There were raised voices. Ingrid heard them. Her father's booming voice over her mother's screech. She stirred in her small bed. Pulled the blankets over her shoulder. Sheltered by the thick ex army coat of her father's on top of the blankets she snuggled down trying to shut out the sounds. It was Saturday, no school. She hated school, hated the tormenting kids, the lessons, the teacher bellowing at her. Only Benedict talked kindly to her, only he made her laugh, took her on adventures round and about, the bomb sites, the cinema, the swimming pool in Bedlam Park. The voices got louder, there was a sound of glass smashing. Silence followed, her mother's screeching began again, her father's booming voices trying to drown her out. Ingrid pulled the blankets tighter around her. She daren't go out along the passage until it was over. Even though she needed to ***, she held it in, thought of other things. Her wire framed glasses lay on the bedside cabinet her mother had bought at a junk shop. The thick lens were smeary, the wire frame slightly bent where her father's hand had clipped them when he slapped her about the head for talking out of turn. There was a small cut on her nose where the glasses had caught. A radio began to play, the voices had stopped. A door slammed. Her father had gone out. She poked her head out of the blankets. Music filtered through into her room from the radio. She got out of bed and stood on the wooden floor boards. Her clothes: dress, cardigan, underwear and socks were laid neatly on a chair where she'd folded them the night before. She opened the door of her bedroom and ventured down the passage to the toilet and shut the door and put the bolt across and sat down. The music played on. Her mother began to sing. She had weak voice, kind of like a child's. Ingrid played with her fingers. Pretended to knit, as her mother had unsuccessfully tried to show her, with imagined knitting needles. As she sat she felt the bruise on her left buttock. Her father's beating of a day or so ago. She knitted faster, fingers racing. She stopped dropped a stitch as her mother called it. She left the toilet and went to wash in the kitchen sink. She wished they had a bathroom like her cousin did. Her parent's bath was in the kitchen with a table that was let down when not in use. She washed in the cold water, her hands and face and neck. Dried on the towel behind the door. Her mother came in carrying a cup and saucer. She set it down on the draining board and looked at Ingrid. Get yourself some breakfast and then get dressed, if your father catches you in that state, he won't half have a go, her mother said. Ingrid went into the living room and got a bowl from the glass fronted cupboard and a spoon from the drawer and poured herself some cereals and added milk from a jug on the table and sat to eat. Her mother brought in a mug of tea for her and put it on the table and went off to the bedroom to make the bed. The music from the radio played on from the living room window she could see the streets below, the grass area beneath with the two bomb shelters left over from the War where she and other sat or climbed or played around. Over the street was the coal wharf where coal lorries and horse drawn wagons loaded up with sacks of coal. She ate her cereals. A train went across the railway bridge over the way;puffs of smoke rose in the air. Below boys played on the grass. One of the boys had offered her 6d to see her underwear, but she had refused. He shrugged his shoulders and said your loss and wandered off. 6d would have bought her sweets, a drink of pop, but she had her pride. She finished her breakfast and sipped her tea. Warm and sweet. She let her tongue swim in the tea. Benedict said he would buy her some chips after the morning film matinée at the cinema. Her mother said she would give her 9d for the cinema, but not to tell her father. As if she would, she mused, watching a horse drawn wagon leave the coal wharf. She drank the tea and took mug, spoon and bowl into the kitchen  and washed them up and left them on the draining board. She went to her bedroom and took off her nightdress. The mirror on the old dressing table showed a thin pale looking nine year old girl with short cut brown hair and squinting brown eyes. She only saw a blur. She put on her glasses and peered at herself. No wonder the boys laughed at her and the girls avoided her. Only Benedict was friendly to her. He said she was pretty. She couldn't see it, the prettiness. She turned. Over her thin shoulder she saw the bruises on her buttocks. Fading. Bluey greeny yellowish. She walked to get her clothes off the chair and began to dress. She wished she had a cleaner dress, she'd worn that one for nearly a week. The cardigan had holes and there were buttons missing. She did up what buttons there were and brushed her hair with the hairbrush her gran had given her. It had stiff bristles and a large wooden handle. She stood in front of the mirror and peered at herself. She put the 9d her mother had given her in her pocket. Ready or not Benedict would be there soon. He knocked his own special knock. Once her father answered and glared at Benedict and asked what he wanted. Benedict said, to see the prettiest girl in the world. Her father glared harder, Benedict simply smiled. How did he do that? How did he do that to her father? There was a tensive wait, her father glaring and Benedict looking passive. Then her father called her to the door and said, this here boy asked for the prettiest girl in the world; he must have got the wrong address. Ingrid went red and looked at Benedict. No, right address and girl, Benedict said,looking by her father's brawny arm at her. How she managed not to wet herself she didn't know. Her father just walked back indoors and left them to talk on the balcony without any more words and she never got a beating afterwards, either. Now she waited for that special knock. That rat-rat and rat-rat. She smiled at her reflection. Prettiest girl. Ugliest more like. Rat-rat and rat-rat. He was there. He'd come. She could hear his voice. She took one last look at herself in the mirror, wet fingered she dabbed at her hair. Time to go, time to get out of there. Her knight in jeans and jumper had come on a white horse to take her away; imaginary of course.

There is magic in rice cereals.
They dance as baby- fish in boiling pan,
and soon become snowy cool Delphinium.
Boiled grains easily vanish in the mouth,
a mug-full keeps you cool in summer.
Roasted rice is fluffy and light,
par-boiled pressed rice- ready to eat.
Have these as your breakfast treat
or just munch with evening tea.
Are you thin, have insomnia?
Fill your tummy in tones of rice
to gain weight and have peaceful sleep.

8thy May, 2017.

(This post is dedicated to all my followers who still stuck with me after my long hiatus. I'm running low on inspiration these days. I am not a good writer but I'm working towards being one. I hope this post more or less compensates for my long absence.)

A LETTER TO MY LOVER'S FUTURE WIFE

     First things first, he is not my lover. He never has been and probably never will be. But he is very dear to me, and I do not think that I will be forgetting him anytime soon, and thus I considered him my lover. I hope you are okay with that. After all, my thoughts will in no way affect your life. I am writing this letter to congratulate you. You are able to trace the veins on his hands; his pair of hands which I was not privileged enough to touch. Run your fingers over his and remember how soft it is. Only then would it be fair to him because his hands are amazingly sculptured. Remember how they look like, remember how they feel like, even long after he's gone. I would also like to congratulate you for having the chance to see him every day. You see, he has the kind of face you don't get tired of staring at. I hope you notice that. I didn't know faces work that way when you're in love.

     That being said, I would like to pass on several guidelines to you. Guidelines on how to look after this boy. At the time of this letter, we are both eighteen. Young, raw, and still halfway through college. Okay, how do I put this in a nice way. He is light-hearted. Free-spirited. He does what he wants, as long as he is happy. He skips classes often here, I'm not going to deny that. Make sure he doesn't do the same for his work. Force him out of bed and make him go to his ****** job unless he's too sick to sit up. He has a family to feed and children to raise now. Help me shape him into a responsible man. I trust you enough to do this. Also, let him buy his cereals. He will still probably eat it in the morning when he's in a rush, in the evening while he's waiting for you to prepare dinner, and at night when he's too lazy to make supper but too hungry to go to bed after two movies. He makes the most disgusting-tasting oats. I tried it once and it tasted like *****. Trust me, there is nothing you can do about it because he's convinced that it tastes good. Perhaps his tongue has been surgically engineered when he was a fetus. I don't know. Either way, love him for that. But don't let him be the one who makes cereals for the children. Poor, poor children. One more thing, be ready to let his lips touch the mouth of your drinking bottle if he asks for water. He doesn't know how to pour liquid from a bottle without wetting himself. He's an idiot like that.

     Oh, and the air purifier in your room? Clean it once in a while. Make sure the machine works well. He's allergic to dust and I don't know the effects it has on him. And his body can't tolerate coldness that much, so compromise with him and agree on an intermediate temperature, please? Personally, I don't like it too cold either but I do not matter in this context.

     Anyway, I have to go to bed now. It's 1:27AM and I have a class in the morning. I might write another letter to you in the future, I might not. After all, both of us share an extraordinary bond. You are currently in love with someone I used to love. You must have seen the same things I saw in him, probably even more. Maybe I could actually get along with you well, if I could make myself stop wondering what I am lacking every time I look at you.

The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)

Summoned for to break the fast
of sleep-and-dreams that can no longer last,
As the clock to noon draws nigh,
I happily paddle off to the cabinet
Where the cereals that I CHOSE,
Since I am now a grownup,
faithfully await, calm and in repose.

The refrigerator, in nearby proximity,
sources a Stony-field yogurt,,
A yogurt that I CHOSE,
light and sweet with processed fruit,
due to the miracle of Aspartame.

Distracted, back to the kitchen for
Some multi-grain slices to hail and toast,
Which I prefer dry (no butter)
and ready for anointing with oils of
Strawberry jelly.

To the table return ready to sound
The horn of plenty,
When I see the ****
Breakfast Fairies have struck yet again!

Cousins first to those that reside in nearby dishwasher*
The nefarious fairies guard my health
tho nobody asked them too!

My Crispix, with its malty sweetness,
And the ***** aftertaste of sprayed-on "enriched vitamins,"
has been smothered neath layers of
Granola, with cranberries and nuts,
Contaminated with a hint of cinnamon.

My processed yogurt,
vanished, without a trace,
replaced by their bacterial cousins from Thrace,
which is in Greece,
who, tho white, taste like plain yogurt sourpusses,
Even when littered with blueberries,
Nothing can replace the taste of my
Artificial Sweetener!

Dry toast has been sheeted and shined neath
A tribute of fattening butter,
rationalized by a commonality,
"Everything is better with butter..."

The last indignity is that my coffee,
Not the light brown I cherish
When kissed by whole milk,
Now muddled and muddied by skim milk, so named,
Cause they skim off all the taste.

Because they are fairies,
With fluttering wings,
Hasty retreat they beat,
But I know where they hide.

The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.

Porage Oats?
Porridge simmering slowly on an old gas hob,
In a large enamel *** that was kept for this job.
We stirred it occasionally with a spoon shaped stick,
This stopped it burning or getting too thick.
You knew when it was time to do the spoon test,
If the spoon stood up strait then it was at its best.
Served with golden treacle the way I liked it most,
That melted like a glaze Oh yes and a slice of toast.
Those cold winter mornings it warmed the heart,
We would all walk to school with a healthy start.
Just been too busy working all my life,
No time to make porridge for me and my wife.
I have tried many new cereals in the past 40 years,
Some not to bad but containing too much sugar.
They call it glaze with bits of chocolate to,
But with a threat of diabetes it just will not do.
Now that I’m retired I go shopping every day,
More time for cooking in the old fashioned way.
Last winter a large promotion caught my eye,
It was for porridge, I could not pass it bye.
Not the instant stuff, cooked in minutes two,
It's Proper Porage Oats that sticks like glue.
Is this a second childhood where I want to play?
No, just a wholesome breakfast for a frosty day.

Hey, I already told you that you were a little bit crazy.
What did you think—that I was completely nuts?
Come on, Cashew, and shake that walnut-sized brain of
yours, and then we’ll try to put together a decent menu.
Still, I ought to kick you in those itty-bitty sunflower seeds,
those ones that you claim to be your source of protein.
Hey, Macadamia Breath, accidentally lose the ******* hula
dancer and then fire the impending search-and-rescue party!
Your tropical trail mix was no good for each other.
You need a vacation from this deserted island, Captain Crunch.
Go down south and get yourself the businessman’s special.
You know—some old-fashioned brazil nuts.
Yeah, that’s the two-tickets-to-paradise, for sure.
Fool, you really do need to buff up the old almond.
Do I need to open up the **** aluminum lid for you?
You’ve been stuck inside this assorted, mixed can that you
try to refer to as an extra bedroom for nearly nine months.
Get out and take in a little hike and bike
right after you do the wake and bake.
Maybe you should go slow roast yourself at the beach a little.
Why don’t you go to the mountains and try to become one of those
pine nuts that end up in all of those overpriced health cereals?
Hey, Snickers, those dank trees really are beautiful, you know.
Would you quit acting like a frikkin’ flax seed already?
Just admit that it’s almost payday, for criminy sakes!
You pathetic Mister Peanut, you.
Please, Saint Chestnut, give this completely lost consumer strength
from high above store aisle number nine.
Number nine.
Number nine.
Number nine.
Listen to me, Nutt Sack, will you shake those tiny little beer
nuts that no one can seem to stomach anyway?
First of all, they are becoming way too stale just sitting around here,
so if you continue to wait any longer, they will petrify—and then we
will eventually be forced to call you teeth-breaking Corn Nuts!

you are there, in the kitchen
of my dream
at the stove making enchiladas
and tapioca.
you are probably one hundred and
i think you might keel over, dropping
your white head into the *** of yellow
pudding.
i wonder how you got so suddenly old
and i so suddenly young when
i can remember
reading fairy tales
buying you sugary breakfast cereals
and letting you sleep in my bed
even though you kick
and also tell people
the embarrassing things i say
in my sleep.
i am so hungry i want to eat it all
and leave none for you
but you say to wait
to wait until my eyelashes turn
into a million tiny butterflies
and tickle my skin
with their light wings.
but i'm hungry now, i whine
shoving past you
pushing a hot tortilla between my teeth
and swallowing greedily
desperately
before collapsing
into a sea of blue tiles.
i awake violently, your small foot at my chin.
staring at me is a toenail painted blue.
i stare back at it, into that
tiny ocean.

.pr.s.: well... if i am deluded? can i claim melancholly to be of equal ontological excuse to a flu... and say: i was infected by a mental illness? and there was never some, "mythical" origin of the illness... as you're sure i'm aware, i do not associate mental illness as having origin in a genesis of solipsism... there's nothing Kantian about it... for me... mental illness is very much an extension of virology... but this be the tempus for the crux of the body contra mind dichotomy... which since the 17th century hasn't been resolved... or has been... by the zombie squadron of the pharma-ingesting spooks of: awaiting a phobia of the white-coats urban myths... of course i fall to sleep thinking about killing someone... why wouldn't it? i end up eating a chicken the next day... what's the difference of a "somebody" for the worth of "something"?

whiskey,
           KMFDM...
very much akin
to ready to blow...

   nine inch nails...

the kids and the punk
and what
was industrial rigid...

and "being" white...
well...
if we're all going
to geneology
the whole "concern"
for history:

originating from
a people
with not tabloid
literature
having succumbed
to colonialization...

"save" the white women...
what?!
with not asian fetish?!
who, are, you?
teenage suicides
engaging in social
media...

             well...
Freddy Mercury was
just revived via:
another bites the dust...

what's agitating?
the inactive presence
of a screen,
that, i somehow need
to make tattoo of...

scripted rhapsody of
the believable people...
like:
people who arm their
psychology with
the orientation
of... "petting" tarantulas
or boa snakes...
touch all you want:
but try a second time
to extract character
and behavioural nuance
from these... "things"...

me?
voluntary celibate...
cenobite *** a
lost leash of leather straps...
every time i ****
off: the hand
becomes the ****...
grip and no soft pouch
of a cuddle of
****** in,
either lip, or...
no... i don't know
what a "missing"
******* feels like...

punk bores me...
punk always bored me...
esp.when championed
by commentators
alligned to...

do you know what
the entry criterion
for the proud boys
was?
   being punched...
no... not on the face...
and having to remember
a recital
of the pleb's favorite
cereal brands...

how about a new
limbo for the "worth"
of entry...

punching yourself
in the face
20+ times...
and then remaining silent...
while the history
of your mother's
****** exploits is
revealed to you
by your grandmother...

how's that?
i pet a cat, i *******,
shape of the water
(females *******),
i take a ****,
i take a ****:
yeah... sorry..
no scented candles,
no internet cameras...
did i coincide with
jordan b. peterson:
yes...
i will never **** these
women...
given they're
**** actresses from
the 1970s...

i, like: vintage...
quirky hair
with the...
gob's worth of *******'s
worth of scrap...
and a bullion
of throbbing quirk
looping lips...
  
i have assimilated
over 20 years in england,
3 years in scotland...
being asked: where are you
from?
like some ******* tourist...
****** me off...

was i going anywhere?
or... point being:
am i, "anywhere"?
ah...
so i am nowhere:
so reading Heidegger makes
a lot of sence, then?
given that
                    no
is no sein
          and that...
as much of where
                    is "there"...

but this sort of pedantic
address for the use of language,
does translate into
the habitual, and the "readily" given
use, concerning the "idle"
hands of a plumber...

a lay-job contra
the pedantic interest...
well... sure...
              we can succumb
to investigating contrasts
that are not worth the while
for being 2 x 2 rubric
statements...
having lost purpose
as 2 x 3...

thus, at times...
i almost forget...
      time...
                 that precedence
hierarchy...
  the precedence membrane
of who are allocated
the purpose of being
contemporary...

   i... somehow...
forget to dismember
the cradle mimic sound
of insect
(entombed in the cracking
wood),
with the rattling sound
of a lizard limbo...
to the R of the trill...
like... what gives off the same
found of creaking
footsteps,
or the burning of wood...
close approximate...

yet there are some people
who i know are not
deserving of a precedence
whether in hierarchy or...
but these people will
congest themselves
to a bite-luck quest
of argument in reproductive-recreation...
so?
failure escapes them
now...
   failure?
           will not escape them...

greeks might have
"invented"
1 + 1 = 2...
no argument, loose association...
but the hindu theologial
rubric, stating:

evil deed + apathy = good eventuality
                                       for all...
  is necessarily false,
is worth being negated...
i like the Hindu algebra
of time being both:
expansive, & constrictive...

    "my" world?
has already disappeared...
   by coincidence...
i've watched how...
            
    no... i'm not here to make sense,
to invest in a non-empirican
standard of a (0, 0) vortex
of beginning:
clinging to being perpetually
cleaned...
  amnesia-ridden...

         and even if i let my
ailment be known "to" or
"in", "public"...
                              the life of
a baker, or a butcher...
can't become overtly,
  "complicated"...
unless it's a genetic anomaly...
because a flu...
is a type of virsus...
poly-morph...
that is never...
    translated from person
to person...
mental illnesses are
never deemed worthy
of the strict scrutiny of
virology...
like...
all of thinking is safe...
and is not ridden with
       pathology...
  like... mental illness
is a hubris of medicine...
   like: all of medicine is
only physical,
and no metaphysics is handy...
how...
      
     like... mental illness is
such a pathology,
such a fetish,
that... it cannot be correlated
to something,
aking to the phenomenon
of propaganda...
  sure...
           the common flu...
i know where my mental "illness"
stems from...
a russian girlfriend...
who told me...
she was abducted as a child,
and *****,
and what not...
trying to excavate
an ******* from me...

mental illness?
   well... bilingual is the new ******...
and any personal
interaction is: worthy of
the... very understanding public...
you know what song
i have, to rely to lodged
in my mind?

   rob zombie's - michael...

me?
     yeah, i know:
a beard doesn't make a man...
then again...
i rather be subject to
something being itchy,
than itch for something...

proud boys:
you sure you joined the right club?
what... entry level of:
get punched by the "sharks"
having to cite breakfast cereals?!
wha......?
    it's like i'm tied with
this chick from Siberia...
    and i can't get be rid of her!
it's like:
we married...
   upon the cranium ring
of death being part of
our ceremony of fingers...
she ****** around,
i went to the *******...
   it's like: that ******* giggle of her's?
that **** is haunting...
russian milk skin...
some new variant of aristocracy...

so... proud boys...
get punched giving names of breakfast
cereals?!
right...

ever punch yourself in the face
to the point of giving 'erself
a plum-shadow?
****! better rewrite than in
"english":

          pflaumeschatten;

oh i'm married...
i'm ******* certain of it...
but the priest
wasn't a closet pedohpile...
it was whoever
the it that strangulates
my he to she and
her she to my she
of a St. Mort... or death...
yeah...
i'm married: post-scriptum...

punch yourself in the head
20 times for a black-eye,
and then tell me:
there is not an element
of virology
worth being investigated
in the realm
of mental illness...
common flue...
and...
being a girl who says prior
to wanting to *******:
i was abused as a child,
i was molested...

better death being the *******
priest
than some *******
dog-wishing leash of a:
scuttle for words & worms...

she can be as *******
randy as hell...
while i can have the "pleasure"
of having kissed several
prostitutes...
   marriage, inverted...
because i just can't stop
myself from seeing similarities
in...
   the public realm...
of...

the foul breath of the other's
ego...
  ****** for biling.
   psychotic for by 'er ego
  'ur ego too...
         it's like a marriage
of the anti-materialists,
the wedding ring of paupers...

mentall illness is so funny...
when having to compensate
its difficulty,
with the "difficulty"
of having to attire oneself
with the role of
being a supermarket cashier...

it's like:
this is medicine, yes?
so... what isn't metaphysics,
isn't exactly mental illness,
but a meta-illness...
  so... the orthodoxy of the scalpel...
heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
******* fairground!
let's do circles and zigzags!

and that one *****
that told herself:
                   i have to get away....
my love has a grave
and i ****** well hope
there's only her name
on the crux of the marble...
and her ghost
******* my dead body
to boot.

yes, i know he said he was a vegetarian, delicate counter-priesthood prince - a manner of vegetarianism that expressed an abhorrence of the practice of Eucharist, i too think the Eucharist as a metaphor is a bit porridge: i.e. yucky.  but as Wagner said to him: up north, either you eat meat or you lose the plot (loose - ß - again, not scharfes S - but die scharfes'zart - sharp-tender - already prerequisite of what sharpening omega meant for the w); mind you: salt & pepper to taste according to your own palette - if you're not a sugar ****** you won't over-salt the sauce... and you certainly will not overcook the pasta, halfway between dreadlocks and poodle hair: desirably experience bound al dente, and here comes Socrates with his knowledge of al dente: me no muffin! true that... like all these excess sugar breakfast cereals - ******* the outside, soft inside... or like the idea of ants having an exoskeleton... that's pure culinary theory - al dente exoskeleton; did i already mention salt and pepper to taste? yeah, the beef stock cube is salty, but not salty enough, given the already unsalted meat and vegetables: i cook, i take care of a toddler - Nietzsche keeps bragging: cooked by a cyclops.

who would have thought that a personal
revision of mama Italia's classic
could end up being so tasty;
Nietzsche is the foremost diner in my humble
abode: i just like the way he says:
who let woman into the kitchen?!
that's right, i deviated from the standard recipe
of mama Italia's cooking for papa don
Giovanni - honestly? in lonely times at
university when everyone was into ******
ad drunk debaucheries, and ****** fancy dress
parties? Aria Giovanni saved the day...
just look at the classic beauty, plump as a plumb
in between two cream bergs - such
exfoliation... where's that daddy long-legs
on the catwalk... come on! shove a malteser up
her *** like a suppository escutcheon - i'm sure
the salad leaves will keep her starving even more,
or walk her in Gucci with a drip-pole -
intravenous therapy while on the job -
but can you believe what only a quarter of a teaspoon
does to the Bolognese sauce recipe?
wonders... you don't add the carrot, or the celery,
among the vegetables you add button mushrooms,
and the three colours of peppers -
onions and garlic (a lot of it) as standard -
oregano, rosemary and thyme too,
some Italian five-spice - but the fennel seeds!
the fennel seeds! after i learned to cook i see
ready meals are diabetics in disguise,
and restaurant foods as defunct -
what? we're all expressing our capacity to
make choice, apologies if you made the sort of
choices you now hate... hardly a reason to
complain about my exercise in freedom,
i don't blame you, i'd have chosen differently
if i were you too... but there we go...
i'm cooking Bolognese from scratch because i like
to tickle my sense of smell and the buds of
the palette garden, i look at the sauce and
write fiction: the plot thickens...
                                                     and that's the great
3 minute microwave sequence on the other
side of the spectrum... because we're all so *busy -
busy bees and that's merely the generation Y
dads getting hormonal treatment from tending to
babies - choices choices choices -
                                                          oddly­ enough
the mediocre work that goes on in those glass
shards - by comparison, the default argument is
pretty obvious: i too would have not invested
in caring for art, or as i once said:
you can't get good art and raise a family -
you can create good art that will support the family,
you'd end up being a great technician,
an artistic engineer - the standard model of bridges /
already in your head - is refining yourself
via plagiarism - you end up plagiarising yourself -
but come one! a quarter of a teaspoon of fennel seeds?
well, i'm not talking cumin seeds...
or maybe it was the turmeric powder that
coloured the onions yellow while frying?
2 tablespoons of garlic - for sure, enough garlic
and we're already talking Dracula -
~5 strips of bacon too -
                                          no, not necessarily involving
carrots and celery - why be boring?
this is me in my furore days in an organic
chemistry class at university - back to the esters
and perfumes, but this is raw, it's analytical
chemistry, it's nothing synthetic -
birds and the bees and some hippy buckles over
a giant butternut squash - which is why i find
people who ably memorise and recite poetry
are the same people who probably write polemics,
and do the peacock verbal dance for a woman
in a restaurant - rather than give her raw grub
of your own calibre - 1 cube of beef stock
dissolved in water - simmering for about 40 minutes,
tomatoes chopped - obviously tomato puree -
500 grams of mince beef -
                                                ever think that poetry
could reinvent journalism and also the way of
writing recipes? FENNEL SEEDS! that's what goes
in first, you roast them in chilli infused olive oil -
let them sizzle for a bit - and yes,
you pour some oil into salted water where
you'll be boiling the spaghetti - the oil means the
spaghetti won't stick together, plus pouring
oil into a saucepan of boiling water is the other
famous pastime of chemists... the former?
watch paint dry. i'm pretty ****** sure i missed something,
like mama Italia missed something to keep
the recipe a secret - well... there's Parmesan cheese
to garnish and fresh basil -
                                                and if i were raising a family,
i wouldn't be listening to the dead skeleton's album
dead magick... oh sure, the reward would be:
i'd have a little crowd at my funeral, some gibberish
about how many people knew me so well... but really
didn't... the whole street profession...
                i never got the idea of solitude and how it
might be sad from the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby song -
don't know never became an impressionable counter -
oh yeah, Darwinism helped! it helped a lot
in creating a world view, a world view that said:
don't touch this ****... leave them to it:
these people are more influenced by opinion columns
of newspapers than philosophy books -
in England, where, i dare say, the daily telegraph
is actually respectable, as is the guardian -
and the central of the two opposites? tickling
tabloid, i call the times posh tabloid, because it is
a posh tabloid: i like the way fame
desired for sales becomes toilet paper
the next day... or the newspaper on the street
that gets the footprint on the plastic surgery escapades...
love it! mm, yes darling! lovin' it!

Derk! The Harold angels sing.
The muffin is my savior. Jesus lies.
Pacific Islands.  The screaming of fires.
Rulers.  Words.  Meters.  Feet.
The magnetic field is the only field.

If I could trust baseball, I would.
But cereals, Vonnegut, lies.
-ectomy. The ubiquitous suffix.
Suffixes make the world hell.
-ism, -itis, -like, -tude, cease
your
silly
constructions!

Constructions
are
power

I will smash

bye bye now

Get it, India head
This is no bed of roses
Poses in prime positions
Are sublime repetitions
Of what has gone
Before

Karma comes knocking
Knowing
Falling flat on your face
Bindis race
First fast then erased
From your forehead
Forever more

Rickshaws run a mockery
Round rubbled ruins
Of modern mishapes
Monarchy's mistakes, perhaps
Perfect pictures of
Predictable
Misadventures

What everyone tells you
Pre plane departure
Setting one belief in front of another
One foot behind
Is what it does
To your stomach
Shaking heads full of
Heavy sighs

Cares to be taken
Clothes to be carried in case
For climactic changes
Of course
What to withstand
Understand
Undertake
When to be undeterred

When to stand your ground
Back down, barter
Bask
Busk your way through town
What to battle over
Where to bathe and how
When to show the colour
Of your mother's money

How to save a dollar
Raise a rupee
Meditate on more that
You could Be
Do the deed
Be caught in times of need
Phone home and find
No-one waiting for your call

All of this and more
You carry on your back
A rucksack full of love and
Missed kisses
But - the greatest part of this is
What no-one tells you -
What it does
To your heart

What you find
When your mind adjusts
And your eyes unwind
And great gusts of understanding blow you free
When you hand over the key
To your list of demands
And give in
To the easy unplanned

Exploring
Imploring looks
Hook your sympathy
Bait you easily at first
The worst
Are always
The kids
Thing is, how could you deny them?

Soon enough
Is enough
“Sister!”
“Look mister, I ain't no fool
And I ain't a millionaire either -
Leave her alone and go home.”
Thing is, how could you feed them all?

You triumph on trains
Blaspheme the buses
The driver's on drugs
Or a suicide trip
You skip rice-based breakfasts
For weeks
Seek out cereals then
Suddenly...you don't

Chinking chai glasses
Chomping on chocolate
A lot
More than most
Coasting roads
Filled with cows
On a scooter scuffed with sand
And stuffed to bursting point

Dogs with holes in
Infecting imaginations
Over masala dosa
Noses signalling distaste
This taste?
Hmm, tamarind - trees?
Try over there
Between the neem and the new banana circle...

Too many memories to mention
There's always one question
When you return to the beginning
Grinning, they ask
How was it?
But how can you say
It was everything
You've never seen
?

India
Get it?
INDIA!!
Get it India
But be warned...
You may never
Get her
Out-ia
Head

I bought carrots, and kale,
coconut oil that was on sale
avocados, and blue berries,
vitamin supplements
in a desire to stay healthy
out of fear of my mortality.

But I miss donuts
and sugar coated cereals.
I miss monster energy drinks,
taco pizzas, and cheeseburgers.

I miss what was killing me slowly,
suicide by snail’s place.
I once raced to gain weight.
Now I eat things I hate,
longing for something dangerous on my plate.

Sunlight seeps in
glass windows all
and yet with blinds drawn,
"click'..put on
the electric light,
gives a worthy feeling,
of course
sort of false pride!
The mirror reflects
a haunted look
insomnia
on the face,
mirror, mirror tell me true
so saying
put on more lipstick
more rouge and mascara
Nina Ricci perfume!

Toothpaste
Colgate advanced formula,
or else brushing futile
breakfast cereals
latest blends
tea labelled "Twining"
I-phone pocketed,
boutique shop clothes
stilettos clicking
you get started
feeling good
racing the sports car,
race as if
borrowed happiness
will escape,
its after all
everyday happiness
on a lucky credit card
older bills
still pending,
still pending!!
and yet
these everyday happiness
keeps you going!

Bonnie squeals as the cart soars past various boxes of cereals and granola bars. She glances at her brother, Clyde, expecting him to share her fright, but is bewildered to see that he is thrashing about in a fit of giggles, enjoying the thrill of the ride. Knuckles white as snow, Bonnie's frail little fingers grasp the side of the red cart with all of their might as her eyes clamp shut. Her heart beats faster than the speed of light, and she questions her motives for agreeing to Clyde's devilish ways.

She reminisces on their earlier arrival at the Local Target. They had come with their mother, planning to do a little grocery shopping and then be on their way. Of course, Clyde had schemed up a way to stray from his mother's side unnoticed. Bonnie still can't fathom how he managed to drag her down with him.

Cautiously, wind whipping through her hair, Bonnie peaks one eye open and instantly regrets it. She let's out an ear - piercing howl as the cart thrusts into a mountain of PopTart boxes large enough to be deemed the Empire State Building's father. She crawls out of the heap only to be met by an eruption of heartfelt laughter spewing from her brother's mocking lips. "You should have seen your face!" Clyde teases as Bonnie sends daggers through his skull.

The two troublemakers step out of the cart and attempt to retrace the way back to their mother. Devastated, they come to the conclusion that the aisles now resemble a maze. As they confidently take on this new challenge and make their way through the unknown, their spirits quickly take a downward spiral upon realizing that they have ended up back where they began. Tired and desperately longing to go home, the two siblings reach a clearing past the aisles and are overjoyed to spy their mother waiting patiently in line at a register with a new cart in hand.

Bonnie and Clyde casually lazy on over to their mother's side and make light conversation as if they had never left.

Miryam meets you at the bar
of the base camp in Madrid.
She has an orange juice
and cereals
and a coffee chaser.

Did you sleep o.k?
you ask, sitting beside her,
with a coffee
and toast and cigarette.

Sure,
she says,
afterwards.  

Her eyes light up
like lights
on a pinball machine
when it's played well.

You? she asks,
you sleep all right?
Sure, but the ex-army guy
wasn't too pleased,
me getting back in the tent
at that hour,
you say.

**** him,
she says.
No thanks,
you reply.

She sips the juice,
her lips hold the glass
as she drinks,
her mouth is fish-like
as she swallows.

You talk about
the ex-army guy's moans
about his mother's boyfriend,
how they don't
get along(he
and the boyfriend),
and how he feels
left out and how
he got thrown out
the army because
he was suicidal.

She sips,
and you watched
her eyes feasting on you
as they did
the night before,
and you recall her
******* in
the small space
of her tent,
the girl she shared with
off ******* some guy
she'd met on the coach,
the tall guy
with an Australian accent.

You watched her,
as you disrobed yourself,
the space throwing
you together,
each touching each,
kissing and *******
and kissing.

He still feel suicidal?
she asks.
Guess so,
you say,
tried to talk him
through it all,
laying there
in my sleeping bag,
half asleep,
listening
and talking to him,
eyes closing,
and his voice
becoming a drone.

Anyway,
he seemed happier after,
snoring not long after,
as I was laying there
thinking of you.

She eats the cereal,
talks about the girl
coming back
just after you left,
well ******
and happy,
glassy eyed,
giggling
and stinking of *****.

You sip the coffee,
take in her small ****,
pressing against
her coloured top,
flowers and balloons,
patterns, eye catching.

She begs a smoke
from your packet
and you nod,
and she takes one out
and lights up
from the red
plastic lighter,
the cigarette,
held between her lips,  
kissable lips,
lickable.

Yes, it had been
a good night,
you and she
and someone
strumming a guitar
from the bar,
nearby,
loudly singing,
not far.

..
Mouth full of semi-raw fried potatoes and
dehydrated orange wheels, doesn't Mr. Appleseed come out of
nowhere
and plant a speck of a seed right smack dab in the centre of my
reptilian cortex, but I
pay no mind because Buddy has adored me for a whole five minutes until he rebounds
              harder
                        than an
                                    addict discharged
                                                    fr­om
                                                        forest-y­ methadone clinics
                                                        i­n downtown cores
                                                        pop­pin' Hilfiger blue collars
                                                        y­ackin' it on the phones to guys named D, or
                                                        D yackin' it to guys named Friendo, Jai, or
                                                        Little­ Tim,
                                                        buri­ed from ******* back too much hillbilly
                                                       ­ ******, while
                                                        col­lege girls sleep in their Sahara beds,
                                                        sav­ing up to buy bouncy trampolines with
                                                        boun­cy cheques,
                                                        ­listening to lullaby coos of pimps and ******
                                                        on­ the downstairs couch,
                                                        ga­zing fawn-eyed at cavediums next to
                                                        nobody cares muffins and syrup-y coffee
                                                        canyoudropmeoff?
                                             ­           outside of the seventh-story window of
                                                        million dollar saloons,
                                                        ­wearing blings and rings,
                                                        purchase­d by wealthy husbands and
                                                        travelin­g yuppies for their wives' veneer,
                                                        eating breakfast cereals that go
                                                        Snap! Crackle! Pop!
                                                        for three square meals,
                                                        re­furbishing plastic containers
                                                        on foot-stained broadloom,
                                                        with cage and cagey roommates,
                                                        throwing life rafts to bloated bodies in
                                                        Great Lakes
                                                        for the price of a debt,
                                                        recalling waffling road trips,
                                                        visiting one-man tents behind billowing
                                                        smokestacks;
                                                        I blew my brains out in an air duct,
                                                        lost my life lifting up heavy floor mattresses,
                                                        climbing out of basement windows,
                                                        while hitch hiking mothers sing karaoke
                                                        nursery rhymes by Janis Joplin,
                                                        20 notes off-key,
                                                        harboring skeletons in stairwells and rusted
                                                        out Grand Ams,
                                                        making friends in Tim Hortons after last call,
                                                        dressed in leprechaun fatigue,
                                                        driving like England at midnight,
                                                        I spoke to a faceless man,
                                                        whom I'll never get a chance to send a
                                                                ­               thank you
                                                       card...
                                                       as for me? I never touched the stuff

but I was too spent to care and was already floating on cheap Chardonnay and authentic vitamin D with my bindle stuffed to the brim so I thought I'd just American Beauty plastic bag my way through this one, cropped in floral, patio sunglasses, swirling and twirling on Ballet Boulevard until
An e.ch-o-y sound in my
left  ear
I turned my head,
slo-mo tracers flashed in warp speed,
        the testa bursts open.
..

I have come to a conclusion.

We are in an endless cycle.

We wake up and think about food.
We eat sugary cereals for breakfast
so we go to school or work thinking about food.

Afterschool, we watch food and beauty advertisements
that make us feel bad about ourselves,
so what do we do?
Shop for food and clothes to make us
"feel better" and to "fill the void."

After shopping, we get tired and watch television
where we, yet again, shovel even MORE food
into our lifeless pieholes.

We also don't want to cook anything,
so our meals consist of Campbell's soups, frozen pizzas and leftovers of whatever casserole is in the house.

Even after eating dinner, we are tempted to eat more,
so we have DESSERT!

Because of our constantly on-the-go lifestyle, half the time we are not even conscious of what we're eating.

Ironically, yet predictably, we go to sleep thinking about what we will have for breakfast the next day.

Yiska rests on her bed,
smoking a cigarette.

The sky is dull,
the room darkened.

She inhales,
watches the smoke,
she's just exhaled,
rise ceiling wards.

Her husband is out,
fishing, *******,
who knows, or cares.

She exhales again,
at times like this
she reflects
on her young days,
her schoolgirl years.

Naaman was a love
back then.

School crush thing
some thought.

But no,
more than that.

She inhales so deeply
that it seems
her whole body
is filled
with nicotine and smoke.

Naaman kissed good.

That time on the field.
Lips and tongue.

She exhales and smiles.

He'd be in his 30s now,
a year older than she.

She can still,
if she shuts her eyes at night,
see him as he was.

Even when her husband
is giving her a quickie,
she thinks on Naaman,
imagines it's him on top,
not her husband's sad efforts.

She inhales
and closes her eyes.

He is there
in her mind still.

Even on the day
she married,
she hoped Naaman
would show
and whisk her away
on the back
of a motorcycle,
her white dress
flapping in the wind,
she giving her groom
to be, an up you sign
of *******.

But he didn't show.

She knew he wouldn't;
she'd not seen
since he left school,
the year before she.

Moved away some place.

She exhales
and smiles out smoke.

When she goes shopping
in other towns,
she wonders
if she'll meet Naaman there,
bump into him
on an aisle,
next to cereals or cheeses.

She recalls that time
in the school between lessons,
seeing him,
and wanting him
to drag her into some room
and kiss her
and do things.

But he just smiled
and walked on
and into a classroom,
leaving her hot
and gagging for it
(a term some girls
used back then).

What if he had?
Some empty room
in the school?
That day would have been
burned into her memory
if he had.

As it was,
she walked on,
to her boring art class,
bubbling
with upset hormones.

She sighs,
opens her eyes,
and moans.

You met Janice
going to Baldly's groceries
to get a list of goods
for your mother

how goes it?
you asked
Gran tanned
my backside yesterday

for going
on the bomb site
when she had told me
not to

Janice said
sorry I got
you into trouble
you said

not your fault
I’m responsible
for my own actions
she said

I knew Gran
had told me
not to go
but I chose

to disobey
so paid the price
guess she's annoyed
with me too

you said
I didn't say
who was with me
she said

how did she find out ?
a neighbour saw me
and told her
I was on a bomb site

with other kids
and that was it
where you going?
you asked

got to buy
some cereals
for breakfast
she said
going to Baldly's groceries

but not to get any
with those
free toys inside
why's that?

Gran said it's a gimmick
how about going
to the cinema
this afternoon?

you asked
can't
she said
not allowed

after yesterday
she said
shame
you said

got a good western on
and the good guy
has two guns
and has a neat way

of going for his guns
which I want to copy
and practice
she looked sad

I'd liked to
she said
but maybe
another time

when I'm out
of the dog house
sorry
about the trouble

I've landed you in
you said
my fault
mea culpa

as they say
in mass
mea culpa ?
you said

it means my fault
in Latin
she said
I got my backside tanned

once for peeing
in my toy box
you said
she looked shocked

peed in your toy box?
yes I was trying
to impress a cousin
but he told on me

and that was it
I never told
on you yesterday
she said

thank you
you said
she kissed your cheek
best get on

with the shopping
she said
ok
you said

and so she went
in Baldy's with you
and did the shopping
and afterwards

you walked back
your separate ways
after a few words of farewell
and a wave of hands

hoping to see her
again sometime
after her punishment
for the petty crime.

(Fargo put the body of Bella in a mantle and took her on his shoulders. He left Chiara, Francesca, Rosa and Pedra ashore and went together with Geraldine, Maya, Carla, Erica and Naimah's son to find a village. The name of Naimah’s son was Surak.)

It looked like a long beach with a rocky shore and a hidden
Cove; they turned right walking along the sandy beach; at the far
End of the beach, they saw a galley, but it was forbidden
To follow the path leading to the shore, ''I'll ask where we are, '' ''

Said Fargo while looking through a telescope, ''What do you see? ''
''There's one man standing on the deck; he's the companion
Of that pirate following us and traveling free.''
''How do you know this? '' ''I worked for him in the devil's canyon.

The flag has a boom skull, '' ''Let's go, '' said Geraldine, ''The pirates
Are coming from this ship, '' said Fargo, ''I must set it on fire.''
While sneaking to that deck, he killed one by one the pilots
And the third sailor; he thought, ’’ Frederick is caught in a snare.’’


Fargo took the little treasure from that ship and those two maps
Showing the place from where the treasure had been taken
And the island where they intended to hide it; perhaps
It was a known place, which was visited and forsaken.


He did not set the ship on fire because he was afraid
That its flames could be seen by the pirates; he did not sink it
'Cause they could dive to the sea's bottom to find the treasure's shade.
To make them think that one of them betrayed was in a fit,


Fargo took one of their boats and returned to the shore.
Then, they continued to go while avoiding the main path.
They stopped walking to look at the seagulls starting to soar.
They entered an old olive grove shining in the daylight bath.


Following their narrow route to the right, they found a fragrant
Grove of tall eucalyptus trees; they saw the shepherds' trail,
Which was cobbled and flanked by stonewalls, '' Our life became vagrant, ''
Said Carla; Erica replied, '' my strength begins to fail.''


'' Look at these flowers of asphodel! They are beautiful, ''
Said Maya; Erica replied, '' these dark cypress trees are
An inviting resting place; '' you must be powerful, ''
Said Fargo, '' because to find a village, we have to go far.''


At the top end of this rocky land, they turned left to enter
A small, agricultural zone that was planted with
Cereals and having some plots of chickpeas in its center.
Some goats were drinking water from a reservoir, ''It's a myth, ''


Said Surak; they drank water together with the goats
And washed their faces; after crossing the road, the saw
The church tower of the village near the plots of oats.
They bought an old stone manor house when the night started to draw.

(Fargo went to find a priest for Bella’s funeral. He came back with a promise for the next day. They started to eat in silence.)

(To be continued…)

Poem by Marieta Maglas

my life is a million things or a million and one   look at this situation   words dribbling from my fingers like raindrops     I want to feast
on every piece
   you are willing to display   to roll out and reveal
     no matter how fragile
I feel my bones groan for you   but I all I have   are these syllables stationary   on a screen
the idea of something more   an improbability
we can share our language   and breakfast cereals   and our feet will rest
on the table   with the murmur of the TV     in the background   and oh my god   I am sprinting through a blizzard   as fast as I can   but I was never a good runner     my toes are almost numb   but I want want want   to experience it all
   ripples of reality   it has bypassed me
carved a pear-shaped
lump     out of me     I am ******* in string
I am oblivious   to kisses and loving   and intimacy
   the rush   the blinding delirium     I see everybody glisten   it seems so   but every person is ravaged        
   by a manic voice   flaws written high   and glowing
I try to explain   but my handwriting
indecipherable
   a blister-free   relationship   glorious silence   delicious shiver
of something like love   between us   over our shells     I am out of it   in a make-believe land
drag me to real life   and I’ll burn   like a slab of meat     before I trip
     into a lake of salty worries

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.
That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering,
along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."
–  Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
~

Remember
the golden age, Wally ***?
And the songs
my mother taught me?

We sang about what was.
Or might never be.

Like permanency.
Distinction comes
out of stiff and frozen silences.
Take it with
a spoonful of disdain.
Take it in the eye.
Actors are like breakfast cereals.
They're obvious
and according to taste.
I stopped needing them
long ago.

Beautiful
Tallulah.
Beautiful,
"less to this than
meets the eye"
Tallulah,
dismiss me,
that I may be free
to find Tennessee.

Open windows
and closing doors.
Always a breeze,
but never a way out.
Right on cue
the cards shuffle.

Butter and cotton *****,
tricks of the trade.
I mumble to be heard.
I am legend
to disciples
of the Method.

I wear my friends to bed,
burn them like newspaper.
They call me "Bud"
—cigarettes at dawn
after devouring the night.
And now my song ebbs,
as the stylus hits the leadout groove.

Tomorrow, I'll be better.
Today, I'm just me.

At five in the morning
you would hear her munching
scoffing down with milk and honey
she was a homicidal lip smacking queen

The eerie sounds
the moaning and groaning
it was enough to give you a chill
and your feet would curl by their own will

By the light of day
all the packets would be away
with not a trace of spilt milk
just honey dripping down the legs of the table

I'd ask her, have you been at the cereals again
no my love was the answer she would deliver
but she knew that I knew
she was a cereal killer


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

you know that I love you he lied through his redsauna face as the tv shouted the importance of cereals fortified with vitamins and minerals. Billy sat and watched his untied sneakers make snakes on the floor as the voices shook his feet.

no, really, the liar said turning towards him if you were gone i wouldnt know what to do.

Billy kicked a little and the snakes coiled and sprung.

youre all i have left. youre everything to me. i know that sometimes i ask too much of you, you look after yourself and you look after me too. you nurse me through the badtimes and its all because of the beer. you dont cry when i hit you even though you must be afraid.

Billy knew the shape of the beer stink mouth, ******* up with a memory of dead feelings, even tho he wasnt looking.

you put me to bed and clean up my mess and you look after yourself and you dont tell anyone. it's not fair for me to ask but you do it.

and he went on.

Billy thought of this so that he didnt have to look at his father, lying through his redsauna face, saying sorry for what he did, but not being it.