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Chris Saitta May 2019
Blow, Lyceum grasses, blow,
From coiled lips of your wolf-god Apollo
Whose dawn-padded paws to starprints roam
This temple-tribute to thought-illumined roads.  

Blow, Lyceum grasses, blow
Of wave upon wave of your brushings-by,
From staff to sandal-fall to cloak hemline,
For rhapsodes, your song-odyssey to sew.

The Greeks built the sun,
Upon scaffolding~acrobaticon~  
With pear-skinned lightness to glow,
Or like leavened bread from the woodburning stove.

Blow, Lyceum grasses, blow,
The sun lies old on its famine-cracked pillow,
In spittle of gold and yellowed phosphorous,
With the gods past-blown to ruin.
The Lyceum, known for Aristotle’s peripatetic school (or walking school of thought), served as a temple dedicated to Apollo, who has been known as the God of Light, Poetry, and Wolves, among many other things.  “Rhapsodes” were verse singers, or stitched-song singers, in the Lyceum and Ancient Greece.  Scholars believe Homer’s works were sung this way.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2022
a farewell to quills / qwerty: alternative title to -new year's resolution and breaking thresholds of my mental stamina

rereading some works of Frank O'Hara thinking:
i wish a naive 20 year old once more,
just for as little as an hour - curse this aging and
getting predictable in one's assurance
    and disappointments -

i'm crushed today, absolutely crushed...
last night i managed to "****" the madam of the brothel...
that's the thing... i was coming back from
work, i drank one bottle of cider and a little
bit of whiskey, but i must have walked
around the brothel roughly 3 miles
in endless bouts of despair and excitement...

vomiting what little i ate that day...
thinking i'm constipated with an unfinished
little nugget of **** lodged up my *******...
queasy, excited, lost.... child-like...

like i said: "****"... she's a big woman...
i'm guessing in her 50s... definitely late 40s...
it's rather intimidating... and i'm like 5 months
shy from being 37 myself!
plump... but given her age that looks great on a woman
and... my god... the greatest pair of *******
i have ever seen... absolutely...
    a *****-**** where your actual **** disappears
completely?
                    it was just too intimidating...

whenever she let into the brothel for a £10
sat me down and inquired whether i'd like something
refreshing to drink... or she would let be choose
what music i'd like to listen to if all the girls were
busy...

******* no. 1 - lasted me for about 5 minutes...
flop... i finally broke my mental threshold when it comes
to casual ***... casually authentically transactional ***...
no games... not dating games...
no "relationships" / hook-ups...
me, going to the butchers - laying down £10 on
the table the butcher giving me a lump of beef...
that's it... no not me being older and dating 20 year
old women and beating them at the game
just by being older...

                                     the complete ******* opposite...
i don't know what her prostitutes told her
and why she suddenly made herself available!
(oh ****... i'm going to be sick... right this minute...)

.....................................................­.....................
...........................................­.................................
...............................­...........................................
.....................­......................................................
..........­................................................. (10 minutes
spent in the toilet puking, later).......................

unlike with Isabella - from Grenoble -
who i lost my virginity to -
i was a fresh 18 year old who already had
some experience with kissing and hand-jobs
while she was 21 and already with experience...
she just implored me to put on a ******
while speaking half-drunk half-passionately
(strange combination, i know)...
                  
older women... the gap gets even worse when
you get to the age of 36 and the woman is
in her late 40s or in her early 50s...
                                the allure is staggering...
a Grand Canyon of experiences -
                                      i am not ashamed that
i tried to get a ******* twice and twice failed...
as we were talking she didn't cut any corners:
it's not strong enough...
   oh **** me... for the 5 minutes it was hard
the way she just slapped in on her tongue...
but as the limo kicked in i just brushed it aside...
like dirt under a rug... not really taking myself
seriously - the situation was serious enough...
                          of course i didn't blame her...
                           and of course she knew that i couldn't
for the first time in my life i mentioned ******...
my head was aching with this notion...
but not too much: back in high school i already knew
guys in their tender age of 17 and 18 who had
early success with girls who were already
popping ******...
                                             but i know my bouts
of impotence... there's a word in Polish that perfectly
describes it: TREMA...
             which doesn't mean trauma...
                                the jitters... stage-fright...

oddly enough with her prostitutes hardly any problems...
but most of them are younger...
    with her prostitutes it's usually the opposite...
there's the hard-on but a mental constraint of being
unable to finish, to ******...
this was a completely opposite problem...

i dreamt of **** that size ever since i learned to *******
aged 8... and now having finally arrived at
my Mecca of fantasies and "expectations"...
******... the jitters...
                          which i could understand if i was
20 and she was 28... but not with my experiences...
not nearing 37... well...
                                   but she's nearing 50... ergo?
the canyon of expectations grows exponentially...
why? because... technically... i bought into
some Oedipal... she could technically be my mother...
not quiet... and on top of that:
                            she's the madam of the brothel!
she's the one who employs prostitutes and gives
them protection by employing a bouncer
who says a friendly: hello mate, how are you?
upon opening the brothel's fourth door...
oh yeah... you have to walk through 4 doors before
entering...
i have seen guys get rejected on the 1st door...
and the 2nd...

all these factors played a part...
ergo? my new year's resolutions are here...
my drinking has finally caught up with me...
i'm actually getting bored of drinking...
i know i said that once...
and never stuck to my guns of giving up
the habit... i'm also getting bored of smoking
cigarettes...
                     i can't smoke on the job
because i get nervous when sometimes having
to attend to large crowds... large crowds of
drunk football fans... i can't smoke in the morning
either... i get this morning tobacco sickness...
plus being a serious cycling enthusiast:
what's the point?
plus being pestered with a genetic predisposition
for high blood pressure...
the drinking is not helping... the smoking is not
helping... maybe that's another factor when it comes
to this one bout of erectile dysfunction...
high blood pressure...

and... writing... well... if i won't be drinking alcohol
my truth serum will be gone...
              and if i won't be smoking... what sort of writer
would i be if i didn't smoke?
the one eating carrots as a way of distraction and bad
habit?
                     i might as well admit that...
i think that i've written all that i have wanted / not wanted
to write -
     there's just no more incentive to continue this
dream - give up like Scott Fitzgerald... but instead
of turning to more alcohol... actually giving it up...
   all the vices... get in even better shape and...
                      go back to the madam and **** her like
300 Spartans...
                  
but on top of that she gave me more depressing news...
Mona and Kdarda ****** off... it would seem for good...
Mona became pregnant... what?!
oh yeah... she's in her 2nd or 3rd month...
she's back in Romania...
                                               who did she become
pregnant with?                                   ...
    ...                                          silence... not that i actually
asked the question...
                                    i sometimes wonder what
happens to those used condoms...
                                        it's almost like in the urban
myth i once overheard in Poland about...
either a man or a woman who sold condoms
having pierced them with a needle...

              well i have an urban myth of my own...
even though it's not a myth but a sad reality of being
with a woman, in a relationship,
who tells you she doesn't like you wearing a ******
because if there's going to be any latex involved it
won't  go inside of her but will be outside of her
so she tells you she will get on the pill...
                       only years later you realise....
it was impossible that she was on a contraceptive pill
because... you just performed oral *** on
a ******* who let you have unprotected *** with
her because she actually was on the pill
i.e. you can't perform oral *** on a woman who
is on the pill because there are no sweet juices flowing
there's only a ******* pharmacy down there...
it's bitter... so ergo... if that girlfriend of yours calls you
up a few weeks after she broke up with you
and tells you that she's pregnant...
                       on top of you suspecting her ex boyfriend
beta orbiter hanging around her flat in St. Petersburg
when you went over to visit one glorious summer...

why have only prostitutes  been the most
                                                 sane women in my life?
oh this night i'm going to drink my last
and write something rather epic...
                     because after tonight...
                                 a hiatus... complete darkness...
sure... any internet communication already established:
kept... but i'm not sticking my head out anymore...
i've done it for 8 years and i'm finally feeling the strain
that writing creates in the psyche...

i also realised yesterday that the ego can be sometimes
right... my ego planned that i wouldn't go to the brothel
until the next year, a day prior to ******* off to Poland
to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday
(and obviously stocking up on duty free Camel cigarettes) -
as i was circling the vicinity of the brothel
trying to find the darkest parts - alleys, the park,
my ego was already telling: but you said so yourself
that not until next year, look at yourself: you're a nervous
wreck! you're not in the mood for ***... not tonight...
you just finished a shift and you're tired... just go home...
but i didn't listen to my ego: it's a painfully useful realisation
that this otherwise usually fickle entity inside of
my head with its pseudo-schizoid advantages / disadvantages
of rummaging in two tongues is somehow still
trying to help me, persuade me, comfort me and tell
me the whole truth rather than some delusional spin-off
some variation of a Satanic-whisper...
yesterday i was illuminated... but of course i didn't listen:
since it wasn't my conscience talking...
     i've already done the supposedly "evil" / "taboo"...

it's for the best... for the past 8... hell! more!
how many years has it been where there wasn't a single
day where i wouldn't spew some sort-poetic but mostly
rambling every, single, ******, night!
non-stop! sometimes, in my peak, that would involve
me sitting from 10pm through to 8am in
the morning - going to bed with the sunrise and
getting up with the sunset...
                             becoming this nocturnal monster -
living a life associated with the comings and goings
of an ivory tower, ******* Merlin the whacky etymological
historian of sorts...

well... today was eventful: just by waking up i was transported
into a warping of thought...
i needed to have a conversation with myself...
woke around 2pm... exhausted... lay in bed for
3 hours, hungry, hung-over...
       not moving, like a reptilian predator...
what did i have to eat today?
   my father used to call my drinking antics by using
the metaphor: rat...
   i always thought myself more of a fox...
although ask the Chinese...
                rats are not something to be cringed at...
they spread the wrath of the gods...
                       i couldn't **** a fly i couldn't **** a rat...
i remember this one instance in Edinburgh...
i was with Ilona and a mouse managed to enter my
wardrobe... i could see it: eyes glistening...
what did i do?
    i built a maze in my bedroom...
     with a trap at the end... "ushering" the mouse out
it ran through my elaborate maze and into my trap...
i caught it... pincer index thumb held up upside down,
she took a picture, giggle... purr me...
what did i do with it?
       i went outside of the flat (Montague St. can't
remember the flat number, tenements)
and left it on the communal staircase... thinking...
well... it might just scuttle away...
what did the mouse do? a ******* KAMIKAZE jump
two storeys down...
              which sent... shockwaves of trauma back
into my at-then-present-consciousness...
   when i was younger this bully of a kid...
thick glasses... curly brown hair... encouraged me...
to drop my hamster from a height telling me...
he'll survive... so... i dropped the hamster...
watching it fall... watching it hit the ground...
watching its tiny snout paint a ******* of crimson,
hue pink, hue... all the Hugh Grants and Heffners
in red...
    as i ran back to my mother and grandmother
crying... talk of parachutes... opening...
some magical force this bully persuaded me of...
the parachute didn't open! the parachute didn't open!
it was a joke for a while...
                           but i was the killer of my own pet...
and this kid... i still don't remember how
he came into my life... he wasn't the kid of any of the neighbours...
he just appeared in my life for this particular instance...
and there i was thinking i was morally superior
when i took a walk alone down a little stream
watching two boys **** a frog by smearing it with
lipstick and setting it alight...

things changed when hamsters became dogs...
Axl... i loved that dobberman... ferocious beast...
me and the upstairs kid: BIOŁY... Mark? Martin?
he was so blonde he could pass off as albino...
we were playing my Nintendo console...
because... i was the "rich" kid in the neighbourhood...
well... rich... living in those old communist satellite
state sort of tenements...
i was the kid with all the presents but no father
in my life and a drunk grandfather who was still great:
better than nothing given i only had one grandfather
and you're sort of supposed to have two...
so we were playing... got into an argument...
i don't know what happened in-between
i just know that Axl bit the boy's nose and the same
glorious gush of red-energy emerged...
                            
"i"...well... my grandmother had to get rid of Axl
after he almost tried to take my eye out
after... perfectly reasonable come to think of it...
he started biting my Alsatian ***** Bella
                 and i stood over him and in cold-blood
treated with "paint-brushings" of a PEJCZ...
             whip... honestly? some things sound so much
better in different language...
blitzkrieg sounds so much better than lightning-strike...

i still can't believe i managed to "****" the madam
of the brothel... she even tied her hair in pigtails
to give an impression of being younger...
my god... given her age... what an attractive specimen...
oh... and a plump girl can pull it off...
seriously...
                       but only when she gets older...
younger, plump girls... eh... nope... but when she gets older...
i just regret disappointing her...
but... a learning curve is a learning curve...
i'll have enough time to improve...
it's not like into video games... i never passed beyond
a PS1 games console... ergo...
there's plenty of night and nothing and brick-walls
to meditate / be ****** into... the odd sudoku...
a Chinese ideogram or my favourite:
a return to the syllables of Katakana...

all throughout i'm listening to just one song...
Salmonella Dub's Problems...
a New Zealand band...
                              back when i was a ***-smoker
i invested enough time to branch out
into a ***-smoker's type of music genres...
New Zealand...
   i worked two shifts at Twickenham...
first shift? England vs. New Zealand...
second shift? England vs. South Africa...
my god... the difference in spectators...
the South Africans felt... so proud... sort of ageless...
imagine a tribe of African living in Finland...
this is what it felt like... the New Zealanders seemed
like farmer-boys, sheep-shaggers, the Welsh...
they mingled and bred with the local population
of the Maori... the South Africans didn't...
South Africa once colonised by the English
fell into the hands of the Dutch...
    but these Dutch of South Africa weren't at all progressive...
of the modern day Netherlands...
they resembled escapee Nazis living Argentina...

we received the best compliments from the managing
team... our gate worked smoothly...
i don't know why i was given the megaphone
reciting robotic messages i.e.
a. 'ladies and gentlemen, please use all the available
turnstiles'...
b. 'ladies and gentlemen, pleasure ensure to use
the minimal traffic of all entry points via gate DELTA...'

Greek... hmm!
     fork in the road... so that's diFFer to... say...
hello sunshine:

      P            H
           Φ Θ    
      H            T             just add Poseidon's trident

of Psi into the mix... Ψ: alternatively see diFFer...
just so... the **** of iota of the omicron...
with psi emerging from the O that's an Omega
turned upside-down Ʊ + I = Ψ

    mind you... with these seeing, living eyes...
an F and an "F" mind sound the same...
but... the disparaging associations of meaning
create a... literacy barrier...
still persistent in the advent of graffiti...

the last time i beat an animal without eating it
was my second arrival of Maine **** cats
into the household...
i didn't know who the culprit was... so i smacked him
and i smacked her...
she was the honest one...
but the second time the incident happened...
well... by then i knew who was ******* in my bed...

i know that by quitting drinking i'll be the inverted
version of a bear... i know that i have sleeping
issues, which will become more exemplified
by a reached: hope for sustaining my sanity...
but this high-blood pressure ******* has left too much
turmoil in my head...

oh right, my father's rat to "non-existent" analogy
of my buying alcohol antics, smuggling bottles
of whiskey... alone, drinking... and then during
the day playing the party partisan of society...
like a fox... or rat... whichever...
what did i do today... i had a bed sobering up
session... and a in the cold sobering session...
i lay on the jacuzzi cover in the jacuzzi shed...
fidgeting... trying to conserve energy: i was fasting...
i folded my hands into an akimbo
putting one hand into the sleeve of another arm...
folding my trousers into my socks...
lying flat... then lifting my legs up
touching the beams of the shed...
      
             like, a wild, *******, animal...
i imagined: but i did... steal a slice of bread
from the kitchen... smearing it with butter...
again "stealing" a tub of a ****** speciality,
i.e. a vegetable salad consisting of raw celeriac,
raw Bramley apples... petit pois (canned),
cooked parsley roots, cooked carrots, cooked
potatoes. hard-boiled eggs... raw leaks...
all smeared with a dollop of mayonnaise...
pepper? yes please...
                           and a can of spicy tomato tinned
mackerels... eating it while standing up
in the 2nd shed... the 3rd shed has my father's work
tools and my Tour de France 2nd bicycle...
the Kolarzówka... which is a spring / summer bicycle...
it's not the autumn / winter mountain bicycle...

i hate cars... i adore buses...
if i hear some alpha bru'h trying to sell me a sports
car... i start to think of Dalmatians and...
can, you, ride, a, horse?!
owning a car makes absolutely no sense when living
in London or its vicinity...

oh **** me, even the thought of tomorrow shift is giving
me the Gremlins...
supervisor, again, why?! can't i be the break-guy?
i'm not even qualified... yet... i'm being given this
******* leeway like i earned it... oh, right,
i have earned it...
            i just don't want to experience
the fudge-packing headache of a delay in
constipation... which is not exactly a headache...
just a pulverising anti-music... a vibrating headache
that doesn't ache...
a vigilant reminder of: would i come out of
the Manchester Arena suicide bombing with PTSD?

i smile, i pause... i smile again... i clock faces...
it originates in my childhood...
this... sensation of numbing at the fingertips...
when... people... who don't own what
you own... are given a frightful... free... access...
and... you're sort of o.k with it...
you're not o.k. with it...
but you give up a stating ownership of objects for
the people using said objects for their own
pleasure... you feel pleasured by peoplg
being pleasured... but you just don't understand
why ownership of things is somehow important
a tier above the presence of the people
bypassing you owning and them: not owning
said, used, things, for that shared...
interaction... numbing of the fingertips...

i'm sad. Khadra is gone... Mona is gone too...
i'm left strapping myself to excitement and paranoia
and erectile dysfunction ******* the madam of
the brothel... watermelons, watermelons... watermelons...
ich spreschen Deutsche...
a bit like my surname... ******... Stalin...
made easier for English-speakers...
because... what the **** could they do with the addition
via E(sch)lert?!
                          oh sure as **** they couldn't find
the Slavic acute S in the Germanic SCH... could they?!

the only reason i have so much casual *** is...
i have yet to court a match of intellect in
the bedroom!
like i told the madam, excusing my limp-*******-****
situation... i shook her hand...
and this is what we do, formally...
but seeing you naked... touching your thighs...
your *******... my hands could talk for a seemingly
forever... and it would not tire me...
it would: embolden me!
things change... when... simply ******* prostitutes...
you get a stab... at... ******* the madam
of the establishment... you become nervous,
you become small... you become castrated...
you... hit rock bottom...
and then... Lucifer... Icarus.. what's up is down...
what's down is up!

you light a scented candle in your bedroom...
light your last cigarette...
does it matter that Muscovites are issuing concerns
over the Kiev-monstrum? no, not since the Orange
"Re-vo-lu-tion"...

i had... two... in all earnest... i had two... ****** revelations...
without all the chit-chat... two... both... prostitutes...
Mona and Khadra... a Romanian and a Turkish beau
respectively... there was only one woman in my life
that spoke... "respectably" similar level English to mine...
the rest... w either gave way to imagining Braille or...
whatever... but... insert crocodile...
why cry... when it, apparent ******* rains?!

i will miss them... tenderly, fully heartedly...
even as the Madam stroked my beard while i excused my
dysfunctional "third-party"...
                 why would a limp **** somehow diminish
my manhood... i.e. if a man is sized... surely...
a woman is sized too! a man's length and girth is also
reciprocated by a woman's depth and girth...
no?                              ergo?

plus all the mood swings that both the sexes share...
and have to... "en-ter-tain"...
but **** me... a madam of a brothel... me her and the pigtails...
well obviously i didn't deliver...
but... i'm thinking... if i quit drinking...
if i quit smoking...
that fat *** slurping lip brigade of an altogether
complete ****-buddy is waiting for me...
and i'm waiting for it... and the night and the foxes
and the crows are in my company...

well then! all the tales of vampires and werewolves...
can... become... true!
i can become a monster that understands
why... he feeds off being...
"casually" neglected...
why... it's not him who broke up with
a woman but the woman breaking up with him!
perfect!
which is why Mona and Khadra ****** up to
either Romania or Turkey, pregnant...
and i was left trying to **** the brothel's Madam..

melons melons! i'm telling you: **** like melons!
heartbreak and the heartless...
mind you... what's the other "thing" women notice
when courting...
apparently... ha ha... apparently... TEETH!
women like with no concern for dental insurance...
women like teeth... and hair...
i like... ****... what is it that i like?

                             i like snow... i like forests...
there's a difference between those more associated with oak
than those more associated with pine...
pines... entertain the existence of the scouts...
who are the scouts?! BIRCH... oak forests are the elders...
usually creating isolating environment
of island-dwellers...
               oaks don't appreciate birches...
and in terms of pines... well... in terms of pines and pins...
who's the one searching for the camel....
already in possession of the needle?!

my goblet of fine **** and saucy riches...
           i.e. my mouth...
                     i'll get ready...
as stated... once you **** your way up to having
the madam of the establishment that's
a brothel interested in you...
first time: disappointing her...
second time? you're going to quit drinking...
you're going to quit smoking...
you're going to sober up... simply because...
those ****... the fact that she's older than you by at least
one decade... and i like listening to horror movie
soundtracks... which makes perfect sense...
ugh... pristine nugget of fat and ageing...
it's like...
                  oh... ******* and jerking off...
that's off the table too...
        
             she's an ***-prized sort of a beached whale...
she's a Renaissance spectacle of the desirable woman...
plump... peachy...
now that i've had a taste... once the holidays
are over... when she asks for an entrance fee...
i'll need to seek out my hard-on in some other brothel...
paying her: sure... but only with you...
pigtails my ***...
                           freckle on her face...

then i'll start serving the concept of money...
Oslo? Brussels? Berlin... Berlin?!
ah... Bucharest...
                 no no... not south enough... Athens
i've already done... Istanbul...
        oh... wait... stop drinking... stop smoking...
regain friction with a hard-on...
**** the madam of the brothel...
   while her under-workers subscribe to texting each
other madly trying to figure out:
sq. not trg.!

now i'm becoming the baron of my own belly!
Delaney Zuver Feb 2014
Yellow: The color of your thick, wonderful voice dripping into my ear when you spoke to me as I laid in your lap on that Wednesday evening.

Blue: The color of your old bike that you would ride past my house on, sailing straight through the neighbors sprinklers when they splashed onto the street.

Red: The color of that Sno-Cone you spilled on my lap. You stroked my leg with your napkin. My soul felt on fire.

Pink: The color of your smooth shoulders after that day at the beach. I still hear the sea at times.

Purple: The color of the sky on nights where the only sounds were the brushings of the tall grass and the whisperings of our two voices.

White: The color of the blanket we used to use when we had picnics on Sunday’s. Those stains won’t seem to come out of that thing.

Orange: The color of the warm bonfire that would spatter across your face when we toasted marshmallows as the putrid smoke crept into our lungs slowly, and with a scary silence.

Green: The color of the shirt you wore to that concert. I had never heard of the band, but you had said you liked them. I bought our tickets.

Silver: The color of your small car. I counted the seconds it took for you to pull out of my driveway when you left for the last time. 5 seconds.
Bryn Dawes Nov 2014
The whispered cry of a lonely man
Reverberating eyes with stars around the walls stare at unknown clutching hands
Through these desperate nights of violent quiet
Nothing to the left in me is left of me but at least it’s now silent
To feel a thing of mine so perfect become someone else’s is to not want to feel at all
I found a house of possibilities and all you did was put up all these walls
To the right of me is a girl that seems more nothing than the nothing itself
In the darkness of daylight the glancing blows of affable screams demand that you show yourself
In a place with a face I hate to love, mother emits tender screams whilst we sleep
I am not here even when she is because she was never mine to keep

A perfect painting ruined by maddened men with their selfish brushings
I saw the first strokes and have had to watch her become tarnished with childish rubbings
Though beautiful some may call it, its layers peel after time
It is not what I knew it to be and therefore it is no longer mine
To see a thing of mine so perfect become vandalized is to not want to see at all
The incessant shadows and lowly intellectuals insist she always crawls
This darkness and aged ******* take pieces and replace them with ***** of their sodden pages in her hair
You lie next to me but we are both blinded by your mirror you insist was never there
There is medicine for our disease but you will not take it without a guilty kiss,
I will give you what is left of my working pieces to try and fix you from all of this

To believe you are dying in your life when you are living your own death is not an existence
Reason gives reasons and I hear them but I know no sense in sense
So I will lay here with my perfect nothing
Give to you all the things you were supposed to have been
To hear a thing of mine once so true now fall apart is to not want to hear at all
With my tools you can keep my stars in your eyes but close them so that they shall never fall
I will become the nothing, the living death I had to take from you and start the end to begin
You can have the sounds of songbirds from my ears so in your darkest winters you can hear them sing of coming spring
Now the sound of your breathing I don’t recall and your face is nothing but that of a stranger
I roll over to my left and stare into a mirror you have put there that shows me a perfect painting I now can’t remember.

— The End —