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Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter
Three years ago today Muhammad Bouazizi set himself on fire igniting the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia sparking the Arab Spring Uprisings of 2011.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
this is truly a welcome break from:
freeing all the drafts -
which i imagined to be equivalent, or rather:
the 2nd parallel of the original adjecent -

i imagined it would feel like:
releasing doves with laurel branches firmly
lodged in their beaks -
just as the waters of the flood would recede...

but it truly felt like:
the inversion of the diarrhoea-constipation
"paradox"... because it felt like both,
but never giving me a clue as to
what was more prominent -

the sharp edge of a knife -
or the horizon when the sky becomes
the sea far away....

i'm not ashamed to throw this onto the fore...
it happened to me once...
but on purpose...
i wanted to compensate marquis de sade's
antic in a brothel when he implored
the ******* to turn the crucifix into
a ***** into his decapitated precursor
of a mary antoinette... puppet...

profanity in images and all the other seances
of the senses...
i wouldn't go as far as to make the crucifix
profane... or do anything profane
with it...

only the words...
hic (est) mea corpus - hic (est) mea cruor...
this is my body - this is my blood...
and i am aware the mead is the gods' ****
when they're in a good mood - all... jolly...
and that beer is the gods' **** when
laughter hits a dry run...
and that ms. amber or whiskey is but:
the blood of the gods...

i had to corrupt it...
to prove to myself: that i am not a god...
it was quiet simple...
once upon a time i was drinking
a glass of wine...
and as you do... on a whim...
i decided to **** into it...
perhaps all that drinking prior would
give me something to elevate the palette
of exploration that was to come...

hmm... at least that sorts out
hic: mea cruor... *** urinae...
but back then i did that on purpose...
and if only this was a desert scenario...
and i would have to drink my own *****
to survive...
well... i just thought: here's to starving
from a lack of better imagery...

i will come unto some Horace in a minute...
i don't know how i managed to find
this citation - it's only very losely related...
and yes i will showcase another draft from
May of last year...

but today i was unsure...
did i leave yesterday's pepsi max bottle
with only the stale pepsi left...
or did i forget to do the lazy sly wee whizz
jumping out of bed in the middle of
the night...
but i already poured this "cocktail"
over two shots of whiskey...
and i'm hardly desperate but...
my original intention of alligning myself
to the profanity of the crucifix...
i had to somehow make profanity
of the wine...

since i am... thinking how to compensate
being satisfied with wine...
how the ancient world was always
satisfied with wine...
the story of the 3 ambers of the north...
the beer, the mead and the whiskey...
all in a varying degree...
but i will not bow before the blood of a god
that's so... diluted...
whiskey yes... that can be blood indeed...
otherwise it's down in the trench
with gods' **** - mead if they are in a good
mood... beer if they are in a talkative mood...

thank god i wasn't thinking:
better salvage those two shots of whiskey
and drink this cocktail of the "ultimate" surprise...
and apparently eating a woman's
placenta is good for you...
as was... apparently once... breastmilk...
funny... give me the milk of a cow or a goat
and i'll show you: one dislocated thumb...
one dislocated distal + intermediate phalange
from the index finger of the right hand's
proximal phalange... no broken bones...

knock-knock... who's there? touchwood superstition.

it's not as bad as it sounds...
stale, yes...
but i am also known for sometimes
performing the antithesis of drinking tequilla...
*****... i'll sprinkle some cigarette ash
onto my hand... lick it... take a shot of *****
then throw one or two black peppercorns into
my mouth for the crunch...
each drinker and his own myths... right?
i call that the black cracovite...
cracow being so close to aushwitz...
and once it snowed and they thought it was
snowing... sure... ash from the furnaces
of aushwitz... here's my ode to... the dead...
in a drink...

hell better a cracovite than a cracowite, white?
i mean: right? seriously: low hanging fruit,
the elephant's testicles...

i will never understand this whole veneration
of wine: in vino veritas...
these days wine is better drank by women
and castrated monarchs of the clergy...
i had to check... so i ****** in my holy grail...
and guess what didn't come out
the other end? gods' **** (beer and wine)
or gods' blood (whiskey and wine)...
just this stale, almost bland...
water with a pinch of grape that has been
left to sit in a puddle on some
industrial estate in dagenham enjoying
the ripe downpouring of chemicals
that leave it with a rainbow of diluted
petroleum...

akin to: try shoving that sort of doughnut
into this kind of pile of ****...
not that i would...
but i have also been prone to test
99.9% spirits... or 96% absinthe...
with a locust mummified in the bottle's neck...
from Amsterdam...

i had to rethink: why become engaged...
when chances are...
to the displeasure of someone who read:
but never bought my work...
the self-editorial process...
the self-publishing process could be...
guillotined on a whimsical constipation
of a "dear reader"...
as it might happen...

again... Horace and the perfect example
of poetry with conversational overtones...
poetry as prosaic...
my god... paper was expensive back in old
Horace's days... surely you would need
something spectacular to write:
like a psilocybin trip account word for word:
wrong!
a certain don juan said to a certain
carlos castaneda: don't bring back words from
such experiences...
but of course: they did...
upon once upon a time loving the beatniks...
i started to abhor them...
getting drunk and smoking "something"
is one thing... exposing the altars of solipsism
of such experiences: words intact...
is a profanity...
each dream is individually curated
to the dreamer... the introduction of words
to relate back... for some next be disciple...
the "drugs" / portals of escapism are already
contaminated...

why wouldn't i: even if these are only
objective recounts of an experience?
perhaps because... they are subjectivelly null...
there are only the comparable heights of Gideon...
such experiences are best: kept to each individual's
right to enjoy... a freedom of thought...
and of silence...
each keeps a secret...
but what secret is left?
when the objective parameters have already
been stated?
i see no point... better down and finding
it at the end of a bottle...
or... ******* into a glass of wine
and drinking it...

they have been contaminated by words that
have been retrieved from such experiences
that (a) no one should talk about...
(b) surprise! the objective reality already
being stated as altered...
am i going to a ******* cinema with my body...
or am i going to a surprise
gallery with my thought?
doesn't matter... word contamination...
bigmouth struck his final last time!
at least the remains is what gives me
the labyrinth... the blood the **** you name
it the three sisters amber... for all i care...
it's readily available: make do...
with what's already been given.

me? i drink for that very special date...
monday 9 march 2020...
when all the orthodox jews get drunk...
that's one of those celebrations i wouldn't mind
being a part of... purim, festival of Lots,
funny... that period of history...
the Persian aspect of the hebrews...
never made it to the big screen...
seeing modern day Iran as day-old Persia
in muslim garbs...
we're still only seeing the: African adventure...
perhaps once the dust has settled...
we will get the Persian installement...
and then... oh... **** it...
we're all in it for the long run...
then when christianity is no longer useful...
the Roman bit of history...
and how the hebrews conspired with the greeks...
2000 years later we'll probably see
some prince of egypt cartoon movie
of the pristine romance and a mention of germany...
not yet... ****'s still to ripe to entertain
the universal child and children...
no screen adaptation from "their" time in Persia...
songs... we have songs!
Verdi's Nabucco - the chorus...
perhaps only in song from Persia and always
with movies and hieroglyphs when from Egypt...

but the festivity... of course! i'll celebrate...
cf. though... Puccini's coro a bocca chiusa -
the humming chorus...
before the band enigma... i am pretty sure my mother
would crank up the volume to at least
one of these songs... should they come on the radio...
i'm still to hear christopher young's:
something to think about - to be on air...
and to also be treated as a piece of classical music...
if wojciech kilar's dracula soundtrack can be treated
as classical music... what's wrong with a little
bit of hellraiser?!

perhaps, "again" is this desecration of the sacred not,
simply hanging in the background,
all, the, ******, time?
who is to celebrate wine giving it a god's blood
status in sips? one is expected to somehow become
drunk on the passion!
no one is here for crumbs of sips!
first they came for the loaf of bread...
and said you should fast and eat only a crumb...
then they came for the bottle of wine...
and said you should abstain and drink only a sip...
then they came for *** and by then
vatican was a monaco with better tax protections...

it's an investement: having to **** into a glass
of wine you're about to drink...
worse... you accidently "forgot" about
******* into some left-over pepsi max
and you're making yourself a cocktail
with one of the graeae ambers - 2x -
and you wonder: is this the proper state
of carbonated water, stale?
but i'm hardly going to bash the crucifix...
i'm here for the words...

the... transfiguration of the wine into blood...
and i say of my gods:
and here is their **** - beer and mead...
and here's their blood: the three graeae ms. ambers...
see no: clearer? no... happier?

i will get onto ancient roman poetics
with its conversational overtones in a minute!
first we have to settle the sacraments!
the metaphors and the sacraments!
i have no ivar the boneless claim of god...
season 6? to be honest...
i'd rather watch an english soap opera...
at least the intricacy of the plot remains...
even though it has been recycled
so many times...

i can't **** out the gods' ***** even if it was
stale beer... or ideal mead...
as i can't leisure a Seneca's bath filled
with the blood of the immortals...
problem solved... "problem":
as if it ever was...

why, Horace? a very short rhetorical retort:
if Dante had his Virgil...
why can i have my Horace, as guide?
again... what Roman poet could venture for
ambitions among the myths -
or extend his "consciousness"
to devastate the land and become
the mad Xerxes wanting the waves
of a sea whipped into submission?
why, Horace? if Dante could have his Virgil...

poetry... at least among the roman poets
there's no boxed in a box "without" a "box"...
the conversational overtones are ripe...
the almost complete lack of
character dimensions... beside their dimensions
from anecdotes...

to difuse wine, to desecrate the hic mea cruor...
**** in it!
then drink it...
or have one of my antithesis of a tequilla surprise
with me...
smoke a cigarette... drop some ash on the lick-part
of the space between the thumb
and the index metacarpal... lick it...
follow it with a shot of *****...
then throw some black peppercorns
into the hades of your gob
and we've arrived at the black cracovite...

and also the day when the orthodox jews
recant their story of their time
in Persia... the festivity of Lots...
when they become blind drunk and pretend to
have the sort of alcohol intolerence as
the Japanese... 1 shot! just 1 shot:
and hey! they throw their kippahs in
the air and we can all dance the ukranian 'opak!

looks good to me!
but only looks good...
when there's this plump drunk playing the accordion:
i.e. me,
and there's the sort of adrew rieu directing
an upcoming crescendo of a poliushko polie...
and we can all leave the auditorium
feeling, less than russophobic...
and then i can be told...
you young to be old yet still
profane pan-siberian peasant root!
indo-european leftover!
well... at least then i have been allowed
the scrap i'm supposed to see
before i showcase my *****, frost riddled fangs!
of the lesser wolf that i am:
as a rabid dog!

since the crescendo will come...
what better fathom of it...
esp. just beside a cemetery... twirling to the music...
ear-plugs out seancing my time in a grand
orchestral hall... plucked from the ears...
the crescendo is coming...
but... plucked... the orchestra of buffalo-sized
snowflakes... and... the worst kind of ballet...
a male soloist... doing his crazy
ukranian folk... maestro! the music never ever
dies! even in the silence of the universe!
however micro- or macro- this theatre will take
form... the music remains playing: uninterrupted!

but the snow was there,
the "ballerina" was also there...
the night was there,
the music was there -
albeit no grand orchestral hall -
couldn't ask for a better canvas
than a cemetery -
and all the heart's content!
comparative "literature"
to love like a muslim...
or to love like a sparrow...
or to love with a grudge like a crow...
mind you; site note...
i have been many a pigeons attempt
fornication unabashed...
i've never seen two crows attempt it...
perhaps they do "it" in the night
and never in the open?

crows... pedantic priests of the kingdom...
and where the widower king
and the widow queen among the swans?
where i and you will have probably left them...
admiring a family of ducks...

as asked by the serpent of the swan...
you and me of the same birth in a Fabergé egg...
me with serpentine spine...
while you: with a crooked neck?
silly... it really is...
of a being.... that was once
a t-rex roar... now a pickled brain
in pickle jar... boasting about being...
pure spine and tingles and...
the better part of what... becomes the mammalian
hibernation...
hibernating "hibernating" upon the
impetus of digestion...
a serpent would ask a swan about
a crooked neck?

because what would a **** sapeins look toward,
as he is always prone to to look elsewhere?
if not to borrow the fixed, rigid ontology
of other animals?
i better from the birds, solely...
the swans and the crows...
perhaps the fox...
rarely something that has lent itself
to being curated by man's leash and grip...
collective the known herd...
otherwise the refined bonsai tigers...
perhaps the fish without a knowledge
of a tide or a wave...

i call a dog the noble friend,
the swan the sombre monogamist...
the crow the priest...
the furry spider one's own reflection
dealing with aracnophobia...
the snake the old "say-what?"
or that pickled spine with a brain
the worth of brine juices...
the extinguished remnant
of a dinosaur's toothache... or some
transcendental exploration
of the carpals of the wrist
extending into the length of a spine...

i'm not going to cry over this one...
skål!
i feel disinhibited from writing a memorandum!
slàinte!
gasoline to the peddle and... off... we, go!

i am bound to get this translaton right...
at some point of hinging-on... i.e. beginning with...
and most probably at the opposite end
of having to finish...
hence "open bracket"... prefix-
and -suffix allowance given the archeological
excavation began with:

-seu pila velox molliter austerum studio
fallente laborem, seu te discus agit, pete cedentem
aera disco: *** labor extuderit fastidia, siccus,
inanis sperne cibum vilem; nisi Hymettia mella
Falerno ne biberis diluta. foris est promus,
et atrum defendens piscis hiemat mare: *** sale
panis latrantem stomachum bene leniet. unde putas
aut qui partum? non in caro nidore voluptas summa,
sed in te ipso est. tu pulmentaria quaere
sudando: pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea
nec scarus aut poterit peregrina iuvare lagois.
vix tamen eripiam, posito pavone velis quin
hoc potius quam gallina tergere palatum,
corruptus vanis rerum, quia veneat auro
rara avis et picta pandat spectcula cauda:
tamquam ad rem attineat quidquam.
num vesceris ista, quam laudas, pluma?
cocto num adest honor idem?
carne tamen quamvis distat nil, hac magis illam
inparibus formis deceptum te petere esto:
unde datum sentis, lupus hic Tiberinus
an alto captus hiet? pontisne inter iactatus
an amnis ostia sub Tusci?
laudas, insane, trilibrem mullum,
in singula quem minuas pulmenta necesse est.
ducit te species, video: quo pertinet ergo proceros
odisse lupos? quia scilicet illis maiorem natura modum
dedit, his breve pondus: ieiunus raro stomachus volgaria
-temnit.

it's translated, isn't it? no
stefan gołębiewski or no 1980 warsaw...
is to know...

- nec meus hic sermo est, sed quae praecepit Ofellus:
these are not my words, this said the simpleton
Ofellus - neither of which of us is a laurel-leaf
adorned Orpheus...

that via a living "game": stoking up an appetite
with this entertainment the appetite increaes...
as does one health...

sorry... pagans... bloodthirty people...
trouble with the translation...
apparently the mud slinging
***** and bricks are nothing new...

or when you "minus" the disk,
litter the distance, head with the wind into
competition!
after hardships of the body is good and
the meal is simple -
(apparently all of this is still "connected",
scratch of the ol' 'ed and we're fine...
we're ******* sailing!)
Falern will not hurt "us"...
seasoned by honey from Hymettis,
before the entré. Safaz left,
the sea rumbles, the zephyr of fish it protects,
storm, fishing made unsafe;
stomach grumbles, bread with salt:
excuisite; you do not have any better! why?
taste does not reside in the scent of dishes,
but in your self alone.
toil merely increases appetite's presence.
he who over-eats, will not know the taste
of an oyster, nor a turbot, nor chickpeas,
the northern bird.
perceptions take the scalp of the mountain
above the actual taste of the dishes
(one might scalp... but never eat the scalp)...
you will not take a chicken onto a tooth,
when you are given a peacock,
you will trust your delusion:
a rare bird, worth its own weight of gold,
a most rarified tail, how it sparkles
with subtle hues!
as if the tail were to lead -
and there was no head to be found!
do you allow yourself to judge the hue
of the feathers as precursor for the adjecctive:
that's it's "also" tasty? the meat, of course?
the old - judge a book by its cover...
is the oven baked... also as delicious / beautiful?
chicken meat... or peacock meat?
almost without difference.
therefore: light... albeit...
although only vanity lures the peacock
(to be compared to a poultry)...
let's go further... i want to know: after what
do you recognise this, that a pike
with its gaping mouth was left:
from the sea... or from the Tiber fished?
somewhere among bridges... or from some
conrete estuary? idiot-kin of the surname whim...
you admire a three-pound mullet!
do you take size... for the gauge of all measure?
when you... cut the bell?
then why... why... with disgrace
do you demand in appreciation:
elongating pikes!
evidently nature: this greater gave the proper
measure... and with it: the lesser weight -
an empty stomach will rarely -
being fed a simple thing - despise -
what is...

an empty stomach - rarely despises -
simple matters.

how true... i was allowing myself the time
it would take to drink,
and translate into the vulgate...
but... from no better source...
and i am still to add to this one of my...
"freeing of the drafts"...

as promised...
"draft"...

- a most confiscated man -
no italics included...

.the original draft:

binges, worth the count
of a liter of whiskey
per night,
for a year, if not more...
become so...
so unspectular...

          the world either
screams, or yawns,
generally:
it exhaust a desire
to toss a coin,
agitate the vocab.,

a grand canyon
huddling
in the "depths" of
a glass of water...

baron science
comes with his rubric
of bore,
      and:
i find myself,
most idle:
while the world
orientates
itself in keeping
itself busy,
bothersome,
always the prime concern,

the ant-colony coup,
the:
i always find friends
in the orientations
of an empty glass,
but prior to:

i drink
before no altar,
no mirror,
no confidante...

     pure flesh revels itself
in a blank's worth
of prior to dictum's
  allowance of, a page...

bothersome
the knot of the pretentious
anti- in scold of
the passing fancy:
expression...

            poker charm
of a love's affair...

_

i sometimes entertain myself
with ancients proverbs,
one slavic proverb reads:
better a sparrow in your hand
than a dove on your roof...

what, could, possibly be,
the interpretation?
care for the small joys in
your possession,
than, for the peace of your household,
which is, on the roof,
but not in your hands...

if i were paid? would i be more
honest?
probably not...
        what i see, is what needs
to be seen...
  em... simple pleasures talk...
once upon a time,
donning long hair, implied
you were a mosher...
a metal-head...
    now? three days +,
long hair, and you're not a
grunge fanatic?
  trans-, etc.?

   a man of simple pleasures,
i know what long hair,
jealousy, associated with
putting it in a french braid,
does to a camel jockey ego...
ruins and ruins as far as the eyes
can see...
    he replicates...
he grows his hair long...
at the same time boasting about
haivng a premature beard...
then you grow a beard yourself...
you start fiddling with it...
****, ***** on my face...
and then...
the "question" of a girlfriend
flies out of the window...
i'm happy with a beard,
thank you, very much,
i don't, exactly want to wish upon
myself, a female, company...

*** protest all you want...
the *** differences between men
and women, to my sort of understanding,
are, unrepairable...
     they were, never,
bound, to being, repaired...
savvy?
            i take my route,
a woman took her route...
  we're even...
                
      since what can only frighten a freed
woman, beside a monarch,
a free man?
                   a man with...
a gamble...
         i am a man with a gamble...
i don't like being told what
to be, or what to think...
like any man,
and like any man:
i don't like being forced
ownership over a being:
that can share my sense of freedom...
so...
    i find myself,
thrilled with relief,
at now having to answer to
a woman's subjugation...
like a woman, and, i have learned
from women: i like being
my objective's self...
rather than a "self" made subject...

i like that: thank you...
i can start feedings the pigs and the peasant
the diatribe life, and lie,
of: there being an existential cricis,
a need to reproduce...
and i, and i am, being demeaning
in this, way, for a justified reason...

once the peasants attack you:
you attack, the peasants...
you demean them in the same way
they demeaned you...

once upon a time i thought:
greater good came from the number
of innocents being salvaged
than for the few great of grand bearing
being salvaged...
even if bound to an ill will:
an ill command,
of a will, predisposed to pretend
actions of the blind...
but now i see...

   the many: if beside fulfilling
their petty deeds,
having to stand outside of those,
petty deeds,
  have ambitions equivalent
to their emotions...
            akin to something worth,
pity, akin to something
worth: as little as a rat's heartbeat...
petty, primitive bull-*******...
and all the amount of sorrow,
or pity,
or mercy...
              that, these, ******* allow...
are worth the same response
Pontius Pilate gave...
       there isn't enough of water,
in this world,
to wash my hands, clean,
of these people...
   even if innocent blood plagues
them,
    not enough waters have run their
due course,
to... release me from the indentation
of memory upon my mind...
and i am plagued by an elephant's
memory...
        we've reached the conclusion
of: some people...
  just do not see an insult,
             past the insult's eloquence!

i am a most conflicted man,
i binge watched vikings
for a while now,
and right now, i'm ready for
an extraction of what i have learned...

believe me: i am not someone
who has the sort of ego-presence
to fate myself in the role
of the protagonist...
     i'm too pedantic to have to
market my body and deeds,
for the fates tio see,
and history to ascribe fame unto me...

even homer was off too war
with troy,
   and blessed he became...

because? time morphs,
the longer something is kept,
the more, "unreal" is becomes,
a fairy-tale...
esp. now, with the onslaught
of journalism...
two things in this world
are insomniac,
money never sleeps,
and, now, apparently,
journalism doesn't sleep either:
well, given its ******
bed-fellow of political liars...
why should it?

             Rolo... a semi-minor character...
but i feel his angst at the already
fervent dichotomy,
(dichotomy, modern variety variant
of schizoid-affective...
or bilingual in turn)...

            music...
                    all these modły...
gesticulations of prayer,
phantom conjuring,
               lunatics with candles
at high-noon...
                  i am fated by music,
i am perverted by music,
i am swayed by music...
who is the god, patron,
of music?
who is the angel (demi-god),
patron of music?
         i do not seek the highest
influencer...
the minor one...

   when Archangel Sandalphon
met St. Cecilia...
but as such, i am, conflicted...
even though, this is the first time
i have heard of Sandalphon...

Rome, never reached my peoples,
the Vikings did...
   weren't the ugly vikings the founders
of Kiev?
  so they must have passed via
the Polen (field) land, no?

feelings are not important,
facts don't care about your feelings...
granted...
but i'm not hear for facts,
contra, feelings,
i'm here for the rivers...
what i feel, what my heart yearns for,
needs to attain an equilibrium
with my mind...
for that: i need to clarify my feelings,
to hush my heart, silence it,
in order to listen to my mind,
and the mind, needs to feed into
heaving the heart: to do,
what, the heart, desires,
autonomous to what the heart
"thinks", is right...
                    that's how it was forver
going to work...
consolidated...
and yes, i much envy the punctuation
of king Ecgberht,
a man of cunning: much admired...
abstract thinker...
        and a reality...
        pun-ctu-a-tion...
the delivery of one's speech...
   much admired, as much as...
                the crude brawl possession...
the chief protagonist of the story?
as important as is: the required from
Atlas... burden upon burden...
a man burdened with the illusion
of freedom...

so why am i conflicted,
but becoming less and less so?
    it was always the music...

songs...

           chavelier, mult estes guariz...
wardruna - helvegen...
           da pacem domine...
             agni parthene...

you know... there's much more beside
being a jazz enthusiast or
a classical music snob...
         there's folk... there's religious and pagan
chants...
if there's one thing to benefit from,
in terms of the Byzantine context...
the chants...
        let the barbarians do the thinking
from now on: you do the sing-along...
no people ever reinvented themselves
from an ancient glory...
   new blood had to come to the fore...

like today...
       i spoke with my father and my mother...
about the names of apples...
we must have talked for an hour,
we named so many lost "breeds" of apple...
nouns i will not write,
nouns i wish death to write down,
i want Samael to have,
beside the book of my deeds in hand,
i want him to have
my dictionary in hand,
my knowledge of the sacred script,
i want to listen as he recites me the words
i've used,
notably today's conversation
            about the many types of apples...
e.g.: shogun apples...
             kox...
                    szare renety...
          papierówki...
                    marabella prunes...
that's all i ask of Samil.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2020
.and i wrote this... back in January of... perhaps this year... a disclaimer: bones and prose... to have reached a traction of nearing 1.4K readers elsewhere: i don't expect the same numbers here... of that i am imploring... but i want to remember something: i probably misjudged celebrating the worth of Dickens' Pickwick Papers... the moment i heard it was... an imitation of Don Quixote - it was fun to read... before i was reading the papers via the gresham publishing company edition from... oh the 19th century... that's before the book started falling apart from actually being re(a)d: no matter the decency of binding... flimsy papyrus in the end... good enough to look at when stacked on a shelf and an artifact for the eyes... so i decided to finish reading the papers... 2nd hand penguin modern... as ever... why do they write these synopsis spoilers... even a mere allusion to: 'the pickwick papers are the english don quixote'... you know... when reading this book without a synopsis-of-allusion... i very much enjoyed it... but since i have re(a)d Don Quixote... and... frankly... the ballet by the royal opera house was par excellence... now i don't feel so inclined as to be motivated enough to celebrate Dickens anymore... notably to boot there was that essay by Milan Kundera.... as any continental european: not much of english literary adventures is given much thought: it appeal to the everyman but... that's my problem too... Shakespeare is great... when recited... not when read... you require good acting to appreciate shakespeare... a stand-alone dynamic of me: reader of Shakespeare? it's not a selling point... it doesn't feel right! shakespeare? isn't that a household noun akin to chair... hammer... why would it need a capital S(igma): to focus on... what... exactly? shakespeare, hammer, nail, towel... fridge-freezer... fork... muhammad ibn abdullah ibn abd al-muttalib... hey-zeus ben josephus... flour... cheese... i was going to enjoy the pickwick papers to the end but then the disclaimer that it's an imitation don quixote tale... and suddenly the fire - of eagerness... became a stalemate of cinders and stealthy coals... no, clearly the milan kundera essay didn't help either: who would want to reread don quixote: i know some people do reread books... i don't understand my grandmother in that respect... or... i remember when it school we were governed by repetitions of rubric... i hope: prose is where allowances for voyeurism / exhibitionism come to the fore... third party details summoned... that sort of "thing"... but of course i wanted something original to come to the fore... a proverb... it might be persian but it might be absolutely original from circa the baltic region: in between all that's west and russia... a corridor of peoples and nations that... given the greenwich mean time would have to incorporate Greece... and most probably Egypt... and Israel... it reads: all in capital to escape this myopia claustrophobia fudge of paragraph: BETTER A SPARROW IN YOUR HAND, THAN A DOVE UPON YOUR ROOF... years later a proverb would have to be disguised in cosmopolitan spreschen by some "****" of a bachelor... with his 'categorical imperative'... ah... a proverb isn't... that? i like the nuances of proverbs... blindly walking to metaphors... or not expecting a rigidity of life dictated by the already creasing formality language tools: dear sir, yours faithfully vs. yours sincerely... ms. vrs. mrs. informally email: hello! ****-wit! rather than... penned to paper and carrier pigeon bound... stamp! stamp! lick! dear... besides... as you get older and drinking is still a quenching of "thirst" you allude to nicknames for certain spirits: ***** becomes a headache of pravda (truth) while whiskey becomes ms. amber... beer is notoriously gods' ****... along with cider and mead... etc. what is a black cracovite... oh... you know... just an alternative to a tequila shot i invented hearing the story about... once upon a time in cracow... it was snowing... it was snowing a soot-esque sort of snow... the lonely chimney of aushwitz... wa puffing up in all its glory... in english it can translate to: well... what haven't i to thank for... or the jews... to thank for... that these lands are the remains of... at least children might be inclined to play games at the foundation of pyramids... we sure as hell did... near Ypres... in world war I trenches... i can't imagine what games children might invent in these... teutonic strongholds of totenkopfschwatzen... i would gladly send each brick by brick to the rightful owners of these camps: 1000 years from now it might be disguided that... under the auspicious rule of king Casimir's ghost these were "our" original intent... it ruins the land but preserves the memory of a people more invested in a newly established state of the Levant... yes... i need to figure out the paragraph: i need to revisit it more often: this slender-manning of a verse esque casccade doesn't aid me: i need to replica congestion and myopia and all that's cosmopolitan "nice"... what is a black cracovite... for years i wanted to land in the old capital when visit my grandparents... warsaw was always too far removed... like london already is... back toward glorifying Cracow and some elder supreme of the Piast dynasty... that this is written in english and not in native... well... it shouldn't have been written by an englishman with all his darwinistic / anglican / atheistic / rational / ayn rand borrowed sensibilities... a black cracovite as far as i can tell is... a spin on a tequila short... one requires smoking a cigarette... the ash is deposited on a licked space between the thumb and index finger... the ash is licked... a shot of ***** is made ready... what replaces the bite of a lemon is a grit of black pepper... yes... i have to invest in a paragraph more: for all its congestive phalanx remedies: i posit this the most redeeming: remedying... closure... it's far removed from airing out grievances when words cascade... now i should have concerns for contending... imitations... cheap-sell-offs of these words... outlandishly left to the open cringe of... simply-leash: i'll probably trail off on a ***-note, a falsetto... absolutely necessary... one cannot feed too many expectations without feeding those necessarily in pursuit of sustenance... be gone! countess bathory-veneer!

this is truly a welcome break from:

freeing all the drafts -
which i imagined to be equivalent, or rather:
the 2nd parallel of the original adjecent -

i imagined it would feel like:
releasing doves with laurel branches firmly
lodged in their beaks -
just as the waters of the flood would recede...

but it truly felt like:
the inversion of the diarrhoea-constipation
"paradox"... because it felt like both,
but never giving me a clue as to
what was more prominent -

the sharp edge of a knife -
or the horizon when the sky becomes
the sea far away....

i'm not ashamed to throw this onto the fore...
it happened to me once...
but on purpose...
i wanted to compensate marquis de sade's
antic in a brothel when he implored
the ******* to turn the crucifix into
a ***** into his decapitated precursor
of a mary antoinette... puppet...

profanity in images and all the other seances
of the senses...
i wouldn't go as far as to make the crucifix
profane... or do anything profane
with it...

only the words...
hic (est) mea corpus - hic (est) mea cruor...
this is my body - this is my blood...
and i am aware the mead is the gods' ****
when they're in a good mood - all... jolly...
and that beer is the gods' **** when
laughter hits a dry run...
and that ms. amber or whiskey is but:
the blood of the gods...

i had to corrupt it...
to prove to myself: that i am not a god...
it was quiet simple...
once upon a time i was drinking
a glass of wine...
and as you do... on a whim...
i decided to **** into it...
perhaps all that drinking prior would
give me something to elevate the palette
of exploration that was to come...

hmm... at least that sorts out
hic: mea cruor... *** urinae...
but back then i did that on purpose...
and if only this was a desert scenario...
and i would have to drink my own *****
to survive...
well... i just thought: here's to starving
from a lack of better imagery...

i will come unto some Horace in a minute...
i don't know how i managed to find
this citation - it's only very losely related...
and yes i will showcase another draft from
May of last year...

but today i was unsure...
did i leave yesterday's pepsi max bottle
with only the stale pepsi left...
or did i forget to do the lazy sly wee whizz
jumping out of bed in the middle of
the night...
but i already poured this "cocktail"
over two shots of whiskey...
and i'm hardly desperate but...
my original intention of alligning myself
to the profanity of the crucifix...
i had to somehow make profanity
of the wine...

since i am... thinking how to compensate
being satisfied with wine...
how the ancient world was always
satisfied with wine...
the story of the 3 ambers of the north...
the beer, the mead and the whiskey...
all in a varying degree...
but i will not bow before the blood of a god
that's so... diluted...
whiskey yes... that can be blood indeed...
otherwise it's down in the trench
with gods' **** - mead if they are in a good
mood... beer if they are in a talkative mood...

thank god i wasn't thinking:
better salvage those two shots of whiskey
and drink this cocktail of the "ultimate" surprise...
and apparently eating a woman's
placenta is good for you...
as was... apparently once... breastmilk...
funny... give me the milk of a cow or a goat
and i'll show you: one dislocated thumb...
one dislocated distal + intermediate phalange
from the index finger of the right hand's
proximal phalange... no broken bones...

knock-knock... who's there? touchwood superstition.

it's not as bad as it sounds...
stale, yes...
but i am also known for sometimes
performing the antithesis of drinking tequilla...
*****... i'll sprinkle some cigarette ash
onto my hand... lick it... take a shot of *****
then throw one or two black peppercorns into
my mouth for the crunch...
each drinker and his own myths... right?
i call that the black cracovite...
cracow being so close to aushwitz...
and once it snowed and they thought it was
snowing... sure... ash from the furnaces
of aushwitz... here's my ode to... the dead...
in a drink...

hell better a cracovite than a cracowite, white?
i mean: right? seriously: low hanging fruit,
the elephant's testicles...

i will never understand this whole veneration
of wine: in vino veritas...
these days wine is better drank by women
and castrated monarchs of the clergy...
i had to check... so i ****** in my holy grail...
and guess what didn't come out
the other end? gods' **** (beer and wine)
or gods' blood (whiskey and wine)...
just this stale, almost bland...
water with a pinch of grape that has been
left to sit in a puddle on some
industrial estate in dagenham enjoying
the ripe downpouring of chemicals
that leave it with a rainbow of diluted
petroleum...

akin to: try shoving that sort of doughnut
into this kind of pile of ****...
not that i would...
but i have also been prone to test
99.9% spirits... or 96% absinthe...
with a locust mummified in the bottle's neck...
from Amsterdam...

i had to rethink: why become engaged...
when chances are...
to the displeasure of someone who read:
but never bought my work...
the self-editorial process...
the self-publishing process could be...
guillotined on a whimsical constipation
of a "dear reader"...
as it might happen...

again... Horace and the perfect example
of poetry with conversational overtones...
poetry as prosaic...
my god... paper was expensive back in old
Horace's days... surely you would need
something spectacular to write:
like a psilocybin trip account word for word:
wrong!
a certain don juan said to a certain
carlos castaneda: don't bring back words from
such experiences...
but of course: they did...
upon once upon a time loving the beatniks...
i started to abhor them...
getting drunk and smoking "something"
is one thing... exposing the altars of solipsism
of such experiences: words intact...
is a profanity...
each dream is individually curated
to the dreamer... the introduction of words
to relate back... for some next be disciple...
the "drugs" / portals of escapism are already
contaminated...

why wouldn't i: even if these are only
objective recounts of an experience?
perhaps because... they are subjectivelly null...
there are only the comparable heights of Gideon...
such experiences are best: kept to each individual's
right to enjoy... a freedom of thought...
and of silence...
each keeps a secret...
but what secret is left?
when the objective parameters have already
been stated?
i see no point... better down and finding
it at the end of a bottle...
or... ******* into a glass of wine
and drinking it...

they have been contaminated by words that
have been retrieved from such experiences
that (a) no one should talk about...
(b) surprise! the objective reality already
being stated as altered...
am i going to a ******* cinema with my body...
or am i going to a surprise
gallery with my thought?
doesn't matter... word contamination...
bigmouth struck his final last time!
at least the remains is what gives me
the labyrinth... the blood the **** you name
it the three sisters amber... for all i care...
it's readily available: make do...
with what's already been given.

me? i drink for that very special date...
monday 9 march 2020...
when all the orthodox jews get drunk...
that's one of those celebrations i wouldn't mind
being a part of... purim, festival of Lots,
funny... that period of history...
the Persian aspect of the hebrews...
never made it to the big screen...
seeing modern day Iran as day-old Persia
in muslim garbs...
we're still only seeing the: African adventure...
perhaps once the dust has settled...
we will get the Persian installement...
and then... oh... **** it...
we're all in it for the long run...
then when christianity is no longer useful...
the Roman bit of history...
and how the hebrews conspired with the greeks...
2000 years later we'll probably see
some prince of egypt cartoon movie
of the pristine romance and a mention of germany...
not yet... ****'s still to ripe to entertain
the universal child and children...
no screen adaptation from "their" time in Persia...
songs... we have songs!
Verdi's Nabucco - the chorus...
perhaps only in song from Persia and always
with movies and hieroglyphs when from Egypt...

but the festivity... of course! i'll celebrate...
cf. though... Puccini's coro a bocca chiusa -
the humming chorus...
before the band enigma... i am pretty sure my mother
would crank up the volume to at least
one of these songs... should they come on the radio...
i'm still to hear christopher young's:
something to think about - to be on air...
and to also be treated as a piece of classical music...
if wojciech kilar's dracula soundtrack can be treated
as classical music... what's wrong with a little
bit of hellraiser?!

perhaps, "again" is this desecration of the sacred not,
simply hanging in the background,
all, the, ******, time?
who is to celebrate wine giving it a god's blood
status in sips? one is expected to somehow become
drunk on the passion!
no one is here for crumbs of sips!
first they came for the loaf of bread...
and said you should fast and eat only a crumb...
then they came for the bottle of wine...
and said you should abstain and drink only a sip...
then they came for *** and by then
vatican was a monaco with better tax protections...

it's an investement: having to **** into a glass
of wine you're about to drink...
worse... you accidently "forgot" about
******* into some left-over pepsi max
and you're making yourself a cocktail
with one of the graeae ambers - 2x -
and you wonder: is this the proper state
of carbonated water, stale?
but i'm hardly going to bash the crucifix...
i'm here for the words...

the... transfiguration of the wine into blood...
and i say of my gods:
and here is their **** - beer and mead...
and here's their blood: the three graeae ms. ambers...
see no: clearer? no... happier?

i will get onto ancient roman poetics
with its conversational overtones in a minute!
first we have to settle the sacraments!
the metaphors and the sacraments!
i have no ivar the boneless claim of god...
season 6? to be honest...
i'd rather watch an english soap opera...
at least the intricacy of the plot remains...
even though it has been recycled
so many times...

i can't **** out the gods' ***** even if it was
stale beer... or ideal mead...
as i can't leisure a Seneca's bath filled
with the blood of the immortals...
problem solved... "problem":
as if it ever was...

why, Horace? a very short rhetorical retort:
if Dante had his Virgil...
why can i have my Horace, as guide?
again... what Roman poet could venture for
ambitions among the myths -
or extend his "consciousness"
to devastate the land and become
the mad Xerxes wanting the waves
of a sea whipped into submission?
why, Horace? if Dante could have his Virgil...

poetry... at least among the roman poets
there's no boxed in a box "without" a "box"...
the conversational overtones are ripe...
the almost complete lack of
character dimensions... beside their dimensions
from anecdotes...

to difuse wine, to desecrate the hic mea cruor...
**** in it!
then drink it...
or have one of my antithesis of a tequilla surprise
with me...
smoke a cigarette... drop some ash on the lick-part
of the space between the thumb
and the index metacarpal... lick it...
follow it with a shot of *****...
then throw some black peppercorns
into the hades of your gob
and we've arrived at the black cracovite...

and also the day when the orthodox jews
recant their story of their time
in Persia... the festivity of Lots...
when they become blind drunk and pretend to
have the sort of alcohol intolerence as
the Japanese... 1 shot! just 1 shot:
and hey! they throw their kippahs in
the air and we can all dance the ukranian 'opak!

looks good to me!
but only looks good...
when there's this plump drunk playing the accordion:
i.e. me,
and there's the sort of adrew rieu directing
an upcoming crescendo of a poliushko polie...
and we can all leave the auditorium
feeling, less than russophobic...
and then i can be told...
you young to be old yet still
profane pan-siberian peasant root!
indo-european leftover!
well... at least then i have been allowed
the scrap i'm supposed to see
before i showcase my *****, frost riddled fangs!
of the lesser wolf that i am:
as a rabid dog!

since the crescendo will come...
what better fathom of it...
esp. just beside a cemetery... twirling to the music...
ear-plugs out seancing my time in a grand
orchestral hall... plucked from the ears...
the crescendo is coming...
but... plucked... the orchestra of buffalo-sized
snowflakes... and... the worst kind of ballet...
a male soloist... doing his crazy
ukranian folk... maestro! the music never ever
dies! even in the silence of the universe!
however micro- or macro- this theatre will take
form... the music remains playing: uninterrupted!

but the snow was there,
the "ballerina" was also there...
the night was there,
the music was there -
albeit no grand orchestral hall -
couldn't ask for a better canvas
than a cemetery -
and all the heart's content!
comparative "literature"
to love like a muslim...
or to love like a sparrow...
or to love with a grudge like a crow...
mind you; site note...
i have been many a pigeons attempt
fornication unabashed...
i've never seen two crows attempt it...
perhaps they do "it" in the night
and never in the open?

crows... pedantic priests of the kingdom...
and where the widower king
and the widow queen among the swans?
where i and you will have probably left them...
admiring a family of ducks...

as asked by the serpent of the swan...
you and me of the same birth in a Fabergé egg...
me with serpentine spine...
while you: with a crooked neck?
silly... it really is...
of a being.... that was once
a t-rex roar... now a pickled brain
in pickle jar... boasting about being...
pure spine and tingles and...
the better part of what... becomes the mammalian
hibernation...
hibernating "hibernating" upon the
impetus of digestion...
a serpent would ask a swan about
a crooked neck?

because what would a **** sapeins look toward,
as he is always prone to to look elsewhere?
if not to borrow the fixed, rigid ontology
of other animals?
i better from the birds, solely...
the swans and the crows...
perhaps the fox...
rarely something that has lent itself
to being curated by man's leash and grip...
collective the known herd...
otherwise the refined bonsai tigers...
perhaps the fish without a knowledge
of a tide or a wave...

i call a dog the noble friend,
the swan the sombre monogamist...
the crow the priest...
the furry spider one's own reflection
dealing with aracnophobia...
the snake the old "say-what?"
or that pickled spine with a brain
the worth of brine juices...
the extinguished remnant
of a dinosaur's toothache... or some
transcendental exploration
of the carpals of the wrist
extending into the length of a spine...

i'm not going to cry over this one...
skål!
i feel disinhibited from writing a memorandum!
slàinte!
gasoline to the peddle and... off... we, go!

i am bound to get this translaton right...
at some point of hinging-on... i.e. beginning with...
and most probably at the opposite end
of having to finish...
hence "open bracket"... prefix-
and -suffix allowance given the archeological
excavation began with:

-seu pila velox molliter austerum studio
fallente laborem, seu te discus agit, pete cedentem
aera disco: *** labor extuderit fastidia, siccus,
inanis sperne cibum vilem; nisi Hymettia mella
Falerno ne biberis diluta. foris est promus,
et atrum defendens piscis hiemat mare: *** sale
panis latrantem stomachum bene leniet. unde putas
aut qui partum? non in caro nidore voluptas summa,
sed in te ipso est. tu pulmentaria quaere
sudando: pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea
nec scarus aut poterit peregrina iuvare lagois.
vix tamen eripiam, posito pavone velis quin
hoc potius quam gallina tergere palatum,
corruptus vanis rerum, quia veneat auro
rara avis et picta pandat spectcula cauda:
tamquam ad rem attineat quidquam.
num vesceris ista, quam laudas, pluma?
cocto num adest honor idem?
carne tamen quamvis distat nil, hac magis illam
inparibus formis deceptum te petere esto:
unde datum sentis, lupus hic Tiberinus
an alto captus hiet? pontisne inter iactatus
an amnis ostia sub Tusci?
laudas, insane, trilibrem mullum,
in singula quem minuas pulmenta necesse est.
ducit te species, video: quo pertinet ergo proceros
odisse lupos? quia scilicet illis maiorem natura modum
dedit, his breve pondus: ieiunus raro stomachus volgaria
-temnit.

it's translated, isn't it? no
stefan gołębiewski or no 1980 warsaw...
is to know...

- nec meus hic sermo est, sed quae praecepit Ofellus:
these are not my words, this said the simpleton
Ofellus - neither of which of us is a laurel-leaf
adorned Orpheus...

that via a living "game": stoking up an appetite
with this entertainment the appetite increaes...
as does one health...

sorry... pagans... bloodthirty people...
trouble with the translation...
apparently the mud slinging
***** and bricks are nothing new...

or when you "minus" the disk,
litter the distance, head with the wind into
competition!
after hardships of the body is good and
the meal is simple -
(apparently all of this is still "connected",
scratch of the ol' 'ed and we're fine...
we're ******* sailing!)
Falern will not hurt "us"...
seasoned by honey from Hymettis,
before the entré. Safaz left,
the sea rumbles, the zephyr of fish it protects,
storm, fishing made unsafe;
stomach grumbles, bread with salt:
excuisite; you do not have any better! why?
taste does not reside in the scent of dishes,
but in your self alone.
toil merely increases appetite's presence.
he who over-eats, will not know the taste
of an oyster, nor a turbot, nor chickpeas,
the northern bird.
perceptions take the scalp of the mountain
above the actual taste of the dishes
(one might scalp... but never eat the scalp)...
you will not take a chicken onto a tooth,
when you are given a peacock,
you will trust your delusion:
a rare bird, worth its own weight of gold,
a most rarified tail, how it sparkles
with subtle hues!
as if the tail were to lead -
and there was no head to be found!
do you allow yourself to judge the hue
of the feathers as precursor for the adjecctive:
that's it's "also" tasty? the meat, of course?
the old - judge a book by its cover...
is the oven baked... also as delicious / beautiful?
chicken meat... or peacock meat?
almost without difference.
therefore: light... albeit...
although only vanity lures the peacock
(to be compared to a poultry)...
let's go further... i want to know: after what
do you recognise this, that a pike
with its gaping mouth was left:
from the sea... or from the Tiber fished?
somewhere among bridges... or from some
conrete estuary? idiot-kin of the surname whim...
you admire a three-pound mullet!
do you take size... for the gauge of all measure?
when you... cut the bell?
then why... why... with disgrace
do you demand in appreciation:
elongating pikes!
evidently nature: this greater gave the proper
measure... and with it: the lesser weight -
an empty stomach will rarely -
being fed a simple thing - despise -
what is...

an empty stomach - rarely despises -
simple matters.

how true... i was allowing myself the time
it would take to drink,
and translate into the vulgate...
but... from no better source...
and i am still to add to this one of my...
"freeing of the drafts"...

as promised...
"draft"...

- a most confiscated man -
no italics included...

.the original draft:

binges, worth the count
of a liter of whiskey
per night,
for a year, if not more...
become so...
so unspectular...

          the world either
screams, or yawns,
generally:
it exhaust a desire
to toss a coin,
agitate the vocab.,

a grand canyon
huddling
in the "depths" of
a glass of water...

baron science
comes with his rubric
of bore,
      and:
i find myself,
most idle:
while the world
orientates
itself in keeping
itself busy,
bothersome,
always the prime concern,

the ant-colony coup,
the:
i always find friends
in the orientations
of an empty glass,
but prior to:

i drink
before no altar,
no mirror,
no confidante...

    pure flesh revels itself
in a blank's worth
of prior to dictum's
  allowance of, a page...

bothersome
the knot of the pretentious
anti- in scold of
the passing fancy:
expression...

            poker charm
of a love's affair...

_

i sometimes entertain myself
with ancients proverbs,
one slavic proverb reads:
better a sparrow in your hand
than a dove on your roof...

what, could, possibly be,
the interpretation?
care for the small joys in
your possession,
than, for the peace of your household,
which is, on the roof,
but not in your hands...

if i were paid? would i be more
honest?
probably not...
        what i see, is what needs
to be seen...
  em... simple pleasures talk...
once upon a time,
donning long hair, implied
you were a mosher...
a metal-head...
    now? three days +,
long hair, and you're not a
grunge fanatic?
  trans-, etc.?

  a man of simple pleasures,
i know what long hair,
jealousy, associated with
putting it in a french braid,
does to a camel jockey ego...
ruins and ruins as far as the eyes
can see...
    he replicates...
he grows his hair long...
at the same time boasting about
haivng a premature beard...
then you grow a beard yourself...
you start fiddling with it...
****, ***** on my face...
and then...
the "question" of a girlfriend
flies out of the window...
i'm happy with a beard,
thank you, very much,
i don't, exactly want to wish upon
myself, a female, company...

*** protest all you want...
the *** differences between men
and women, to my sort of understanding,
are, unrepairable...
    they were, never,
bound, to being, repaired...
savvy?
            i take my route,
a woman took her route...
  we're even...
              
      since what can only frighten a freed
woman, beside a monarch,
a free man?
                  a man with...
a gamble...
        i am a man with a gamble...
i don't like being told what
to be, or what to think...
like any man,
and like any man:
i don't like being forced
ownership over a being:
that can share my sense of freedom...
so...
    i find myself,
thrilled with relief,
at now having to answer to
a woman's subjugation...
like a woman, and, i have learned
from women: i like being
my objective's self...
rather than a "self" made subject...

i like that: thank you...
i can start feedings the pigs and the peasant
the diatribe life, and lie,
of: there being an existential cricis,
a need to reproduce...
and i, and i am, being demeaning
in this, way, for a justified reason...

once the peasants attack you:
you attack, the peasants...
you demean them in the same way
they demeaned you...

once upon a time i thought:
greater good came from the number
of innocents being salvaged
than for the few great of grand bearing
being salvaged...
even if bound to an ill will:
an ill command,
of a will, predisposed to pretend
actions of the blind...
but now i see...

  the many: if beside fulfilling
their petty deeds,
having to stand outside of those,
petty deeds,
  have ambitions equivalent
to their emotions...
            akin to something worth,
pity, akin to something
worth: as little as a rat's heartbeat...
petty, primitive bull-*******...
and all the amount of sorrow,
or pity,
or mercy...
              that, these, ******* allow...
are worth the same response
Pontius Pilate gave...
      there isn't enough of water,
in this world,
to wash my hands, clean,
of these people...
  even if innocent blood plagues
them,
    not enough waters have run their
due course,
to... release me from the indentation
of memory upon my mind...
and i am plagued by an elephant's
memory...
        we've reached the conclusion
of: some people...
  just do not see an insult,
            past the insult's eloquence!

i am a most conflicted man,
i binge watched vikings
for a while now,
and right now, i'm ready for
an extraction of what i have learned...

believe me: i am not someone
who has the sort of ego-presence
to fate myself in the role
of the protagonist...
    i'm too pedantic to have to
market my body and deeds,
for the fates tio see,
and history to ascribe fame unto me...

even homer was off too war
with troy,
  and blessed he became...

because? time morphs,
the longer something is kept,
the more, "unreal" is becomes,
a fairy-tale...
esp. now, with the onslaught
of journalism...
two things in this world
are insomniac,
money never sleeps,
and, now, apparently,
journalism doesn't sleep either:
well, given its ******
bed-fellow of political liars...
why should it?

            Rolo... a semi-minor character...
but i feel his angst at the already
fervent dichotomy,
(dichotomy, modern variety variant
of schizoid-affective...
or bilingual in turn)...

            music...
                    all these modły...
gesticulations of prayer,
phantom conjuring,
              lunatics with candles
at high-noon...
                  i am fated by music,
i am perverted by music,
i am swayed by music...
who is the god, patron,
of music?
who is the angel (demi-god),
patron of music?
        i do not seek the highest
influencer...
the minor one...

  when Archangel Sandalphon
met St. Cecilia...
but as such, i am, conflicted...
even though, this is the first time
i have heard of Sandalphon...

Rome, never reached my peoples,
the Vikings did...
  weren't the ugly vikings the founders
of Kiev?
  so they must have passed via
the Polen (field) land, no?

feelings are not important,
facts don't care about your feelings...
granted...
but i'm not hear for facts,
contra, feelings,
i'm here for the rivers...
what i feel, what my heart yearns for,
needs to attain an equilibrium
with my mind...
for that: i need to clarify my feelings,
to hush my heart, silence it,
in order to listen to my mind,
and the mind, needs to feed into
heaving the heart: to do,
what, the heart, desires,
autonomous to what the heart
"thinks", is right...
                    that's how it was forver
going to work...
consolidated...
and yes, i much envy the punctuation
of king Ecgberht,
a man of cunning: much admired...
abstract thinker...
        and a reality...
        pun-ctu-a-tion...
the delivery of one's speech...
  much admired, as much as...
                the crude brawl possession...
the chief protagonist of the story?
as important as is: the required from
Atlas... burden upon burden...
a man burdened with the illusion
of freedom...

so why am i conflicted,
but becoming less and less so?
    it was always the music...

songs...

          chavelier, mult estes guariz...
wardruna - helvegen...
          da pacem domine...
            agni parthene...

you know... there's much more beside
being a jazz enthusiast or
a classical music snob...
        there's folk... there's religious and pagan
chants...
if there's one thing to benefit from,
in terms of the Byzantine context...
the chants...
        let the barbarians do the thinking
from now on: you do the sing-along...
no people ever reinvented themselves
from an ancient glory...
  new blood had to come to the fore...

like today...
      i spoke with my father and my mother...
about the names of apples...
we must have talked for an hour,
we named so many lost "breeds" of apple...
nouns i will not write,
nouns i wish death to write down,
i want Samael to have,
beside the book of my deeds in hand,
i want him to have
my dictionary in hand,
my knowledge of the sacred script,
i want to listen as he recites me the words
i've used,
notably today's conversation
            about the many types of apples...
e.g.: shogun apples...
            kox...
                    szare renety...
          papierówki...
                    marabella prunes...
that's all i ask of Samil.

p.s. after completing a walk in the woods:
a walk most adventurous in it being solitary...
i thank the forest for my solitude...
i started knocking on a dry piece of wood
still attached to the earth and roots...
in a forest: knocking on a tree...
i perceived the door
upon re-entering
traffic and hardened grit of road stuff...
let's replicate this...
me... you... alone...
let's both abide by needing
superstitious elevations of:
not truth alone... hardened and dim-witted
by objectivity...
truth tailored with metaphors...
all the nuance we can hope to find...
i need to... aloofness... solitude...
i need you, forest...
more than i care for noon
and proof of body that's this extension:
leash! shadow! noon!

                    smyč! cień! południe!
mc ish Dec 2018
i will not shrink myself down
i do not come in pocket sized
i am more than your heart desires
yet a  glass has never complained to overflow
i am everything or nothing
and to you
something in between
i am loud and i am violent and i am volatile
reaching for the stars that dissolve in my fingers
heaven has never felt so far
slim down diets are so in
reach your love to fit like chickpeas in your heartless ides
a growling stomach makes a pretty lady
i am pretty much a lady?
( Emperor Menilik II)

An enemy
That covets
Your land, your
Gold-bestowed
Natural wealth
And your wife
Creating a strife
Stripping you of
Your liberty
And identity
Is all out
To mar your life!

This blatant aggression
Standing together
It is better we deter.

So, if intentionally
Or otherwise
On you, if
I might
Have posed
A grievance
To date,
I ask apology
Let us bury
The hatchet.

Among us,
An axe to grind
For a divisive wedge
An enemy cruel & wild
Must not find.

Thus, while
In full command
Of your health
If you fail
To march
To the front
I will take that
To the dignity of
Our sovereign nation
And me
An affront.

I swear to God
I swear to God
Up on return
There is
No restraint
My anger
My punitive
Measures against
Such malingers
Back to hold.

Of course,
We need
The prayer
Of the feeble
And the old,
The heavily-armed
Invading army
When we fight
Supper bold.

I assure you
By the grace
Of God
Victory for us
Is what
The future hold.

(The Chief of the provision wing)

Women of the nation
Pull your sleeves;
As provision
Dry food—
Roasted chickpeas
Roasted peas
Dry meat—
If you prepare
It will be good.
Also to boost
Immunity in
The original way
Prepare and ready
Garlic, red chili
And ginger
In a form of
A powder.

(The principal of transport)

Array pack animals
Provisions to transport
From every corner
Of the nation,
The palace
To the battlefront.
S/he who has
A horse or a mule
Must come along
With some hays
For its fuel.

(The master of musicians)

Take on board
Musical instrumentalists
Vocalists, who
War songs that chant
About victory
At hand not hesitant.

(Traditional Health Professionals)

Also take aboard
Women, herbalists
That will nurse
The wounded
Back into shape
Also the recuperating
To fight back
Who help.

(The logistic head)

Our resource gap to fill
While in the battle mill
We have to take along
Bullet swaggers
Ammunition repairers.
Utilizing such skill
Would allow us
With limited resource
More troops to ****.
This way
The cavalry
And infantry
Will fight
About logistic
With little worry.

(Menilik II)

Let us march
Let us march
To the place of
Showdown
To write
Golden history
Like Golead & David
That has no match!

Let us be
A standard bearer
If united
Freedom fighters
Could a giant enemy
Like Goliad deter.

On my sword
I have engraved
Menilik’s power
Is Almighty God
So behold
Those who pick
Against the peaceful
A sword
Will perish by
The sword.

About colonization
As I earlier grabbed
The import
I had accessed
Enough arsenal
Via the port.
If divide & conquer
Is their aim
With Ethiopians’
Oneness &unity
I will foil
Their game
They will have
Themselves to blame.

In the meantime
King Aba Jifar
Taking over inland
Maladministration, disorder
Will bar
In such a way
Ethiopians’ chemistry
Will be heard
Wide and far.///
Prior to the battle of Adwa
Marieta Maglas Jul 2015
(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
judy smith Nov 2016
EXPORTERS in the agriculture and food processing business should take note of opportunities arising from six major trends set to impact the global food and drink market in 2017, ranging from traditional products like ancient grains to plant-based foods enhanced by technology, according to a new report.

The “2017 Global Food & Drink Trends” released on November 11 by market research service provider Mintel predicts that in the coming year, consumers will increasingly look for products that are healthy, convenient, and trustworthy. They will also search for food and drink that are recognizable, save time, and contain beneficial fruits and vegetables.

In addition, there are new opportunities for functional food and drink designed for evening consumption, progressive solutions for food waste, and affordable healthy food for low-income consumers.

Mintel identified the first emerging trend as the continued trust in the traditional and the familiar. Consumers “seek the safety of products that are recognizable rather than revolutionary,” even as they are willing to try “modernized updates of age-old formulations, flavors and formats.”

Manufacturers are thus encouraged to look to the past for inspiration, as ancient grains, as well as ancient recipes, practices, and traditions are forecast to continue to be popular.

At the same time, “potential also exists for innovations that use the familiar as a base for something that’s new, but recognizable, such as cold brew coffee,” the report said.

In 2017, the food and drink industry will also see the growing use of plants as key ingredients, said the report. The growing preference for natural, simple, and flexible diets is seen to drive the further expansion of vegetarian, vegan, and other plant-focused formulations.

Consumers’ strong health and wellness priorities will spur the introduction of more packaged products and recipes for home cooking that abound in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, botanicals and other plants associated with good health, said Mintel.

Technology will play a part in this movement, as can be seen in the use of artificial intelligence to develop plant-based alternatives to animal products, including milk, mayonnaise, yogurt and cheese.

The third trend is the global focus on minimizing food waste to align with efforts on sustainability, which is changing consumer perceptions.

“In 2017, the stigma associated with imperfect produce will begin to fade, more products will make use of ingredients that would have otherwise gone to waste, such as fruit snacks made from ‘ugly’ fruit and mayonnaise made from the liquid from packaged chickpeas, and food waste will be repurposed in new ways, such as power sources,” the report said.

Also a significant trend among consumers in the new year is to consider the “time investment” required in cooking or preparing meals.

“Time is an increasingly precious resource and our multitasking lifestyles are propelling a need for shortcut solutions that are still fresh, nutritious, and customizable and already we have seen so-called ‘biohacking’ food and drink that offers complete nutrition in convenient formats,” the report added.

In 2017, the time spent on — or saved by — a food or drink product will become a clear selling point, inspiring more products to directly communicate how long they will take to receive, prepare, or consume.

The study also finds new opportunities for functional food and drink designed for evening consumption as people try to calm down before bedtime, sleep better, and restore their body.

Products like tea can be enhanced with chamomile, lavender, and other herbs as a way to achieve a sense of calm before bedtime. Chocolate, on the other hand, can be positioned as a way to wind down after a stressful day.

Looking ahead, the study forecasts greater potential for more evening-focused innovations formulated for relaxation and satiety. And taking a cue from the beauty industry, food and drink for the evening can be infused with functional benefits while the consumer sleeps.

Finally, healthy food that is affordable to low-income consumers is enjoying a surge in market demand.

“Many lower-income consumers want to improve their diets, but the access to-and the cost of-healthy food and drink is often an impediment,” explained the report.

This will fuel campaigns and innovations to make it easier for lower-income consumers to fulfill their healthy ambitions, including apps to help people make use of ingredients that are on sale, including “ugly” vegetables.

“Opportunities abound for companies around the world to capitalize on these trends, helping them develop in new regions and more categories throughout the course of the next year and into the future,” Mintel said.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/pink-formal-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
no other - a windowsill and an open window -
sitting on a folded leg and slouched
like a crow - i would be begging for it to rain -
no other music can capture rain -
safety net of all that sporadic improv. -
                      other other music - except jazz...
whether it be rain nibbling on the countryside
or the full-on cosmopolitan havoc of grey,
dust, grease, cement and rats and glass...
                 never mind: because i never thought
i'd say this...
                of the moderns... closely ruling out
wojciech kilar - for no particular reason other than
he's probably more known -
christopher young - since his hellraiser stint...
what's new - the revamped pet cemetary?
well... if christopher young was primo...
      soon to follow him... graham... plowman...
work on h. p. lovecraft adaptations...
                     horror as a genre...
                                the music wins me over...
however spectacular the visuals are...
                               if the music isn't bone grinding -
unsettling the nerves -
well... that's like pop music when it's raining...
i guess: oh i guess jazz can capture more feelz
when it comes: when it's raining...
when it's lazily sun-dazzling with the impression
of an "underneath" sizzling sensation -
or melting butter - or for that matter melting chocolate...
or adding splashes of cornflour made in water
to a sauce and watching it thicken...
this recipe i will remember by heart...
i will have to at someone point...
but this dhal was quite sublime...

   scrap book recipe...
          a man in a kitchen...
               and in hell... the devil's mastery...
almost like a chemistry experiment...

       half and half: masoor and mung dal... lentils...
kabuli chana (chickpeas)...
    a bay leaf...
              3 cloves...
  a tsp of cumin coriander turmeric
                     chilly powder and another of kashmiri
   chilly powder
                chopped tomatoes
  coconut milk...
            onion ginger garlic
                spinach
      gochugaru flakes coriander for garnish...
veg and chicken stock...
                          ghee...
butternut squash...
                    cayenne pepper (1 tsp)...
    i was looking for a pinch of asafoetida...
i knew it was in the kitchen...
    alas... also know as a substitute for those
vegan cults that don't include eating onions
and garlic... or perhaps just onions...
    cinnamon stick? no...
but three decent pinches of a homemade
garam masala...
  and yes...

   https://ministryofcurry.com/moms-garam-masala/
is the only spice blend...
   the russians can have their nukes...
the americans can have their nukes...
i have an arsenal of the following spices and...
i'm feeling... like i just had a manicure done...
the only garam masala:
asafetida, bay leaves, black peppercorns,
black cardamom, cardamom, cumin seeds,
(sorry, no black cumin seeds),
      cinnamon, cloves, cordiander seeds,
dried chillies, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds,
(mace? no mace)...
         nutmeg, poppy seeds, star anise...
turmeric...
          again: no stone flower...
well... that's almost covered it...
                it's not the recipe asks for black
mustard seeds... those i do have...

                   cult recipe and it says: who needs...
meat?! even i'm convinced...
god i do love a good steak tartar...
    anything ****** and oozing wriggly bits
of life - as tender and gelatin grizzly as a...
even the names: bleu... ooh... saignant...
  haha... medium: demi-anglais... what else?

the butchers rolling in their graves
when someone orders a steak: fini-bien...
                          or some other frankenstein of the kitchen...

coleman hawkins - the high and mighty hawk...
some guys were putting up a fence
for me and my neighbour - it only took 15 years
but who's counting - they were told to
cut out all the bushes and foliage in my garden...
so that they could get a straight line
and so the fence would be put up...
unlucky for my rosemary bush...

r.i.p. my rosemary bush...
        today i started to salvage the poor thing...
the newer shoots i placed in water for
a drink and hopefully 2 weeks from today
i might think about planting them back in
the ground... for the rest of the bush?
i had to freeze the rosemary...
all afternoon my fingers were scented with rosemary...
which is fine... when you're working
with a raw piece of lamb...
but i'm no walking and breathing and aching
lamb of god about to be hanging
on the cross...
                even through the soap...
an afternoon of my hands being heavily scented
with rosemary...

vivaldi can have spring and the other three
faces of "god"...
holst can have his mars and the other circle of hell...
but thank the high-flying-****
that jazz can capture a rainy day better
than that song: i'm only happy when it rains
by garbage...
            
  guess i'm not letting go...
         an active rebellion against classical music...
one jazz record after another and i can gravitate
to...ward... the entire e.p. being played...
none of that new wave harakiri diat l.p. scene -
much appreciated... but i always need to move
beyond the half-an-hour mark...

         then again: i can't see how jazz could
compensate for snow - snow on the exit format -
jazz doesn't - then again...
no, categorically...
                           if there's only a sly insert of drum...
no horns - the piano and some guitar -
  
   otherwise you can't go wrong with
joshua redman - back east...
         a modern classic - notably with zarafah...

speed-conversations - none clinging
to a cameo of a date...
                 fickle minded - always changing
the course of events that... nonetheless remain
intact on binding themselves to a blind will -
        
music and all these interpretations are my own -
too bad to see and have to work with
a cipher - what's behind this image -
what's behind that image -
at least music stands stark and shivering naked...
less chances to abide by some propaganda...

unless of course mathematics is to be given
the crown - i hardly think: one shouldn't really
think about music -
                one can never really fathom
the constraints and the escapees from these
constraints... these constant revisionary scribbling
over and skimming the orthodox:
brick-on-brick intricacies of: immoveable objects
being: nonetheless moved...

- i too am waiting for my libido to die off -
anytime soon... like right now...
no harem therefore "jazz hands" and the algebra
of "magic fingers"...
idle man and all that *** that could have been...
until that magnetism is steered off a cliff
of: not another tomorrow -
                    at least no ***** or *** doll upon
the horizon -
            no point getting intimate or personal...
only a few days back i found a weakness in
this exoskeleton -
standing in a shower... pouring running water
onto the back of my head...
i almost knelt and said my prayers from
the exhaustion of succumbing to this multiple-******
of nuance...
       right on the spot where
a higher evolution of a more, protruding occipital
bone: as i've heard it once before: being noted...
i'm waiting for my libido to **** itself off...
in the meantime no harem...
imagine my luck when it comes to
the wisdom served up by men like king solomon...
even by then:
this most exhausted man had
to settle for a swan's dignity in monogamy
with the queen of Sheba...

                 but it's hard to translate wisdom
when you have all the basic forebodings
already at your disposal... the harem will discover
***-toys and you will be...
the limp **** in the whole affair...

                 such hard-on feats of fear when it comes
to... two cakes too many
when all you've been asking for is, merely a slice...
jazz... i can't find
a clint eastwood in alcatraz...
or steve mcqueen in sagan...
               or witold pilecki in auschwitz...      
but i can find myself in jazz...
hummingbird or some, other, champagne flute
and that bothersome fly...
nothing against flies: everything against
mosquitos... i would **** those buggers with
the same joy of donning wool having
just sheered a sheep or two...

jazz and: the wriggling fish...
jazz and all the fish out of water...
i'd call them constipated ***** and lobsters
but... jazz and the wriggling fish...
jazz and smoking a cigarette to appreciate
the deaf centre point of night's culminations...
living close by to central london...
"walking in" and not feeling like
anybody important: or a tourist...

       if i wasn't a billy joel: i would most certainly
not want to be a bob dylan -
hard to be living the obscure with a cross
made up of iconography...

the applauded and the: billy joels' piano man meets
neil young's old man...
they shake hands and subsequently depart
where the crossroads begin, and end...

believe me when: i'm the last to be believed...
usher in a dozen penguins attired
to be... fizzy kosher dosh...
in all their napkins and bowtie-neck strangle 'em
into a hush of a bamboozle...

such the life the music the mathematics
of living in shackles - wriggly ol' ****** with
those improv. would-be-turns and...

how many words will it take for it to be clear...
i have nothing but rejoice at clinging
to my obscurity... primo amigo:
alea iacta est: too bad for me...
or too bad for my shadow...
                       faking being a gemini
in the horoscopes of fate and superstition...
shadow: mime out of the confines...

      these is my second chance at retaining
the crown of obscurity? is it?! is it?!

   to have to burden oneself with love...
akin to... well... if i were about to spoon her...
but no... i wanted to catch the 8 hour kipper....
but every time i would fall
to sleep... i'd fall asleep with a tarantula bite...
numb all over to one side...
because i was oh too willing to fall asleep
when clinging to her...
like a bracket fungus to trunk and core...
one side of me complete in numb...
which had a rubric of recitations
should all else not be true...

but *****! that slap in the face...
                             come to think of it...
i'd like something to eat...
less **** with... that could pinch me...
i'm starting to think that
being ganged up by a group of hyennas
is not such a bad way to go...
perhaps being mistaken for a tuna
when a shark attack is being
noted...
            hard to imagine
sharks or bears or lions as having
sadistic undercurrents to their day-in-day-out
beats...
  even sharks nibble but never gorge
and feast on... this cranium solid first and only
hope when it comes to god
not making mistakes when gambling...
the ******* roulette or a black jacks' "choice"
of cards...

i can't exactly "think" this out to appease
a gravitating en masse...
                       pour me another shot and
debackle! all in the faith and hope
of un-thinking thinking...
trying out this suction tenticle of the void...
replacing descartes' res cogitans with
res vanus... what is due: is due...

no more wisdom from me aged 34
as me aged 73... there's only rain and jazz...
i'm buying time...
concerning whether it would be even
remotely likely to appreciate jazz
when it's snowing... unlikely...
very much hell-bent unlikely...

      - who would have thought that peering
into an aquarium would have to,
become more entertaining that zombie-clad
watching a t.v....
what ever happened to the watching
a klepsydra... or the tick-toe-tightening
of seconds into minutes into hours...
dying from the skeleton diet of time
whenever catching-up: unaware with
the clock in the confines of:
old people not really...
no, not really, listening to coleman hawkins'
much of anything...

                     because this doesn't tease
the affections of the young...
like a trainspotting revamp might....
because there's, clearly no new dracula...
and there's no new: new....
                     i wait patiently like a salamander....
no easy picking no low hanging fruit...
no fatty boy'oh to matter...
         no leeching off the three-quarters
of                               the better part of the engineering
cohort that were behind
the manhattan bridge... or Malbork Castle...
and hands on hands: do touch...
the event horizon of a dead star...
                    in that: pulling fabric...
basic genesis... talking fire "misanthrope": "god"...
bushes outgrowing fungus when
it came to 1970s ***** flicks:
notably in fwench and italian...
                   prune the perm hair...
                             keep that afro on a leash!

these days ***** is half of the cure's nostalgia
and more...
onomatopoeia and...
    refining the contorts with painting...
and keeping the act on a hush...
               the lazy hands speaking
dozen **** cracks being discovered but
none being experienced...
bone the hand...
it's called a ****** just because
of oysters... it's called a ******
because of the clams and of the irises...
and because the tongue:
god... ever time i wanted it to exfoliate...
it's forever that timid tulip!

         what came of a ****** became a hand
and the cusp... and what would never
become a San Francisco needle hinge epidemic...

was anyone praying that
one direction would become the next rolling stones...
cougar: meow...
that **** jagger was going to be
the "reincarnated" harry styles?

           knock-knock... who's there?
a premonition... i.e. touch-wood...
base: i will require the wood to be touched
by bone - notably a crunch of the knuckle in how
the fist is formed / fathomed...

        otherwise known as the lap-lapping-dance-off
with a tongue wriggling in imitation
closure of a worm...
or a fighter for a boxing champ. contender...
belt-up... knot and noose down....
the new news is no: good skit...
i **** myself to fickle my shadow
whenever i see a hoopla or a trance inducing
recoil of the swinging dancing spare
of a: rope that's not leftover for
the dangling first come first served...

daydreaming zeppelins...
the day the elevated english man will fall...
and bring down the bowler hat with him...
touch the philosopher's stone and turn
that attache of good taste into an umbrella...
the same day i stop daydreaming
about zepplins...
will see me think of the anglo-saxon
as whittle brother... the younger Swabian...
and all part of the infuriated minor
Germany that found inkling to behave
like the nomad Yids...
and move... and move... and...
never the sort of people to conceive of a ship...
without also being receptive of carrying
an anchor!

then again...
                   monkey man albino and...
forever the one to follow the white rabbit back home.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2021
i've cooked plenty of curries in my life
(in the back of my mind there's this mainstream
narrative that comes to the fore
with buzz-words like: "cultural appropriation"...
so i can't cook a curry for myself
i need someone native of the "concept" of curry
to cook it for me? the use of cumin, coriander seeds...
star anise... cardamom pods is off-limits
for me? like donning a sombrero?
i hate acronyms but, in this instance i'll just
keep it short and shrimp-y i.e. w.t.f.?!)
but what i recently conjured up has become
a... revelation...
i know that the taste profile of some Asiatic
people: the Chinese love their dichotomy of
sweet & sour... as well as sweet & salty...
come to think of it: i like those profiles too:
salted caramel is the next big taboo topic?!
the first proper revelation came to me via...
refika's lavash & hammered beef recipe...
she's on youtube: it's so **** when a woman
as voluptuous as her knows how to cook...
plus the ol' raven hair: beyond that...
it's not that she knows how to cook:
i can trust her to cook...
    not that i was willing to make lavash from
raw goods... i can buy that...
the genius is instilled in the marinate...
what was it...
oh hell... my beard is itchy... i guess at the mere
thought of eating this dish...
sea salt, pepper, lots of peppercorns...
fresh garlic, fresh rosemary (thankfully i have
a garden and i have rosemary in it)
dried chillies (whole or flakes)
olive oil, white wine vinegar...
into the pestle & mortar...
the beef thinly sliced then marinating for
15 minutes at best: the vinegar tenderising
the meat quicker...
fried for 2 minutes or whatever time it takes
until you see the meat pouring out the most
hidden blot clots...
but beef & rosemary?! huh! who would have
thought... i certainly wouldn't have...
sure... LAMB & rosemary...
but beef?
oddly enough the meat works just as well
when topped with English cheddar...
you don't need a Turkish cheese...
but that's not even the end of the story...
of the lavash wrap...
it's the side dish...
the onions! slice the onions into crescent moons...
squeeze them to get the party going...
they must be red onions... some salt...
some more white wine vinegar & let them pickle
for a while... after the "while" add some
sumac (i also add some gochugaru chilli flakes...
for colour and tingling buzz)
SUMAC... topped off with some fresh parsley...
i could be writing about my escapades
in the brothel... but this is so much better...
what's ***? meat you can't eat...
at the end... it's meat you can't eat...
tease it, nibble it: but you're not going to eat it...
i very much like the ethereal nature
of cooking: it reminds me of the time i studied
chemistry in Edinburgh and conjured up
Esters from scratch...
Esters? oh, those scented compounds used
in the perfume industry...
yet today i came across an even bigger revelation...
Indian cuisine? done... Chinese... no problem...
the number of curries i made in my life...
eh... ha...
            hell: even the Hungarian goulash
for a massive potato "pancake"... garnished
with something sour... cabbage most likely...
or at least a coleslaw to off-set the smoky-paprika
taste...
green peppers a must...
of course you need some sprinkle of paprika
on the lavash wrap-up...
for colour: to "combat" the "insanity"
of cheese... & some extra pepper....
& rosemary...

well you can't exactly call a stew a curry
a sauce or jue... it's not  juice if it's a juce...
some "chew"...
esp. not in the Persian cuisine...
pity me at me at my self-wallowing in being
cosmopolitan on the outskirts...
i'll take one step into the night
and i'll be met with the resounding
presence of foxes...
i stopped being bothered about BWV 988
being just a cliché...
which it of course is...
so many pieces of classical music were once
beautiful...
now... in the gulag of the muzak...
they have become: morphed...
hardly stand-alone pieces of music...
moonlight sonata being the "other" over-emphasis
of needing to match-up to the demands
of / for mass consumption...

i hope this doesn't read like some foodie
blog... every time i want to replicate a recipe
i have to scroll down through so many
self-congratulatory deviances
from the narrative... none of these food blogs
seem stressed about giving out
what's needed:
the list of ingredients... eh... the methodology
doesn't really bother me...
i always miss the click-of-the-button
where i can simply get to the knitty-gritty...
there's always "some story"... some care to grasp
at some "authenticity":
it's almost like rereading Wittgenstein and
his focus on tautology!

come to think of it...
i watch out for tautologies...
like i watch out for metaphors and misnomers
and the... ahem "air quotes":
you can't stretch it as far as a metaphor?
then we'll be stretching it into a misnomer
status...

FESENJAN...
it's not like the Persians were not knocking
at "our" doors since... perhaps time immemorial...
what about that off-shoot tribe of Aryans:
the Sarmatians settling in the basin
of the Vistula?
funny... the concept of the Aryans...
that the Germans espoused it...
while... historically... never mind...

it's not a curry! it's a Persian stew...
i couldn't fathom it at first...
you make a walnut paste...
you toast 'em...
salt, pepper, sugar...
some of the usual suspects appear:
like cumin...
cinnamon...
    but then you get:
pomegranate molasses...
and fresh pomegranate seeds to garnish... with...
you also use fresh parsley instead of coriander...
only one tablespoon of tomato puree...
some ground almonds...
a pepper: which, along with a can of
chickpeas somehow, "somehow" managed
to disappear in the sauce...
garlic... sure... ginger? no...
onion... yes...

         i knew that Persian cuisine tickled
the sour fancies... but i never knew to what
extent! zest of a lemon: juice of a lemon...
no aubergine... this time...
turmeric: the peasant's version of saffron...
no difference... you can sprinkle some of that
anti-bleach magical dust and it works
just as well as a pinch of saffron...
but we're talking about the sauce...
cinnamon i already mentioned:
even though you can use acacia bark as
a substitute... pepper: already mentioned...
honey...
imagine my shock: no mention of a canned
lot of plum tomatoes...
******* roasted walnuts...
pomegranate molasses...
tomato puree...
ciućpajza...

this wasn't a curry... walnuts, though... when roasted?
ahem... "cultural appropriation"
of the Indians using cashews... & almonds
in their Korma... but walnuts?!
hey presto... some Turkish ingenuity combining
beef with rosemary!

is my native tongue a dodo lingo?
i'm just... wondering...
perhaps with the omnipresence of English
we'll all be savvy cosmopolitan nomads
by the end of this century...
i still manage to squeeze in a word:
or two... into my currency of the current:
lingo... but... the point
of: no one's speaking it beside me...
it's not a rhetorical question...
it's not even a question to begin with /
per se... it's a... vague obligation to:
some mustard seed metaphor sort of "power"...

youtube used to be such a fun website...
until the wallets started rummaging
hyping up...self-tutorial videos of make-up:
cover-up...
it used to be (this)... now it's... )this(...
sure... don't blame women...
it's not like Helen wasn't fabled for gearing up
a thousand ships...
Eva Braun wasn't Jewish... no no!
she wasn't... wi- do you really need the suffix
-nk?!

a grammar school playground filled with only
boys... hey... presto!
a girl comes in...
        what's going to happen?
the worst things... imaginable...
i'm giving birth to a shadow...
she's curious about giving birth to the gambit
of: more time... please...
i can be done with all of this spectacle in
a moment... she needs this misery to continue...
come to think of it...
i don't think the supposed
"forbidden" fruit of Eden did anything to Adam...
i think the fruit was a placebo...
he just towed his ******* ******* along
to experience the wind & the dangle...
whatever the metaphor of Moses implies...
ignorant of dinosaurs?!
seriously...
there's a talking spine of a t-rex...
there are the crocodiles of the Nile...
there's the imagining of a large fire-breathing lizard:
a dragon...
oh sure... the idea of dinosaurs wasn't somehow:
unconsciously implanted into us...
dragons precursor the discovery of dinosaur bones...
don't they?! don't they?!
imagining dragons precursor our discovery of
dinosaur bones!
no?! no?!
hell-oh... Pandora... how's tomorrow?
oh, right... can't say... just like today then?!

since the usual quest of bypassing the atypical
gatekeepers has been... quenched...
i'm no Tolstoy...
western democracy is worried about democracy
per se:
ooh... something terrible is bound to happen!
some terrible has been happening since
time immemorial...
it's only inflated:
in a society bound by glorifying sociopaths &
psychopaths...
the fakery escalates... so much of this culture
is bound to celebrate: hardly the opera singer...
hardly the poet... forever & until more
the Thespian... you know what happens to a culture
where only one art-form is given:
too much attention it deserves?
there was that period of time when
poetry was celebrated... when the western
letf-oids seemed rather... refreshing...
what now?

           let's go back to civilisation based on
the motto: we need carrots!
we need cabbage! we ******* need root vegetables...
oh forget the fruits...
that's not important for us...
winter is coming: a warm winter...
to borrow a phrase:
how can there be any hyperboreans:
what eternal sunshine?
i think of an eternal night...

               when i think of the wind:
there's not one... there are 8...
the wind from the north... south...
the wind from the north-east...
the wind from the south-west...
i count 8 winds... if there aren't 8
then we have a lemniscale...
a lazy: reclining 8... or a beta metaphor: B...
no?
the origins of numbers are all Hindu?!
sure... the letters too?
i can... rewrite the origins story
of numbers using only Greek or Roman letters...
with hindsight it doesn't punch-up
but... proud retardations of borrowed
cuisine aside...
L: 7
4: G
      mirrors! mirrors!
9: P
8: B
1: I(ota)
3: E
2: Z
5: S
6: b...

we didn't march across the *******
Siberian tundra
arriving at the Caucasian
peninsula for no ******* reason?!
we also managed to drag along the tribes
of Mongols... Turks... that settled in this grand...
continental funnel...

i learned "numbers" from Sanskrit...
i suppose the letters too?
like... ooh... i love how Hangul was
conjured...
   Sejong the ******* Solomon...
Abraham... St. Cyril...
   i always thought that Cyrillic script
was a cheap-*** variation of Greek...
sorry... it looks: looked:
will forever look: sort of shabby...

this time round: the devil didn't come round
with either fire or sulphur...
smoke & mirrors...
smoke & mirrors: Kowalski!
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
The electric kettle grooves like a gavel bounce bouncing off the bench when the judge won the raffle
The sound waves baffle the mind as the refrigerator hums along to the microwaves song
A beep beepin’ melody as smoke’s creep creepin’ from the oven
And the blender is lovin’ the distraction
Keepin’ their eyes from the action
As he hatchets and dispassionately dispatches chickpeas left and right
No end to the violence in sight
Who cares about wrong from right
There will be hummus tonight

**** blender got his business done but now the fun begins as the stove channels the power of the sun to heat the pan and the plan is to fry the dough, those homemade doughnuts make the crowd go nuts but the sizzle of the grease unleashes the beast of the band, the main man, the rockstar, tattoo on his arm, rugged charm, protects you from harm, my man the fire alarm.

The fire truck sirens join the orchestration and soon the scene of devastation muffles into a hum, but umm, the night’s still young and we could still go, you know, I’m pretty loco for them Doritos and I may be burnt and poor but Taco Bell is open ’til 4.
Alexander Coy Sep 2016
I unwrap the plastic
from your caramel
coated body; you're a bit
nutty, but that's how I like
it

You tickle the tips
of my ribs, leaving
me gasping for air
before the moon
sets

You're on the other
side of the screen,
pixelated, in and out;

stuck in place,

my dear
lost signal

There's no
cure for what
ails; I'm afraid
this is our lot

two chickpeas

in a dystopian pod

Yet

my lips do not
refrain from pursing
into a pair of moist
rosebuds;

desperately
awaiting your

sunshine ***.
It sounded like coup de tat and I expected a military action, what I got, in fact, was a bowl of raw vegetables with a dip
of hummus and chickpeas, but that's chefs for you, always on the make, on the fake and taking advantage of your expectations.
Kitchen commando.
"These days you are not at home, Somu,
The rooms seem blackened like a dying dumb ghost,
dead and deaf like an ageless planet, you see.
The walls breathe silence,
like flowers which bend with the rain,
And, I twist and age with time like grapes of wrath.

Dear somu, I saw you in the photo, on Facebook dear boy,
To be honest you have become fat, like your mother when she was six,
Eat less cheese and burgers and cream, to fix these things,
Try veggies and salads to make you look thin.
I am storing up some money, this year,
To send you some sweets,
During puja, we had fried chicken and fish kebabs and rolls,
I made it as you liked it, a bit saucy with corn flour and chickpeas and all,
Next time when you come, I would make it again"
Read the letter,
Signed, Your grandma Mini.

Somu, as known as Somnath at his college, MIT to be honest you see.
A good student and an economist to be soon,
Somu is told to be the young Stiglitz,
Who gets a bit sentimental at certain gloomy afternoons.

But this letter came to him last Monday, at work,
He couldn't read it properly as being busy is the way to look more and a bit more, tough and sharp.
And as he came home today at nine,
Like whiskey and lemon and contradictions which never seem to rhyme-
came another Telephone at around ten,
Informing the youngster about the death of one of his grandparents.

"This is Baba, Your Mini is no more,
Today at six, we found her collapsed at and over the toilet floor,
Come home as soon as you can..."

And He was Still holding the letter,
helplessly within the shivering thrills of his cold and goofy tired hands.

It was 11 at night and he was reading the letter once more,
He was all but telling to himself-"this must be a dream to be sure..."
He was thinking about so many things at a pace,
And he felt about the world that he brought his Mini some disgrace.
Vessels  and Wine menus of the archaic formulas seemed from the new Universe that was approaching them vertiginously, concelebrating the unitary form of the union of the pilasters of the Opistódomos with Hellas , which was constituted as an inter-dimensional state, for two strategists universal and immortal that provided the beginning of a new Christic language, based on the relationship of the unified polis but with an infinite calendar perspective. The courage to start an end with a beginning full of excitement and celebration where clearly the dances would be from beginning to end to treasure the influences of endless complacency, and that would hold commemorative celebrations of station processes, being established fiercely in the treasuries of Metroon ; as a duplicated and bilocated agoras on Patmos, besieging all the documents of the glorious past of Mythology towards the new preservation of Submitology, where the people of heroes and anti-heroes of all the Pleiades come to life from the Vernarth transcript, as a multidimensional memorial archive housing in all the concerns of eternity written, and preserved tangible and intangible that would transport them to the annals of a sanctuary that would agree with the repositories of everything that was and will be of this Myth annex beyond a fantastic reality, going back to the Hellenisms that they will compose next to the Beit Hamikdash Temple, as a sacred mansion where the ceiling and the floor would rest in total communion. The dimensions will be given in the own open foot that will standardize the buttresses that would make up the access chambers to the privileged place of Rea, with dimensions that could be displayed in the confines of the inflection of Orion, naturally illuminating the vault of Greece in the head of the Agora and from there to Theoskéspasti, to then be triangulated with the Doric and Ionic colonnades specifying the Vernarth chamber, which will have its quantum progression and multidimensional link throughout the Archaic Hellas to all of Judea that will re-sanctify the possibilities that the heroes will parade eternally for the waters and lands that are proper to inertia, where Athena and Nike will make the pots with mead in the rejection of more miracles that will flow from Galilee to Patmos. The etymology would be of Hellenic customary avant-garde, evidencing realities where every day the peasants sharpened their sickles, as a feast that celebrated the first-rate courts with the first-grade olive oil with the Almazara or oil press that will bring the fruits of the table. The flapping of the pelicans would tie laudable sounds from the Thuellai worshiping the phonograms that were emitted from the Metroon, attracting the classical periods of the conformation of Greece when it was only Chaos and Seas in conflict. From this mythological proposition, everything was a reality where the lack of custom proved as a cultural character, it was the vertical cultural basting coined in the gloss of the signifier, rather than the meaning, leading everything to these festivities of edibles and drinkable towards the Panhellenic that it would bring new vigor of expansive territorial function, towards Macedonia and Delphi as a holiday that could celestially have more than twelve lunar months.

Meanwhile Vernarth was hugging a rattle more than two meters high and one in diameter, this resonance implied the inaugural sound of the Symposium of the Athletic Agon that together with the Almazara would run rials of oilseeds, to anoint the attendees as all Sacred of the jubilee of the Opistódomos and the Hamikdash, towards the new Submitological Era Duoversal between the events that will delight everything that concerns accompanying the pairings of liquids and solids in this competitive challenge, so that the mythical hero becomes the credible hero stationed in the ninth laurels that would make up the foundation and inauguration of the games, after the victory of those who never threw the victor's crown. The votive offerings and monuments joined the agonal journey that referred from the perspective of a soul that wanted to compete with its existential soul, and then reluctantly redirected itself through the unusual temples that seemed to vanish amid the crowds, making this festive ritual the greatest expression. of all the votive festivals in Patmia. In practice, the meals would once again be rewards for the support of the sky by the Matakis, as a snowy reflection in the pouch that does not display any icon other than a numismatist that sniffs the pieces of bronze that were surrounded by the other derivatives of the terminal of saturation of Zeus, seeming to identify that Matzoh would fall from the sky, and Manah that will highlight the laurel artifice when the conceptual of the sages give the beginning of the activities with a meta-praxis that will stand out from the full stomachs, and the bladders supplemented with oenological colors, eradicating physical competitions for those of the allegory of Dionysian pleasure that suggests a human and mythological hybridism, Submitological-supernatural. Everyone became restless and ran along the golden trails of the iridescent nimbus creating capacities to unfold the time of Kairos and at the same time re-inaugurating the feat of noble bread and the skills of collecting the green fords, where Persephone refrained from an illegitimate pressure by leaving the intellectual bulwarks for the destiny of the force that subtracts the will, but if it defines the feminine character that caresses the tongues of the soulless and they call us with the features of competing prostrate to a Goddess who worships the eternal shine of the wheat field that refers, and what makes the ibidem in the conferences of a hero who smacks the features of all the sculptures that will follow the cause of reason of the allegorical agoras and the competition where the meek will only toast when nobody sees them face inhibition itself of what is and is not.

What the languages uttered became shouted to sit near the inns and tables with dairy products and wines from which they all stood up with a cantiga in unison, ***** in the joy of being called to the Hellenic invitation to compete, to make dynamics and refer to physical skills assiduously to the constellations that made them awaken the intellectuals. The attributes of each one were a trigger to celebrate and laugh before the divinity of the new Age, along with the solemnity of Himation. This lasted twenty-eight days exchanging the full moons that would bring the shooting stars with boiled genetics that were forged from the Souvlaki prototype, and flashes that would take them to the symposium where the feasts were dimensions that surpassed the entire width of the galaxies, to praise and cheer the crowded Pleiad of assistants fully compete in the intelligentsia, before the various rituals and spells that were prepared with the consecration of the Symposium that would bring together Alpha and Omega, as a Semitic language that filtered through the iridescence nets that manifested from the Nimbus where they remained the vaporous entity of the Mashiach.

Vernarth imbibed, above all, a segment of space that allowed him to look without being distracted towards the height of the Nimbus, creating in the tract of languages that they wandered between Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew, after that the extra-biblical witness Marzeah would designate in the liturgy of celebration of the Symposium, always noting that the allusive rhetorical conversations at the side of the Symposium meeting, understanding that they would become a brotherhood of tasters of the ethyl elixir, which would flow from the iridescent tract between seven iridescence that would translate into bittersweet solid foods and rolls with thyme from Kalymnos. The ingestion in two portions was lived from arm to arm in the jars of hand, reciprocal in the distractions that Vernarth made looking at the Nimbus, and offered him with his Khaire, promoting distraction and jumping over the dark clouds that were tinged with purple tones of the ethyl elixir, creating dance forms that revived the altruism of euphonic auditions that divined that the world could be all Wine and Matzoh, which was lavished on those who would not be excluded from the drinking of the sky that flowed as food from the fermented Hydor, alongside some concave stones with toasted chickpeas, fresh fruit, and Lepanto beans. Saint John blessed food considering that Eurydice, Circe, Medea, Hecate, and Walekiria would be incorporated into the festive Andron, although the feminine essence should be reserved for other stages of the solemn festival. The expositions of contentment were to have the vessels permanently facing the sky of the Nimbus, because from there holistic ethyl liquids would constantly fall that would shine with their deferred colors, sensitizing what the ear wanted to hear more than their collisions of Epichisis and Enócoes to pour and serve. in geometric ciboriums from Laconia. Vernarth would walk around the Profitis with Askos full of the essence of the Mashiach wine, which served them with the seven cosmic thoughts, thus frequenting the distractions for those who did not skimp on Apollo's delirium of dipsomania, distracted in Vernarth with the dancers of music by Hetera. Vernarth filled the glasses of all those who carried Guttus and Lecitos who relaxed and brought their Cretan flavors in the chirps of their pharynxes coming out from their mouths with verses that seemed the same as those of the Heterias, which the soldiers of the phalanx influenced the Small groups in a circle to applaud the gift and virtue of celebrating with improvised cheers, which in the bedrooms invited even the dissuasive shadows of their own evil that wanted to seep into the symposium. The afternoon was reinvented from the agora and the proscenium that attended for all from all the borders that would bring the storms of the ethyl nimbus, inviting new tides from the Aegean that would add to re-condense in the parasites that swarmed deserts with the rhythm of one night in all the borders and optics of the world, being able to be seen clearly and precisely to be reissued. The comedy of Dyonisius was present with all his court of Syracuse, and Dionisio was reiterated with Thespis and his supports that spelled ruffian verses between bitten, one being King the other being a God, sticking to his origin as a demigod in the feminine inheritance of a mortal, to come to serve in Cantharos to Dyonisius, where they roar in his mortal consciousness. The parasites bustled through the floodgates of intoxication that could be textualized and verbalized in the shrinking of colic, or perhaps boldly sitting on a tripod to imitate the Sybillas if they were to be supported by the effluvium of Alcyoneus, covering with snakes that they would carry potions in the wine glasses when representing the banquets that would falsify to be scenes of a feast, with the criterion of an over-relief.
Opistódomos Symposium

— The End —