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Joanne Heraghty Mar 2015
I can't pretend I know what happened,
I think it's what others call fate.
But everyone around me changed when you left,
And any liking they had for you turned into hate.
You became the outcast,
No longer part of our clann.
You were no longer welcome in our homestead,
When we met you on the street, you were just another man.
I'm sorry it turned out like it has,
I wanted to have you there till the end.
Because, although there was a major age gap,
I still seen you as our friend.
People begrudge change because it reshapes our lives,
But maybe they're just jealous they settled too quick.
Just know that I wish you all of life's successes,
And remember they are only words, they are not sticks.
6th February 2015

© All Rights Reserved Joanne Heraghty
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2019
this is what music foraging on youtube used to look like, you'd find gems, 6 years old, approx. 10K views akin to Undogmatic & Kernfeld: thought experiments... you know... you travel outside of the anglosphere of said language, what is the opinion of a Greek or a Pole about Fb? not much... it's only the english-speaking "cool" kids that are making all the fuss... i mentioned minds.com to a Greek guy i was giving directions to, once, in Warsaw... he looked at me as if i was the first person to show him a ******* elephant... 5 blind men followed and we know the story from there... catering to the natives: who will never be or ever have been satisfied... they just need their: banta... their ****-storming, their gravitational pull toward bloodsports: rather than dialectics... nothing is ever to be done... who can shout the loudest... who can rock the boat the most... who can translate past playground grievances into a web of anonymity and avatars... as far as i am concerned... these social media firms, these u.s. firms have long gone stopped catering to primarily english speaking people... all these anglophone calls: Fb will fail like myspace failed... blah blah... these firms are tired of brats... elsewhere these spaces are utilities... they're not an extension of either thought or life... collateral damage of those first exposed... the Greek will still use the platform... the Pole will also... i too remember my childhood: hide & seek... digging holes in the ground and throwing marbles into them from a distance of five metres... creating chalk labyrinths on the pavement and flicking beer bottle caps filled with plastecine through them... and no... styxhexenhammer666 is not banned in Poland... i never wanted youtube to become what it has become: 72 virgins? give me a library of music for all of eternity and i'll be an 'appy chappy... i don't need some count dankula regurgitate a wikipedia entry about tarrare - oddly enough: i too can read... see... i blame both sides for ******* up my foraging tool... the "legacy" media and the indie vlog "creators": creative really reative, spewing regurgitation after regurgitation... i'd hate to be drafted into this vulture journalism of video making... at least when you pay a *******: you pay an honest wage... and she subsequently spends the honest wage on **** i wouldn't even buy... so the funds are given to the person who otherwise keeps the economy running... a woman... oh yes, i've been watching closely these indie "creators"... lucky for me i watched enough of them to round them up and say: this much... there's a big difference between a "creator" and a commentator... if i'd want to listen to an audiobook containing the current journalistic spew: anyway... half of these stories in the "news" are tabloid ******* that gave rise to 24h news reel and the vacuous space feeding the tapeworm of insomnia... since when did news outlets think they could produce an amphetamine alt.? clearly they did... i can't keep up, i won't keep up, to hell with going against these giants... youtube was never about these indie "creators"... music and music was always the prime concern for me... lucky for me remnants of the old a.i. still give me chances to glimpse records like CLANN - Seelie... these indie "creators" become just as tiresome as the legacy medie snippets... you want a more ******* version of CLANN's Seelie? try Salem: king knight (2010).

.just some after-thoughts, when a post scriptum becomes, a pre scriptum... you know... i sometimes think this lingua franca, that's english, ergo: lingua inglese is bombarded, London is the microcosm of the world dislodged from the realities of other natives... there's a grand congregation happening, of hosts, and even here, on the outskirts of London, where all it takes is a 30 minute walk to go pet a horse or a tender young bull, "randomly", in a field, spot a fox, or chase a herd of deer who "wandered" into the middle of an X junction creating a traffic debacle... but the language itself this, lingua inglese needs updating, notably from the "real" grammar nazis... i'm not just going to give up my new earned rights of literacy, for all the years of being kept in the dark like some ******* mushroom, just because, someone feels it is necessary to feel lazy, about establishing rigour, discipline in using this former tool of power, like i'm going to bend over some lazy peasant... no... dis-ci-pline... you need it, i might drink, but i'll still return to this language with great respect, for the per se worth of adherence to it... it already is a metaphysical person / "person" to me, at least i can offer that much, as much as is necessary... one question though, echo-chamber... it's enough for dyslexia, it's enough for emoji, it's enough for: l8er... it's enough for "gender neutral" pronouns... see... that language i was born with... that **** won't stick... certain languages have pronoun-"augmentation" associated with verbs... e.g.?
                                            mogłem (past-participle masculine
                       of i could have)
                        mogłam (past-participle feminine
                    of i could have)
this, inherent bias, within the confines of the english language, well, i didn't expect it to be so rife, until i witnessed it being exploited! now at least i can pander / side with the natives: funny - coming to a "madman" for sanity quotes, for rigour... well... because there's no fun without someone not having the ***** to counter the libertarian farcical tragico-comic current circumstance of: "pushing the boundaries"... like i said: a lingua ingelese echo-chamber... no belly-button status of the world for you... this viper of an idea, this sordid wasp of a "conundrum" will not spread elsewhere, i feel inclined to contain it, with english regulations of grammar... just like i learned this language to begin with: first the language, then the grammar... physics first, metaphysics later... first the experience of communication, then the theory of communicating... thank god that some languages have an unshakeable foundation, e.g. western slavic: where the pronoun is integrated into verbs with a gender discrimination structure...
  further examples?
                miałem (i had - masculine)
                                                     miałam (i had - feminine)...
so the problem is contained... in this, sometimes erring into sharpnel of, what could have been: a bullet of a tongue; or, i dare say, will hopefully preserve itself, to be it.


i guess.... wait... are stars supposed to that?
i just witnessed two,
transverse the night sky:
    in that, more than the already
perplexing circumstance of a straight line...
to the naked eye:
   they're not supposed to move in
a parabola fashion, are they?
    yes, last time i checked, this was never
going to be a metaphor for
the current state of european politics,
   to the naked eye:
    i would be unable to witness a comet,
and, on the odd occassion,
   the blitzkrieg accent on the sky
by a meteor falling...
            i never had the tools to measure
the difference between a falling
meteor appearing in the sky,
                      to a lightning strike -
time wise...
            after all: is a lightning strike
confined to the same category as light,
yeah: light from the sun?
   i guess this is were awe comes...
          once again: if i somehow manage
to come across the facts -
   i'll give my narrative of a temple's
worth of structure to the blinded,
enraged skin-headed Samson to pull at
the pillars...
                now, with regards to:
a black girl in a supermarket...
   well... i've done it,
    i can clearly state i have become
fully integrated into the multiculutral
experiment that's England,
   it didn't take that long,
               ******* contra being attracked
are two dfifferent ball games...
the language is here,
                 working just fine,
   some native prejudices are somewhat
here,
            i have a harder time
"not understanding" the quickened
paddy taljk, to me the scots sing,
and they managed to preserve
                                     the trill on the R...
so, as they would say in
    a clockwork orange type of fashion,
fully rehabilitated, ****, sorry, integrated...
i can find myself being attracked
                           to an ivory beauty...
side-effect?
    whenever i visit my grandparents,
whenever i pass through
   the urban landscape of Warsaw...
   i feel...
        an extreme nausea,
paranoia,
                 sifting through my in-born
mirror of homogeneity...
the whole process takes, oh,
                     i'd say, roughly 20 years...
brain-washing?
      or a want for a sense of belonging?
my only sense of belonging in
Poland is only related to the use
of language, culturally?
      hybrid at best,
                    or not even hybrid,
mongrel...
                sure, the impeding disaster
of putting a physical hybrid
           with a metaphysical hybrid...
i don't even know how i'll feel
when the ****** tongue dies with
the people i could associate to by speaking
it...
maybe i'll be lucky,
having the luxury of not one death,
but two, in my life.

p.s.
   stating the ****** obvious,
surds...
   lingua ingles(e)
              and not lingua inglesé...
how can i not be stating the obvious,
that's how practiςing
    literacy works, doesn't it?
who has ever heard
a guitar player not say:
    i'm not playing,
  i'm simply practiçing                ?
i guess the origins of the french
         cedilla come from
                                     the greek sigma,
i.e. if it's so smart,
how come a drunk, like me,
                         has to "unearth" it?
always, it's always about
the fiddly bits of language,
english is peppered with
      rules, that are not dogma of
pedagogy...
         of the pedagogic experience...
"somehow" surds appear,
i.e. "silent" letters...
   e.g. there's no (g)nome
         but there's diagnostics...
this, this lingua inglese...
this supposedly "universal" language
for a global community,
and then all the particulars
associated with the native idiosyncracy...
mind you...

     i woke up with a dream,
righ rarity event...
   i was sitting,
then i started walking,
i looked behind me,
a ****** church procession was
walking with banners
and crosses, dressed in black,
i turned my head,
and there was a bunch of
schoolchildren walking toward me,
i was eating a raw chilli...
a boy from the throng coming
at me was eating a raw pepper,
'hey mister'
and pointed at a piece of
a raw papper lying in the grass,
insinuating i lost it...
i replied:
                                          'chilli'...
er­m...
        who the hell would ever need
to amplify dreaming
with a psychadelic experience,
esp. if that person is usually
sleeping for 10+ hours per day
and is dream-starved?
John Graham Jan 2015
THE CAMINO CHRONICLES

OISIN’S LAMENT

I CANNOT BEAR TO SAY FAREWELL
IF FAREWELL IS ALL THAT REMAINS TO BE SAID
THE FINAL SONG OF OUR LOVES DAY
1 CANNOT BEAR TO FOREVER HERE STAY
ALONE ADRIFT IN TIMES ETERNAL TIDE
ALONE, SO ALONE WITHOUT YOU BY MY SIDE
I CANNOT BEAR TO SAY FAREWELL
WHEN IN EVERY CANDLES FLAME I LIGHT
I SEE YOUR LAUGHING EYES YET SHINE BRIGHT
1 CANNOT BEAR TO FOREVER HERE STAY
WHEN IN EVERY TWINKLING STAR I SEE
YOUR MISCHEIFS SMILE SPARKLING AMID THE COSMIC SEA
I CANNOT BEAR TO SAY FAREWELL
FOR WITH EVERY SINGLE BREATH I TAKE
YOUR SCENT FILLS MY CHEST WITH FRESH HEARTACHE

I CANNOT BEAR TO SAY FAREWELL. .

I CANNOT BEAR . . .

SIDHE NO BAS
(SPIRIT NO DIE, WAR CRY OF THE CELTSIDHE)

SOUL ******
ALL DESIRE FLED
FROM HATE

I CUCHULAINN, MURDERER
THRICE CURSED HOUND
I SOAKED THE SOIL OF ERIN
WITH MY GREIF
I CUCHULAINN, ONCE SETENTA
PROUD WEARER OF LAURELS
FIANNA OF THE RED BRANCH
WARRIORS OF EIRIU IMMORTAL
I CUCHULAINN, ONCE GEATHA-I-MUIR
MAKER OF PEACE, HEALER OF ALL WOUNDS
COMPASSIONS SHEILD AND SWORD
AMERGHAIN-GLENNA-GLUN
I CUCHULAINN, THE THRICE ACCURSED
SON OF THE FATHER
WHO SACRIFICED HIS SON CAANAICELT
WHO SACRIFICED HIS DAUGHTER, AINE
I SLEW MY BROTHER, FERGUS-MAC-ALBA
I CUCHULAINN, THE BROTHER-KILLER
BROTHER OF THE SWORD, OF MY BLOOD
LITTLE PAIRSIDHE, TO MY HECTOR ONCE
I CUCHULAINN, THE LOST
MINION TO THE BEASTS LUST
WHO COULD NOT DIE
WHO SO WANTED TO DIE
I CUCHULAINN, OF THE ****** HAND NO MORE

FERGUS MY BROTHER FORGIVE ME
MY BEAUTIFULL BROTHER
I THANK YOU, SAORSIDHE
SAORSIDHE. . SAORSIDHE. .SAORSIDHE

(SAORSIDHE – LIT. FREE SPIRIT)


MEMORIES CANDLE

I GO
BE A MAN TODAY
THE ENEMY COME

FATHER
BROTHERS COUSINS ALL
CLANN, CHILDREN OF EIRIU

I GO
BE A SHEILD THIS NIGHT
FOR WANS WEE

FALLEN! SO MANY. .
HOLD! HOLD!
FOR LOVE OF EIRIU

HOLD! HOLD!
AIEEEE! WANS WEE

SIDHE NO BAS!
Niamh Collins Jul 2020
táim óg agus tá mé sean
dá fheicthe ná rudaí a bhfeicim
páistí, cairde, clann
tá súile againn uilig
tá chroí againn uilig
tá saoirse againn uilig

tá ádh orainn
ábalta labhairt
ábalta canadh
ábalta am a caitheadh lenár teaghlaigh
níl an t-ádh ag gach duine

glac cúpla soicind
nuair atá tú ag gaire s' ag guí
glac an deas atá agat
agus cuir é in úsáid.
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
i must be in one of those... "moods"...
    i must be in such circumstances follow an almost
ritual: the beauty of life...
coupled with the "fairness" of it...
notably when sharing it with people:
of a more... "south of the border"...
a more sour invitation to it...

                  my "free will": my... what little is it...
when someone else might: rest assured...
express his or her... "alternative"...
                      this a choice...

the wine has ran! down into the gob that
sometimes forgets to thirst...
and when not thirsting... does the unpardonable...
shelters itself in the abodes of ruining
patterns of shadow devoid of bodies...

drinks! listens to scandinavian pagan songs...
tiresome... tiresome those byzantine chants...
for all their worth: but enough is enough...
it would be the most precious time...
to translate some Horace...
   such be my need for solace -
but translation itself is hardly a comfort...

                       the cut-off reads...
   at *** tonantis annus hibernus Iovis
        imbris nivisque (conparat)...
       tonantis - thunderer
     hibernus - wintry
               annus - annum - year...
        imbris - growth...
        nivisque - snow... the cut-off is already:
as always crude...
                                    the whiskey is here!
and the romance of powder...
cheeks and roses! but we might as well
begin: from a beginning...

  beatus ille qui procul negotiis, ut prisca gens
mortalium, paterna rura bobus exercet suis
solutus omni faenore
    neque excitatur classico miles truci
  neque horret iratum mare
                       forumque vitat et superba civium
potentiorum limina.
   ergo aut adulta vitium propagine
altas maritat populos at in reducta valle
     mugientum prospectat errantis greges
inutilisque falce ramon amputans feliciores
insertit aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris
aut tondet infirmass ovis.
              vel *** decorum mitibus pomis caput
autumnus agris extulit,
         ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pita
certantem et uvam purpurae,
    qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater Silvane,
tutor finium.
           libet iacere modo sub antiqua ilice,
modo in tenaci gramine:
labuntur altis interim ripis aquae,
           queruntur in silvis aves fontesque
lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,
                             somnos quod invitet levis
.

thus listening to some of what the british
patriots have to offer...
i'd call them the demeaning "natives"...
but then i have on offer...
scottish nationalism
and welsh nationalism...
not to mention the irish: but i'll mention them...
english nationalism...
      hmm...

solution: repatriation... of the "invaders"
of Brimingham...
i know what deportation looks like...
on the weekend that Dianna was
"repatriated": her coffin was towed...
the home office came knocking...
    father doing a runner...
         visiting grandfather broke up his affair
with sober -
'nice com-pew-ter' said the home office
grey...
i was left in tears and punching
the wall...
       so much for integration...
          did my best lizzy... the paperwork...
"got in the way"...
            doesn't matter: the kosovans came
in 1999 circa etc.
     the canines are out...
                  where is my, mosque?
                          where is my kebab stash?
beside the 2004 tsunami...
          
home is where: i have a sparrow's worth
of fear: and perhaps a heart...
when i land in warsaw and try to escape it...
i land in warsaw: i'm a native of these parts:
am i "at home"...
i'll walk you down route 25 bus
past all the babylon and i'll tell you:
nothing like it!
dodo among the peacocks...
humpty-dumpty and sacred cows brigade...
that's not quiet me... but...
         touch 'em with a two metre long
****** if you must!
      
   my affairs with england...
was supposed to be a stop-over...
further argentina... h'america...
     the bleach baptism: ha! ha! h'america!
in search of a great-grandfather...
   guess this is "home"...
sure as ****... warsaw isn't!
      
                   and these concerns...
i will not sing the: god save the queen...
i'd rather whistle to: the british grenadiers fife
& drum... on a scale of: a *****... a nilly...

italy is being "invaded"
germany is being "invaded"
denmark is being "invaded"....
england and france are being "invaded"...
no guns, no tanks... no blitzkrieg?
"invasion"? or just slacking and slurrping
a neo-liberal old liberal pompous brat affair?
sleep more sleep a more dire sleep...
wake up when it's all over...
in the hands of the other...

   an invasion: an "invasion"... no tanks...
just the stories of sorrow from knife-crime
statistics... collateral and human shields...
such concerns...
if it's not the invaders it's the romanians
picking lettuce or the polacks
on construction sites...
but i am as much an exile as anywhere...
and i don't really have a high degree of concern
for my "tribe": either...

   the slow warfare of economic ruin concerning
a town that was sizing up a status of city...
with two metallurgy theatres of operation...
gone: gruzy... heaps of rubble...
           hersch! herr hersch!
     how iz zis evens pozziblah?
               i don't mind the invaders...
marry one: then i might...
   have a little calipso moment and count:
the number of shades of cinnamon,
copper, bronze and cherokee...

                      whiplash... i must be daft...
not to have learned a thing or two from
the **** and the ******... to have to learn
a new: "thing or two" from the... liberals
with their: no tanks, no planes, no microwaves,
no l.s.d. "freedom's freedom" policy!

england big... big O england...
big o: O and exclaimation mark: O! england...
i am not wed to your daughters...
nor the father or grand fairy pater to
them either...
               i didn't bring a mosque!
i didn't bring a flag!
i didn't bring a suntan that retains its
glue in winter!
i didn't bring anything...
beside... there's this idea of a nation...
and there's that...
of a diaspora... which of course...
you had... but didn't...
when... the "proselytes" decided that:
an english diaspora is not:
in our vision... what would become
the invested: hope and character to build
as a grand, u. s. of a.....
so much for the "motherland and the fathertongue"...
or the "fatherland and the mothertongue"...
whittle ol' england...
whittle ol' bargain: and more!

i brought sauerkraut and a poppy-seed cake...
the german might as well have brought
the former... but it's hardly an argument:
the "invaders" from the east brought their own food...
shame... seeing you gobbling down a curry
and a kebab...
who am i to complain?
i eat them too! i have an arsenal of spices
that would most likely compete with
the nuke arsenal of russia!

                      i didn't "integrate" you didn't
"integrate"... i have your tongue as a dearest: polly...
who doesn't want a *******?
that h.p. sauce is genius?
              well... and cricket? but i'll eat your
gob-*****... you will not eat mine...
so you have your bangladeshi "invaders"...
your friday night: chinese take-away and soho...
ahem... "soho"... chinatown...

who's to be complaining?!
exotica! ex-o-tica!
                     shrimp **** and watermelon *****:
requiring... ***** extensions to **** around
with: **** jamai... can oh she cancan but not
in the parisian "sense"...
          
        well... given that this was supposed
to be a translation of Horace...
here's my ****** translation of latin...
it's not a curry... it's not a mosque...
it's not a burning flag it's not a turban...
it's not a roman catholic on a pike...
dying a death more formidable than
a crucifixion...
i'm guessing a viking settling in york:
with something of a believable
scandal when sense of humour is concerned...

i can't promise stale: hardly any poetry...

fortunate he, who from the city's uproar from afar,
free like people of older date,
    with oxen ploughs the fief of hereditary role,
oblivious to either profit or toll,
he doesn't know, what is the **** of a battle horn,
he doesn't tremble, when the sea grieves a vengence,
shuns away from the forum's uproar,
        he doesn't, like customers - who -
                 protrude under the doubling of the wealthy.
he prefers the lush shrubs of grapevines -
with shoots wed to the stump of a poplar tree,
overseeing, leading herds of roaring cows
into and among pastures on the slopes
of mountainous valleys...
             hunt boars... interlock with beef...
                  so as to have a noble variety of fruit,
from pressed plasters: honey sieved into amphorae
or clipper woolly sheep of the herd.
                - and when golden autumn above
the fields - donning a wreath of harvested wheat:
raises its head -
with what kind of ecstasy / delight...
tears the sight of grafted pears...
                   and bunches in clusters of purple -
should for Priapus and Silvanus,
     watchman's bordering copper, bring forth:
the first gifts.
     how pleasant to rest upon cushioning grass
or under a an old and shady oak:
where fluvial trends in precipitious stance
of banks errodes...
                     where the birds' graceful nagging...
foliage murmurs, streams of water incessant:
thus a dream make... unexpectedly
.

estrada: tempus...
                            auditores? lemures!
stage: time...
            the audience? ghosts!
that's bound to happen... binding oneself
to a Horace...
       with what's already available...
the stage: the audience....
and beside: the audience: time...
        well... i rather enjoy entertaining...
a stage of time: and the audience of ghosts...
than have to resort / retort to
the latter "debacle"...

             i, didn't... bring an "invaders"...
detail... lucky for me...
of the german the zeppelin and the ******...
you didn't even have to taste
anything by the leftover mongol...
that crimea became the capital of
the diaspora... that the mongol became known
as the tartar...
                                      chebureki...

endear me! have you humpty-dumpties!
your sacred cows!
your mosques! your chinatown!
your frizzy and your froth!
your angst your liberals and your
huguenots!
your passive-aggresive secular "christianity"
tingling with **** atheism...
"your"... Birmingham!
"your"... Loon'don...
                            
             clywed y çymraeg!
                                    éist clann gàidhli!

seobheith!
           no heidegger: no "there"...
                        anois!
              
        YMA!
                                     YMABODAU!
i leave Wstminster to the porky-pies...
who with and with: "who":
where else?!

— The End —