one reason why you're not read with a volume you
expected, jedi-know-how, you'll be easily plagiarised.*

when i first came to england i fell in love
with manchester united...
the 4 - 4 - 2 line-up

peter schmeichel (dane goalkeeper),
then ooh aah cantona (eric cantona baseball  cap),
original wembley white towers...
(white towers, charity shield
newcastle united)
so meh for the arch....
irwin... steve bruce... lee sharpe...
gary pallister... (7) eric cantona.... george best....
mcclair, ryan giggs,
cotton tomilisom, then roy keane...
then davies cole ****...
the neville brothers...
scholes and david beckham...
**** stuck to azkazam fudge, it's still perfectly refrigerated
in kazakhstan:

steve mcmanaman will tell you;
it's a random barricade question worth a shot
in the rubric of a sudden challenge.

An away game at Leeds!
The Loiner Lion will have its feeds.
So it was, back in the day
When Revie’s Men held full sway.
Reaney, Charlton, Hunter, Cooper,
That defence was really super.
David Harvey, ‘keeper complete,
Guaranteed a solid clean sheet.

The midfield ruled by Bremner and Giles,
Billy’s energy, Johnny’s wiles.
Lorimer and Gray down the wings,
Recalling Eddie (Gray), oh my heart sings.
Jones and Clarkey gave us goals,
Lots of them, shoals and shoals.

73-74 our greatest year,
Opponents always full of fear.
Man U relegated that season too,
Better days there were very few.
We won the league by a merry mile,
Time to smile as we did it in style.

In 69 we lost just two from 42.
Opponents didn’t know what to do.
Burnley and City our only losses,
Otherwise we were the bosses.

92 was another good year,
Man U crying in their beer.
Then we sold them Cantona,
That really was a bridge too far.
The rest is history as they say;
We strive again to have our day.

In the second tier on Italian money,
Seeking the land of milk and honey.
The Premiership’s the place where we should be,
Please Messi, join us, on a free!

We hanker for those glory days.
God please help us with your mysterious ways.

Paul Butters

© PB 11\9\2015.

i call my ambition, sergeant giggs... don't ask; i also call my left foot lady cantona, it's just regarding the manchester united dream team from the mid 90s.*

oi! oi! that strange perfume in my garden
has come back!
i don't like it! i know i'm growing garlic
and rosemary & mint & jasmine in it,
but i'm not liking the eerie honey ****
of it, that i might liken to female genitals,
no!
   *******!
                  get these gnats away from me!
feed em to the bankers!
       point being, if i were ever an islamic
martyr, and i'd get to the "sacred" gardens,
much akin to the hanging gardens of babylon
and i'd be like...
     wait a minute, i didn't ask for solomon's
gym routine, i didn't ask for *******
gym membership scheme!
   i said, i said that i wanted 72 watermelons!
who said that 72 virgins is a reward?
where are my 72 watermelons?!
i want my ******* 72 watermelons!
   1 woman is enough! enough as in:
one too much!
   yes, i know nature it cruel, and it proved
that by providing more women than men,
and that when an ****** hits their egos
and shatters them all hell breaks loose...
no! i didn't sign up for a gym membership!
i want my 72 watermelons!
     take your virgins and shove them
into fairy-airy stories, or up my ***!
        how could 72 virgins ever be so appealing
as to take the lives of others?
   i asked for heaven, not a gym membership...
idiots are going to be hating the notion
after a few hours:
well... gotta **** 'em all...
otherwise the ones not ******, will go straight
to king solomon, with his permanent
****** **** fusion...
   just give me the 72 watermelons and ****
off with your "promises"...
      i wasn't promised **** all upon
birth in this world,
   but the promises of 72 virgins in the "next" world
seems more like a curse, than honey-dew;
i'd rather worm through
   a library of books worth-the-reading,
than a bunch of girls: "worth-the-****";
well yeah, "the" oops;
muslims: monkey mentality, even after death;
me? i was imagining it as:
                       a brain in a pickle jar;
then again, i'd love to chat with 72 prostitutes,
gone down the train ride of waggle waggle...
plus the drinking helps...
   less gym orientation mind you:
the already exhausted ***** 'elp a 'ittle.

there really is only one reason why i supported manchester united as a kid, i remember seeing them play for the charity shield with newcastle united in... what was it? 1995? 1996? can't remember... in the old wembley stadium... but the only reason i didn't support any of the london clubs was... eric cantona (alt. cantoná, just to hide the catching of breath, or simply the tetragrammaton)... and the chant that went along with his name: ooh! ah! cantona(h)! must have been that "karate" / wrestling kick he did on someone in the stands; thump!

god, if only the english could un-numb their R, and return to the rattle-snake trill... what wonders could be born... every time i hear an english person pronounce the R... i think they're about to swollow their tongue, as if rolling it backwards to numb the R... yes... swollow... swo-swo... only cockneys of east london say swa-swa swansey... *****... deep in essex you: ooh... ah, eric cantona... swollow, akin to saying the word: slow... rather than slough (berkshire, burp-shy-err)... **** me english is fun, it's like owning a g.i. jone action finger, and still playing with it aged 34... compared to all other languages (notably the european ones), english is like play-dough... you can **** with it so much that you can almost forget being bilingual; and no, whatever the upper-crass tell you... trilling an R is not a posh thing... it's talk of the 2nd serprent in the garden... the rattlesnake who warns you, rather than tempts you to try and eat from the tree he's wrapped around.

two words that spring to mind,
   out of the blue;
words that sound better in a native tongue
    than in an acquired tongue
of saxon descent
            mingled with norman -
the words?
    military instruments -
(a) originally *maczuga
   but with my diacritical stressors:
                     máczūga...
    i give it a rest there making
           the foreign word sound better,
after all, we have alternatives:
    cudgel, truncheon, cosh, nightstick
  & bludgeon...
   still... the m'ah-choo-g'ah (ga-ga)...
   i don't know... but i know what sounds
   better in
(b) topór      (acute o? t'oh-poor),
meaning? axe... now tell me the foreign
word sound more grave
                   than the native word?
  the (a) argument
  has worthy counterparts, but (b)?
        tell me you wouldn't feel a shiver
  hearing topór,
              when otherwise hearing axe?

p.s.
    the same with the word
                       for hammer -
    i.e. młot (mmm-what?) -
               of **** me, the tool has a baby,
the belittled henryk młotek miodowicz
        (henry - little hammer - honkeysuckling).

see...
   (sniffing sound) -
the problem with tiki torches
when compared to flares?
  you haven't experienced
football hooliganism...
one has the assumption
of being menacing,
the other? an assertion
of being menacing...
     oh i know a football chant...
ooh ah! cantona!
and ł.k.s.! jebał pies! -
        even though i originate from
an insignificantly small town,
we still managed to play
with the "titans"...
               hooliganism...
hmm... a type of mafia, right?
a group effort not riddled
by bloated ego?
              which is the exact point
why tiki torches are funny...
  and a crimson flare so menacing
in comparison...
you can't nuance conviction...
appearance is politics...
             Louis XIV knew that all too well...
foolery, double standards,
and the must of every earthly court
to boot: a jester to serve
compliments of ridicule...
          the sort of punching bag
that punches some sense back
into the lead head...
given: heavy "hangs" the crown.
i can't believe that i lived
in england for over 20 years
and spent most of those years
rummaging between the irish
and the scots...
                  the only english person
i've had "intimate" time with,
is probably mummified
by a t.v. screen...
              i'm actually jokingly
convinced that the english
are not even existentially valid,
in the sense of: lurking in shadows;
it has also become a "game" of:
and who the **** would want
to **** this pyjama party of
              walking Madonnas with
their exuberance into faking the fashion
of 15 minutes later:
          trash in hand, donning
    cling hair rollers
(10 minutes trying to find the correct
term... how autistic of me)
  buying a bottle of *****...
yeah, really,
              no wonder i drink
to define excess...
              about as desirable as a
penny on a pavement...
mate with what? that?!
               make it short,
        i'm done with dramatics that
have no memorable quote.
flares still feel more authentic than
tiki torches...
                   then again,
american football is so stupid
                that cricket makes
sense, and
there's no need for a hooligan
making a stance.
seriously... american football
is the most idiotic game in encompassing
the need for a coliseum!
               i'm authentic
in my bewilderment at the complexity
of cricket, that, i get,
  american football makes
   about as much sense as
american foreign policy outside
of the poker face of f. d. Roosevelt;
i must be ******* or something,
   or, something else, i just don't know.

finally! that time of the year has come
when i'll be taking a 2 week hiatus to the "old country":
perched on a windowsill drinking
some Napoleon brandy
donning a baseball cap donned in
reverse: cool as a cucumber...
oddly enough: if baseball caps are anything
to go by: i could get used to a kippah...
sure as **** not to a monk's tonsure...
ah... the night... a time of solace...
ah... die nacht... ein zeit auf trost...
the "old country", monochromatic, among
"my fellow" countrymen:
none of this Loon'don Babylon of the world
congregating... a little ****** town that
once had ambitions to compete with
the metallurgical industry of Cracow...
collapsed... sold off...
from a population nearing 100,000...
reduced to... perhaps 40,000...
since everyone left once the economy collapsed:
how Europe exported its
metallurgical industry... it's production
to Asia... some "disappeared" else in this
native land... some left for Canada... England...
i love going back: even though my
dementia riddled grandfather isn't alive...
i'll still get to read some books...
on the to-do list...
finishing Knausgaard's vol. 4... taking a break
by: finally! reading some
Rousseau... letter to M. D'Alembert on spectacles
& the social contract...
lucky me i own a copy that has paired these
two books together...
i have reached a point of tedium
reading the genre of autobiography...
esp. autobiography that borrows so much
from memory...
of course i'll finish volumes 5 & 6...
but i need a break...
i need to get away from internet access...
i need to walk into a pine forest...
i need to sniff the air in Eastern Europe...
funny... i was in Russia for a month once:
never watched the t.v.:
we ******... she played video games...
i was either reading
a book of her choice: the Master & Margarita
or studying chemistry to resit
a failed exam...
i need to immerse myself in propaganda...
see what's happening in politics...
i'm way behind the culture...
i tried to keep up... last time i heard
bands like Lao Che & Żywiołak are not in
the mainstream... every time i turn on the radio:
no chance in hell...
it's like that conundrum of Iron Maiden's
Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter reaching
no. 1 in the charts... but... "for some reason"
BBC Radio 1 not giving it any play...

we used to walk around the graveyard and
talk about life and how:
death is the only true democracy...
among other things...
i dubbed us: the hyenas of the graveyard...
now i'm going to stand over his grave
and probably pull a smirk onto my face...
a sort of gleeful: i'm coming...
you shouldn't have had that tirade
of yours over your brother-in-law's early
death: how you boasted that
you were still living while he was already dead...
i think you were teasing death then
but i can accept the fact that you wanted
to be finally rid of that woman...
how you said:
old people should live more cordially
with each other: not this stereotypical
Hemingway: men without women array of
short stories...

do i still regret breaking up with that Siberian lass?
of course i do...
but if for your happiness me giving you
grandchildren: but being slapped in the face
for no reason other than her paranoia
while she was still in close contact with her ex?

that's the difference between
Catholic and Protestant nations...
while the protestants have their little Halloween
****** Doo thrills of dressing up...
some Catholic nations celebrate the day after
the 31st of October...
the feast day of All Saints...
a big ******* deal in Paul-and...
the people light candles at the graves...
whole graveyards start looking like
starry constellations: hell... more...
when spotted on the Maldives...

i like this approach more than the insurrection
of monsters... fake or real:
mostly fake... life's this one grand party...
i hardly think so...
if i'd be content with life i wouldn't
be inquisitive of it... or off it...
the necropolis beckons...
names etched into marble...
important dates...
oh not the dates of a person's birth
or a person's death:
all those important dates not written onto a grave
those in-between... written into the riddled flesh
of the living...
tattoos akin to... 2001... 2019...
  
but oh so welcome... this impeding break...
from... whatever this is...
a return to: this little ******-town that once
grew & grew & could have been something...
sold off...
sleepy little town... it would be rather
impossible to put Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski
on the map...
mind you: the mindset of the western folk is:
to put hardly anything on the map:
except for their bellybutton...
i don't mind: "we" sort of don't exist...
so far far away: further even than India...
further than the Americas... further than Spain...
or Italy... as a sort of wilderness "non-existent"
before you arrive in Russia...

watching two matches today: super Sunday, what?
even though West Ham only beat Tottenham Hotspurs
a meagre 1 - nil...
it was just as entertaining as watching
Liverpool thrash Manchester United 5 - nil...
sport is fun when you don't take sides...
when you're in it for the mere spectacle...
it's like automated chess... football...
please: don't get me wrong...
no... get me wrong... but American football
is a load of crap...
so many ******* interludes...
it's unlike rugby where there are clear rules...
the oval needs to be passed back...
the charge is forward...
what is it with H'american football...
you throw the oval forward...
you run off the field: STOP... let's realign...
the oval touches the ground: STOP... let's realign...
what a **** sport...
only two sports came out of north america:
hockey &... eh... but cricket is better
than baseball... period...
American "football" is ****...
it's the ******* sport imaginable...
too many interludes...
there's no fluidity! the game doesn't: FLOW...
**** ****, double ****... thrice ****... **** ****, ****...
how can you play a game
when it's only about a throw forward
and the game has to be restarted: reset
when some ****** runs off the field or drops the oval?
with all these interludes...
you could probably have about 2 cricket tea-breaks
for tea...
American sports: with the exception of basketball
& ice hockey: ***** MAJOR ***...
***** ***** MIDGIT ***...

but this kind of football is like: chess playing by itself...
i've come to appreciate good sport...
unlike the Olympics... although...
give me an hour watching some classic Greco-Turkish
wrestling & i'll tell you:
there's no need for boxing...
was boxing even remotely related to rhetoric?
was it? was it?

but sport per se is so much more fun when
you're not taking sides...
you're there for the spectacle:
i never understood these little pockets of tribalism...
how many football teams are playing
in the premier league: all from London?
7?
Chelsea, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Watford...
West Ham... Tottenham...
Brentford! and how many are in the Championship?
Millwall... QPR... however many...
little nations within nations...
i was always from elsewhere and from elswhere
when i first came to England i supported
Manchester United... because of the moniker:
the red devils...
& because Eric Cantona was playing for them...
****** view from behind the goalposts
at the old Wembley when Manchester United
played Newcastle United at the 199- charity shield
match... ****** view at the old Wembley...

a welcome break from everything "western":
from the bellybutton crew:
from: if it happens in western europe
it: by default ought to happen everywhere else...
a break from the anglophonic claustrophobia
and sort-of solipsism...
a return to the Slavic barbarians:
imbeciles... etc. etc.
well... one man put the name of the town
on the map: a Witold Gombrowicz...
but then again... he was born into an aristocratic
family in a village shy of the "urban centre"
of this little ****-hole of a town...

thank god it's not exactly Warsaw...
or Cracow... or Danzig... it's a nowhere with
as much of everything to offer
as a "here" town...
on the map: distinguished...
a town of: ghosts & retired people...
2 weeks of splendour...
rustic scoops...
       2 weeks of this...
         rest my mind... read some Rousseau...
i don't think it would require
me to take a cruise...
give me the pines, the clouds, the night...
the scent of the graveyard...
the superstitious folk...
                 not that i'd want to feel superior:
just doubly distant from
the already narrowed-down distance
i feel when cycling through London.