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

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
  The holy time is quiet as a Nun
  Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea:
  Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
  And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
  If thou appear untouch’d by solemn thought,
  Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s ***** all the year;
  And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
  God being with thee when we know it not.

I know that you are always with me. I follow that scent, the calm folded crisp smell of cigars lit on the rainy morning in the streets of Calais. I pass through the art galleries, boat docks, pubs, markets and old churchyard buildings. That scent again? It draws me in and embraces me close into secluded streets. I see friendly faces wearing the same weepy eyes and bright smiles every day. They were buskers, street tramps, just in my eyes fellow lost rebels who I admire. They haven’t yet given up even now their naked without luxury, starved of food and clothing they wander around building up a new home every day.  

Every time the buskers see me they each greet me in turn shake and kiss my hands. I drop a penny down; they play out their beautiful music and sing their songs into the early hours of the evening. The air of the night is surrounded with the distinctive smell of cider and cigars. Outside the docks of boats the pub is festered with local communities drinking and talking about previous nostalgia. People laugh and cheer at the buskers who come into the pubs and applaud even louder when each of them comes on stage. They play, they dance, they rant in their own unique way in time to the guitar and banjo. When the evening is finally over music and laughter without question just stops, I can hear those... heavy awkward whispers, muffled voices and coughs of things left unsaid. At that point each of the smiles of the lost rebels fades out into the night, they know they must face and enter that filthy alley alone forced into the solitude of old cardboard boxes. I thought they did a splendid show and award them money and praise in return some of them come up to compliment and kiss me again.

The next morning I visit the library to indulge in my long lost passion of French poetry but I keep on getting distracted. I pick up on that very dangerous scent of cigars, wine and … aftershave. It was just so intoxicating, the fuel I craved. The aroma got stronger outside, something was around me. I was feeling that someone had just touched my breast, pinched my ******* then started to bite, caress and kiss my back but that feeling had quickly faded out.I sat down, unable to detect anything. I open up an loaned book of poems by Christina Rossetti. Before I could read her first poem, a written letter had fell to the floor. It was encrypted in my name with a place and time. I begun to read it out aloud as if it was some fairy tale enchantment.

The cigar smoke started to rise, embrace and surround me it filled my eyes again. A young man appears at my feet. He is *****, long black hair; smile cheeky but eyes concrete and dreamy when magnified they melt into a fire. I gaze into his piercing green eyes; I can already feel my body heating up and chest feel tenser. We start to greet each with a handshake, he grabs my hand and begins to put each of my fingers into his mouth. Straight away I could feel this urge to share everything with him to plant that warm kiss onto his lips. We start with talking for hours about our previous past, poetry and art. I read out some of the poems in French and he was translating them for me. He asks whether I would want to go Paris with him; he knew the best historic sites to take pictures and then without any hesitation he flashes out two train tickets. A charmer no less, but I feel drawn to follow him hoping he would lead me to more adventure. We both catch a train together from Calais to Paris. He takes me into the French café near his apartment we end up drinking coffee together out in the balcony. He drove me around in his car; we end the day with having a great picnic of red wine, sandwiches, cakes and croissants out in the jardin. We end the first evening having a smoke or two out in the beautiful countryside air. He drops me back to my villa and kisses me slowly on the ears then begins to whisper softly the words k.i.m.m.y into my ear. I could feel the last of his words really start to linger, the final words before leaving me and promising to meet up the next evening outside his own apartment.

I came out the next evening wearing a tight red frock and bright red lipstick on the ****** cobbled streets. We both embrace each other with small kisses on the cheek, walking down with our tongues tied in knots and arms locked together to the local tavern drinking more wine. When it finally got late I was allured to follow him into his apartment a classy one bedroom with a double bed, rose flowers on each window ledge. There is another classy rose wine bottle on the table and a room of old books. We sit on the sofa watching movies, eating chocolate and sipping on wine. My head begins to spin, lose some focus. Could this really be love or was this just another drunken lusting daze? I droop to his shoulders; He recites bits of his own poem, I can’t help but stare into his deep eyes when he reads them, I look up again at his moist lips when he reads out aloud the final words. I yearn to snog him or for at least him to make that first move. I feel dizzy and high on red blooded wine and cigars. I could then feel him starting to kiss the temples of my neck and feel his soft teeth mingle and bite leaving small indented marks on my neck. I draw even closer towards his mouth; I can feel his beard tickle me. I love to taste him, love that aroma! He tastes of dimly lit cigars which mingle with my fruity perfume. At this point I feel that the ember inside surround and heat up my whole body. I want him to really light me up so I can explode into them blue flames. I begin to clench up my body as he bites my neck, we both kiss frantically. He whispers into my ears and begins to nibble on them. We end up huddled up together in bed! The window reflects that the sun is approaching, he sits on top of me staring at me blankly in silence. He takes time to admire my calm sleepy concrete clay features.

He knows that when the sun comes up that everlasting rainbow of color we created together will begin to melt and transform back into monochrome. It just comes to the end. we know we can not argue, we must leave each other. I know I must say the two forbidden words. The very two words that turn me back into this empty corpse. I hate them; I greet him with a long lost embrace, the in-completed hug and the final words to end everything! Bon- Voyage At the same time trying to hold myself together, I leave on that last train, feeling tired and drained but only for a second. The whispers of his voice fill up the station crying out… KIMMY, kimmy... kimmy! . They echo out and embrace me again, they always make me smile.

I catch the last train back to Calais then head off home to stormy England. I never feel sad to leave him or the place behind because I will always remember him. Just as any dying whisper, music of buskers, words of a poem. The bond you share is never really gone it ignites again to finally burn on eternally.

A lovely Barry Hodges poem

People think that Calais is just a charming port on the flat French coast
Replete with exquisite restaurants patronised by English visitors
Who have crossed the Channel to get a decent meal for once,
And who want to take advantage of the wondrous *savoire vivre francais,
Even though they will get wittily insulted for their English accents.
There is more: the town has some of the finest late 40s architecture
To be found anywhere in the western world, spontaneously thrown up
After la ville ancienne was 95% flattened by the gallant but clumsy Brits
In what is still patriotically referred to as "La Libération".
But there is yet more to this gourmands' and cheap ***** buyers' mecca:
Believe me, I know, I have suffered a grievous and terrible loss there
When I blundered into a cheese shop on the Rue Royale one summer's day.

My companion that day was my dear fifth wife,  Winifred
(a four foot high but stoutly built ***** with a major speech impediment),
And, being attracted from five streets away to Maison Le Merde,
The world-famous fromagerie, by its unearthly overpowering pong,
My dear one, my lovely ****** spouse, dragged me through the door.
Choking back a desire to gag, she started stammering away to M. Le Merde,
Trying to order a couple of hundred grams of Carré de Mort Absolue,
When Mr L.M lost his rag totally and assumed wifey was trying to mock him
(How could one have known Monsieur was the French stuttering champion?)
And so he took out the cleaver he habitually kept behind the counter
To deter English tourists from stealing his cheesy comestibles,
And severed Winny's darling head in a single fell coup de grace
Which left her dramatically shorter than she previously was.

I managed to escape a similar dire fate by running like the clappers
And hiding in a nice toilette publique (femmes) while he stampeded by,
His mighty chopper in his cheese-impregnated Gallic paw.
And when I reported the matter to the gendarmerie, were they sympa?
They were no more helpful than seins sur un taureau fou
And insisted I should pay for the funeral there and then in advance,
Threatening me with a real good thumping dans mes **** should I decline.
Dear God, I shall have to use a different entry port to France next time
(although sur le grapevine I hear Boulogne is a bit of a dump),
But at least there aren't so many ******* would-be refugees.

What do you reckon? I know what you’ve been thinking…
We’re on a ship that looks unsteady, like it’s sinking…
We’ve made shaky plans to be gung-** and to go it all alone…
But we’re beginning to wonder… are we heading for some kind of danger zone?…
At first we were just floating along - enjoying the passing view
And 2 years off it looked a lot easier …leaving the EU!
But there’s a waterfall downstream…and it looks like a helluva drop.
And once we get too near the edge, well, we won’t be able to stop.

The simplicity of Cameron’s ‘in - out’ referendum question dawned…
Cos, divorce is complicated.  Those who voted leave were scorned,
branded racist, or at least suffering some kind of mental disorder.
“Didn’t you stop to think about the about the Northern Irish border?” (best read in a 'silly', sneery voice).
But - back then there were 2 million Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis all walking toward Calais.
Some thought serious overcrowding problems could come our way.
Single Market,? Sovereignty? Customs Union? What the hell’s all that?
It means you’ll need a visa to go to Benidorm you ****!

Meanwhile Merkel diffused things by taking the refugees in.
But only served to rattle the bars of the **** leaning right wing.
The Spanish got all Oity Toity about us having Gibraltar.
And some of those previously unforeseen problems made Brexiteers falter.
This is David effing Cameron!… Farage embarrassed him into calling for a vote.
And, when the Remainers lost, Dave saw his chance to produce his sick note.
“I’ve done my bit”, he said “so… I’m standing down…  so who do you think should take my dodgy crown.
The Buffoon, the Backstabber, the Right Honourable Lady Home Sec?”
She, the author of  Windrush, Repatriation, food-banks, lower benefits? She got it! ****** heck!…

Hoodwinked by a government you maybe invested your life in, in all the earlier polls
Now we’ve all been tricked by a bunch of, navel gazing, self serving arseholes!
So it’s the blind leading the blind… Well, no.! Misinformed…and maybe just a bit short sighted.
And, you know, Theresa… she’ll most likely still get knighted.
But I doubt this episode will score with generations yet to come,
Deserted by this Parliamentary shambles - sitting on their hands, their collective ***.
The proletariat are cut adrift, and heading for the falls…
So we’re looking for a new saviour - someone with charisma…big *****!

Let’s look forward to this time next year… When some trusty politician re-writes our little story.
When we may be out - but far from down… Well I somehow can’t see it being a Tory…
And if isn’t Jezzer - who HAS got his eye on the prize…
McDonnel, Starmer, Benn, Tom (call me Slim) Watson? Who should THEY try for size?
And, just supposing, by chance, the Conservatives actually crack it
who, amongst the front runners there, could get the job and hack it?
Lord Snooty, Gove, Hammond…Hunt the err… Foreign Secretary,  Javid, Liam Fox (surely not!). Bojo?
With this current stay of Brexicution, for just a couple of weeks… the petition, the march, the chaos, could it still be NO-GO?…
Whatdya reckon?

Miriam sat on the coach next to the boy Benedict shed met him at Dover Priory Station as they both got in the double decker bus to the ferry port can I sit next to you? shed asked him sure hed said and moved over in the seat to allow her to sit on the already crowded bus and the bus took off to the ferry port with its packed bus of passengers Miriam didnt want to spend the next two weeks of her holiday abroad alone and even though there would be about thirty in the holiday package she knew no one and some were in couples married or otherwise or lone girls like her or the single boys whom she felt were not her kind except this boy seemed a bit different although she couldnt quite put her finger on what it was and when they got off the bus and onto the ferry she stayed near him as much as possible talking when she could or stood next to him as they looked out at the sea once the ferry had left the port and once they had arrived at Calais and disembarked from the ferry she followed him onto the coach where she said can I sit next to you? if you like he said  did you want to sit by the window? if I could she said and he allowed her to go in first and once she was settled in her seat he moved in beside her and lay his head on the back of the seat and closed his eyes she looked out the window waiting for the coach to take off are you sure you dont mind me sitting here? she asked no of course not he said not opening his eyes good to have company and pretty company she smiled and turned and gazed at her reflection in the glass of the window as best she could she never considered herself pretty what with her tight red  curly hair and her freckled face and bright blue eyes and a mouth she thought too wide she pulled a face at herself and looked away she settled back in the seat and lay her head on the rest at the back of the seat and tried to sleep for a while but she was too restless and opened her eyes and sat gazing at the passengers still boarding the coach her hands were restless she wanted to do something with them so she tucked them between her thighs out of the way and stared out the window a few stragglers were still waiting to board the coach she ought to have got the book out of her case to read on the journey now she had nothing to do but look out the window or at her fellow passengers or close her eyes and sleep she gazed at the boy Benedict beside her his eyes still closed soon be off she said to him hope its soon he replied me too she said hoping he would open his eyes and look at her but he didnt he just lay there with his eyes closed then after a few minutes the coach started up and the coach began to move from the Calais port and onto a road were off she said he opened his eyes and looked past her head about time he said and looked at the passing view she studied him sitting there with his hazel eyes and quiff of hair brown and wavy isnt it exciting she said to be actually taking off he gazed at her and smiled taking off what? from the port she said catching his smile what did you think I meant? nothing its my imagination goes riot at times she looked at him what did you think Id take off something? she said well could take off that jumper its too hot for it at the moment she raised an eyebrow is it? she said aren't you hot? he asked she supposed she was rather when she thought about and so she took of her jumper and tucked it behind her and sat back on it is that better? she asked I like the tee shirt he said she looked down at the tee shirt it had two rabbits where her ******* were what are their names? he asked what? she said the rabbits what are their names? he said I dont know she said I havent given them names he smiled how can you not name rabbits with names? she shrugged theyre not real rabbits theyre only printed rabbits on cloth she said still rabbits though he said printed or otherwise she smiled ok what shall I call them then?she asked thats up to you he said what names do rabbits have? all sorts of names she said did you have rabbits as a child? he asked yes I did she said reflecting back two white ones Fluffy and Snowy she said smiling so which one will be Fluffy and which Snowy he asked pointing to the two printed rabbits on her tee shirt you choose she said which one looks most like Fluffy? he studied the two rabbits closely mmm think the one of the right looks more fluffy than the one of the left so that one is Snowy? she asked yes I guess so he said the driver switched on the radio and classic music filled the coach thats Chopin Benedict said what is? she said I thought we decided on Snowy no the music he said its a Chopin piece is it? she said yes a sonata I think she gazed at him and he looked at her so how often will you feed the rabbits? feed them? she said sure you got to feed rabbits or theyll die of hunger he said smiling theyre not real rabbits she said smiling at him they look real he said sitting there all kind of innocent and hungry but theyre not real except maybe I will feed them later just to please you she said o good he said and dont forget to give them plenty of strokes rabbits like to be stroked maybe later I will she said looking at him taking in his bright hazel eyes gazing at her eyes of bright blue maybe later she said you can stroke them too.

well O... well... O, give me life! i need no beggars of the cyclone to repeat the foundations of seasons and things tectonic! O... well, O! rounded-up by rugby geometrics for an oval symmetry of the orbits... O... might i add - oh? well harp me a sigh with it too - or play me the ******* violins... i too might add my toes in the muddy sands of the Calais of India that's Goa: with toes clenched inward like a grip of a crow, or the antics of a ballerina; indeed Calais, the footnote of the Angevins... tell your integrating dogma to successors of william the conqueror's behaviour, as by-way dehumanising righteously - such the tongue spoken, such the tongue rebelling - via the term identified with utmost against the irish post-stamp claims for a peace treaty: rōnin; no, you be sub-human teaching me the language and then venturing into treating me as a simple cashier - no education system is necessary to craft the near robotic professions! why crave capitalism in the educational system when all might be happier un-educated for the professions the lazy aristocrats intended for them?*

i'll march against your little
utopia...
by god i'll march against your
Parisian Disney fairyland
with teeth clenched and fingernails bit
to a manicure!
for the chastity of white
lacking colours of a rainbow -
since on white an imprint,
and on black an absorption to stack-up
the many lacks of expression.

Heroic in the face of fate,
nooses cinched about the nape,
ransomed at the city's gate,
sackcloth their adorning drape.

Bearing keys to England's King,
the six against a town compared.
Bad omens that their death may bring,
thus the burghers' lives were spared.

Swimming the English Channel,
struggling to make it to Calais,
I swam into Laura halfway across.
My body oiled for warmth,
black rubber cap on my head,
eyes hidden behind goggles,
I was exhausted, ready to drown,
when I saw her coming toward me,
bobbing up and down between waves,
effortlessly doing a breaststroke,
heading for Dover.  Treading water
I asked in French if she spoke English,
and she said, "Yes, I'm an American."
I said, "Hey, me too," then asked her out for coffee.

Napoleon shifted,
Restless in the old sarcophagus
And murmured to a watchguard:
"Who goes there?"
"Twenty-one million men,
Soldiers, armies, guns,
Twenty-one million
Afoot, horseback,
In the air,
Under the sea."
And Napoleon turned to his sleep:
"It is not my world answering;
It is some dreamer who knows not
The world I marched in
From Calais to Moscow."
And he slept on
In the old sarcophagus
While the aeroplanes
Droned their motors
Between Napoleon's mausoleum
And the cool night stars.

Paris sits at a heart-shaped table, her lamplight eyes dimming for the morning. She pumps a tube of mascara, yawning.

“Oi!”

Paris jumps, troubled by the noise. “Oh no. Not you.” She says, blusher brush poised.

London doffs his rooftops like ten million battered bowlers.

“Nice to see you too. Not a morning girl, eh?”

Paris shakes her lovely head in a flurry of churchbells. “For you mon cher, there’s no right time of day.”

(The Channel chuckles, unsettling ships, as Dover reclines in her cloud of talc and giggles like a tickled bluebird.)

London utters a swearword. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“You’re not fit to lick my shoe.” Paris scowls, adjusting the Eiffel Tower until it sits slap-bang in the middle of her head like a crown.

“What hard work you are!” London howls, slamming a fist into the Serpentine.

Calais shrugs his trees, bored. “Mon dieu – get a room.”

After the battle done did rage,
my spoil of war, a frenchman,
I put in my basement in a cage,
this rarity I would not relinquish,
my personal love adviosr and sage.

He called me a " fatty american"
even though I was slim,
and said it was torture that
I kept bothering him.
He counted time like Louey Pasteur,
that was how he pronounced "hour."

I told him I was french in lineage,
and he said " I don't think so,
" the french are biologists,
perhaps your mother was a fungus
that grew on oak."
so I sprayed him with some water very cold,
" be nice, or you'll get the hose."

I told him, for his advice I would pay,
his currency was cow's milk from Calais,
he brightened even more after
I installed an *** tickling bidet.
and he would make, then nibble cheese,
as he was lecturing me.

" If you want the girl, you must always whisper,
and she will lean closer, and then you kiss her,"
such advice, this frenchman delivered.

We became bon amis, with each other pleased,
but he needed more than a bidet and cheese.
" You can either have a french wife,
or an oven for cooking bread,"
before I  even finished what I said,
" Oui, a bread oven I'll have instead."

So every night, I spent by his iron side,
Descarte and Victor Hugo we would recite,
" and against the british we helped you fight"
" and you still owe us money," he said calmly,
as he offered me a baget and I took a bite.

" We french, know the power
of the mushroom and the bedroom,
that is why we avoid the scuffle,
would rather marinate our truffle."
I gobbled up his words,
so sweet and sauteed,
and admired the clothes he made,
and he made me some
so I  "could get laid."

Then the news came, a peace treaty,
war and my personal frenchman were finished,
the United States were now
at war with the Finland,
" Right when we just started to begin,"
I yelled and he nodded his chin,
" What the hell am I gunna do with a Finn."

So I released the frenchman back into the wild,
crying like a mother seeing off her child,
I had to push and shove, he would not go,
but we had to part for the sake of love,
he dillied and dallied and bent low,
picking mushrooms that wild grow.
" For the sake of love, just go,"
I yelled, and threw a baget at him,
and he retreated into the woods,
and I wiped the tears from my eye,
and everytime I see frills or  fungi,
I think of that time, I had a frenchman in a cage,
and as I talk to the finn,
****** ,.it just ain't the same.

it has been exactly since ~3p.m.
                                                            yesterday...
                                       through to
3p.m. today: that's 24 hours +
                                      4 o'clock, 5 o'clock rock,
          6 o'clock,
                                          7, 8, 9
                     10, 11 and the upcoming twelve
         24 + 9 + excess passing the 36th hour...
oh this is just target practice -
                  what used to be
   serotonin has become adrenaline:
   spawning cobweb shadows with
   a mere arm-hair aligned with an itch:
i say to my cohabitants -
        i'm too poor to rent an apartment
with my contemporaries,
         and i can't be bothered to look cool
for 10 years... before the money starts
coming in... a day before a tongue spoke:
and see you in 20 years...
         and see you in 30 years...
the people born prior to 1975
       and after 1969 came out to earn
£57,000 a year... while those born
after 1979 and before 1985 had a wealth
*** of £27,000...
                            who are the landlords?
quick digression, i love how the idea
of exiting the bloc (it used to be designated
to the eastern bloc, now anything east of Calais
if a bloc... the European bloc -
        my my... ain't it love-ly?
   they wanted an Australian points system,
so first came the Australian plastic currency,
boy, i was happy, cashing in my first Churchill
miniature that i could dip in baked beans
and use as a spoon) spread beyond the old
stereotype... and the points system?
you know who's smoking the hookah of
panic here?            
                            the freelancers of nationality...
   they haven't fitted in...
don't worry... they'll keep you,
but after seeing you they just thought:
once the cheeky chappy, now a chavvy chappy...
  we love the E2 dialect, it's hardly Coccers
or bonkers... but after my day
(i'll relate to it in a moment)
       i heard to prop'ah Cockneys giving it
all the guv' and n'ah and
        what's Kilimanjaro in Cockney slang?
all the Cockneys are living in Essex,
   Romford, Chelms and the Essex lads
from Ireland are a bit shy, never talk to
the old people who used to live on
the Isle of Dogs or the Wharf -
              East London moved, and i'm in
the thick o' it... you ***...
                       i'm here,
open ******* spaces and hedgehog counts
to mind... never the next Susie from
Whitechapel doing the runner from Jackie,
             and funny that,
the day began during the night,
sober, i tested the idea: if you gonna go
nocturnal, stay sober...
                  fast... drink coffee in the morning,
and what some proper bollocking
        on the box...
                               i say: revivals never
sounded more like bells, the 1970s
had Patois... the old parle with dread-lock Sam...
             i squeeze in a bit of Norse
and hey presto... Ahmed's your uncle...
                     'cos we all like a bit of
way-hey banter, the: back in the day
   when the 1966 squad was best known
for West 'am...
                               am i sensing the idea that
i'm licking off the prop'ah beef burger 'ere?
                    what the **** rhymes
with Kilimanjaro?
                                wait! got this one:
apples & pears - stairs...
                          you gyro?
                        no! wait... the two Cockneys
weren't from south London,
this ain't Peck'am talk... this is proper grub...
         jar squared: verb, meaning?
     i know my neighbour, heard him
lecturing his wife over the wall about
the diminishing concept of family in the "west",
           to me that's
the Cockneys meant by guv'nah:
                           aw right der geezer,
   stop that fidgety: don't be late tomorrow,
let a man eat his plums and wear his trousers...
       i swear: the only good cinema these days
is English cinema...
                                 i said! the only good cinema
these days is English cinema...
               if i didn't watch
       we **** the old way during the night,
after spending my day as i did (i'll get onto it,
hold your submarines)
                               i would have pricked my ears
on the two Cockneys next door
   at 4p.m.                  finishing some job...
but given the "guv'nah's" attitude: 'aving
a laugh at coming early tomorrow, if at all.
     my day?
                 i wished i could say i woke up
early...
                            the entire spectrum
of sunrise...
                            epileptic shock from the sun
after smoking a cigarette at 5a.m. when
all the constellations where out...
                          not enough sleep,
as the Russians say: no good to live but to
not have seen snow.
                               it shivers with enough
hours under your belt...
                                      i'd love those
Soviet torture chambers of sleep malnutrition...
gents? when the ***** and the cards and cigarettes?
    i'm currently the most loathed
  person in America... which technically makes me
more than simply unemployed...
        anyway...
cut my hair... two millimetres off the helmet...
off the cranium... not crew cut, not skin on side
and some ***-fluff on top...
in the night, when the moon is bright,
   my two millimetres of hair look like skin...
oi! Skinners! the shame would have really been
to have protruding ears...
                                    come to think of it,
i love the contorts of my shadow more than
the body my shadow disdains...
                  i decided to visit my old school
after that...
                     ...............................
do you know the feeling of getting onto a bus
when you having been on any other form
of transportation (other than your legs)
for a few months?             surreal...
                   and even that's a bad way to describe it...
this is where words simply fizzle out...
                            they just did the white rabbit
trick and you're felt with nothing else to
do but squeeze into the top-hat and hope
that some other magician will pull you out
rather than another: white rabbit.
                          so the 499 from my house
up to Romford (sunny! glorious day!
   shirt, sleeves rolled up,
           denim trousers, navy suede shoes,
azure shirt, headphones, bus ticket,
wallet, packet of smokes, and the ride -
smile all you want - when you smash a sports
car you don't have the view of a dozen
horrified passengers there with you
to practice your ultimate Buddha gimmick -
Ching-Chong Eyed and smiling)
                oh yeah, the insurance... huh?
   off at Romford central, and onto the 86
courier from Bangladesh to Ilford...
                    what did i miss in the list above?
ah... three copies of poetic optometry...
written by? moi, n'est pas? oh come on,
let's not get the ruler out: mangetout and manage trois...
                           (only fuel is horses)
           the 86 is a double decker, the 499 isn't...
sun in my eyes behind the glass the enhanced star
gleamed: what privilege -
               by day the star
                                           by night the star in
   a mirror that's the moon -
                                         selfish helium
giggling into a hydrogen Hindenburg fury!
                 or that's what the scientists say...
how they worked it out, i'll never know...
                            but apparently the sun
is a H-He           something or other...
            H because of atom bombs,
   and He because we giggle like idiots when we see
it: never the thirsty horse in cowboy movies.
   got off at Seven Kings...
in between school girls eyeing everyone and everything...
just my luck... schoolchildren...
                               everywhere on the bus...
just there...
                                    and also just nowhere...
         so i got off at Seven Kings and went into my
old catholic school...
                                  waited at the reception for a good
5 minutes (good to know they're still teaching
people manners with regards to the uttermost
productive necessity of bureaucrats)
               -              i asked about my old English
teacher: does Dr... er... does Mr. Thomas,
        er, does Mr. Bunce (Thomas) still work here?
   yes, he does.
             you see, i'm a former pupil of this school
and i wondered if i could have a meeting with him.
oh, that's impossible, he's currently teaching.
                     Kafka... note this in your afterlife...
         well... in that case, could i leave him a message?
oh sure, just write your name and your contact details
and he'll get in touch with you.
   well... i need a bit more than a scrap of paper,
can i have a notepad?
                 sure.
                                    so i took  the pen
and the notepad and sat in this grand refurbished hall
of the school that used to remind me
of chemistry labs stinking of old wood and sulphur,
of the old ways... of being beaten and Pink Floyd
escapism and all the hippy crap...
                               what a grand place this has become...
it's no longer known as C. P. Catholic School...
but the plus version: C. P. Academy...
  but you still walk into the plus surroundings and there
are still pamphlets written by Father Ted
about *our Lord and Saviour christ Jesus...
          or Hey! Zeus! in Spanish... same ****...
different cover...
                               but i was well dressed in my
Indian summer wear that's Indian summer:
English September and October...
              i'd move the calendar up a bit...
get the kids off anti-depressants...
                           anyway, i had my three copies
of the "first edition", try tell that with the internet
breathing down your neck... it doesn't, matter...
             but i did write him a lovely note:
unchaining me from the straitjacket of grammar!
                  i wrote from what year i graduated
2002 (g.c.s.e.) or 2004 (a-level),
                        and blah blah and one more blah
later                    walked back to the reception
  and asked for a rubber-band...
                   then i bundled the whole thing together
and asked if she could give it to him...
                    of course, she replied.
                            p.s. if you don't mind,
Mr. Thomas, you can always shove one of those
copies into the school library...
                         p.p.s., someone stashed
the book about the Gnostics by some German in
there once... maybe i'm thinking along the same lines.
      the journey back?
i walked.
                                 i walked from Seven Kings
to Romford...
                               taking a stroll
with one hand in my pocket (left)
because holding a cigarette in the other is never
exactly great when it's not doing something...
that's what the pockets are for...
not exactly suited for your wallet... but your hand...
when you're strolling in the green-belt fields
segregating the outer-most London (wannabe
Londoners / Eastenders) and the Essex inheritors
of Cockney... Kilimanjaro?
                                  Kilimanjaro?
                 ­                          me, i don't Essex
either...           most of the bankers chose this
district for the scenery, i.e. standing in a field
that isn't a hill or any sort of elevation
and beyond, yonder, the glass shards of their
former institutions...
                                        4.7 miles... not bad...
  a stroll... and that's without any food and solely
on coffee and a sleepless night...
           a butterfly fluttering along the way (only one)
and a fresh ripe auburn conker lying beneath
an oak tree (also, only one)...
            but what hit me was walking back...
it was truly like reading the book of revelation...
13:7... all the way from Seven Kings through to
the Romford: the street vendors, the bookies,
the Muhammedian car dealers...
                  the bewildered ones walking into
mosques, Sikh temples...
                                       one man cleaning the patio
entrance to a church from weeds...
                           cheap Kentucky chicken from America
         (if you think, that they don't synthesise
the meat in cat food and call it tuna or beef
but rather use actual meat... you're grossly mistaken,
    it was on the news...
                                         they are already
capable to synthesise meat...
                                     they do it in the perfume industry,
they're doing it in the food industry -
    a childhood memory of asking why they were
smearing lipstick on the frogs they caught...
they replied: they burn easier...
                  and they did... paint a frog lipstick
pink and boy... that's a French marshmallow, right there)...
           but if you ever walk that stretch of road...
               revelation 13:7...
          i'd like to see the Evangelists wriggle out
of that one...                       oh sure...
i treat religious television like some meathead
might watch football... it's game on after 5 minutes...
but anyway... that was my day...
           all 36 or so hours of it... how was yours?
                                                          ­                        g'day!

if it be a tribal issue, i'd craft a society
from each nation,
but it be a furthered without ethnicity
for a system,
socialism is equated with borders
where the many calais migrants are male
with no female counterparts,
a sort of faked ******, more apparent
when the tennis matches roll into quarter finals,
kacap ******* moaning and groaning
a serve, a return... russian galls all eager-******
for the ooh-ah, ugh-nibble pull apart the ribcage!
even serena williams imitated for a while
the welcome ******* distraction,
the song named the misty mountain colds
will define my life, i invested many words
for the emotion behind it, and i'll invest in nothing else
in order to feel:
like i feel lessened in creative exploits
with a thousand blank pages between me and the ink
of zoological phonetics encoding emerges
(put a number to it, and every time
i get depressed - because the quality changes
very little, and the little that's left only
belittles with a sudden loss of adventure:
poets the naked narrators who cannot
craft characters, instead writ into action
a familiarity with narration but no
de-personifying narration),
mind you the god that endowed you with adventure
mind you the god that endowed you with pampering,
and which world to designate life with will you choose?
kacap! kacap! orthodox mad monk kacap *******!
let the commonwealth oar its last into the geography
of poland ukraine and lithuania carved from the mapping
of frequented transit of commercial goods...
that i find my un-originality among the blank pages
published, when i read the inked blotches of former
invaders of the blanks tattooing their tongue
from breath and into word, in order to ignite a nobleness
of delay: that word might invoke memory porous,
and breath imagination, and the riddle of dissected
airing of thought: with vowels the zenith and consonants
the nadir, i here by name meeting a loss of anonymity
proclaim a union in syllables of the height and depth
coordinating a linear road well travelled, universal;
here too i claim the sloth of slang mismatched from
quicksilver, taking off the trailing technology of
such an endeavour of rhyme upon rhyme with the
sole expressing it successfully: the utility of a rhymed couplet:
rap pancake potato sack readied for the flip flip
of the slavish rubric of packing the ones readied
for cotton picking.
route back to tennis: kacap ******* smoking
thick tough cigars of: umf! pooh! plough! ooh oh ah!
backhand spin, forehand ****! umf! ****! clap loud!
ooh oh ah!
the iceberg sized diamonds were easily dispersed,
and all other riches were stored with
screams in helium kept tight: advantages of
wealth circular economy
in the octopus incisor depths of
the mosquitoes of iron maiden skeletons
of sharpened blood draining arteries dubbed
the clippings of st. peter's of st. petersburg insignia nailing
a fathomable curse, readied for the public,
and readied for the ***** of a concentrated public
expression in only one statistical imprint: continuum
(be met assuredly):
our garden of eden readied for the public barbers
where once the bread of the beards begot a trimming
of a diet, should erotica feign a menopause of onomatopoeias
once readied for the ultimate pleasure,
now readied for old age's onslaught of readier
sober speech to make choice akin to mistake,
given 2 be 2 and both located in a flat earth of the square,
as seen in linear rather than omnipresent orientation
of the optics... and so on and so on, successfully,
to unsuccessfully remind us all of the candle flame hush,
arable the last neared star to give moon dominion
over the night that was a feline gaze of luminescent
fattening of many mirrors in termed phosphorous
elemental, when john, catherine and gabriel
stood contrast erectile on the spaniel's spine converted
to a dimension of dissection of rooted distances
made worthwhile unknown now (the surd k)
and the phonetic approximation of knowing (surd
the 15th century, surd the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th,
in order to speak now and sepia the rest, as the
equivalent of not having the surd for the syllable now).

There won't be many holidays to Europe  for sometime.
Calais the  gateway is the folly of despair
it's effectively the death knell for a Europe  good feel factor
thats why United Kingdom holidays are  adequate,
there's enough time to start as soon as possible,
sans health insurance,
We've got our  National Health service at the ready,
good  hygiene for restaurants and hotels
with enough burgeoning coffee venues
to blow a trumpet.
Love the clouds and the greenery,
longing to return to Ludlow
their restaurants are renowned.
Otherwise,  Hampshire, Derbyshire  you name it
history, tradition, local accents
Who needs Europe ?
We're free in our own paradise.

Calais was a small disappointment,
And Ams-too-**** good to be true,
So while the red orb is yet to set,
I'll clear out my debt,
And try to forget,
And gather fresh hope on the morrow new.

Vesoul, that was my destination:
I gave up Quebec and Madrid!
Gladly forsaking old
Constantinople, for
Paris awaited my trip.

But I can't make a living in Bangkok,
With poncy jazzmen such as these.
The coffers of kings are busted and broke,
And my heart craves more
Than ashes and smoke,
So tour Guatemal', if you please.

Goodbye to pretty Latakia,
I turn from your shore with such sorrow.
Your flowery air I long to breathe,
Instead of standing alone in the street;
I want to return in a golden-fringed dream...
And gather fresh hope on the morrow.

i'm going with Loki on this one... as taught: φ... is the iota needed? never mind... φιλoφαρσα - let's just play musical hiding places: φλoκεφ - and subsequently losing an omicron with ρ, or iotas from φ, χand ψ - it's a Jewish game... a Vegan milkshake sort of gangrene bruise on how aesthetics are different across our ethnic spectrum.

and it usually begins with a white coffee in the morning
with a few cigarettes, so the nicotine tuberculosis
subsides and i phlegm out a schnitzel -
but it works, i ate two meals a day,
i starve still dinner, then eat for closure after
the binge... i rarely attempt a breakfast for champions,
given i usually finish a bottle of whiskey or bourbon
the night before... i call it the mandible diet,
ensuring that beauty is mandible, bendable,
who would **** a skeleton pose, i'm not quiet sure,
the **** industry treats their women like
the lust for flesh in the Renaissance - plump...
or simply mandible.
a fond memory: drinking absinthe on the streets
of Athens before the revolution started,
cackling a mad laugh, just so the Greeks might
remember... so many junkies on the streets back
then, before the bust... junkies with baby buggies
walking down the streets injecting Afghan sunsets
into their veins, never made it to the mount of
Parthenon, like i never went for a tourist trip of
Edinburgh castle... instead... hooked up with a few
Algerians and went to the strip-club...
mm (smile)... fun there...
ah ****, never mind, or today, a bottle of bourbon
and a pint-bottle of Heineken...
then menthol filters and papers for rolling tobacco...
then a quick walk about the neighbourhood...
madman's luck in the end... the karma brigade came
along... the infinite factors involved, more thrill
than from playing the lottery, gambler neutral...
just walk, sulk a bit, laugh a while,
have a drink, have a smoke... walk past the social
centre and it's cheap disco "get together" on
the Saturday, two girls discussing how the night-out
will plan out in the cheap outer-London bars
(not as bad as that bar in Seven Kings...
imagine walking into a house with the kitchen
having carpets... all the evaporating oil,
all the scents... this bar near my school was like that...
it didn't have hard flooring, it was all dressed in
carpets... sickly **** sweat blood... the sort of place
you'd bring your drug dealer to... and unsurprisingly
my drug dealer was a Jamaican, into his Illuminati
conspiracies, who i listened to with human respect
while he showed me aliens, hyenas talking Hindu,
and starving Buddhas breaking the 40 days and nights
in the desert limit... kinda self-deprecating
given he was Jamaican and i was a white boy rummaging
outer-East London grime... but you have to fit in somewhere,
right?)
so the two girls at the bus stop... me hardly the gambling man...
and there is was... smiling at me on the ground...
'would you believe it?' i said to my father
watching the Olympic gold medal match between Brasil
and Germany... 'a 20 quid note!'
and it was, a little bit wet, a little bit gritty...
madman's luck... in my pocket a 20 quid banknote...
that's lucky, that's more lucky than gambling
with 3 lottery numbers for the same amount...
well, actually the winnings are £10 with 3 numbers...
i have found £10 twice and a fiver... but twenty quid?
no chance! well... until now...
and that's lucky... just like that Nietzsche quote
about looking down (and being praised)
and looking up (and being ******) -
well fair enough about cheapskates - but when the probability
game comes up, and you do find some money
on the street (not merely a lost copper penny) you sort
of start thinking: i'd have more odds finding
a laughing gas ******-shell of the bullet of injection...
and there are plenty of those littering the streets around
here... don't know, but i can depict outer
London suburbs like the streets of Sudan... junkies
everywhere... so that's how you play gambler neutral:
you don't expect to find anything while walking
smoking and drinking a few beers...
but it's the sort of exercise routine that pays... ha ha,
literally... which ain't that bad as when you
realise what's happening in the world... in today's
Saturday edition of *the times a real harrowing...
a sketch of the article:
    beware #thinstagram: does social media need a
  heath warning?
           vegan blogger, clean-eating regime,
            masking her severe eating disorder,
            death threats ensued - wellness trend
            tipping into an unhealthy obsession?
            carrots and sweet potato a.o.k.
            result? an Essex suntan... oorangé -
            psychological distress, the doughnut
            schizophrenic - i.e. the doughnuts are
           speaking to me people -
           (i'm not even going for mug smartness
            with a scythe moon extension of
            the jawline, Stephen King is an amateur
            in this respect - look up writing the
            horrors designating your ears to
            every contort of the world... the real horrors
            are the ones you can't escape,
            some of them yours, but mostly other people)
     orthorexia nervosa: crucial, the benzene ring
positioning, all the coin-phrasing-tossers
will probably come up with the other two:
metarexia and pararexia... whatever that might mean...
orthorexia? internet fuelled obsession with clean-eating
Calais / kale shakes (cos it's said Kalé in French, ******)
avocados on toast... who the **** does that routine?
£30 five-day juice cleaners... but still, the only
cure for a hangover is to keep on drinking...
gluten-free sales up 63% from 2012 to 2014...
almond milk sales 80% sales increase year by year
(given only 1 - 2% of people in Britain have a health allergy)...
NutriBullet smoothie-maker (black Friday 2014):
one sold every 30 seconds...
£9 million spent on avocados a year...
increase in kale being sold: 400%...
drinking a smoothie consisting of 12 bananas... /
            and this is happening, these people aren't living their
lives... they're selling them... me?
you think i get paid or do you think i drop a line about
Nietzsche or Heidegger like Diogenes mouthing off
Alexander the Great about blocking out the sun
****** mooove! and by the way, just so you don't think
that i think highly of Nietzsche... that fable about the madman
going into a market sq. with a lamp at noon looking for
god? ironic, because Diogenes did exactly the same thing...
but he wasn't looking for god... oddly enough he was looking
for an honest man.

i'm going for a new style, i've been with these
metal origins for ages, long hair post-hippy
crap for too long, too much shampoo and definitely
too much brushing, i finally realised the stink
of what long hair encompasses, high maintenance,
too much of it... doing the monk, grow a beard
keep it 1 millimetre away from a skinhead,
more places to scratch my head... but the other reason,
and i mean the other real reason...
there's an elephant in my brain and he's practising
the ivory section of the orchestra, quiet similar
to the trumpet and trombone, but not quiet like it,
i still remember high school, chubby kid
prior to the gcse prom, a summer spent with my
grandparents cycling like mad about 50 kilometres
in the polish countryside, eating grapes for supper,
by the time i came back, the trousers were too
big that i had to use suspenders (at a party this
fat guy was wearing them, suspenders didn't catch
on because it was Transatlantic english, he thought
i was talking stockings and high-heels...
annoying since the two can't work out that both
are ENGLISH and not french slang in Calais
when Henry the 8th still had it: brace... oh loop
de d'ah) at first and then tailored myself to a good suit...
suddenly i was thin, donning a french braid
and was the Johnny Depp for a day after Blow
came out, the younger girls asking shampoo i was using,
that exercise regime i had, and what kind of fruits
i was eating... but prior to that i was the chubby boy
with a knack for geek stuff... and this one memory
really sticks out, 16 at the time, art class, massive crush
on this girl, a rose one valentine and then i quickly
sketched hair in her youth looking into a mirror
with an old lady in the mirror... i don't know the motive,
but this same girl was... see i was born elsewhere
and she was born over there, and she didn't recognise
and biological connectivity between the two,
a fully integrated-assimilated soul... but the comment
was a fiery burn... hence me ageing and finally realising
i'm looking like less of a James Hetfield and more
like Immortan Joe... i can't remember having hair this
short (i'll include a picture)... but her comment was
about an ethnic signature regarding the cranium,
indeed it's true, but the self-identifier as such an ethnicity
only having acquired the use of the english language
as a lesser characteristic... she said something about
occipital bone being less protruding in slavic men:
a flatness on the back of the head... that got me, don't ask
me why, but the sheer sneer of her comment got me...
it's as if the lack of occipital protruding was some sort of
evolutionary defect, a meat-head syndrome the ugly cousin
of a skinhead... and as if a missing protrusion on
the coccyx was also degenerate - monkey on a tree,
monkey on parallel bars, monkey on a tree,
monkey on the high bar... monkey on a... you get the picture;
it's this strange analogy, there are absolutely no
benefits of a missing tail... well there are...
you remove the coccyx and you turn into a monkey
in a constrained space, a limited space, you get the
gymnastic on the floor flipping and hoping you're not
******* like a marathon runner after 20 miles...
but the evolutionary benefit of a retracted tail is only that,
fast runner of the monkey form, but not a cheetah,
compare the lynx... in monkey form you needed a tail
to travel, not do gymnastics... but that cranium comment
got to me... and i'm almost 30 now...
like watching this programme about Alzheimer's...
i've been practising deep sleep for a few years now...
sleeping pills don't work without alcohol (even though
mixing the two is "prohibited") and some sort of
paracetamol... i sleep for more than 8 hours...
deep sleep is the kind of sleep where you don't even
dream... because your brain is a sponge but not
a unconscious muscle, deep sleep cleans the synapses
or neurons or whatever... check out
BBC's Horizon take on it, great program...
what i mean about remembering such a particular
event from school is what i call selective memorisation,
when a chance opportunity comes in your life
you get to make a lot of choice: where to live, what job
to have... but you sometimes just can't make choice
in the realm of cognition, unless it be in the faculty
of memory or imagination (daydreaming) -
thinking is the only aspect of the brain that's related to
all the other organs in the body, after all the brain
isn't in some pickle jar along with ****** rats
bred and stored like pickles until they turn yellow
and are used by biology students to dissect... the brain's
muscle, it's automation is thinking, like a heart's
thump-thump-thump... whereas memory and imagination
are component of the mind's threshold with the soul.
and guess what... after being called big 'ed too
they didn't realise i won't go bald, it's in my genes,
my paternal grandfather died with lots of hair,
my father will die with lots of hair...
   and i'll shoe-shine those baldy neos with a laugh too.

Voie lactée ô sœur lumineuse
Des blancs ruisseaux de Chanaan
Et des corps blancs des amoureuses
Nageurs morts suivrons-nous d'ahan
Ton cours vers d'autres nébuleuses

Regret des yeux de la putain
Et belle comme une panthère
Amour vos baisers florentins
Avaient une saveur amère
Qui a rebuté nos destins

Ses regards laissaient une traîne
D'étoiles dans les soirs tremblants
Dans ses yeux nageaient les sirènes
Et nos baisers mordus sanglants
Faisaient pleurer nos fées marraines

Mais en vérité je l'attends
Avec mon cœur avec mon âme
Et sur le pont des Reviens-t'en
Si jamais revient cette femme
Je lui dirai Je suis content

Mon cœur et ma tête se vident
Tout le ciel s'écoule par eux
Ô mes tonneaux des Danaïdes
Comment faire pour être heureux
Comme un petit enfant candide

Je ne veux jamais l'oublier
Ma colombe ma blanche rade
Ô marguerite exfoliée
Mon île au **** ma Désirade
Ma rose mon giroflier

Les satyres et les pyraustes
Les égypans les feux follets
Et les destins damnés ou faustes
La corde au cou comme à Calais
Sur ma douleur quel holocauste

Douleur qui doubles les destins
La licorne et le capricorne
Mon âme et mon corps incertain
Te fuient ô bûcher divin qu'ornent
Des astres des fleurs du matin

Malheur dieu pâle aux yeux d'ivoire
Tes prêtres fous t'ont-ils paré
Tes victimes en robe noire
Ont-elles vainement pleuré
Malheur dieu qu'il ne faut pas croire

Et toi qui me suis en rampant
Dieu de mes dieux morts en automne
Tu mesures combien d'empans
J'ai droit que la terre me donne
Ô mon ombre ô mon vieux serpent

Au soleil parce que tu l'aimes
Je t'ai menée souviens t'en bien
Ténébreuse épouse que j'aime
Tu es à moi en n'étant rien
Ô mon ombre en deuil de moi-même

L'hiver est mort tout enneigé
On a brûlé les ruches blanches
Dans les jardins et les vergers
Les oiseaux chantent sur les branches
Le printemps clair l'avril léger

Mort d'immortels argyraspides
La neige aux boucliers d'argent
Fuit les dendrophores livides
Du printemps cher aux pauvres gens
Qui resourient les yeux humides

Et moi j'ai le cœur aussi gros
Qu'un cul de dame damascène
Ô mon amour je t'aimais trop
Et maintenant j'ai trop de peine
Les sept épées hors du fourreau

Sept épées de mélancolie
Sans morfil ô claires douleurs
Sont dans mon cœur et la folie
Veut raisonner pour mon malheur
Comment voulez-vous que j'oublie.

They failed to filch her fine and noble mien
when Anne Boleyn endured the ****** stand.
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.

Fifteen thirty three could not foresee
this heinous act by Cromwell’s sinful hand,
yet still they failed to filch her noble mien.

‘Twas Edward sought to sully his regime,
obsessed with sons not gracing merry England.
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.

How stealthily does fortune warp the scene.
Betrothed in majesty; so bluntly ******,
And yet, they failed to filch her noble mien

The ‘hangman from Calais‘ equipped the scheme.
In haste he struck the deadly blow. Poor Anne!
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.

In face of death prevailed a humble queen.
‘God praise the King; long may he rule the land’.
They failed to filch her fine and noble mien
Poor Queen! So swift the sword on Tower Green.

I like to watch the documentaries
The human stories I like those

The Syrian refugees
Stuck in Calais, France

A mother and her son
And the son's leg was injured

The reporter interviewed them
But he had to leave because
The rest of the group didn't
Want them getting attention

They didn't have a way
To make it to England
Some migrants managed to
Get into the back of trucks

The son made jokes
As he had difficulty walking
What a strong person

So I remind myself not to complain
As some people have much harder lives

or find a way to hush punk:
to find punk reflective:
   akin to
                   ♫ above a              u
     with the                       ü
             rather than a pure
command of reflex          
                 or the echoes of forgotten
Europe, in Europe, while
the western powers took
to nautical re-definitions of
what's called access -
                         long they peered into
the h.i.v. **** of Africa when they
became startled by the laboured
brows of forgotten Europe
     (east of Germany)
             and the evolved Europe
(north of Hadrian's concern) -
and         what the French, Spaniards
and English fear most:
                 Cyrillic hordes as my
grandfather remembers the Red Army:
                teenagers sleeping in barns
with goats... not like the sharp-dressed
black-clad SS-men who gave toffee that glued
fingers together...
                 no one mentions the infamous
Krakow smog as they mention the London smog:
difference apparent: crematoriums' whiff down
the drain of history... survivors: Ovid,
Dante... some other poor sod... labouring
within himself the year 0...
                    but how many years
have passed until that crucible: the year
of denial would be discovered?
                     je suis non zeus...
but i guess a woman was always to be a
numbed sexuality... that envisioning
of a deer giving birth engulfed a woman in
having ***...
                         and then sorta oh oh oh,
mow the lawn...
                                    western Europe is
really deluded about its primordial quest
for 1st placed: existentially...
it's comparatively deranged to the rest
of Europe... all romanticism in its ability
to grasp it has died... hence the need to
keep up appearances...
                                honestly, it's completely
deranged. i called English society it already:
an asylum...
                        hence the Calais jungle....
                 it quiet literally is what the former
colonial nations think it is,
                                 but it's not...
i don't know why the Jews congregated in
what was once the example of Commonwealth...
        but no Irish will feel superior to me
faking being English... i leave the scouting
of honour among the Scots and the joke
about inventing copper wire...
                                2 pence stretchmarks
when a. invited b. to dinner...
                                               well,
if the king of Kenya can sell his ******* cousins
i am not willing to sell my identity to fill gaps...
just so a white girl can practice
                         repressive aggression to write
masochistic / moralistic poetry and edge toward
feeling superior, but actually not being
            any more superior than a skunk
                              in a Parisian perfumery...
i too thought the idea was:
                             to make a scent most potent.
                  the most piquant form of morality,
that doesn't translate into Germany,
  Polish, Lithuanian, Scandinavian or Serb...
                     but is currently ruling our concept
of socially-cohesive undermining of future study
in anthropology that's to resemble society: a tale
of the 22nd century and still waiting for the l.s.d. trip
of the crucifix.
                            so too the love long gone...
                to me... Zionism (Eva) became married
to ****** (Adolf) to end colonial-capitalism...
                                        it ended...
           but what was once the norm of the monochromatic
became false...
                              we needed soul-bleach
and soul-bleach is what we got...
                                                you can take any
east London black guy to Africa
and he'll feel as much out of place as someone
who's white...
                             as some say:
in writing, talk of colour is least pardonable,
or at least approachable,
             or at least: the least juggled.
my canvas is being called vermin -
                            it's a great canvas to work from...
               tank-a-rhino-rune;
you learn to twist swastikas like you learn
             to twist the star of David.

How Marjorie dances
cheek by jowl,
we could never be strangers-
her face countenances
with comely candle light .
Parfait Oysters and Rose  -
a double diamond of moonlight.
Only in France's nord pas de calais
could we rejoice,
redolent in vintage Boulonge
our hearts aching for one another.

" e're you alright ger?"
                " you've gone a bit green?"
                ( tell me I'm imagining this
                  And it's all been a dream)
                So far my thoughts on this trip
                Remain to be seen
              " well I'm off for a pint then
                If you're sure you're ok?"
                Nota terribly romantic start
                     To the perfect day!
                    He lurches down the deck
                    In his trainers and his coat
                    Eagerly intent on tipping
                     Draught bass down his throat
                    
                I wander  around the boat a bit
                    To **** a little time
                    Hoping later on....
                   There would be candlelight and wine
                        But I was disappointed
                           For later on he said
    "We'll use the cafeteria co's its cheaper there instead!
                   We sit down to eat our meal
                    On this unsteady vessel
                 Whilst watching you devour
                You're favourite  fry up special
                I've ordered mackerel salad
                Oh well when in doubt!
               Watching as you stuff black currant.cheesecake in you're mouth....
        " never mind luv.. don't you worry"
           " tomorrow I'll treat you to a ruby Murray"( curry)

                   Later we wandered around the duty free
                     And into the perfume shop
                    " it is our honeymoon " l say..
                       " or had you forgot?"
                     Then in you're loudest voice you shout...
                          For all the world to hear
                   " I'll a've that little bottle there
                               If it's not too dear?"
                        " happy now? You said
                            With that stupid grin
                      Direct me to the nearest hole
                         That I can bury myself in!!!!!arghhh....

-faking breaking news

Hurray!
The United Kingdom will become the 51st state of the USA. This decision has not been officially announced yet, but it will soon be done, according to our informal source near Prime Minister dr. Farage. "A newly independent nation needs a strong arm to guide its steps towards prosperity, " our beloved PM recently stated, so this move should not come as a surprise.

Strong support
We all know dr. Farage's sympathy for a strong and straight approach, which has only increased during the past three years of versatile and energetic priority swapping. The tremendous successes of this period were achieved also by the practical and moral support of our American friends. Therefore we are convinced that the proud accession to this successful union of states will re-energise our traditional institutions, thus supplying new vigour to the independence we won in the glorious year 2019.

Just sign
It is expected that mr. Kushner, US secretary of foreign affairs and acting vice-president, will soon invite our beloved PM to sign the treaty. US officials made it clear to us there is no need for the UK to worry about the details.The terms of the treaty will be completely defined at Trump Super Tower; all the UK will have to do is sign. This will help the UK to seamlessly become a highly successful and inseparable part of the prosperous United States.

Highly valuable
The safety of the UK will be guaranteed by the permanent presence of the US navy at Scapa Flow, where joint operations will be performed with Russian or EU fleets. And the Irish will be happy: the Irish border will be effectively removed since many (if not most) Irish people have become Americans long ago, and for many years the Republic of Ireland has been successfully advised by great US-based privately owned firms. These firms, that are also active in the UK, will turn the UK into a highly valuable hub between Europe and the US. For the first time in history EU citizens will be able to reach the USA by car only, via Ireland or the Calais-Dover tunnel. This will also be the preferred access method since public transport, and public services in general, are expected to be dismantled - for the benefit of us all.

Please don’t move to Blackpool
You’ll only waste your time
These are things that I’ve found
To make you change your mind

I spent a year one day in Morecambe
A dreary night in Rhyl
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
And I believe that still

A bunker out in Baghdad
A tent at Calais port
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
The Fylde coasts ugly wart

A cruise ship full of Covid
A plane about to crash
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
It’s ugly & it’s brash.

A cell in Bangkok’s Hilton
Chernobyl’s poisoned land
But there’s nowhere worse than Blackpool
This place I cannot stand

we're having a referendum in britain to leave the E.U.,
although we didn't join it economically in the full
sense of the words sterling & euro...
so we got our paddles out, and started doing
the blair poodle dance rowing to the east coast
of america, dover-to-calais distance from maine,
and while paddling past iceland bemused.*

i find it unbelievable
that singled out people
in western democracies
always consider themselves
speaking like a consensus
rather than as a veto,
as if they're always backed
up by an alignment of
many shared interests
provided by the vote
(the sly one anonymously
done in a ***** donors'
booth).