creation as an imitation of the far greater acts of creation of his Heavenly Father.

As in the original poem, each line of my translation has a caesura: a brief pause denoted by extra white space (which may not show up in some browsers). In each line, there are repeated vowel/consonant sounds. This alliteration gives alliterative verse its name. The original poem is also accentual verse, in that each line has four strong stresses, and the less-stressed syllables are not counted as they are in most other forms of English meter (such as iambic pentameter). My translation is not completely faithful to the original rules. For instance, I have employed a considerable amount of internal alliteration (which gives me more flexibility in the words I can employ). And some of my lines contain more than four stresses, although I think there are still four dominant stresses per line. For instance, in the first line: HONour, HEAVen, KINGdom's GUARDian. In the second line: MEASurer’s, MIGHT, MIND-PLANS. And so on. I don't think the technique is all-important. The main questions are whether the meaning is clear, and whether the words please the ear. Only you, the reader, can decide that, and you don't need a high-falutin' critic to tell you what you like!

I believe the poem is "biblical" in its vision of creation. According to the Bible, the earth was set on an immovable foundation by the hand of God. (Little did the ancient writers know that the earth is actually a spinning globe whizzing through space at phenomenal speeds!) We see this foundation in line four. Next, in line five, we see the hand of God creating the heavens above, where according to the Bible he then set the sun, moon and stars in place. (The ancient writers again got things wrong, saying that the earth existed first, in darkness, and that the sun, moon and stars were created later; we now know that the earth's heavier elements were created in the hearts of stars, so the stars existed long before the earth. The writers of Genesis even said that plants grew before the sun was formed, but of course they had never heard of photosynthesis.) The poem's last line sounds a bit more Germanic or Norse to me, since Middle Earth is a concept we hear in tales of Odin and Thor (and later in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien). But that makes sense because when Saint Augustine of Canterbury became the first Christian missionary to evangelize native Britons, I believe it was the policy of the Roman Catholic Church to incorporate local beliefs into the practice of Christianity. For instance, because sun gods were worshiped in Rome, the Sabbath day became Sun-day, and the birth of Christ became December the 25th (the day the winter sun is "resurrected" and the days begin to lengthen, heralding spring). So in northern climes we should expect to see some "fusion" of Norse and Germanic myths with Christianity. For instance, there was never a mention of "hell" in the Hebrew Bible; the Hebrew language did not even have a word that meant "hell" at the time the books of the Old Testament were written. The closest Hebrew word, Sheol, clearly means "the grave" and everyone went there when they died, good and bad. The Greek word Hades also means the grave, and likewise everyone went there when they died. Hades had heavenly regions like the Elysian Fields and Blessed Isles and thus was obviously not hell! "Hell" is a Norse term. If this subject interests you―for instance if someone has said you are in danger of "hell" and need to be "saved" from it―you many want to read my simple, logical proof that There Is No Hell in the Bible.

Keywords/Tags: Caedmon, Hymn, Old English, Anglo-Saxon, translation, God, religion, religious, praise, worship, oldest poem, first poem, Bede

I’ve written enough small poetry
to start a nuclear war.
Do you want to die in traffic
behind the wheel of your car? Or in yr rodeer camp next fall.

Control eludes us. The hero
loses urinary control, the unified nation
loses missile control, lost my timepiece, lost my metronome,
now my music is ethereal as an archangel’s.

No owl hoots or duck quacks
or squirrels *******
or spiders spanning rampikes.
The floccinaucinihilipilification of nature.

No greater tragedy than a tipping
point that tests the hero’s gullibility, complicity,
self-control, comity, sense of humor
which is the only remedy not to hate those in authority.

Them guys with guns at the Michigan state house,
fat bearded tattooed ******* white bros.
Norsemen, Crusaders, Vikings, Britons.
For despair there is no forgiveness. Peace out.

Humor is the only remedy, or is ardor the best way forward.
We’ll see how things work out in the next generation.
The same diverse, spoiled, unpatriotic revolutionaries as at the nation’s
      beginning
trying to reverse the future, making phone calls to get out the vote in
      Georgia, hating the desert for having no water.

Nuclear mischief, mad Man’s most incandescent bloom
and the devil who exists to carry the load
when we misbehave and fight among ourselves.
I wake up to my skin boiling off my bones.

Events keep piling up,
the future depends on ourselves.
Conflict is inevitable and in this conflict power must be challenged by
      power
so err on the side of patience, perseverance and impermanence.

To me a poem is a Statement, even a Speech.
So, Friends, Britons and countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Britain, not to praise it.
The evils that empires do live long after them.
Colonial wrongs seem never put to right.
Achievements hidden away in dusty books
By historians, all honourable men (and women!).
Yet historians say the Brits were too ambitious
And too self-righteous by half.
For historians are honourable men (and women).
They say we must accept that we’re a tiny island nation
And accept our place in the world.
Yes, historians are honourable men (and women).
They say we were too ambitious.
But now, the world is threatened by dark forces,
And only the winner takes the spoils (and writes the history!).
Once more unto the breach us Brits must go,
To fight like tigers
And smite the foe.

Paul Butters

Oh, Prince Philip, you have served us for so long,
For seventy years… The Queen’s Kephas, the rock!
Sometimes it seems that you have always been here...
Like a Servant of the Monarchy, like power, like glory!

Oh, Prince Philip, the son of the Greek Corfu,
You, the Danish Hamlet, you, the brave soldier!
Today your life has died out, today you go to sleep...
So to sleep forever… with God in a permanent covenant!

Your city is crying and the rain is pouring down hard!
Sorrow on the faces of the Britons... You died during the plague,
You left like Paris, real, in the morning, in the spring...

Where are you going now? What kind of images do you see?
What is there after death? Will you reveal these secrets?
Are you taking these to the grave, for yourself, unfortunately?...

9.4.2021.,
On the day of the death of the Greek, Danish and English Prince Philip, husband of the Queen.

randomly switched on the t.v. after a nap,
tuned in on channel 4's four part drama;
what was it?
    the state, all about four britons travelling
to the "caliphate" state of shram, shrem
sham-boco-boco... daesh, the levant...
**** me, that really enriches my vocabulary...
what's it actually called, mind you?

the conversation went like this:
- what you watching?
- homework.
- homework?
- yep, homework,
better mind these camel jockeys
should they feel like making a runner:
or faking a bang bang as
they make anatomy
made simple; i always felt they were
         bad at stuttering, given the B;
******* are genius when it comes
to anatomy though...
  a body "dissected" in a matter of
fractions of a second: even by standards
of concern: that deserves an encore of
applause.
boom! hey presto! plop's your uncle;
couldn't have asked for a better
pizza topping: so? go along with
the prop plot: shmile and shay... cheese!
grinning that ugly ****-face
into the camera, don't worry, you won't
be charged morally... just with
an irony currency: huh?
you basically get *****-slapped 72 times
in jannah, o.k.?

n'ah, i'm not in it for the *****,
listen, i managed to get two disgruntled
english girls home in the middle
of the night, when i still had a mobile phone,
managing to pet a black cat meanwhile,
walking out of the darkness of a public
park over a fence, rolling a cigarette
for one of them, texting her mom,
checking out her rack,
texting her friend (semi-unconscious)
at a bus-stop, taking my shirt off,
putting it on her, flicking her baseball cap
and saying to her tear-****** eyes:
it's going to be o.k.;

i'm not a hero, but i'm certainly not
a cologne oops-e!

mind you, her dad managed to pick
the two up from the collier row roundabout;
am i noticed?
  now, was adolf ****** ever an artist?
no! so... what's the question?

better know who you're being ****** by
than pretending to be dumb and innocent
at a post-scriptum of a terror attack,
lighting candles and faking vigil,
no?
just asking, worth the question...
mind you, what was i watching today
oink channel 4?
   *the state...
what's that?

i already said! it's homework!

It is only a big fool that marries from a matriarchal family
And a heavy-weight duffer marrying from the matriarchal clan
There is always a poisonous cobra, mamba and adder in the matriarchal
Beauty. Snaring like calypso to thrash the callow ridden odyssey in the lover
As it went for the stooges in Kenya blind to the colubrine station falling in love
With daughters, spinsters, wenches, damsels and brunetes of matriarchal heritage
They were swallowed by the inherent colubrine queen at the bottom of matriarchy
It swallowed them all, lawyers, warriors, merchants, politicians, beggars, billionaires,
Lordships of top-notch corporations, gurus of research, legends of foot-ball, din magnates
Negroes, Asians, Britons, Teutonic, Luos, Mulmbe men, Mijikenda and all that had money,
Their kinsmen and tribes now grieve in a song,
Chanting the song of loss in my mother tongue;
Sialile papa!sialile papa! Sicha esirove!
Sialile yaya!sialile yaya! Sicha esirove!
Wanangali wa wabaseve,Niiye wamulile!
Emenyele buli abira! yakhaba mukisumu!
Ese beve! ese beve! ese beve!ese beve!

By-Alexander Opicho
(From Lodwar, Kenya)
Mail-opichoalexander@gmail.com

i still managed to catch a whiff of britpop...
i was going to st. augustine's
and all the boys were all about the oasis
look... so ben sherman shirts...
          never tucked into the trousers...

but this was in the 1990s...
             of course the celebrations were short-lived...
sooner or later a prog variation of brit-pop
had to come about with radiohead...

i kind of skimmed over the early stuff...
there, there - from hail to the thief is my stand-out
track...

having just watched a movie about
the iceman... a one ryszard kuklinski -
well... if the icecream truck:
mongrel dutch-irish and this one ******
would never make into the guinea club...
or the elder fathers of zion...
guinea? seems i was misinformed...
rome's best wops... or donatello goombah...

i'm having trouble with all these
anglo-saxons slurs...
     back in dandy ol' england...
             it's not a great period piece:
happening right now...
to be in the protected class of citizentry:
no mosque... oh hell:
protected status with a falafel?
exactly... where's the falafel?

             but from the movie... wow...
it is: but it isn't... a racial slar...
the one word from skiing these oomp'ah-
loomp'ahs *** 'ight...
                        
and in mewwy ol' england i come across
the natives... almost for a second time...
not the same sort of natives
i met prior to my 1997 / 1998 interlude...

perhaps 7/7 happened?
                      i really don't know...
                  but no great cultural export...
no oasis was sang on the continent
after oasis songs were sung...
it's not like kasabian made it into that
transcendental meaning on offer...
    
      hey! variations: pollack!
   paul-lack! st. paul's lacking? what?
a head... in athens... ah ha... dry martini of
a joke...
    but who am i?
        profession? pole / paul...
       ******* in my spare time, jackson jr.,
because... it's hardly a slur...
it would be a slur if i were called
a *** or a goombah...
the anglo-saxons wouldn't exactly
the rooted natives...
but they would...
it's as if expected:
from speaking latin and the eagle-fetish
to brewing cappuccinos...

a dutch-irish... well a dumb pollack joke...
yes... and now that the virus is caughing
via the retards in the supermarket isles
or licking ice-cream / toilet rims...
i guess an honest workforce is...
something to be less ashamed of...
compared to this ****** nation of:
the readily to be exile puke of reason...
"of their own"...

               i seem to have elevated my...
concern for words...
     i have just started to read my Charles Dickens...
and relying on Monday
to eat a more delightful roast dinner:
i says... it taste better... because it's not
a Sunday... it's a Monday...
plus... the roast is not exactly a roast...
it has some elements of bleau at the center...
because... you can't expect three
people to eat that much meat in a single sitting:
given the recipe for those yorkies from
ol' grandma of a james martin...

100g of flours, 4 eggs... circa 200ml of milk...
salt, pepper...
the dough is left in the fridge for an hour
at least... the yorkie trays are put into the oven
at 220C with the oil...
while the tatties are browning and the beef
is readying itself for the abstract
of my mouth... and the cubism of my ***...
pristine squeeze...

        if only in h'america...
            what wouldn't a norman davies call
the polacks if not industrial albino (s)*******?
then who were or would be... eire-
just -ish?
                         but the new continent:
i'm toppling down into the torso of a well-off
snowman built from an avalanche...

if there were britons here prior...
which includes the welsh and the scots...
and those people of Shropshire...
and those botanical tsars of Kent...
whoever these people are...
the noble barbarians...
   the better of vikings with no fjords
to revel in farming on?
   maybe those kind of people...
that sort of the native...
oh god forbid i should entice the cosmopolitan
brood to enter the debate...
not in the heart of the matter: come york
and its shire...
                      some longshank hobbit might
just pop its head up to high and kiss
a guillotine!

if there were the anglo-saxons...
    eh... some of us came... settled...
we wanted to... find... the englishman...
circa... 1860 - 1950... that sort of timeframe...
i guess we finds him...
question is... czy ja jestem, lecz czy on?
that's a good question...
is he the host and i the parasite...
well... funny that...
he isn't a body...
                       he's an oak that was uprooted
from somewhere among a many many
pines and birches in the eastern provinces
of this continent...
and moved... into a garden...
lurking: shadow... hunched crow
and some other hideous comparison...

am i the parasite? what host of a mind i did
acquire: who's me...
or i am him... then i'll drift into the other
trench and i'll tell the germans
that they're fighting anglican saxons...
what? yes i'll tell them...
they're not lutheran saxons...
they're anglican saxons...

              how? they have a monarchy...
a crown, central...
no petty princes bound to a federation...
i have also some across the modern natives...
the alt-right and the ethno-nationalists...
apparently: i'm not in the club...
how could i be...
i overheard them talking about...
electing a monarch...
election of monarchy...
    well... no point investing in the gene pool...
last time that was tried...
was in the guise of the polish-lithuanian
commonwealth...
the brothel of kings...
some were hungarians, some were "germans"...
some were even swedes...
the aristocracy elected a king...
a john lackland sorts from across europe...
until their big brother richard
or some variant of Otto or the proper didlo in
hand charles gustav would...
appear to wrestle with his baby brother's:
"betrothal" - evidently thart's one for the misnomer
and inversion...

the anglo-saxons as they were to be later known
as... no point beating about the bush...
but... i have measured myself against
these other inhabitants...
the welsh, the scots, the irish... and... well...
i'm not here on part of a conquering army...
my fellow countrymen are just about overwhelmed
by enjoying 100 years of privy
and freedom... little much of good will that do them...
a half-bred popular opinion:

that i hide my language in the freedom
i allow myself within english...
i'm here for the Dickens and the sunday roast beef:
and the yorkies... and the haggis and the neeps,
the mashed and roasted tatties...
and the black pud'...
            i'm not here to see how far west my ***
will point while bowing toward mecca...
if you don't mind me saying...
like i am not here for that kippah u.f.o.
ghetto of Golders Green...

                    i'm not here for a Marx on loan...
i'm here for a... "hashtag"...
   eh... the saxons have their unifying:
nomadic perspective to mind...
it's not like the saxons were not liked by...
say... the pomeranians...
   or the swabians... or the brandenburgers...
the saxons: semites of the north...
pseudo-vikings wishing for the proto- prefix...
well... are the modern saxons...
saxons? the saxons ****** off to england...
later ****** off to build the british empire...
i'm sure... the modern "saxons" are just
that... brandenburgers... some swabians...
the germans that stayed and were the enemy
under kaiser wilhelm...
that great... grandson of queen victoria...

yes... that war wasn't the war to stop all lineage
in-breeding... because...
it would take whittle adoolf the failed
art student to wake up the petty-bourgeoisie...
fully donned in khaki...
  and in hugo boss schwarz...
               and in... gulag grey-leash... of the wehrmacht:
of course...

    but anglo-saxons are, and were...
and there's this... grand ethno-etymology...
         listening to the natives...
   codes: white-genocide... ethnic displacement...
let me run back and check the state of affairs
in mother russia and ******-land...
polonia (in latin)... oh right...
i just heard... that a woman in russia...
university educated, a doctor, no less...
also believes that churches should be exempt from
restrictions on social gatherings...
because they are holy places...
and... viruses... in their primitive square / rectangular
modes of abstracting vectors...
or de-abstracting for a better cushion
of solid ground made... also have...
a sense of a higher-beings modus operandi
when plagued with doubt, or denial...
the virus knows what's scared to the russians...
too bad for all those russian buddhists...

dunno... what european are the westerners
worried about?
                         i'm here on "holiday"...
to read my Dickens: finally! it only took me
20 odd ******* years...
and my sunday roast on a monday...
   if there came a wave of anglo-saxons...
while the pomeranians stayed strapped
to the holy german empire "thing"...
and because there weren't any anglo-bohemias...
or modern anglo-czechs...

i'll branch out anyways...
                to the "greater" picture masquarade...
i'll be an anglo-slav if...
     and... oh look! they're here already...
i'm an anglo-slav... among the other minority
of the afro-saxons...
            
after all... there are tiers to migration...
there's that tier of polacks moving with the government
during the "affair" of circa 1943...
the no. 303 boys...
    and... after that? no one from ******-land
wanted to come to britain... h'america...
the golden retreiver...
               given the cold war... de facto:
to the antonym of the mensa harvest...

i came in the 1990s...
******-land and the other 8... joined the already
failing european union in 2004...
hmm...
          well... you did get that cabbage plucked...
that carrot too...
from... the sort of people without tic-toc
who... would rather **** braincells with a *****
after a god's monstrous maxim...
while i started sweating from my armpits
hunched with these words...
enough of braincells to ****...
not enough imaginative in a quasi-vivo state
of... the cannibal narcissus...
attention spans a week's worth of
goldfish adventures... licking ice-cream
you won't buy...

                            then again: a lacking paul...
is an otherwise over-eager pauline...

even if "we" were to become fully "integrated"...
like hell i was giving my mother tongue up
after that 1997 /1998 interlude...
i still wouldn't be able to teach my father the english
they speak: peppered with nuance from
the old mother grammar...
too bad... but the pronunciation is spot on...
i don't know why i should feel obliged to
the ******* on the cross to feel "circumcised"
for... his labyrinth...
      i couldn't teach my father better english
than the english already spoken: among the natives,
for the natives...
at home... mother is the cue... tongue
and everything otherwise...

we'll sample with the natives their delight in
minority cuisines...
but come monday... esp. a monday...
after a lunchbox worth of food of a sunday
feeling lazy... well... it just tastes better when
it's not... predicated on a riposte of...
conventions and harangue of: past-participle
expectations...

that sentence is littered with misnomers...
to add to the... otherwise... bland... talk...
correct... talk...

                   but i really couldn't teach my father
better english...
i have made this language sacred in my own
right as... both parasite and host...
interchangeable... of course...
eh... master and slave dynamic doesn't really
get me all hot and bothered...
i much prefer the lessened hiararchical nuance...
the co-dependency the symbiosis...
of a parasite and a host...
after all... it would seem the head of the pyramid
is a... fungus infection of the brain...
or at worst... a placenta martriarch of
a family of tapeforms: where, otherwise...
a foetus should be...

                i'm not into boot-licking...
but... if the anglo-saxons used these isles
as a spring-board to forever imitate the children
of zion...
i'm just the leftovers...
           the anglo-slav among afro-saxons...
the "great replacement"...
  woe'woe'woe... and that's a word that
should devolve into a calm down / halt insinuation...

who came after 2004... the people who didn't see loopholes
and wouldn't be seen gambling...
the sort of people that would most certainly
go back to the ***** and: the law & justice party
embrace...
   the xenophobic extracts of:
                        the impossibilty of the red sea
parting story... since they would never be the ones
there...
              that grey area...
like i am a grey area to them...
given... how many times did i want to spend
a summer at the ****** version of Woodstock...
Pol'and'Rock at Kustrin?
         lack hell i am...
   i'm confined to my little abode of folklore
anglo-saxony...
             rather: not having played the boogie man
from an 1960s period piece of:
vaginal and viagral expectations...
or... that thing known as brit-pop in the 1990s...
or... i've passed through york...
on my way to edinburgh...
           but yorkshire... beside the yorkies...
spuds? they call them?

         maybe... i'm counting 7 x 5cl to leverage
me at half a 70cl... but... looking at
what 35cl looks like turned into dosage...
i'm seeing more... than half an empty bottle...
i'm seeing the bottle as half full...
i guess this "predicament" came from
alcoholic slang and... positivism...
it's hardly optimistic... given... it's only
a perspective on only one bottle...
and there's still that sea to drink!

                      well... that's that... it was a most
enthralling ride back toward a square-root of 0...
much appreciated...
       now i'll just turn to the bed and the cushion
my head rests on...
and tell myself:
           this person was never born...
nor will his words take to boast about...
          a nativity play...
                 nor a pride in Shakespeare...
       it's one thing's worth a good reading...
quiet another... to treat it as an enzyme for
the collective: a catalyst...
to "re-invent" the wheel... as it were...
i have given birth... to perhaps...
the greatest thing i could "steal"...
         then again... i am very much...
                         exaggerating...
  but this was not born from the ****** ethnicity
of some european island folk...
  it was born on the continent...
   and it was somehow lived in and with...
never allowed to exfoliate into a courtesan...
annoyance... i gave it a limbo cage
both the host and parasite could enjoy...
after all: this language is a parasite...
i acquired when integrating...
    i am the host...
the parasite can dictate what it wants...
a blank page to exfoliate a boquet(t)e with / in...

it would most certainly appear more
orthographically sound: if boquete had an added T...
well... some will cite Shakespeare the first of and
the end of... what's defined as Ęglish...
i like to think of the... "subtle" master...
     i somehow knew it was in him...
after watching the film-adaptations... not good enough...
not having read David Copperfield...
a brush with J. D. Salinger and all that
holden caulfield Son-of-Sam sort of crap...

             i guess you just have to age a little...
a little is never greedy... and pounce on that great
big peacock playing: the pink elephant in the room!
that's me... Dickens wasn't impossible
to "unsee" or "not see"...
                                  i just needed...
the right sort of hashbrown sort of nudge...
enough organic encounters with yorkies...
baked tatties... h.p. brown sauce and enough baked
beans...
  yep... now i'm ready...
                  it's time to gently slide away from
Macbeth... and into Dickensian prose...
the Pickwick Papers is as any good place to start...
all the better: since it came highly
recommended why i was still in high-school...
all those... ****... 18 years later.

Marching across the lands looking for foes to impale
A show of brutality killing those who oppose my flail
I am Arthur, King of The Britons
And I seek the grail

A tourist's delight is London and not without reason,
If you think otherwise, you can't be forgiven,
The British culture is something in which the Britons pride,
You have no option but to take this in your stride

The famed red double-decker buses are all over the streets,
Transporting people virtually from street to street,
Their frequency is so short which is a feature to admire,
For commuters on the go, there is little reason to perspire

Systematic running of the buses is a reflection of meticulous planning,
That has been honed to near perfection for a near-perfect landing,
Hassle-free commuting is surely a plus point,
There is definitely no reason for it to be a moot point

Riding the London tube in peak hours is nothing short of a nightmare,
An experience however that tourists would surely like to dare,
Winding your way through jostling commuters in a mechanical way,
An art that can be practiced without keeping rushing fellow passengers at bay

Hordes of people keep flocking Trafalgar Square,
There is so much activity with almost nothing to spare,
The revelry is such with considerable glee,
A joy to behold and the best it ever can be

Walking by the waterfront is such a pleasure,
Whilst savoring the enchanting landscape in no small measure,
Buildings along the quay have a history of their own,
That vindicate the reasons for which they are so well renown

Boarding the Thames cruise near one of the dockyards,
Is sheer coincidence that it is opposite new Scotland Yard,
British history's glorious past as vividly narrated by the guide,
Makes for fascinating hearing with the ripples of the not-so-high adjoining tide

To see Shakespeare's first theater felt so wonderful,
That Thames river water has breached the place was equally woeful,
The adjoining new theater now hosts his masterpiece plays all year round,
A must-see theatrical show if you happen to be around

The waterfront restaurants are a haven for wining and dining,
The accompanying incessant chatter gives no cause for whining,
All one needs to do is soak in the merriment,
No way will it ever be to your detriment

The famed black cabs with their right hand driving,
Are mostly Bentleys with an unique interior setting,
The seating arrangement is something you get used to,
As you ride to your destination without further ado

Borough week-end market offers food from world over,
It would be a surprise if you are not bowled over,
The freedom to taste without any haste,
Ensures hours well spent with no guilt of waste

The variety of treats is just so amazing,
It tempts one to keep tasting instead of simply gazing,
The international flavor is also seen in the massive crowds,
That throng the market wanting to be wowed

Shopping is such pleasure that makes you shop-till-you-drop,
Spending has never been so easy without sparing a thought,
The lure of fashion is such an endless passion,
It is difficult to say there is a limit to satisfaction

Buckingham Palace change-of-guard is a popular tourist attraction,
People flock to see the daily spectacle that does merit attention,
The adjoining sprawling Hyde Park lends its own aura to the setting,
That ensures memories linger without forgetting

From Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus is just a stone's throw,
It is famous enough for visitors to take a bow,
The hustle and bustle surrounding the place,
Makes it look hectic to keep with the pace

Poetry is inadequate to describe the charisma that London holds,
It's majestic buildings and Britain's rich history are truly a sight to behold,
You always get the feeling that there is  something more to experience,
Once you are back to base and indulge in reminiscence

Message and Lady of the Night brought Arthur back, and he looked at the place.
It is not Camelot but it would have to do, mused Arthur with a smile on his face.
The Covenantial Project walked in and Arthur yelled, Merlin, I thought you were gone!
Merlin?! Said Message and Lady of the Night at the same time, and their surprise was strong.
Yes, I was Merlin to the Britons, but I was there to guard the Excalibur until Arthur was done
The Covenantial Project explained, then when Arthur pulled sword from stone, I knew he was The One.
The second Project in our order, I left you with the Lady of the Lake while I went to gather the Federation.
I also came back to your island as Detective Sherlock Holmes, because I knew that I could not be patient.
What your time called mysticism that time called deduction and investigation, it worked for me either way.
So here I am as the Covenantial Project, defender of the Scythe Sword, standing by you today.
Arthur asked, So where is my Round Table, and should not a man with Excalibur have a throne.
Breastplate-Bearer snorted and said, The only throne you have is porcelain, and you sit on it alone.
Arthur said, I don’t know what you mean, and The Covenantial Project said, Camelot was destroyed.
The Saxons were men sent by Vibrate to ruin the new Troy, Briton, such evilness they deployed.
But instead of annihilating Briton they lived there, so Vibrate now sought to ruin everything.
She knew that you were asleep, but she never could fathom that you could awake my king.
I took on the persona of Detective Sherlock Holmes in the past century, I knew she would be back.
And there were clues left by the Saxons in the past years, as to the nature of her attack.
The people called the Whisperers fought me at every turn, killing and committing crime.
But I knew that if I did not give up, the knowledge I sought would soon be mine.
But what about Watson, Lady of the Night asked, her curiosity heighted by this news.
The Covenantial Project answered, He was one of the first Cloaked Scouts of the Federation, so good.
He is buried in a masoleum, that lies outside the London neighborhood.

Message asked, So what do we do now, we will need the entire Federation for war.
Cloaked Scouts, The Knighthood Ways, and the Projects need to be assembled before….
She stopped short, because she dare not think what would happen if Achilles could rampage.
The Alliance Project sat up and said, Now we can go out and go against Achilles in a campaign start!
To attack him now is futile, because we need to gather the entire forces so he does not tear us apart.
We have to misdirect him, so that he goes off in the wrong direction and it takes him longer.
Because the more time it takes for him to get to us, a greater chance we have because we are stronger.
The Covenantial Project said, I will go, and with my Merlinic powers combined with Detection.
I will throw him off balance so that he is confused and heads in the wrong direction.
I don’t have to engage with him directly, although I have enough power for that son.
Arthur and Message come with me, Two Projects are always better than one.
Lady of the Night stay here, and keep surveillance on Vibrate.
I will put on the Eclipse visor, so that I can open up the eye-gate.
You guys can call the Federation together, so we can attack Achilles when he is frustrated.
To win the ultimate victory against this Son of Banishment, and finally have him defeated.
All of them nodded, and Message asked, But what about Vibrate who is coming.
The Covenantial Project answered grimly, She can share in the fate of her dead son.
The Federation would be formed and reinforcements are coming, we would leave to attack.
And until Vibrate is destroyed there will be no peace, because we will not come back.
The Alliance Project you should heal from the last fight with Achilles, we will need you for this trouble.
Because this fight is more than a battle, it is a universal struggle.

The Alliance Project nodded and lay down, as Breastplate-Bearer and Lady of the Night toiled on him.
Arthur, Message, and the Covenantal Project went out, and boarded the Isotrain Mechanism.
As it took off Arthur said, This does not feel like Llamei, and Message giggled, That is a weird name for a woman.
Arthur shot daggers at her and said, Llamei was the War-horse for a High King, watch your tone.
Suddenly the Isotrain Mechanism was going down, and Message said, I think someone is on it.
Arthur took out Excalibur and said, Hand me the Galvatar Scabbard, a lot of blood is going to be shed.
None of it should be mine, and at the end of all of this, our problem will be stabbed dead.
Message gave him the scabbard and went behind Arthur as the Covenantal Project tried to land.
She kept on shaking her head and said, I thought they were about chivalry, but I don’t understand.
Achilles was standing on top of the Isotrain Mechanism and yelled, You will die, you Trojan
Arthur pulled out Excalibur and calmly said, You must be ended, you menace who is The Unspoken.
Message took out her Celestial Blade Saber and tip-toed saying, This is a wobbly place to yield.
She spoke to The Covenantial Project on her watch, Make sure to land in the next available field.
Achilles and Arthur ran towards each other, two ancient warriors preparing to fight.
Suddenly the Isotrain Mechanism tipped over, and all three of them fell because of that flight.
But Excalibur acted like a parachute, and brought Message and Arthur safe to the grass.
And Achilles was basically undead anyway, so he landed not far past.
Message and Arthur landed together, and Arthur had a strange ****** smile indeed.
What is wrong, asked Message,Arthur replied, I lost the healing scabbard, so I will see if I can bleed.

It were the days,
When we were the El Dorado.
It were the days,
When we used to be the benevolent helper of the world.
Soon came the Britons,
Alas! How unfortunate were we.
Sooner came the Great Bengal famine,
As we became the crutches of the English crown.
Alas! How hapless were we.
But as any believer will say,
Time keeps on churning.
As came the midnight of fifteenth,
We had our moment.
When for the first time,
We standing as one,
Stared awestruck,
From the darkness into the light.
All the dark grey clouds over us,
Hanging down like broken shackles,
As we entered, holding each other’s hand firmly,
Into the safe shadows of independence,
The epitome of bliss,
Whose shrine will always be celebrated by us,
“WE” The Indians.

Happy Independence Day.

A resonant gratitude streams through my veins,
Consecrated to my middle school heroines, deflecting
The whispers of shame.
But they taught me that I do not have the luxury of shame;
I have a voice, and I must amplify it––that’s what my mother said.

Elles m’ont protégée, blossoming my oneness.
I am here now because of them, I harness their divine feminine
Strength.

Standing on the bones of my aunties, their anguish travels up,
Their histories following suit.
Beneath my feet, to my knuckles; charging my inner being
My spine is rigid, fortified with the duty––
To liberate, to reform, and to love.
“But my love,” she tells me earnestly, “this love, has been assumed,
Taken for granted, blended into the background of the White man’s portrait.”

My dun skin lives in the ambiguity of praise and prejudice,
And my sisters are dead. Exploited, first––then dead.
As were my mother’s grandmothers, when the Britons drew the line.
The assembly line, however, was an American invention––
Where the American Dream came to fruition. Commodified neatly,
‘Cheaply’ produced, and easy to swallow: fine [Black*] American craftmanship!

Her tomb
Stone, will be mined by her brothers.
He is unearthing the buried history, but forced to push coal into the fire,
Cremating the legacies of his own kin.

“So what are you going to say at my funeral now that you’ve killed me?”
Her lasts words, found amongst the ashes.

it must be a clear misunderstanding when someone utters the words: 'you hurt my feelings'... taking offense etc. last time i checked... doubt is outright discredited... yet in doubt: such a plethora of emotions... bundles of emotions... emotions that i can't bestow a narrative onto... it's not like the lack of emotions matched with denial... doubt's plethora: it's a pale version of love... in all but certain times... a pinch of uncertainty is always welcome... as is being offended... it's a loose-paradox (paradox: probably a misnomer in the context) of... an imploding objectivity... all those who claim objectivity also claim: being cognitive pure... not being dragged: muddled by emotions... why are emotions so undeserving to be felt... i'm tired of the silence of the heart for almost forever... when people say they have "****-hurt feelings"... or that they might be "offended"... it's not that... i see it as: implanting emotions... somehow it's easier to digest thoughts: since... "somehow" thoughts can exist in both an: in vivo as in an in vitro staging... you will probably never take thoughts seriously... but emotions... that raw slice of cured beef? well... it's not that i "hurt" your "feelings"... it's only that i gave you... feelings you never prior experienced... no one has hurt feelings: never... people only have bothersome feelings they cannot digest... no one is hurting... there are only a few with indigestion qualms... but since it's not the stomach but the heart... no one their pigeon brain starts to coo coo: cook up nonsense...

in light of recent events, in England...
a proselyte: of a former Islamic persuasion...
gets stabbed, slashed... whatever...
for wearing a Charlie Hebdo t-shirt
at speakers' corner in Hyde Park...
does it matter she's a woman:
does it matter whether or not she
was actually talking or merely wearing the t-shirt?
a proselyte...
i'm sort of one: teasing at the adventure...
i'll write the word ****** because...
well: giggle... bundle...
i will not censor my thoughts...
but because i will not utter the word:
i will not: it's not for the debility
and some "sacred past"..
but i will not scream it: choke my thoughts
with it... i'll reach the platitude...
urban slur that it has become:
you... don't... "own" the word...
i don't need this black hole punctuation
marker...
                      the "N-word":
god grease this "taboo": i have better pork
to ****...

- when enough drink is in me
i'll be writing under the influence:
but i won't be cycling... i tried that once...
i collapsed on the side of the road
clenched my bicycle
like a woman might clench a ****-buddy
and just... lay there... i was aiming
for the moon... it was a moonless night...
i started aiming for the constellations:
it was cloudy... i just lay there on
the pavement...
it felt... very village-esque...
as if the Red Army just passed through
having seen the well-dressed SS-men
running for their life in scuffles
and... torn limbs... in rags...
thank god the Bolsheviks were not
those ****-smeared Mongols...
who ate nothing but rancid horse-meat
and drank nothing but horse blood...
but it figures...
can i please talk to some of the sensible
Muslims: the ****'ites?
the old world Persians... even they're ******:
how come a bunch of camel jockeys
started to dictate to the Persians
a new thinking parameter?
the youngest of the monotheistic brat-dom....
so easily offended...
my greatest "fear":
the jihadi with an acute sensitivity
most associated with: French footballers...
why are these Muslims as sensitive as
French footballers...
Islam was once so gracious:
i was almost willing to "revert"...
i was implored by some Muslims to do so...
that's the thing with associating yourself
with Muslims in the west:
a feeling of conversation soon turns into
a feeling of conversion...
i asked one ****-
            -stani who approached me in a park
while i was sipping a beer...
why are you single? he implored...
a man of your stature...
shouldn't be single...
i didn't ask him whether this was England or
whether it was Lahore..
i just asked him what:
Alif-Lãm-Mĩm
meant at the beginning of a surah...
he brushed it somehow "aside" with a:
'only god knows'...
sorry... but that's not good enough...
i have to be the worst type of
a convert prospect...
although the best should an architecture
student... come along with a joint...
me with two beers... him with Le Trio Joubran:
that is happened in Amsterdam:
of course it had to happen in Amsterdam!

Alif-Lãm-Mĩm: is that sort of quiz
akin to turning letters into numbers
and "seeing" patterns... there's that Hebrew term
for this practice... it's not chiromancy...
it's not the concern for the Zodiac...
it only takes three letters...

"666": ΧΞϚ

last time i checked: "they" were breeding black
athleticism over Hebrew intellectualism...
Hebrew intellect fell short &, sour...
with what came out of Marxism
and... Freud still chokes:
but it's hardly a ******* celebration
when translated into skyscrapers...
when there's also that alias of the ****
with the football stadium... no?

but the "******" can be celebrated for his
physical prowess...
there are more holier words in this language
than a slur i hope to confess has become
more of an urban doodle: prepositional-punctuation
marker....

at least i'm not screaming the "N-word" in the back
of my head like some stuttering numb-nuts...
it's there... plain to see...
if i were to write: Niggerian instead of Nigh-Gear-Ian...
it would imply... what?
the same sort of hyper-sensitivity associated
with Jihadi Johnsons alias:
macabre: Russian ballerinas are more cut-throat
than these French footballers...

there are more sacred words than require
black-holes of: translated into "thinking"...
the name of the Hebrew god...
hidden within a "name for a name":
ha-shem...
there... i'll go as far as that...
i will not utter this word...
but sure as hell i'll make a great dough
of it: seeing how it might rise...

**** a black girl: colonial superpower, i...
the English are the tourists of Europe...
i don't think the Polacks ever felt comfortable
in their backyard... ever...
the argument goes: since the English went
all over the world... the world now has
to come knocking...
for all this ****** weather: you're more than
welcome...
Japan is an island... it has much
better weather: go figure...

another example... a former ISIS bride has returned
to England...
she's living in a £500,000 house
and has been giving treatment for
a prosthetic extension
of a lost arm: "lost" in a drone strike...
**** me... should have fought for ISIS...
pumped myself up with all those
amphetamines all those warriors were
ingesting because:
drink is... b'a'a'a'h bad (stutter?) i bet
you want...

hypersensitivity:
great at running...
but... no good at swimming
or for that matter: rock climbing...
from a tree unto the rock...

no matter... i was watching the Australian masterchef
contest and spotted a stand-out...
her grandmother was of a south-east-asian
"persuasion"...
pure as chalk...
well... "good news": ol' sandpaper man
comes in... 2nd generation
of interracial breeding...
well... two generations short...
what's that like in dog years?
the first encounter... done...
2nd... by the 3rd turn product pops out...
all is bleached...
worked with sandpaper... of white: piglet skin...

what a pretty fine explanation...
this connect: nuanced: "us":
greedily waiting the next: new...
conversion...
how do born & bred Muslims treat
proselytes...
converts... "reverts":
if not black h'american Malcolm X
stints...
all white... Mamluk / Janissary types-typos...
second class: ha! "citizens":
i don't trust these anaemic-**** smears
from the sand-pits of wannabe Congo
any more than...
no... great curry...

how it came about that a western man
had to become: educated by
some... retrograde... concerning words:
he would never ******* use!
even in a bilingual sequence of "events"...
mind you... the niqab would come about
as sort of... useful...
concerning the mythological blonde and
her ******* tirade of cough-ups!

get the **** real: ******:
the blacks just want to be...
blacks... the whites just want to be:
white...
you... play-up your jazz
while i drown my ******* Prokofiev...
you be black... i be white...
women always: some great heritge
of brotherhood making a comeback?
must be a Vancuever sort-of
a shin-dig...
investment in lady... qualities...

just about right: how h'Arabs treat those
Bangladeshi whips...
you have to whip those h'Arabs into
owning some ******* whiskers...
brown-beat doesn't even cover it:
with the copper-necks...

- just don't get me started on the Turks...
Turks... supposedly Muslim...
but their alphabet originated with the Mongol
geography...
seeing how the Turks licked at Vienna...
spent so much time just below
the Carpathian mountains: in Europe...
the best barbers and the best
prostitutes known to man...
oh and the ****'ite Persians who still love their
iconography...
Charlie Hebdo was wrong in that respect:
i bet Muhammad was a handsome *******...
a camel jockey / goat herder...
an illiterate par excellence...

it's not like he was immediately liked in his
local Mecca...
i have my "theory": in praise of older women...
i'm pretty sure she was the elder
the literate... the business mind-set illuminated...
she must have been the person who
wrote down the first Surahs...
who? Khadija: Muhammad's first wife...

eh... and they really do think they're the dog's *******...
Eddie Izzard's explanation is still tip-toe for moi...
my francophobia will not go away:
i can't speak French and not retain a French accent...
that will not pass...
therefore? i will not learn French...
i'm not going to speak French like a foreigner...

clearly i wanted to convert to Islam once...
"clearly"? hmm...
i once listened to this spectacular adhan and cried
like a Janissary...
what put me off Islam?
****-
    -stani Islam...
                 Saudi Islam...
     i'm still teased by the Turks... well... Turkish prostitutes...
once upon a time i also
heard vaughan william's fantasia
on the theme of thomas tallis... and also cried...
i cry at beauty... that's what i do...

my ****** lot... because the Hebrew's devil is older
than my devil...
imagine... coming from a people
that still defended the last paganism
of the Lithuanians: the last paganism in Europe...
the year: 1410... a battle between the pagans...
the Tatars (remains of the Mongol Horde)
the Polacks: lack-land lack-land...
and the Teutonic Order...

perhaps i could have convinced myself
to convert to Islam...
but then... what the hell do i do with
the *******... ms. amber and all that bourbon
that... always reminds me of a brothel?

the Hebrew god...
well... it begins with the implosion and all that's
clockwork with the Greek Δ -
that became the Y or... the serpent's split tongue...
funny story...
i was chatted with a Greek on a train to central
Warsaw from the Modlin Airport...
my god... how similar Greek sounds to Spanish!

look here: γΥ!
                           eh? eh? it's a sound structure that
requires an umlaut when transcribed into
Latin:                     gÜ...
one parabola... two parabola: a pair of wheels:
goo!          of the ghoul!

i do believe the story of of Carmenta (the Cimmerian Sibyl)
because... why shouldn't
it not be mythological that the genius
of Sejong who invented Hangul...
enough time passes...
journalism becomes history and history becomes
myth... or... there abouts...

all for the best... now that we're all seemingly
literate...
under too much weight of history:
it seems that i have inherited too much...
and i have inherited too much:
there's a plateau of a horizon...
so much history for a single man to digest:
ingest... that we have hoarded so much
of it... enter filter... enter skim-reading...
but it happens  ever so often that a Quran arrives...
a fire... but then... all the restrictions
that come with it... so much with keeping
too much from the past...

if only Islam could have cured me
of my drinking solution
to the boredom associated with
the soberness of the everyday: platitudes...
perhaps enough: just enough of *** could
curate me towards a better path...
such are the times:
there's plenty of drink: available...
but never enough ***...
unless you're a performance artist...

i feel most sane on a bicycle... feel safest
when being overtaken by a juggernaut of
a truck's volume...
a critique of traffic...
i feel... completely bewildered when
a mini-cooper: this sized: ||
takes... this much: |       | of space
to overtake you...
while... a man driving a van...
or a truck sized: |       |
takes... || to pass you...

Gallows Corner roundabout...
the last thrill of a cyclist taking to orientating
traffic... in the newspaper...
another solipsistic cyclist was mowed down
by a truck turning left at some junction
of Holborn...
me and my unconscious spatial coordination
arithmetic: not some ******... although:
a ****** would probably wave hello
this was a paediatrician cycling to her job...
i don't pity her... let the earth be light
upon claiming her body...

most cyclists that die on the streets of London
deserve to die...
how nonchalantly they ignore...
how... no... nonchalant is a timid word:
how... blasé they seem...
every time i pass one of these solipsistic
bulges geared up for: target practice
i forget to laugh...

i feel human... i bought 70cl of bourbon...
gorgon... bourbon: watch me turn to stone...
**** it... i'll sober up tomorrow morning
on the dual carriage way...
why not take the risk?
i'm most sane when drinking and scribbling
or when cycling...
i was expecting to see some lovelies in
Upminster... but...
since i was riding a road bike with 23cm wide tires
i was looking down for... ***-holes...
more than looking up for cleavage...

but this glorious spot... just outside of Upminster...
beyond Cranham... easing into
Bird Ln... through to Tomkyns Ln.
while walking across the A127 Arterial...
the organic beauty of England is starting
to grow on me... i love what the Saxons did with
the place...
perhaps the Welsh and the Scots: the origins story
Britons that the Romans met would have
done just as much...
nice... tended to garden...
i once felt nostalgic for the land most associated
with Polacks occupying it
but a land the Swedes wanted... the Mongols...
the Russians... Turks and Germans...
i imagine i'd be as much involved with
a love for the organic north America
while missing the love for the...
culture that lay on top of the organic spectacle...

i much adore this topography...
of course i can hardly appreciate the natives
having too play the game of capitulation
of former colonial herd "animals"...
hurt feelings? or feelings aroused?
you felt them: your problem...

how the English capitulated to their former subjects...
it almost hurts... almost: no... it hurts...
i love this land...
i'm hardly going to agree with the people...
nicety... politeness:
you give them a ******* mosque in the middle
of... i've was invited to the Reagent Park mosque
as a prospectus convert...
what is it with having Muslim "friends":
you're only "friends"... "proper":
if you convert?!
what's that recipe you have for the Lavash?
who would have thought that rosemary
works just as well with beef as it does with lamb...
oh right... that was it?
fair enough... *******!

see... that's what put me off Islam...
****-
  -stani: Rotherman...
bad taste man... it just left a bad taste in
my mouth... i ended up without a mouth...
pretending to eat via the hole i **** from...
i'd scoff out some diarhoea digestive juices on
my meal and then... vacuum it up with my ****...
i remember the concept of teeth...
though... teeth were nice...
so was the tongue...

****-
  -stanis ruined my vision of converting to Islam...
i'll settled for this... makeshift of Christianity...
gnostic.. because... well:
in my position: you're not teasing at Hebrew
superstitions... you must be...

oh this land... this most glorious: serene land...
how breath-taking "concept" of Scotland...
all the finicky irks of the rolling hills of
what's mostly England...
on a bicycle: best...
do i mind the locals?
well... do the local mind their former colonial
subjects?
what's that saying: thanks for the recipe?

you see me in Bangkok... you see a *******
chimpanzee die from dehydration:
sweated out from his... salty... nut-sack!
i'm not going... to hell with south-east Asian
humidity...
it's a cancer... i'll best survive with "the idea"
of keeping up a hard-on / narrative on...
prospectus ghost horizons...
the Faroe Isles... *******: GREEN-LAND...

that's where Frankenstein's monster would
have went... i'd go there too...
the agony of summer...
everything decomposes too quickly...
the flies... the maggot **** the flies!

oh for the love of these isles... perhaps not the people:
then again... i rather drift in & out with
the anglo-saxons than be jumbled up with
"my" people...
you start to appreciate despising the
******* diaspora after a while...
i guess the Polacks are the most willing to
integrate...
whoever showcased the dynamics of the
congregation project of Chicago...
somehow forgot...
i'll drink drink this 70cl of bourbon:
don't worry... i won't clog up the arteries of
the NHS with my antics...

you what? i love this land... perhaps the wolves
have been culled...
but the foxes are still running rampant...
well: if life throw you foxes:
you're not going to exactly: ah-woooo!
bark? for the love of life: i will never
bark or take to the leash...
i own two maine *****...
i exhausted them while grooming them...

they ended up spending the afternooon
sleeping in my bed...
i'm hopefully going to retire to it:
with a horror movie soundtrack somehow:
soon...
spontaneity of narrative... closure:
more impromptu... less of that...
masquerade formality...
this god blessed land...
if only the Spanish armada...
like the Mongolian ships...
should the conquest of Yappon could have
been envisioned...

anyone still reading this still bothered about...
GG?
the consensus of... a neGlected...
     Giant...
i think... this former soy boys catching
their Goliaths... catch 'em cold... sober..
or... simply exchange them?
to perform so well in slam-dunk prowess...
reinvent classical music via jazz through
towards blues... rock... etc.?

somehow the weight on my shoulders shifts...
a Nigerian ****** turns out to be an urban slur that
doesn't invoke a Nigerian...
a soy boy vegan: perhaps...
i implore the use with coercion tactic...
for those offended: yeah... i'll just implant some
emotions into your heart...
it's very much offensive for my to intrude with
proper spelling...

let's be honest: anyone who has been:
honest... is by now... tired of walking on eggshells...
**** a black girl... what, you?! colonial beast!
yes... confuse the ****** with the Croat...
the Russian too... hell... throw some Ukrainian bias
while you're at it...
anti-racist western girls are...
eh... m'eh... if i can get what i want for
half a decade's worth with some Turkish raven
hair... beaus...
do i... have to mind... pronouns... prospectus quotes etc?

like i said... wait for the bleach..
or... the sandpaper...
i've seen the complete works...
i was ****** with... love... affairs...
girls that dated me...
sure... but they had younger sisters...
and their younger sisters were more...
most attractive...
terrible combination:
dating a girl while her younger sister
is more attractive...

for all the choices and Heidegger...
lucky loser...
no... thank you...
to be one of these super-sensitive Islam propagators...
me? convert?! *******: no!
best keep that ***** in the niqab...
if it were a bone tomahawk..
it would be a female... declined limbs...
blinded...
a torso readied for *******...
imagine that... a replica machinery...

oh i'm sure... Muhammad... was a handsome beast...
but i'm thankful...
that the first... last... true religion...
met a schism so early...
Muhammad was so easily undermined
not keeping a nepotistic promise for
a cousin Ali...
early schism: no truer than:
truth is somehow sold?!

i fiddle with my beard:
whoever says otherwise... no... i'm still playing a violin!
i'll sober up solo... cycling against the gusts of wind...
Eloise...
Eloise!
England... oh this well deserved and welcome land...

my land....
in deutsche:: mein(e) erde...
i watch the locals: capitulate....
   what are you?! slugging *****-best-please
sumac? i... i am to surround  suspicion?

this glorious land....
                   this.... glorious land...
this: ING-LAND...
best forget the wolves..
given the foxes are prunes...

(in the background... rome's:
to die among strangers playing)...

get me off this merry-go-round -
please let me step off it,
i've had enough of this senseless repetition
of but one man's biography -
i've had enough of celebrating his
birth, i've had enough of celebrating
his resurrection and...
being bound to a people:
that do not know what to do about his death,
his death that has to see every hill
be renamed golgotha...

get me off this merry-go-round...
the days prior when everything seems to be
ablaze with neons and flickering dots
of a spiderweb without the architect -
and how these anglican efforts come,
and how they are released back
into a nullifying void...
i'm tired of catholics wishing each other well...
i'm tired of protestants wishing each other well:

be merry! women, wine and song!
perhaps... prior to a swan's dedication to
hacve risen into a amore-adore
and that descent into the shallow mourning
of the widow's laces in see-through-black...

and prior: this litany of grievances against
the family: mother against daughter...
daughter against mother...
sister against brother...
a father's non-existent pride that:
his son should have done more than he has...
and all these strains -
the children writing letters of presents
that later become pandora's boxes...
the adults writing mental letters to
death and its harem of executioners -

and all for this gluttonous feast...
mind you: i have to deal with three days
of this "celebration"...
that in Poland Christmas Eve is most
important...
most important in that: it's waiting
for a prosthetic miracle to include
the once organic hand... later to be nailed
to some driftwood of history...
after a while: today is earth...
tomorrow as yesterday is a tear...
the week to come will become a slight
amnesia of sweat and irritation...
a month will pass and the tear will
become a puddle of rain...
then a year will pass and a pond or
a lake will emerge...
then five years... ten... and a river will
break the barricades...
the mountain will be found to flow down
from... until all time becomes a meeting
with the sea - the eternal yawn when
facing a thought standing at its shore -
the content and contex of a body its bound
to...

christmas and all things depressing...
i welcome the quickened decline of day
and the seemingly eternal night...
what should brighten my resolve:
if it were not as simple... as to escape this
misplaced celebration...
the society is carved, the family is carved...
all we have done is squabble in the past year
and in the past years...
to suddenly work an evening of
cordiality for some "myth of a beginning"...

by christmas eve i will have placed
on a table 12 side-dishes - some will be prime
meals... like a salamon and some
beetroot broth with dumplings...
everything will be kosher catholic...
no meat of the earth...
and i will sit between two bodies
with me: the third party in this squalor
of an icon...
the biggest dread coming from the fact
that: i could simply look the part...

and when his death is not celebrated...
when a birth is damped with two-faces
and seasonal expectations...
when the birth is more important than
the death and the resurrection...
i always found christmas to be
an added nail to the coffin...
call it a year... call it whatever water deems
worth to be ascribe to such a passing...
always this pretend jovial acts...
this pressure to somehow not find
the coming of winter without any
mediocre non-clinical bouts of "depression"...

it's not like in Poland, during easter...
where you'd bring the eggs of castratos
to the church for blessing...
mythical catholicism of the East...
i haven't spent christmas in england
for the better part of 4 years...
but christmas is no different to the east
as it is to the west...
perhaps better television...
but... but... i can't stomach this...

give me the days after the new year...
multiply the days in between...
so i can return to my grey mist...
to burning the greek alphabet into my mind...
to subsequently burn the cyrillic alphabet
into it too...
let my days be filled with an ease
of writing this latin text...
but let me burn my mind with eyes
of coal - greek in my left eye: cyrillic in
my right... and the glagolitic crown
disguising itself alongside some runes...

let me write a picture...

o
cz
y
m y ś l e    (a corner stone)

o
č
y
m y ś l e

o
ч
ы
м ы сь л э (kamień węgielny)

          ę                    ę
    ę                ę
       ę                        ę  
кaмиэнь в(      )гиэлны

     no russian diacritical
  equivalent...

give me the days when
such things are important...
not this bedazzling of the jury -
the glorified birth...
the flight... herod's paranoia...
the subsequent filicide...
puppet king over-estimating his
worth...

perhaps then the marriage
of the hebrews with the greeks
to topple rome - this rome -
this hydra - this supposedly *******
of clay... being resurrected elsewhere
and everywhere -
the britons - who never sunk
into the fate of other people who
kept: ah b'eh and v and Q and...
kept the graphemes...
changed the eagle into a lion...
and the greek chimera into a unicorn...
and were never debased by
the imagery of rome...
but nonetheless didn't decend as
the german: with the umlaut and his
unique ßignature... or the next myth...
the next year...

it's almost the only joy left that compensates
this celebration:
not having anyone to buy presents for...
to compete over who's what gave that smile...
that frown...
and to give oneself the only present
worth giving - a chance to retain awe for
this otherwise sick-inducing repetition
that's 20x worse than how seasons
are predictable enough to be brought down
to the mundane wording of poetic odes!

i find no joy in this celebration -
only children will ever find it...
this is the time when family records are being
drafted... the summary of "family"
is being evaluated...
i find no joy because: i have no children...
and when all others have no children...
and even after a while when those
that will have grandchildren no longer
have their grandchildren...
and you return, somehow...
to a ***** of aged despair -
a mother, a father...
or... as someone alone...
what is it, that's being celebrated...
chance a conversation with me over
Easter... and i'll reply...
this truly is a worthy holiday...
there is so much joy in it...
but this christmas: this birth into a darkness?
yes - the greater analogy of life?
what is there to be celebrated?
the pettiness we dish each other
throughout the rest of the year?
we, "magically" forget?
that idiotic anagram: santa clause?
satan's clause?

if he be the son of god...
i'll be the god looking over him...
after all: the price of being...
an omni- litany... is to abandon one's
throne... for someone to sit in it,
or for it to remain empty...
even zeus didn't abandon his throne
for more than a flirt with an earthly woman...
the polytheistic gods knew:
how not to abandon power...
but to... fuse themselves with all
things mortal... and create the demigods...

i mean: if an omni- litany entity...
is going to incarnate itself? by the miraculous birth?
who's up on that throne?!
god abandoned heaven to save earth...
oh we can be it at this all day...
and we won't even feel shame
not having scientific facts and counters...
we will talk like children again...
who grew out of playing hide & seek...
and began thinking about philosophy...
having found themselves talking
about theology...
then... at least then...
talking about an existent / non-existent being...
whichever... we can exist...
it doesn't matter then...
whether ****** (ha-shem) IT exists or not...
we'll listen closely...
and find... two voices strapped to a room.

if belief was as simple as the plethora
of doubt... darting thoughts...
if belief was as simple as how it consolidates
itself in people who cherish ritual...
like the ritual of an alarm clock at 6am...

Each sees the world but through his eyes
for one man's truth is another man's lies.
The rainbow rises with its bright bold band
mean different things from where you stand.

The colours symbolise our view
and thus reflect what we think is true.
From yellow through orange to red
bright colours when the rain has fled;
then green through blue to purple
shows the North Sea and the Med.

Red for the Roman soldier's plume as it waves in the wind's embrace
or the blood that Britons spilled on the land as they fought for their living space.
Orange is the sun's warm kiss as it sinks at the end of day
or the slave-built terracotta roofs that are made of Roman clay.
Yellow is the legion's eagle that sits on the pole on high
or the blistering, beating, burning sun, that shines up high in the sky.

Green is the flowing, shifting sea of ripening, waving grain
or malachite coloured water, that leaves your hands with a stain.

Blue is the crashing, thrashing waves as the sea gave throat and roared
or the colour of the long dead Brit whose body’s been ignored.

Purple is the heathery ling that grows upon the heath
or the symbol of Imperial Rome, the grasping greedy thief.

So look at the Rainbow rising and see your dearest dream
but be careful what the colours say: they are not quite what they seem.
The colours of a rainbow stand bright against the sky,
and we see it rising up above but it never tells us why.
How do we grasp a rainbow? To what does it point the way?
A potent portent of glittering good? Or fell, ill-favoured, fey?

So look at the Rainbow rising and see your dearest dream
but be careful what the colours say
they are not quite
... what
...they
...seem.

by now i know i'm not really
adding much to the narrative -
nothing to: quench the zeitgeist
thrill or: pneumonia...

i cannot offer either an escape
plan or some comforting
trickle of wisdom -
       all the better:
    there's no blatant sentiment
on my part for an escapism -
as there's no fixation
on transcendence -

           same old two variations...
but when i smoke
a cigarette...
and listen to purple people eater -
cockfight...
and there's some bourbon
too...
    well... i bring gravity
to entertain the function
of feet: one minute perched
on a windowsill (clenched
buttocks sitting on a folded
foot... the other dangling) -

with an interlude:
i guess that's how i dance
with gravity -
a centipede on nicotine:
quasi-numbing arithmetic
of: pairs... infinite pairs
of legs...

then sitting in a chair:
crouched like a crow like a priest...
no... not really...
nothing more from me
to sustain this narrative:
elsewhere...
    dasein doesn't even work
on me:
    oh sure... big concern for
big h'america...
         the soviets never made
it: somehow the chinese
played the long-game and
that shitaki hallucinogenic
was brought in on the sly
with a very subtle broth...

       that's all i have... running
dry on prospects for concern...
out of sight: out of mind...

i very much like the idea (and
experience) of being the last
person in the house to deserve
a bed and find sleep...

i am also very thankful that
i am not old...
             and young enough
to not feed into a vanity:
     but when someone might
suggest: this is only a
"word salad"...
           such friendships...
       i guess we were both
competing... ahem... "competing"
"artists"...
   if he could only have said
something more...
last time i checked though...
there was no constructive
criticism...
   nor did he mention any
famous poets...
              we apparently wrote
poetry...
how i might have wanted
to talk to him about some verse...

a fwendship that ended
with: you should title your work...
that psychiatric put-down
the toothless Doug...
             thank god this friendship
didn't end because of money...
or a woman...
instead over a disputed
informality - tact -
          something this trivial:
making the friendship trivial
to begin with...

                 such that be the current
wrath that feeds a speeding up
the death of nostalgia...
          there can be no nostalgia
in rewriting of history:

grandiosity of blistering words...
otherwise it wouldn't be neu-history
would it: something done
by way of arbitrary:
            from the atheist collective
tsunami back to sq. 1 of
the resurgence of the individual:

like, somehow...
the mind is an exclusivity of
genius imposing the rule of thumb...
sometimes though:
it's not even a genius...
   at best it's a veneer masquerade...
teasing tautology...

a beast at the froth...
               base insignia: it's hardly
a black-*******...
it's hardly a glimmering
hammer & sickle...
   it's a greyish stone and scythe...
but it's otherwise: the RED...
primer... and guard...
there was once talk
of the white russians and
the red russians...

       i guess the french will
be forever bleu...
  the cardinals are red...
the bishops don ***** purple...
how for all the meticulous
additions to... "understood"?
we revert back to...
poet of amber poet of red
poet of green...

     ha! amber: reconsider!
waver!
red! full-stop!
    green: which is not blue:
green is also envy...
blue is high values...
   but you'd never... associate
blue with: keep going...
don't stop... even though...
the river is blue: blue as
water in a glass is "blue"...
well... or that the sea is blue...
enough area and depth
and enough of the sun...
the sky is blue...
   the earth is tinged with
green outlets...
otherwise...
cinnamon lives matter?
arabs don't matter...
test of "conscience"...
        
             the flag of estonia...
blue black and white...
the flag of lithuania: yellow,
green and red...
   that prominent arab
countries borrowed
the white red and black
borrowed from the empire prior
to weimar republicanism...

otherwise the ordeal of man-made
laws: one year the vogue -
the next a limping outcast:
a ***** colony starts from
a whipping of jurisprudence...
some said: a new normal...

edward the confessor,
the normans and the anglo-saxon
antithesis horde counter
to: how i find underage girls
unappealing...
how you can only tell:
a girl is not procrastinating
her media influenced ***
when... walking next to her...
is a boy... and he's gaff...
or he's riddling a concept
of a bicycle...
                  but you sort of have
to pair them up...

if i were my old 21 year old self...
and the hormonal fog had
my mind in an iron maiden...
and i was dating locally...
without a plethora of geographical
locations: one girlfriend from
russia... one from australia...
one from france...
some spanish one-night-stand...
a whole bunch of romanian / bulgarian
advert friendly *****...

       colt bite the buck and bucket...
to think of *** like a swan:
settling down... giving her a brand
new kitchen...
a pair of cats to pet...
a very unreasonable son to try to
shake off like a fizz in a drink:
to open a can of coca-cola...
if only later to drink some acid
trip of stale: same partie...

     couldn't the fate of yugoslavia
come face to face with america?
couldn't there be a sedation of states...
if the polish lithuanian commonwealth
could be nibbled out of existence...
by 1, 2, tic-tac-toe partitioning...
if mr gorbachev could fathom:
peacefully: (a) ukraine...
estonia... lithuania... the kazakh bazar...

couldn't... the great american
juggernaut leave room for interpretation
as to how there might have to
be sedition states?
solo texas...
the north east coast could
write a constitution of the states
of sedation...
it's not like america could ever
become: wholesome... rye glamours...
and remain intact: that it could!
it could! for the desires of
nostalgic posterity...
   unlike the grinding blunder...
some minor concept of:
"nation"-        or    -"state"...

    past the calorie mark...
ingesting the liquidrice like maple like
crude moon-shim-shimminy-sheen:
glued teeth together and:
breaks the bone...
having to crease the pain...
and differentiate...
otherwise:
a flamboyant: tibia...
walked a dog on a leash
that was also (once) a hangman's noose...
and he barked and jazzed a rhapsody
of barking like there's no analogy for
tomorrow!

no clue in on the game of:
statutes... law...
      or synonyms...
           discretion of proofs -
             cold core concept of...
that there was an idea of
sniffing *******:
when in fact... Kiev youths
boast of sniffing glue...
              
        because i couldn't possibly...
leverage an act...
if i were 34 and she was 21...
and... oh... right...
the fetish of the forbidden is missing...
esp. in the digital medium:
because when flesh is imposed
upon flesh: and there's no...
hormonal aurora...
           the kids keep their bias...
jokes work best...
              some fake some russian
trucker...
and some parents who sought
justice: **** and club of metal over
the head...
               thus?! pristine and
spaghetti retro-flex...
spinning and spasms extra...

          that man achieved poetry
and nuance of language:
that some words don't aid... vectors...
that the ego is no ******* compass...
copernican "west"?
in the geocentric dimension...
which is still somehow needed...
otherwise? dream-big!
heliocentrism and science-fiction!

- to sort of tinker with a layer of man's
laws... and there's gravity...
and then to ***** oneself with
a constellation:
because the united could
never be as united as the yugoslav
project: post-scriptum
of the ottoman barber shop...

   spooked bosnians: best beloved
little europe avenue
gashing with pauper blood
of aristocrats of burgundy...
the biggest shame came...
when the blood was gushing
from the guillotine:
no one held an adventure into
the jesus christ metaphor...
no one sparked a drunkard ****
of wine gurgling...

to read the law:
somehow to read the thesaurus...
balance bonkers of the synonym nuance...

or that other myopic extreme:
some john dillinger,
some greater extremity of new yorker
blues:
new york is like anything
beside this standard of new amsterdam...

shooting dogs that aimed
at skipping: three legged...
unless that debilitating quote from
mary shelley...
and how the monster:
proteus or caliban...
          in name alone...
was to cite...
                           tectonic urges...
that there was a mr. caliban
and a mrs. caliban...
          but that there's also
a neuter lobster: ****-frenzy...

           right now: to want to live in
america... to want the custard...
the fudge and marshmallow...
to rewrite new york
like: a bunch of people who
love to eat in: who can cook...
and the restaurant is...
    an overcooked platter of veggies...

the edible gurgling of
post ad hoc lawyers...
               postmodernism of:
that / this disused hammer without
layers and tiers of nails born
toward tables and stables...

no new bogus prospect:
twisting original narratives:
some cite dementia prone
quid pro quo(tas)...
                      this ordeal of...
heaping together limbo:
EISENHOWER:
            no ad lib. / verbatim:
        we will not churn out
tea-leaves made into chewing gum...
then we will!
find! the lost avenue!
of! digest-able chewy-chow-some!

- then we bring in the saxons-anglicised...
and treat them to some disney...
we'll subsequently huddle
imitating hebrews:
like the briton mongrels
we are... we probably are a people
of polyglots and polymaths...
but under the present guise of
history:
we are celts and we are britons...
there was the saxon invasion...
there were the viking raids...
there was the norman revision...

            we the people...
of the afghanistan of the north: minding
arthur and "king"...
we're not celts... unless having lived
in scotland:
one might tell the difference
when someone accents the Gaelic theta:
as a surd H... **** a t'ought...
    apostrophe (') = surd...

         edinburgh nicknamed
athens of the north...
st. petersburg / amsterdam are both...
venice of the north...
of the former: seat of learning...
i never like david hume's black swans...
and if nietzsche is
to make critique of kant:
i.e. kant being the "philosopher"
of bureocrats....

how does: the will to power end up?
despotic bus drivers...
POWER! with a missing will...
yes... the most ordained with
a silent mind are currently served up
teases of tension...
POWER!
  the bus driver is currently being
served up a placebo amphetamine
cocktail...
he or she... can gesticulate
at a heaven: deus est persona non grata...

the facemask "riddle":
power to the cogs...
leaving the sigma of the machinery
in tatters...
otherwise... a slowing-down mechanism...
POWER!
       nietzsche is more
a power-broker... a philosopher
of daydreams and the overt-exercise
of futility than Kant would ever become...

the bus driver... oh how i wished
to heave a career of... winding clocks...
daydreaming in automaton mode...
but now... POWER!
however futile...
however that's ambitious in
continental thought...
on these shores it has to receive
a new baptism of that...
*******... pragmatism!

           niqab star of david attache...
the surgical face mask:
the will to: what was forever available:
petty power...
limiting hierarchies:
unit... power...
power disguise... power of the drone
chant...
           chatter...
power towing limbo!

  otherwise... kept guilty secret...
50ml of bourbon with some variant "contra"
of butter scotch biscuits...

  but there are the POWER brokers...
what belittling POWER gains...
and oh! god and the devil's
******* and pair of *******...
                                how power can
be exercised by bus drivers
when... commuters are exacted
with face masks...
to stipend them with...
   a nuanced basis for discrimination...

trigger-happy devoid or...
what's the difference
between a bunch of autists...
and sociopaths / psychopaths?

what's the difference
between an autist and a sociopath?
a schizophrenic
sitting in between...

that i am? or merely: bilingual?
america is bilingual ready!
y'um hum hummatie y'ah!

napoleon and the grief of height:
when the dating market evaluation is
strictly: poisoning a borrowing
of feuds: borrowing a friend of a friend of
a friend... and that:
stitching of a cow -
having excavated the stomach
for the ergonomics of a hot-air balloon...

because i had to be the bilingual
the only child freak-oh...
         in the currency of the cited "times"...
this is not a time: this is a space...
a space is congested with such
a people...
but a time... a time would be congested
with: the Pre-Raphaelites...
a time could be congested with such...
but we're talking about a space congestion...
a ****** riddle of a rubber without
skin...
             because there's... science fiction
and... SPACE...
as there's the "will" to POWER...
and there will always be...
the busdriver who doesn't enjoy
driving a bus... because...
there's the forever new rubric of:
keeping up with a best
forgotten attention & span...

         ode to lionel nation -
unlike speaking to my grandfather
strapped to a dementia
riddle cinema of memory:
that there is a cinema of memory...
that there's a concept of:
lukewarm drunk...

that there's a basic of:
yes... i know the best of my life...
memories borrowed from
aeons ago should the collective present
hindering my selfish pursuit
demand as too bourgeoisie:

******* anti-****
primo leisuring...
some old variant some
pseudo Yorick...
         m'ah neu adventure to
somehow tow Fwýday...
that the Vandals never came:
bilingual...

              extensive research
into the communist doctrine
of the: ******-rite of passage:
the omni-
nerve-ending focus of attention
15 minutes to a span....
          
borrowed themes...
the same sort of agriculture...
in the back of my mind:
worship Warsaw...
pursue a sacrificial "lamb":
tease the paedo-dodo project...
of man and king john and...
whatever is a best nuance...

      WE HAVE SUCH FORMAL
TONGUE RIDDLES
TO CHOKE ON...
BSM YOUR WORTH
A LEATHERY-SNIPPET...
i hold sway on "leather"
that's... cow intestines...
trollop...
            a beheaded gorgon
of slippery "details"..
    
   i want to catch the posture
of when english becomes
mongol...
Ukrainian riddled...
           this tongue requires
of itself to be... loaned!
completely!
                 my humble Kiev...
my Ukrainians
born drunk
at the Warsaw West... junction...

looks like the intelligence
of the western world:
can't sell words of Orestes...
implying one might have just read
a nibble...
bo boast!
the dot dot... and farming new!
nuanced: punctuation markers!

the thrill...
of having to ascend...
the morning...
knowing too well...
how the air is scented...
when prior the air was
ravaged by rain...
the details are left in the abstract:
whatever reality is yours!
it's yours...
it your new dead-red
project of... excating Beijing...

bewildering...
how i never settled on
sedating the English
with a blues: Somalian;
   n'est ce pas?

it never rains nor does it shine...
it's never culprit:
it's never simply canadian:
post-nationalistic in europe:
albeit a post-nationalism
of the state-collected...
"europe":
how... the greeks are...
some variations of turkish...

i'm not here: the hagia sophia
is also a...
what is it?
byzantine constipation /
                  leveraging pride
gimmick...
                         esque special
some variant of conundrum...
           mein auch!

                 i'd like to stroke a horse's mane...
like i might...
yet still find "unfathomable"
to leave comparisons with...
a violin detail.

The Monarch tells Britons
not to loose sight of the big
picture as Philip zig zags yet
again en route to Sandringham,
which, by any standard, is as
large a canvass any Briton could
ever focus on.

Probably born too late for God
Summer of 69
O those 80s ladies!
The cruelty of time

Simple little poems
Shelley on the beach
Ozymandias
Robert Frost I teach

Encounters with Chinese Hermits
The path of solitude
Room 333
Susan in the ****

So sad this lonely life
For movies I say thanks
Arthur, King of the Britons
Charlemagne, King of the Franks

                The Princess Bride!

10 years of my youngest son
Gratitude and thanks
Arthur, King of the Britons
Charlemagne, King of the Franks

I'm really so very boring
But I'd like to hold her close
Speak sacred things
Humble, no need to boast

Restore my faith in women
Restore love for myself
Kiss her 72 times
Scholem on my shelf

Santa Rosa sunlight
Santa Rosa rain
Charlotte, sharing, Chicago
Kyoto bullet train

              good insane