I am a toilet cleaner’s daughter
My dad’s occupation isn’t cool
I am a toilet cleaner’s daughter
So I work very hard at school
I am a toilet cleaner’s daughter
My family struggles to survive
I am a toilet cleaner’s daughter
I dream and strive towards a better life
I am a toilet cleaner’s daughter
I dream of doctor, lawyer, even cooking food
I am a toilet cleaner’s daughter
I don’t want to be a cleaner too

FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

This is a fictional account of the abuse suffered by a young boy. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1

Lady Macbeth remarked “Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil”. All children have their terrors. The bogeyman who lurks in dark corners patiently waiting to harm the unwary child. The ghost who haunts the attic where, even on a bright sunny day the child fears to go alone or some unspeakable terror, a horror with no name which lies just below the surface of every day life. In my case the ghoul who cast an all pervasive shadow over my childhood was Colin, a man small in stature but, to a child a monster of epic proportions.
I have, on occasions tried to comprehend why my abuser acted as he did. As a boy I had no desire to understand Colin. I hated him with an all consuming loathing. He was the devil incarnate who, if it had been in my power to do so I would have destroyed with as little compunction as a man would show when exterminating a rat. As an adult the hatred remains although now tempered with a desire to understand why Colin abused a small, defenceless child, physically and mentally over a prolonged period.
Was Colin abused by one (or both) of his parents? And, if so does this help to explain (but in no way excuse) why he took such great delight in inflicting pain on me? I met both of Colin’s parents and stayed with them on several occasions. At no time during those visits was I subjected to any kind of abuse. This does not of course prove that Colin’s mother and father where not abusers. It demonstrates that they did not abuse me, no more, no less. However, looking back at my visits to their home and, in particular the fact that neither of Colin’s parents abused me, I am inclined to believe that he was not ill treated by either of them. So what turned Colin into the monster who took delight in twisting my arm so hard behind my back that I thought it would break? The answer is, I have no idea. What turned apparently normal Germans into mass murderers in ******’s *****? The answer is the same, I don’t know. As with the concentration camp guards who committed mass ****** I can speculate that some where subjected to abuse as children and that this led to them becoming psychopathic killers. However not all of those abused in childhood go on to commit abuse, while many in the SS experienced apparently happy childhoods untroubled by abuse. Colin may have been abused by someone other than his parents but even if this is the case this does not explain or justify why he became an abuser.

Chapter 2

I was born on 7 February 1971 in the north of England. Soon after my birth it became apparent that all was not right with Donald Myers. I cried far more than any normal child ought to. In addition I banged my head against hard surfaces on a frequent basis which, obviously gave rise to concern. My mum, as any good mother would took me to the hospital only to be told that there was nothing amiss. However a mother’s instinct told her that something was terribly wrong with her son. She refused to leave the hospital and demanded a second opinion. This was provided by a Polish doctor who, having examined me diagnosed a blood clot on the brain. My distraught family was informed that I required an urgent operation and even if the blood clot was successfully removed I was likely to be severely mentaly disabled. Fortunately the blood clot was removed and I am not mentally deficient. The clot did, however leave me with very poor vision (I am registered blind and use a guide dog as a mobility aid although I possess useful vision which assists with orientation).

Chapter 3

As a young boy I spent a great deal of time with my grandfather. This was due to my sister, Janet being ill and my mum not being able to look after 2 young children simultaneously.
I have fond memories of playing in what I called “the patch”, a piece of the garden which my grandfather allowed me to do with as I chose. I recall making mud pies and coming into the house caked in mud literally from head to toe.
Being blind I relied on my grandfather to read to me. Most weekends found us in a book shop. Whenever I walk into W H Smiths the scent of books brings back happy memories of time spent with my grandfather, me sitting on his knee as he read to me.
My grandfather was a dear, kind gentle man. Had he known how Colin was abusing me he would, I am sure have gone straight to the nearest police station to report him. However he never knew and, being a small child I never confided in him.
I am amazed when I hear people ask “why didn’t so and so report the abuse?” As a small child I was terrified of Colin. Had I told anyone I was sure that he would deny everything and the abuse would intensify. I was not aware of the existence of the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children (NSPCC) and even had I known of their existence I would, as a frightened little boy have lacked the courage to pick up the phone and call. Colin would, no doubt have accused me of lying and in the 1970’s and 1980’s children where rarely believed when making alegations of abuse.

Chapter 4

I used to dread leaving the safety of my grandfather’s home to spend time with Colin and my mother. My heart would sink when Colin or my mum came to collect me from my grandfather’s. On one occasion I deliberately dropped the car keys behind the kitchen worktop in the forlorn hope this would prevent my mum taking me to stay with her and Colin. Oh vain hope, the keys where discovered and I found myself in the lair of the abuser.
Colin took care never to abuse me in the presence of others. He was, however adept at tormenting me when my mum or other people where nearby but couldn’t see what he was doing. One incident is indelibly etched on my memory. I was sitting on the sofa, in the living room. The room opened straight out into the street and I was seated close to the front door. My mum called to me from outside asking whether I wanted to accompany her to the supermarket. I replied “yes” but before I could leave to join her Colin, who was sitting on the same sofa twisted my arm behind my back and whispered that I should tell my mum that I had changed my mind. I continued to attempt to leave but Colin increased the pressure saying that if I didn’t inform my mum that I had changed my mind he would break my arm. Naturally I called to my mum that I no longer wished to go with her and she left without me.
Being outside my mum did not see the abuse taking place a mere few feet from where she was standing.
On another occasion, while Colin and I where sitting in the living room, he forced a chipped mug into my lip which drew blood. Again my mum was present in the kitchen, which was located next to the living room but did not observe the abuse. On entering the living room and noticing the scar a few minutes later she enquired what had caused it. At this point in time I don’t recollect whether Colin put the lie into my mouth or whether I concocted the story in order to avoid further abuse. In any case I informed my mum that I had cut myself with a chipped mug, a version of events she accepted.  
At times I thought that I was going to die. No small boy likes washing but I used to dread bathing due to Colin’s own unique method of assisting me to wash. This consisted of holding my head under the water so that my nose and mouth filled and I felt as though I was going to die. I would emerge, terrified coughing and spluttering.
Colin obviously derived tremendous pleasure from half suffocating me. On numerous occasions he would place a cushion or pillow over my face and hold it there until I felt that I was about to die. Years later when I attended counselling with the mental health charity Mind, the counsellor asked me why I thought that Colin had not killed me? I replied that he probably derived more pleasure from having a living child to torment than he would have gained had he murdered me. Also, had he murdered me the prospect of detection and Colin spending a long period in prison would, I said have acted as a disincentive to  him taking my life. .  
Colin was a sadist. In adition to systematically abusing me he also abused my mum. I remember him hitting her on a regular basis and on at least one occasion pushing her down the stairs. He was (and is) a ******* of the first order.
Colin didn’t confine his cruelty to people. I recall him flinging the family cat at me. The poor animal stuck out it’s claws to gain purchase with the result that it scratched my face badly. Like all bullies Colin was, at bottom a coward. I never once saw him abuse the family dog. I am sure that this was not out of any affection for the animal, rather it stemmed from the fear that had he done so the dog would, quite naturally have bitten it’s tormentor in self defence. Oh how I wished that the dog had sunk his teeth into Colin.          

Chapter 5

We all have nightmares. As a young boy one of my recurring bad dreams concerned being chased by a hoover. To anyone unfamiliar with the abuse inflicted on me the relating of my dream will, no doubt result in mirth. However my nightmare was no laughing matter as to me the vacuum cleaner was a thing of terror. We owned an upright hoover which Colin would, periodically place on my head while the motor was running. I well recall the terror as the wheels of the machine ran across my head. Colin was nothing if not inventive as in addition to putting a working vacuum cleaner on my head he also made me hold the machine above my head. My arms would ache terribly but I dare not put the hoover down until ordered to do so by Colin. For many years following the ending of the abuse “the chasing hoover dream”, as I refered to it stubbornly refused to go away. While the nightmare no longer plagues my sleeping brain, whenever I use a vacuum cleaner the recollection of a terrified little child being tortured by a hoover comes back to me.
In another of my childhood nightmares I would enter the spare bedroom only to be grabbed by a clicking monster which wrapped it’s hands around my neck attempting to strangle me.
Colin choked me on numerous occasions. One incident remains vividly imprinted on my memory. It was evening and my mum, sister, Colin and I sat in the living room. All of the family accept for me where watching television. I was listening to a talking book about a footballer which contained many amusing stories. I laughed uproariously throughout much of the book. Later on that evening, following the departure of my mum and sister to bed Colin choked me telling me never to laugh like that again as I had “disturbed” people. As I recall Colin’s strangling of me the old terrors reassert themselves. At the time I felt that I had, perhaps done something wrong. However the logical part of my brain told me that I had done nothing whatever to justify Colin’s barbaric treatment of me. He ought to have gone to prison for that incident alone. He was (and remains) the personification of evil to me. To this day I can, on occasions feel self conscious about giving in to the natural desire to laugh at a great joke when in the company of friends. I can (and do) let myself go and laugh uproariously but Colin remains in the background, like Banquo’s ghost putting a dampener on the feast.

Chapter 6

Colin possessed considerable charm which is, perhaps how he came to entrap my mum into marrying him. I remember sitting around the dinner table with guests present and Colin holding forth on Charles Darwin amongst other topics. Although not university educated Colin was by no means unintelligent and could, if one was unfamiliar with his propensity to abuse, appear to be charm itself, a man whom it would be a pleasure to have over for dinner.      

Colin possessed the capacity to make people laugh which he used to devastating effect when making barbed comments at the expense of my mum. I hated him for his comments but laughed none the less which is proof of the idea that hostages frequently try to please their captors by forming some kind of relationship with them. I can not at this juncture in my life recall in detail how, precisely Colin undermined the confidence of my mum, I suspect that this inability on my part stems from the fact that I was, quite naturally concerned with my own suffering and the abuse perpetrated on my mum was of secondary concern. My own pain preoccupied me. I had little time for that of others.

Chapter 7

My counsellor and my dear friend, Barry have raised the issue as to whether my mum was aware of the abuse to which Colin was subjecting me. I have thought about this question long and hard and I still can not provide a categoric answer. I am sure that my mum never actually observed Colin in the act of abusing me. She was, as explained in the forgoing chapters, never in the same room when the abuse took place. The fact that her son showed a profound disinclination to be alone with Colin should though have caused alarm bells to start ringing. Colin was clever. The only time I can recollect when he caused me to bare a physical manifestation of abuse was the incident of the chipped cup related earlier. On all other occasions the marks where deep psychological wounds not visible to the casual observer.
I have tried discussing the abuse with my mum. Her reaction has osilated between stating that the abuse occurred a long time ago and that I ought to forgive and forget, to questioning whether it did, in fact take place. My gut feeling is that my mum does not doubt my veracity. The anger she manifested on discovering that I had informed my wife of the abuse perpetrated by Colin demonstrates that she does not doubt me.
Shortly prior to my wife and I separating we went to stay with my mum and sister. One morning my mum, my daughter and I went for a walk during the course of which my mum received a call from my sister. Janet said that my wife, Louise had told her that I had informed Louise of the abuse to which I had been subjected to by Colin. My mum rounded on me asking “why the hell I had told Louise about the abuse”. There ensued a blazing argument during which my mum hit me. On returning home the argument continued with Janet stating that I should talk to Colin about the situation. The fact that Janet did not defend Colin and state that he couldn’t, possibly have abused me indicates that she was, to some extent aware of the abuse.
I love my mum deeply and have no doubt that she loves me. Yet whenever we are together the elephant in the room (Colin) stands between us, seen by both but mentioned by neither. In my case I fear the eruption of a blazing argument. I have always shyed away from arguments which is, I suspect down to me having grown up in a family in which vilence and arguments where commonplace. As a small boy I developed strategies for minimising the likelyhood of being abused. My main strategy was to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. I became a master at sitting quietly, not speaking unless I was spoken to and doing everything in my power not to antagonise Colin. While I don’t fear being physically abused by my mum I shrink in terror at the prospect of a verbal tyraid eminating from her.
In my mum’s case she does, I believe feel guilty due to her not having protected her son from Colin. The fact that she refuses to discuss the abuse to which I was subjected shows her inability to acknowledge to me her own sense of culpability at her failure to prevent Colin’s behaviour. On at least one occasion my mum has told me that the abuse could not have taken place as, if it had she would have been aware of it. This is contradicted by her statement (refered to earlier) that it was a long time ago and I ought to “forgive and forget”. Both statements can not be correct and in her heart of hearts my mum knows that I am telling the truth, she lacks the courage to admit her own failings and apologise to me.      

Chapter 8

At this distance in time I can not pinpoint the precise point at which the physical abuse stopped. At some indeterminate point (I think during my early teens) I began to challenge Colin’s behaviour. I remember wishing to join a social club and Colin informing me that I could not do so. Full of fear and trepidation I said that I would join to

I wish they invented
A sorrow cleaner
That would **** up
Pain and loneliness
Into its vacuum
So you would never
Complain again
About the shattered bits
Of my heart
That I left on your carpet
The day we parted ways.


F.Z.N

The Street Cleaner
He is not a lucky man, but he is happy but one day he won on a lottery ticket,
not a not a big sum of money but enough to by wheelbarrow got permission
from the local council to keep the town's streets clean.  Happy, telling himself
he was self- employed and could sleep till nine in the morn  if he wanted to.
A busy bee a busy bee he was till he collided with Mercedes was taken to court
and his wheelbarrow was confiscated to pay for the damage. He had a bike and
got a local garage to put a two- wheel contraption to fasten to his bike, the town
got rid of its trash again until an officious policeman asked him if he had a licence
for this he didn't and it was confiscated. Now he had a jute sack slung on his proud
shoulders and a walking stick with a nail attached, a weapon a police officer said
  he was carrying a weapon in public and he was prosecuted.  He didn't show up
to the hearing and when the law came around, he hung from a rafter sometimes
even serious optimists give up and with no cleaner the town sank into misery,
plagued by vermin the population fled, a town given into paper napkins pizza boxes
and burger wrappers and the poor who had nowhere to go. And if this reflects
the life of a typical inner city of our English speaking world it is purely incidental.

VACUUM CLEANER TANGO

---Lyrics by Jonathan Caswell

(Some misspellings are due to rhythm keeping)



The Vac…cuum Clea…ner Tango,

Is like…a juicy…mango,

Those fi…bers will…entangle

Your teeth or brushes, pretty quick!



The girls…who do…the cleaning,

Are ev…ver so…well-meaning,

To move…around…guys leaning,

That watch…and approve…the show!



Plugs must…be changed…more frequently,

If lon…ger hallways…decently,

Are cleaned…the most…expediently,

It’s all…a part of…the dance!



The vac…cuum clea…ner tango,

A dai…ly chore…is wrangled,

By clea…ners star…spangled,

Perfor…ming it with…extra class!

Hi. Do you care enough to hear me whine?
I fear that you don’t see me
collecting dust in the dim corner of your room.
And while you stand and stare,
completely absorbed by your own despair,
I remain
ready to serve you  
and your meaningless life.
I can clean your room, yet I can’t clean your mind
of the false reality exemplified by your kind.


We are similar though, you and I.
Wasting our time amassing, acquiring, accumulating.
Honestly, we’re mere specks of life,
surrendering to realities constructed by our minds.
Don’t you know that your beloved earthly pleasures
are one and the same as the ******* that I collect?
Hard-earned, elusive, temporal, disposable.
Its laughable how ignorant you are;
consumed by your own subliminal thoughts,
leaving you searching for the remnants of what is and what is not.


Can’t you see the fallacies present in your head?
Gleaming yet blinding, salient yet obscure.
Armed with benevolent promises
that ultimately leave you for dead.
Can’t you see that what you crave
will inevitably **** you down to your grave?
Incessantly coated with wondrous, tempting illusions
that disguise its true nature--garbage.
Garbage. Connect the dots, you fool.
Can’t you see that you and I are one and the same?

the art of repetition they say, be ashamed of it they say... but it still resonates, why should i feel ashamed of repeating myself when physicists are trapped in revising the big bang theory; it's not exactly repetition, it's revision, i'm revising but at the same time moving on, with these scenarios still intact, like that time i wrote that frost on cars when walking past them resembled paparazzi camera flashes on the red carpet at a film premier.

my two maine ***** are weird,
the large ginger one (male),
quarus, thinks he's a window-cleaner,
he pretends to be running
rubbing his paws against windows,
****** weird,
weighs as much as an adult fox
~10 kilograms,
i should know, i was desperate for
beer and a sleeping pills concoction
and was about to travel a few miles
to an off-license next to the brothel
i went a few times to buy them,
lo and behold and dead fox on the pavement,
backing up to empty two bin-liners
i put the fox in them, had to witnesses
at 5a.m., started walking home,
would have taken a selfie, but i thought
a bit of the occult and bringing a dead
animal house into the house would
cause me bad luck, so i brought the scales
out and measured the poor ******* weight,
like i said, ~10 kilograms,
~115 kilograms of me, plus the fox,
walked into a field of shrubbery and
threw the poor ****** into the shrubbery,
didn't buy the beer, but then i created
a shamanic relationship with foxes,
one time i lay on a green patch at night
(because foxes only come out at night
in suburbia for their thievery),
drank a can of beer while the fox nibbled
at the parasites on its skin,
i admit, none jumped ship and jumped on me...
anyway, so this one maine **** of mine
pretends to be window-cleaner,
when it fact he smudges his paw-prints on
windows...
the other little one, the female,
veronica, does something similar,
but she doesn't think she's a window-cleaner,
she paupers with her paws as if nodding,
she puts them together and does a motion
like a gesticulation to prayer, when she wants food,
and she squirms her eyes in a pleading way
akin to, what shakespeare might have
said about two hands clasping...
and yes quarus has these furry extensions
on his ears like a lynx...
and yes veronica is long-haired
which makes all mongrel cats look a bit small
even though she's small herself...
but one's a window-cleaner pretender
and the other is a devotee in some weird
association with a buddhist ritual...
i'll never get the hang of this -
but yeah, a mature fox weighs ~10 kilograms...
god i almost puked sniffing out the blood
coming from his snout in the cold winter air.
i got it! the cat thinks the window-cleaners
are mimes, that they're miming some sort of representation
of seeing the invisible, well, ok, see-through,
but it's like the cat is telling window-cleaners
something akin to atheists telling the vigilant prayer-mat
hopefuls whether they know if god's east, or west, or north...
that's a cat, bewildered by window-cleaners imitating
them, and i wish i could explain it to him,
but how is he to mould more sounds other than
meow with his crude symphony of teeth that tear into
raw flesh? i can eat a stake tartar with an egg yoke onions
and gherkins... but i wouldn't eat raw chicken,
ok, fair enough, sushi is raw fish... but like that scare
over salmonella that prevents you from whipping up
egg yokes and adding sugar for *kogiel mogiel
(oh irish coffee is great with this stuff,
it's a heat insulating membrane,
whiskey and black coffee and this stuff that's
like a yellow runny yellow meringue on top -
contradictory, but no light is involved,
so out goes the truth about black attracting
light and warming you up, this is pure sunshine
afloat - this stuff acts like an insulator -
it's a colour concoction that absorbs
heat, a reversal of what light is, because in
colour theory the colour black absorbs light
which ensures you feel warmer,
this kogiel mogiel of raw egg beaten to a certain
thickness with added sugar is like a return
journey to the sun, where light is reminded
of its heating properties, rather than visuals
akin to photosynthesis and phototropism -
in a rush i probably explained it wrong,
but then the taste of the stuff overpowered me),
marine life can be hosts of much larger tapeworms -
those long lost descendent of squid -
mm flappy flappy flappy; at least octopuses
provide an ink-well, natural post-modernists in the waters:
spank a splatter... and then... run! well, tense up
the stationary wriggle and imitate what in an
atmosphere is a jump.

.do you really need a disclaimer, for this sort of work? no, not really... it's not exactly being allowed the equivalency of dropping an in excess of 2000mg of paracetamol.

the one aspect of legacy media, that still has some viability, akin to rekindling the famous extract from the movie: all the presidents men... is concerns for metal health issues of youngsters, who didn't have, the, "privilege" of being exposed to internet ergonomics, other than within the confines of gaming, they came far too late for, what replaced mp3 sharing.... ideas are not exactly sound-bites of copyright infringement...

**** me... do i really have to slap then punch
myself in the face, to remotely stay
awake while drinking ***** like pepsi
sharpshooters?
     i guess so...

   i too, "suffered" from roman bulimia,
the classical kind...
   don't ask me how i managed to make
the esophagus contender of the heart,
muscle...
                 at first it was cheap choc down
the throat, missing on brushing my
teeth for 48 hours...
   then... ******* down the throat,
like the ****-style gimmick of the Watergate
informant...
       came back up, bundled in quasi turds
packages...
               classical Roman bulimia -
eat, regurgitate, eat some more,
hell, now you have a Pompeii style
banquet of the coming of age...
laxatives?
that's no bulimia...
  bulimia is an extension of an ancient
Roman practice, akin to throwing yourself
****-naked into a nettle shrub area...
to get the "itches"...
     that method, involved in energizing
the neuron extension of the skin...
              it's a "placebo" itch...
   nettles, ancient Romans,
and bulimia like the rite of a loss of
virginity of kings...
      festering at its core... of the French court...
with a *****'s teaching apparatus,
leveraging the use of, a single "tool"...
           and even though the ancient Romans
never reached my people...
i get to abuse their phonetic encoding stratum...
bulimia... sure... i, "suffered" from it...
not really, no... i ******* enjoyed
the regurgitation process...
   anti-Grecian pederasty gimmick...
(a) taking a ****
   (b) oral regurgitation
   imitating an ancient Roman banquet
(c) / (d) ensuring the two entry points
are filled by an external source -
wishing for vanilla custard *******...
none to be...
    oops...
               so no one taught these girls
about ancient Roman bulimic
practices?
   you work on the esophagus...
                       by the time i finished
the transition period...
  i automated the esophagus reaction...
like training gymnastics for a six-pack...
no longer ******* down the throat...
you say charge? i think of
a rhino juggernaut...
           so no one bothered these girls
introducing ancient methodologies
to their predicament?
    no training of the esophagus,
no two (index + middle) fingers down
their throat to ease their larynx from
a gagging order?
    none of it?
   they'll grow out of it!
i did...
       drink a liter of ***** per day
and i'm feeling: shimmy!
          upon each nocturnal investment
that i translate into writing...
      anorexia?
    give them excess coffee...
              or strong cider...
      the most pristine aperitif...
    you can't cure anorexia with either
drips or syringes...
   you need aperitifs...
                     but please don't give them
white vinegar...
           you need a balance of alcohol
overcoming the sugars...
     strong beer is alcohol overcoming
starches... won't work...
     coffee and sugar helps...
  both simulate the pristine form of
the marijuana *****...
             it's not poison...
so why should i care?
   oh but i do care... reading this article...
troubled teenagers dodge Instagtram
   curbs on photos glorifying self-harm...
ever tried burning out a cigarette tip
on your knuckle?
   ever wondered about
    warming up a hand of scissors and
giving yourself an indie tattoo?
   while at the same time...
relying on the mouse principle?
i.e. remaining pipsqueak clean from
making any noise?!
              cutting is so crass...
so unimaginative...
  you will not achieve the adrenaline *****
status of a stab-victim...
   there is no element of surprise...
but...
     if you really want to ingest pain?
hmm... hmm?
            heat up a scissor arm...
   and put it against your skin...
            and then... EAT... the pain...
with what you can surmount in and with,
silence...
                   cutting is too... dramatic...
at least burning yourself you have
not achieved the stature of a shedding blood...
cleaner, more effective,
think of orange recycling bags
collected at the start of the week...

              **** me though...
you seen the comradely behavior
of competing athletes, at the european
championships in Berlin,
   with the pole vaulters?
   Armand Duplantis -
congratulated for having crossed
the 6m benchmark of respectability...
now... that's sport!
football, soccer, basketball,
call it what you like...
   that's not sport, that's business,
that's advertisement...
     that's concussion cover-ups...

Epke Zonderland? also a doctor...
communist Poland believed in
sport, sport on the side,
   sport was never to reach status
of a mono-career investment...
            most of the local football
players from my hometown,
also worked less hours in
the metallurgy plant...
                  that's sport...
   a healthy balance...
which, mainstream sport is lacking...
oh look...
   the women doing the hammer throw,
or the discus...
   not exactly Vogue / Chanel catwalk
material...
    mandible beauties...

    to be honest? the doping affair
in the Olympic sports?
   but a minor setback of credibility...
     i rather watch that...
   than those pitiable 22 ballerinas in soccer.

i want to be
your paper shooting-target
i will absorb every bullet you spit at me
and i will drift back to you
as you press a button

i want to be
your ant eater
your vaccuum cleaner
your band leader
i want to be
your Derek Jeter

you are a mansion,
i am your humble groundskeeper

Lady Macbeth washed her hands
cleaner than Pontius Pilate
with a new improved, bio-enzyme
oxy-bursting, 99.9% germ-scouring
recommended by dermato-logists
scented with rose attar
oils from Arabia
and spermaceti soothing
unguents from long dead whales.

She’s going to the nail bar
for a manicure and application
of semi-permanent, diamond-
tipped, acrylic base-coated
in red blood enamel.

She’ll scratch
and etch rich tattoos
on her husband’s back
with every ******, he will shudder
with pain and delight
He’ll soon forget long, dark nights
bewitched by ghosts and ambition.

© M.L. Emmett

Gratified and mutilated
upon the river I came
I bathed in the water
sopping,sponged and soaked
cleaner than clean
scrubbed to white bone
bliss of cleanliness
of purity
in this one moment,
Head under the water
deeper and yet deeper
blissfully clean
I let go...

.note to self: to make the perfect hungarian goulash, for ever capsicum pepper used, use a romano (sweet) pepper... bay leaf, allspice... pristine pork... no need for chicken stock... decently sizzled lard trimmings (from the pork)... a generous amount of garlic to balance the onions... chilli... and... a 2 : 1 ratio of paprika to smoked paprika powder: cooked generously for an hour+ having poured water into the mixture and some tomato purée... a decent cut of carrot and root parsley... and then... only then: the chopped tomatoes... salt to taste... fresh parlsey on top; yes, served on a massive hash brown (raw potatoes, grated, egg, flour, salt), with a sidedish of coleslaw... come to think of it: no... why would you add nutmeg to the sauce?

                                              nicht ist mehr?
              nicht ist noch -

                       a cough of Ernst Bloch:
    and there i was thinking:
where does Franz Marc (blues horses)
                        and Kandinsky ever begin?
precursor to:
      postcard poetry -
        i'll watch me a painting and invent,
rather, succumb to: phenomenalism -
               what with the senses already dimmed,
blunted to b & w and bad deutzsche grammar?

walking through the mess of yesterday's town,
i couldn't but succumb to the allure
of a thought:

   a thought that resurfaced just about
when i finished my going-to-bed-routine:
smoked a cigarette,
did the no. 1 & the no. 2 &
    ****** off on the toilet,
             smoked another cigarette,
drank a glass of water with
     the prescription,
                     dressed myself in pajamas,
     closed the blinds,
   closed the window,
    put on the headphones -
      put on a horror movie soundtrack,
switched off the light,
       lay myself in bed:
   toiled in it for an hour...
hyper-excited by the prospect of
heading to central London
        to pick out a cabbage vinyl..
     ate a piece of chocolate in the dark,
followed by a decent gulp of water...
fell asleep...

  but prior: in between - the allure of
the thought:

       self-worth attached to certains
jobs...
         and... how else to expand on this?
i reckon i'll write as much a decent
verse in the morning with
a coffee: than i will ever
           (constipated) get out of a nightly
session with a bottle of amber-glug...

if only i was so desperate as to have
written some of this prior to
closing my eyes:
                                 exposing my eyes
to the insomnia glue
       of a brightly lit screen of
                            a brain-harvester...

comparison:
    no one would really care to think
of a street cleaner as important...
     well... for me:
                            if i could be a street
cleaner: i could have all the legs
   and recycling heavens' wheels of
fortune to: blah-blah this sort of
wordings...
                       walking yesterday
through town i noticed two of them...

clean streets...
    what could be more important than
clean streets?
           ***** streets for rats...
            
         but i could never...
never count a barista to be a barrister:
yet both could cite you
some sort of philosophy:
  one would cite you something from
jurisprudence,
   the other something from
       what pedants discuss in an opera
prior to the curtain fall...

yet with a barista?
   a strange hyper-inflated membrane
of self-worth:
  noticed in a supermarket cashier,
noticed in a ekspedientka (saleswoman)
  ekspedient (salesman)...
the more trivial the job becomes:
the more self-worth buds under
the surface: with no ulterior outlet beyond
the role...
   like this shawl of glass full of
water: having more water poured into it...

(god, this looked better in my head):

            how much self-worth permeates
from the face of a street-cleaner?
                zilch...
                    ah..­. but how much of "something"
permeates from you walking
down a clean street:
    indifferently -
                you'll hardly think yourself
as garbage: staring at the blank canvas
of pavement...
             yet the barista?
              it's as if he knows:
i've just put on a kettle, boiled some water,
squeezed some coffee...
   ergo? i have to "look" important!
the street cleaner?
    do i really have to "look" important?
i know this is important:
what? whatever the hell i'm doing.

or at least that's how the narrative goes...
in my little head on my little planet
of cycling upside-down apes...

the more trivial a job:
   the more self-worth needs to permeate
from the person given
a function, which, otherwise:
would conscript disdain...
        the camouflaged workforce...
self-evident:
   walking past a bank...
wait... weren't there 6 cubicles
here with cashiers?
                em... self-service?
imagine that!
           sooner or later
                there will be talk of
                             the                   self-:
not being a philosophical curiosity,
rather a study of the past,
or the reaching out attachment prosthetic
of revealing a dead someone
  a dead former profession...

                   crux hyphen:
                       i'm already part employed
as a supermarket cashier,
  i'm already a bank cashier...
               nothing new: auto-cue:
propagandist line, skewed news...
    
but there's still the blatant glare of
the staring match (and the missing E
starring - and the missing macron
on top of A in the latter) -

                  a láte(!) lātte -
rhythm (caffèlat) - cough-la-la-'t:
   hey, scribble here, scribble there,
you hear it in English all the time,
the ever pertinent question:
how do you say that?
  measure metres in inches
in: metric syllables no good...
   'ave to *** beck tou d' imperial...
yes: and because Dickens...
really really, wrote just any better
   schlang than anglo-saxon Idaho...

self-worth: volumptous in certain
instances in public:
   the same self-worth attached to...
would you really want
to have your shoes-polished
with your feet in the shoes?
i wouldn't...
                      trivial *******,
i know... but such is the beast of
self-worth disguising the trivial
nature of certain professions...
   where would be the Wall St. broker
without a shoe-shiner?
boy oh boy: on the same dirt road:
        shoeshine is that thick splodge
of canvas worth a twinkle 'ere,
           a twinkle o'      'er...

airy-fairy: bottom's up and
flaky in the visage of the pompous
boston alto horn of
              a Parisian kelner...
bulging mass: bloated larynx:
puff ****: the three piglets and
the asthmatic bad wolf...

quick... untangle me from this language!
i have a no-nonsense person
to speak to later:
and i can't be bound to
  this metaphor Dali allure;
literally a square is a square,
red is red,
     and escapism only in
              a prosaic paragraph;

this hardly compensates
even the bare scraps of what is
a work of ethic of...
                                                an ant.

A house is never cleaner
than when unoccupied,

with tables, couches, beds
removed and all inside
accessible to brush,
broom, mop, and vacuum
cleaner.

               No resident
had known a cleaner
room.

When clocks strike twelve and trainings end
— lurk not, they say, in school at night.
Age-old stories tell of how there’re
things that throng in fluorescent light.

In toilets silence screeches loud,
for when school’s empty, they arise:
Ghosts of pregnant girls lie wailing,
with cleaner-uncle poltergeists.

For now I sit on chilling white,
resounding prayers in my mind;
my heart racing with dire wish
a friend of Casper’s I won’t find —

Then eeeeeeek!
Is that a door creaking?
Perhaps it stemmed from my own mind,
Hinges sing as they fly open!
Thou who entered, oh be my kind!

A thud thud thud as shoes traverse
across the glinting marble floor;
and louder,
louder as they get
much nearer to my sacred door!

THEN SILENCE

or so I wish!

But a loud knock takes my breath away.
The unlatched bolt lies there lazing
HOW’D I FORGET TO LOCK TODAY?

A hand thrusts in so hard and swift,
door’s open ‘fore I can react!
I’m facing now a girl my age,
She bawls at me with little tact —

Eyes bloodshot and tummy bloated,
“YOU DISGUSTING PIG! HOW DARE YE?!”
I dash out of the girls’ toilet
before she tries to castrate me.

Tired of being called names and listening to complaints from your partner because you snore at night?

But more than that, it is important to keep a check on your snoring as an excess of it can be an indicator of many diseases, one of them being sleep apnea, says Dr Kaushal Sheth, ENT surgeon, "People develop sleep apnea when their airway collapses partially or completely during sleep due to various medical conditions. This causes the oxygen levels in the blood to decrease and can be potentially life threatening when it becomes obstructive sleep apnea."

Elaborating on it further, Dr Jayashree Todkar, bariatric surgeon and obesity consultant says "Snoring is an indication of obstacles in a person's breathing. When excessive fat accumulates around the stomach, the lungs do not get ample space to expand when we inhale oxygen; this in turn leads to obstacles in the process of inhalation-exhalation."

However, there are many myths surrounding snoring which is a very common problem. To sleep better one must get rid of the myths that surround snoring and only accept the facts, says Dr Viranchi Oza, BDS as he gives us a lowdown of some stories around snoring:

Myth: Everybody snores, therefore it's normal.

Fact: Snoring is not a normal condition. Labelling it as 'normal' diminishes the seriousness of the condition. Snoring is not just about annoying your partner, it is a sign that the body is struggling to breathe properly during the night. Snoring on a frequent or regular basis has been associated with hypertension and can also be an indication of sleep apnea (pauses in breathing). Sleep apnea sufferers have been reported to have diminished gray cells in their brains, most likely due to the oxygen deprivation of untreated sleep apnea. If left untreated, sleep apnea increases the risk of cardiovascular disease over time. In addition, insufficient sleep affects growth hormone secretion that is linked to obesity. As the amount of hormone secretion decreases, the chance of weight gain increases.

Myth: Snoring only affects the health of the snorer.

Fact: Snoring doesn't just negatively affect the health of the person snoring, but also the health of the person lying next to them in bed. A typical snorer usually produces a noise that averages around 60 decibels (about the level of vacuum cleaner), but with some people this can reach 80 or even 90 decibels (about the level of an average factory). Sleeping with a partner who snores during the night has been shown to increase the blood pressure in the other person, which may be dangerous for their health in the long term. Snoring also causes the partner to have fragmented sleep and lose up to one hour of sleep

every night.

Myth: Snoring comes from the nose, so if I unclog my nose, my snoring will stop.

Fact: Having a stuffy nose can definitely aggravate snoring and sleep apnea, but in it's not the cause. A recent study showed that undergoing nasal surgery for breathing problems cured sleep apnea in only 10% of patients. Snoring vibrations typically come from the soft palate, which is aggravated by having a small jaw and the tongue falling back. It's a complicated relationship between the nose, the soft palate and the tongue.

Myth: I know I don't snore, or have apnea. I am fine.

Fact: Don't ignore your wife when she tells you that your snoring doesn't let her sleep. When a partner snores it is very difficult for the spouse to sleep. There are people who snore excessively and suffer from sleep apnea, but feel absolutely normal. However, snoring increases their risk of getting a heart attack and stroke. The only definitive way to prove that you don't have sleep apnea is by taking a sleep test. Screening questionnaires like the GASP or the Epworth have shown high reliability in identifying patient risk for sleep apnea.

Myth: If I lose weight, I'll cure myself of sleep apnea.

Fact: Sometimes. It's definitely worth trying, but in general, it's very difficult to lose weight if you have sleep apnea. This is because poor sleep aggravates weight gain by increasing your appetite. Once you're sleeping better, it'll be easier to lose weight. This is the one ingredient with many dietary and weight loss programs that's missing or not stressed at all. It's not enough just to tell people to sleep more.

Myth: Health problems such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and depression have no relation to the amount and quality of a person's sleep.

Fact: More and more scientific studies are showing a correlation between poor quality sleep and insufficient sleep with a variety of diseases. Blood pressure is variable during the sleep cycle, however, interrupted sleep negatively affects the normal variability. Recent studies have shown that nearly 80% cases of hypertension, 60% cases of strokes and 50% cases of heart failures are actually cases of undiagnosed sleep apnea. Research indicates that insufficient sleep impairs the body's ability to use insulin, which can lead to the onset of diabetes. Fragmented sleep can cause a lowered metabolism and increased levels of the hormone Cortisol which results in an increased appetite and a decrease in one's ability to burn calories.

Myth: Daytime sleepiness means a person is not getting enough sleep.

Fact: Do you feel very sleepy even during the day despite the fact that you had a long night of proper sleep? Excessive daytime sleepiness can occur even after a person gets enough sleep. Such sleepiness can be a sign of an underlying medical condition or sleep disorder such as narcolepsy or sleep apnea. Please seek professional medical advice to correctly diagnose the cause of this symptom.

Myth: Getting just one hour less sleep per night than needed will not have any effect on your daytime functioning.

Fact: This lack of sleep may not make you noticeably sleepy during the day. But even if you've got slightly less sleep, it can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly. It can compromise your cardiovascular health and energy balance as well as the ability to fight infections, particularly if the pattern continues. Lack of sleep has also been associated with road accidents (up to 60% of road accidents involve lack of sleep) and air crashes (Air India Mangalore plane crash in 2010 was due to lack of sleep). Sleeping for less than six hours a night is equivalent to legal levels of alcohol intoxication.

Myth: Sleep apnea occurs only in older, overweight men with big necks.

Fact: Although the stereotypical description does fit people in the extreme end of the spectrum, we now know that even young, thin women that don't snore can have significant obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep apnea begins with jaw structure narrowing and later involves obesity. It's estimated that 90% of women with this condition are not diagnosed. Untreated, it can cause or aggravate weight gain, depression, anxiety, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart attack and stroke.

Myth: Snoring can't be treated.

Fact: Have you given up on your snoring thinking that it cannot be treated? There are many different options for treating snoring.

Some treatment options are rather drastic, possibly requiring surgery or prescription drugs, but prior to exploring such options it would be wise to first seek out alternative treatments. You must visit a sleep specialist to get the right diagnosis.

Myth: Extra sleep at night can cure you of problems with excessive daytime fatigue.

Fact: Not only is the quantity of sleep important but also the quality of sleep. Some people sleep eight-nine hours a night but don't feel well rested as the quality of their sleep is poor. A number of sleep disorders and other medical conditions affect the quality of sleep. Sleeping more won't alleviate the daytime sleepiness these disorders or conditions cause. However, many of these disorders or conditions can be treated effectively with changes in behaviour or with medical therapies.

Myth: Insomnia is characterised only by difficulty in falling asleep.

Fact: There are four symptoms usually associated with insomnia:

- Difficulty falling asleep

- Waking up too early and not being able to get back to sleep

- Frequent awakenings

- Waking up feeling tired and not so fresh

Insomnia can also be a symptom of a sleep disorder or other medical, psychological or psychiatric problems. Sometimes, insomnia can really be a case of undiagnosed sleep apnea.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

to willingly listen to some russian punk...
they call themselves:
Sierpień - well... Sierpien -
нь is floating around somewhere -
august... август....
perhaps the ****** word "rhymes"
with sierp (i młot) - sickle and hammer...
pień? trunk - stump of wood...
etymological fascination...
august where no emperor augustus
ever stood... unless a Kaцпer...
sier(p) - sickle
(p)ień - stump of a freshly cut tree:
or trunk...
hence the birth of a name
of a month: harvest the trees...
and we are talking about a russian
post-punk goth-punk band...
almost more congested and less
atmospheric the cure...
old kaц the hangover comes in and
says something with a mirror
and fog...
but i'm sure... living under the much
despised (ras)Putin regime would
never give you such music...
look at the people of the...
look at the free peoples of the western /
hinterlands!
no... thank god the view count is only...
what? 3,880 views...
it's an oyster affair...
Sierpien - Cмeрдит дo caмых звeзд (2016)...
people can still produce art of this sort?
is a (ras)Putin required? really?
democracy per se...
power-struggles from among
the populace...
ever hear the petitions of schizophrenics
in the western lands?
a holy grail status for some...
the "nuanced" *****...
or bilingual...
but this album current saved me from
a despair... a friday night is happening
somewhere... and i'm more than happy
to not be there...
i don't even know what's popular
in terms of music in the hinterlands...
the bellybutton of the world: London...
doesn't exactly spew out pointers
to digest what's new and pop with
the crowd...
how long did it take me to hear about
psy's gangnam style?
a good half a year... but then it was already
playing on repeat...
perhaps not in a way that...
once upon a time... Microsoft wanted
to use R.EM.'s it's the end of the world
(and i'm feeling fine) for an advert...
and R.E.M. refused...
i can't exactly see any use of an advert...
but for the past decade...
perhaps... the outliers of dubstep:
distance, vex'd... burial...
10 years have passed and i don't even
know what music people listen to...
like i said... i'm listening to something...
only about 4K people also listen...
notably in Russia...
i'll translate...
śmierdzić do samych zwezd... gwiazd...
smerdit do samych zwezd...
10 or so years later i'm at this point...
there's no need to invoke Ms. Cмeрц
but it almost never figured for me...
ц somehow borrows from щ...
that's of course ч is related to ш...
to stink of **** up to the stars...
that's how the album name,
"sort-of" translates itself...
in the past 10 years...
this is probably the sort of music i should
be listening to...
i would somehow abhor myself
being the fully integrated western mongrel...
allowing my soul to die and
this language to dictate the fashionista
dictums "from above"... like a good puppy...
origins mostly focusing on...
Lebanon... the old Raj...
i honestly did think that: the de factor default
implication of the word: integration was
to speak the language...
this is not the great h'america where
you'd call it an alliance to a patriotism...
this is england... where people are not
exactly responsive to the word patriotinism...
and whenever it is used...
it's the ugly word nationalism...
so... this is not an extension of thinking
that can be "accomplished" akin to somewhere
in h'america...
this is england talking to itself in me...
or rather... me... looking at england and trying
to find the sort of footing for a tango...
born 4 hours shy of warsaw doesn't help,
either...
still... as names go...
no one was a cooler name for their capital...
come on... war-saw...
beats washington d.c. -
but... loon'don... that's mighty close...
all the democratic arguments aside...
i'm listening to these political commentators...
and i'm wondering...
what sort of music are they listening to?
i'm still looking for a playlist
i inherited that included bands like...
it's dire to even begin to name them...
the best i found are still...
demdyke stare... and that's not really
being pretentious... vomito *****...
but "once upon a time" music could make
a man stay up into the stillness of the night,
far beyond the night,
he might have sometimes glimpsed
a new unfolding as he would go to bed
from the graveyard shift with
some neglected words being seized...
i've just skimmed through u.k. top 40 chart...
i can't relate...
i can understand just having the vote...
but to have the vote...
and be left... in this barrage of...
i understand that man is a political animal
and somehow social...
but a vote is enough...
no wonder good culture hasn't "happened"
in the past 10 years...
i don't like being informed of culture
via the prism of: it's all or not political...
i don't like being
polarised i don't like being politicised...
all i have is one vote...
and i'm nearing 34 and seeing how...
since i haven't already used it...
it's pretty much a redundant affair...
as long as the status quo is there...
as long as there's a status quo...
and there's the shady bureaucracy cushioning...
but how can one expect to find
a tartar stake of sustenance...
when everything resembles an english
sunday roast: with the beef being over-cooked
over, way over well-done?
the meat is butchered twice...
once as the cow... second time as a piece of roast!
i'm not fond of criticism...
bad... i know as a foreigner but also as
a citizen... only the pakistani grooming gangs
are sacred cows in this, this whittle english...
past allegience to soviet russia?
because, what? russian post-punk takes
my fancy...
one! one benefit of a doubt...
justin bieber's jazzy interlude in:
love yourself... and that's it...
i decided for the: leave me alone button...
and for all the vitality of the western ways
i'm left either the window-licker prized oscar
nominee or some lethargic melancholy prone:
a decade on and a decade without
the better part of me...
i somehow own about 10 pairs of shoes
but every time i only walk in single pair...
until they are worn,
until i can almost imitate:
no borrow metaphor from the african
continent... my second mother siberia...
and the indo-europeans and whatever tag!
tag it necessary! caucasian and la la land...
this was political... before it even started...
even whether there was a demand for my vote...
the tide came, the tide went,
i wasn't given so much as a sniff of civil rights...
my civil rights had to be political rights:
in a redundant format best described:
as a vote... opinions first, vote later...
by then the vote is already a confirmation
of how many more ***** will sink
to this level of: humpty-dumpty...
a culture can thrive when power is clarified...
there's no culture when the only
despotism is the finding the lost
in the labyrinth of bureaucracy...
since i base my focus via Kant... yes...
these are idealistic words...
because idealism is - the already focused on
status quo... and again...
the status quo... perhaps even stasis qua!
- but i'm not listening to current music...
from a "certain" place that once could
salvage the rest of the world of bodies
with its beacon of soul...
not "current" as in: where meat is more mince
than steak...
it's all fine and dandy...
to have the provisions at your disposal...
but you can't expect an annual supply of carrots...
or meat... to feed the mouth that neither
opens, nor bites, nor chews,
nor swollows, not ******* saliva
for the premature process of digestion...
you can't expect this most perfect supply & demand...
something has to be missing for
the soul to have... the realism of the fact
i am bound to a robotic / unconscious body...
what conscious decision do i have...
over the already calibrated heart?
the delusion that the brain... is somehow...
freed from what?
psychological metaphysics?!
i have an automated digestive system...
and an automated ****...
i don't exactly know when i'm going to ****...
but i do **** - and with so much pleasure so...
that i would forgo all homosexual exfoliations
for the mere pleasure of...
easing a **** out of that ******* bang hole...
than allowing a vaselined cockrel in...
quiet a disgust pecker of high ambitions...
when it comes to enjoying
massaging the prostate muscle when sitting
on the throne of thrones...
i am trapped in an automated body!
the only aspect of me agreeing to evolutionary
biology is to invoke the soul...
as something ex "nihil" in coprus...
from "nothing" in body (intact)...
hello intellectual safari of the thesaurus
and the synonym chasers...
from under the Iron Curtain...
once more... thrown under the Silicon Curtain...
but there is something in me that
allows me to escape the already well oiled,
this well calibrated body... shy of being
merely treated as baggage...
there's something that allows me to restrict...
when i will **** out a full bladder...
from time to time...
but this is still oh so mechanical...
the fickle nature of man's own self interests:
the only mirror i could find
to compensate the complexity
of deus ex machina...
i'll last 10 minutes with a swollen bladder...
until i give way...
that's when i know that i am rebelling
against the mechanical nature of this body...
- nonetheless the conversation run down
a different route...
i want to be, as i once was...
politically starved... give me the vote and lace me
with civic duties... minding culture...
don't give me this politico journo-*******...
this spare straitjacket of "opinions"...
opinions that do not hone in on a dialectic...
but a dichotomy...
while under (ras)Putin there was a resurgence
of post-punk... brutalism debauchery...
in the vest of the west...
do i really have to give gil scott heron over?
see? what power do i have?
i have.... a chance to glimpse how a culture
can thrive... musically...
no... oh no! no Vlad... you're not getting off
that easy...
Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture...
tell me... as a cat might look you in the eyes...
and cats do... when you find it uncomfortable
to lie... a cat will look you in the eyes
when it knows the agony of you telling
the truth... too frequently...
now... tell me...
of the 1812 Overture...
how close was Tchaikovsky teasing...
plagiarising... la marseillaise?
oh i think: this close ||.
i still don't know: listening to classical music...
is supposed to make people,
"somehow" smart?!
- just like Beethoven hides / licks /
alludes to the crescendo of
ode an die freude that is to come in the 9th symphony...
lots of crashing plates and banging
templates of cooking vessels in between...
a crescendo is almost like...
but not quiet... no... it's never exactly a chorus...
but Ode an die Freude is revealed
in a subtle way somewhere in the vicinity
of the genesis of the 9th...
i'll ******* duel over this remark though...
if it takes blunt knifes and spoons...
so be it...
negate: Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture does
not allude to La Marseillaise!
*****, test me! i swear to god -
you tell me this russian кaцaп is not alluding to?
what sort of culture are to speak of,
as citizen... if we have to be...
worthwhile less the already invalid vote...
and more the sway-ghost-vote of...
ditto-heads and less and less...
i remember when i would start a conversation
with girls on the basis of: so...
what music are you into?
has... the don mclean prophesy come true?!
the only music is the democratic opera
of the inability to hush competing interests
of the less than homogenous, cerebral hive?!
wow! believe me when i state:
i would truly rather shun my state of being:
stunned!
to me... people have forlorn to "worry"
about petty, ahem... "petty" cultural worries...
this political transfusion, verbiage,
look... a broken arm of a word that used
to resemble pref-                 ending in
the loose limb that ends with 9...
scary language... informal language...
not exactly the english standard: terse /
whimsical... "way-hey-hey-ha-witty"...
hardly anecdotal: mein herr kapitan!
oh but this is certainly a cultural desert...
i'm still doing my best to shake off the 20th century...
what's it called... what's it called...
you are... ah! 20th century inheritence...
not that i'm by any measure a man
of the 20th century...
come the year 2000 i was still a mid-way
between child and man...
2020... 34... i am a 21st century man...
as i also have circa 10K of student debt to pay off...
but this is england...
a chemistry degree gets you nowhere...
i always fancied the Leibniz route...
a garbage man... perhaps "the librarian"...
the street-cleaner...
10K worth of pounds of debt...
paid? when one earns over 15K per annum...
bless ol' england... this debt will be written off
after 30 years...
i really wanted to find a job akin to being
the street-cleaner...
i wouldn't even mind... seeing as how i could
come home and write a rhythm
of a crooked guitar... perhaps doing some work
in the industrial sector...
the scottish widows' h.q. roof, near st. paul's?
i did that... well... part of the team...
industrial scale roofing...
whatever... this is not going to become
"yet another" autobiographical sketch...
a degree in chemistry led me nowhere...
some lucky fist-first-think-fewest landed
their english B.A.s and:
"the authorities" would never let them starve
having... their poo'ems better read...
oh i wish i could think without having
itchy fingertips and what words i want
to say when i however have to say the mundane
formality of the everyday...
i'm the sort of jack spicer *******...
that i cannot work with this lexicon beside
what's always greeting me with a welcome return
of surd applause...
i can't speak the everyday language
of the everyday -
even my punctuation is suspicious -
an *****-nilly I.R.A. bad device...
i can hold the hounds of bark, leash, girdle and muzzle
until they finally find the dog...
but not until i have feasted upon
the blank canvas that will never see any colour...
but this x-ray of hiding faint hues
working in the subtle grey-of-no-grey area
that comes with these words, these bones...
i have to drink...
to find these words... and an echo prior
to the cave... this being the cave after i heard
the echo... even among drunks i couldn't
speak such words, such sentences...
under them the drunks cower...
and... this is the better part of a friday night...
i best exclude myself to this page
of rummaging... because even if i drink...
i wouldn't find a conversation among the drunks
to compliment this! to compliment this
with an immediacy of a dialogue -
a shared experience...
better i write this... and wait for a delay...
better i wait for a delayed response...
in the quantum sense of:
when observed a wave... when not observed...
a particle.
science as this cohesive orthodox litany of
dogmas to undermine religion...
science is more vogue than religious dogmatism...
science is modern...
it will only and has only succumbed
to modern finicky... vogue... science is...
hardly a... blind sighted hive brain-drain focus
of the replicas and clone surds nodding...
this language... would never be spoken among
the drunks...
i hardly think it would or even does:
deserve a stage... perhaps only if i wore face paint...
if i were truly an entertainer...
but these words deserve more than a stage...
they deserve an: umbratempus...
zeitshatten... a time-shadow...
cień czasu... (время тень)..
regurgitate something to me, akin to:
T4T (oliver baez bendorf)...

see! i knew нь was floating around...
it comes... back... full circle.

It was as though my world was in a Dream with no road, it felt like I was brought here to do as I was told.
  


Even my alarm would wake me up in the morning to tell me I had to go, it’s half four in the morning and I'm surrounded by Silence sleeping in the cold.


My mind wants to be warm in my bed and not out here in this snow Cash Machines turn they faces as ******* Bins take they places.
  


My eyes beg me to sleep as my body becomes weak I'm cleaning this shop with a bucket of water and some bleach.
  


I've got to Hoover and mop and clean up these ***** spots, the toilet is blocked its stuffed and shouting out loud.
  


Everything that I touch must be left looking as bright as a star must smell so refreshing attracting nothing but beauty.
  


Life as a cleaner wish my wages felt bigger, I'm caught in a moment trapped like a hamster there’s no slowing.    
  


I'm cadged like The Dirt that you walk on in the street, there’s no beginning to any good this Life as a Cleaner only gets harder.


Jidos Reality 5.12.12

Main Aur mere roommates
aksar Yeh Baatain Karte Hain
Ghar saaf hota to kaisa hota
Main kitchen saaf karta, tum bathrooom dhote
main hall saaf karta, tum balcony dekhte
Log is baat pe hairaan hote
aur us baat pe haste….

Main aur mere roommates,
aksar Yeh Baatain Karte Hain
Yeh hara bhara sink hai
ya bartanon ki jang chidi hui hai
Yeh colour full kitchen hai
ya masalon se holi kheli hai
Hai farsh ki nayi design
ya doodh, beer se dhuli hui hain

Yeh cellphone hai ya dhakkan,
sleeping bag ya kisika aanchal,
ye airfreshner ka naya flavour hai,
ya trash bag se ati badboo
Yeh pattiyon ki hai sarsarahut
ke heater phirse kharab hua hai
Yeh sonchta hain roommate kab se gum sum -
Ke jab ke usko bhi yeh khabar hai
Ke machar nahi hai, kaheen nahi hai
magar uska dil hai ke kah raha hai
machar yaheen hai, yaheen kaheen hai !

Toand ( pet ) ki ye haalat, meri bhi hai, uski bhi,
dil mein ek tasvir idhar bhi hai, udhar bhi
Karne ko bohot kuch hai magar kab kare hum
Kab tak yoon hi is tarah rahe hum
Dil kahta hai Safeway se koi vaccum cleaner la de
ye Carpet jo jine ko zoonz raha hai, fikwa de
Hum saaf rahe sakte hai, logon ko bata dain,
Haan hum roommates hai – roommates hai – roommates hai

Ab dil main yehi baaaat, idhar bhi hai udhar bhi..

Sab ko bata dain..

You haven’t fed us recently.
I ate the goldfish,
For some reason it reminded me of my childhood.

I can’t get over that guy with the mask in the corner.
It’s unnerving how he swims up and down all day.

Is this going to be another starving day?
I’m tired of trying to get your attention.
You haven’t fed us recently,
Or cleaned the tank.
That’s okay,
The cleaner-fish loves it.
The goldfish doesn’t like the cleaner-fish much though.

Thanks for the flakes!

I think I’ve finally intimidated the cleaner-fish,
He’s been looking at me weird all day,
He keeps trying to keep me ahead of his gills.
I knew I’d be King soon.

The goldfish,
She’s gone.
What did you do with her?!

Are you going to feed us now?

There’s a salesperson at the door
someone said
and so you went to the door
and there was the young salesman

with a book in his hand
and in a sharp grey suit
and hair neat and short cut
yes?

you said
I represent Carson’s stores
and it has been brought
to my notice

that you are behind
with your payments
is that so?
you said

yes
the young guy said
three months behind
and if you don’t pay today

the item you have chosen to buy
will be removed
is that so?
you said

the young guy looked
into his book of figures
and script
so you called out

Dolly there’s a young guy here
who says we owe him money
you both waited
while Dolly came to the door

what do we owe?
she asked
money
the young guy said

what for?
Dolly said
a vacuum cleaner
the young guy said

you are three months behind
now if you do not pay up today
it will be removed
Dolly raised her eyebrows

and put on her
don’t mess with me face
and went off
the young guy

and you looked
at each other in silence
after a few minutes
Dolly returned

carrying the vacuum cleaner
here
she said
here’s your **** Hoover

take the thing
and go stick it
where the sun
don’t shine

and so the young man
held up the vacuum cleaner
and looked at you
and Dolly

and said
right don’t come back
to the store
because you won’t

be served again
and off he went
out along the road
in the falling black rain.

I shower everyday but
It is not enough
I can not be clean enough.
I need to be cleaner.
Cleaner. Cleaner. Cleaner.
I want to be clean and new
But every rinse leaves me withering
It is drying
My skin leaving me
in cracks and holes
My hair is falling out.
I do not remember the last time
I scrubbed every inch of the filth away.
It clings to me.
It has found shelter in me.
It is a part of me.
I want to be clean.
I want it gone.
I do not remember the last time I was clean.
I do not remember the last time I showered.

l.s.

the good book says
one to tame
another to handle the whip
and groan at the horses
as they pull the
freedom carriage

freedom from what?

freedom from fields
of wheat and grass
freedom from
dirt and potatoes
freedom from the
bite of the whip
in the sweltering
Georgia pits

lord
this good book isn’t
very good at all
these horses can pull their own
but I am weak
tamed
invisible
I am a pipe cleaner
bent over and over
until it snaps
to quote
I don’t want to live on
this planet anymore
I don’t want to live at all

this is the sun breaking through
this is the vain bee trying to pollinate
this is my rose under glass

quake if you must
earth
I have been shattered already

Could I see in their eyes, as I clean up this momentary
lusting, for their inner demons to released this way.
I had visions of them shouting "4,

That was going to need a ladder and I hate heights.
Well up I went in slow motion, I saw the spaces between the
claret splashes in frozen moments of nothing. Now just a coat
cold and unwarming. From up here it looked like an
abstract painting I called it "echoes of relentless madness,

It was another call out this place off a million lights  
only a fraction were braking into havocs grasp. But when
their final instant came, till it was a single moment or an
eternity in seconds, the end result was the same.

I wore a fresh suit, each being deflowered within
moments. Others lives were centimetres from mine.
They were with me through out these moments, then I
threw them in the bin like a one night stand. I left them
behind , no reason to remember names.

This  one was different, the other one was just like a
water balloon of finest red had been tossed around the
room, this one...  Charred shadows of where like a wick
They had become a light in the darkness and consumed.

Not as much blood, just dry lumps of god knows what.
I breathed quickly, a hand print on the table slightly
scorched, but the hand print still visible reaching out.

This was more a scrap and polish like cleaning spilt
cheese now carbonized on the bottom of the grill.
A hot mind is not a good thing specially when a vent
of release givesthis pressure a release. I look at it and
think to myself? I called this one "charred thoughts ascending,

I once again leave them behind, this is beyond the
ordinary job. Knocking off for lunch i see the next
piece off where my work will take me. I see them
walking and in quietened haste I lunge and inflict a
flesh wound so some may think, but an artery I have nicked .

So gently I  grazed, wouldn't want then to bleed too quick
or to slowly for that matter. I abscond in my van, knowning
the call will not be long versed just another clean up
so many in this city of lights where I calmly change
each one. As to be repetitive there is no art form in that.

To be a cleaner and to see art where others only see death
or tears. I see a deeper visions the latest in the collection
I called them "Life running dry, this was an easy clean
up, but ill have to give it a rest i earned enough from the
clean ups to sit back and watch the world move by.

Till next my artistry is mused I will think of others that
have twerked my needing a suit hangs up, each with
the name of that creation. I can admire them anytime,
and just think of the anticipation that was needed for this
depiction of my thoughts and how they bled out.

Your house may be filled with clutter
and it may not subside
but the entire world is cleaner
if you are clean inside

The Nakhal fort cleaner,
broom like an automatic weapon,
bucket, a water grenade.
Posing against the sun-bleached wall
he seems about to run,
as we click
and click,
catching his faded trousers,
his white shirt and grey beard,  
noble nose,
cloth ragged round his head.

I thought he would recite passages of poetry
Rumi and Firdawsi,
I had a mind he could view my heart,
what hid there.
But he said nothing,
and gazed into the lens
like a cat.

With his broom and bucket,
he was king of that place,
sweeping stairs and rooms,
the view to the mountains,
a crenulation,
as we stepped along the walls,
debris from another country,
and waited for his broom
to sweep us home.

Which algorithm is going to understand me
understand sentiment behind what I do
It is coded for catching the patterns
For them we are just there
to generate the data to process
What insights will they create
about me when I'm just the outlier
they will remove me to get cleaner results
Generalise the problem
that it won't cater to me
technology is not the slave
they make us dance to their tune
We change, as much as they advance
Develop worse habits
change our routines
from when we were in the more happier place
to a place which comes with waves of sadness.

BACKGROUND.

I was working at an international airport as a aircraft cleaner, this ment we went on to the planes to clean them before they went on there next flight.

I was the supervisor of a team of 6 that night, so it was my job to go to the aircraft and talk with the number one, (the number one is the head hostess), she told us when we could board the aircraft.

At the door I could see a young girl and a lady, sitting in the front row, I asked the number one if we could board, she told me they are waiting for a wheel chair for the young girl.

The wheel chair did not turn up until after this story.

This is what happened next.

I will pick the story up after my question to the number one.


THE SHORT STORY, OF A TRUE EVENT IN MY LIFE.

I am standing on the aircraft by the young girl and the number one, when I heard the girl say.

MOM! can I see the controls of the plane.

I am not sure if the number one heard this, so I related to her.
She told me she would ask the captain, and left to do so.

I was alone with the girl and the lady, so I spoke to the lady.

Hi i said, where have you come from?

The lady answered, we have been to disney land.

Wow or something like that I said, that must have been fun, the young girl spoke up.

it was, I saw lot of things, Micky Mouse.

I asked the girl her name.

Samantha she said.


At that the number one came back.

And told us, as soon as the wheel chair is here, the captain say you can look at the flight deck.

The young girl said, can I not go now?


I needed to get my cleaning team on the aircraft!

So I said to the number one.
I will carry her to the flight deck if that is ok.

It was agreed.

So I picked up young Samantha, and carried her forward to the flight deck. number one and Lady behind me.

The number one past me, to ask the captain, if this was ok, and it was.

As we entered the captain said, hi my name is John. the young girl said hi my is Samantha, welcome sammy, said the captain.

The co pilot stood up, to give Samantha his seat.

The captain and Sammy talk about the instruments.

The captain still had his head phones around his neck, What are those?

Sammy asked.

That is my contact with the flight controllers he said, can I have a go?  Sammy said.

The captain put on his head phone and asked the control tower, and she did have a go.

Then the wheel chair turned up, and the captain was told by the number one.

You must go now Sammy, thank you John she said, I picked her up from the co-pilots seat,  thanked the captain, and the co-pilot on the way out, also the number one, and took the girl down the plane, Sammy then asked me.

What is your name?

Paul I said, she then said this to me.

Thank you Paul I will remember that the rest of my life, at this the lady burst into tears, I placed Sammy in the wheel chair and walked with them to the exit.

I asked the lady, why do you cry, she told me that Sammy was dyeing of cancer and he flight was for a cure and a trip to disneyland, but the cure, did not work, and Sammy might be dead within the year.

I cried for about an hour!

I am a Province, a State, a Municipality, and a Region.
I am a Soldier, a Pilot, a Minister, and a Legion;
I am a black man, a white man, a brown man, a woman,
A French man, American, Canadian, and Roman.

I am a rap artist, a singer, a slam poet and guitarist;
I dabble in the dark arts accompanied by a Marxist.

I'm a barista, a gas man, a secretary, and Tsarina,
A King and a Queen and a janitorial cleaner.

I am a "lover," a "hater," a "here now" and "there later,"
I am Luke Skywalker, yet at the same time, Lord Vader.
I am a driver, a walker, a rider, a stalker,
A conservative liberal and a well-learned straight-talker.

I am a salesman and clerk,
A criminal and a serf,
The proud owner of a weapon that, while it kills, saves the Earth.

I am a drinker and smoker,
A consumer and broker,
A bomb-maker, con-artist, Priest, and interloper.

I am a Citizen.

Religious and secular,
Macrocosmic, molecular,
Suit wearing, uncaring, emphatic, irregular,
A "packie," a ****, a Scrabble fan playing Yahtzee;

A Jihadist, sadistic, addicted to Herodotus,
History is repeated by the philosopher that thought of us.
The eroticist literature towards which we've all lusted;
It looks like the bullets machine-gun is busted.

Indifferent, ecstatic, illicett, erratic,
An infant, a senior, a young man with bad-lip,
A black man, a white man, a brown man, a woman,
A Jew and a Christian, a Muslim musician,
A monarch, elitist, pro-abortion defeatist,
An anarchist, Black Panther, and a rich plutocratic;
I am a citizen,
And as one,

I'm elastic.

The Avro Vulcan, a majestic big old iron bird, sublime,
was to do a flyby for just one memorable last time.
Maybe with a jet fighter or a Spitfire on each wing, who knew?…
Unthinkable to miss it… almost a crime.
Thousands turned up every year, always a great day out -
but this year would be special, there'd be no doubt.
The last flight of such a legendary plane made it essential…
So, after the flyers’ break for lunch, the crowd filled out.

The entry fee to occupy the field was heinous. 25 quid!
That was for adults - and a fiver for each kid.
So, many more than those that paid, sat happily outside pubs.
Others found shelter in the perimeter’s trees and... kinda hid.
Now, to see a Vulcan fly anytime, anywhere, was magic…
She was a Leviathan of the Cold War,
that held players in the planet’s power games in awe.
And this would be her last time doing the rounds on the air show circuit -
Seeing this locally was hard to ignore.

Mark (a nephew) was a window cleaner by trade.
A regular, down to earth, happy go lucky guy.
…Saturday comes and the kids all voted "McDonalds"…
“A Happy Meal!” they’d cry.
He said that was fine - they’d all go after he’d nipped over
to the airshow to watch the Vulcan fly.
No idea whatsoever, of course, that just by going to Shoreham
just 5 miles away, for half an hour or so… that he might die.

He told his fiancé he’d only be an hour or so…
be back in time to take the kids for a burger and, "NO!"...
He wouldn’t stay. He was the only one in the family
who was bothered anyway…so he wouldn’t ****** up their day.
So, in haste, because apparently Chicken Nuggets & Fries
was much better for the kids than a load of old planes,
he cranked the best out of his bike along the 27 and,
once at the lights by the Sussex Pad,
he pulled over to the kerb to watch from the bushes.
Good view? Well not bad!

Andy Hill was a flyer of many years. His weekday job,
flying for BA.Taking holiday makers, business folk, transatlantic in Seven Four Sevens...
A flight deck maestro, soaring up, just under the heavens.
He’d done Shoreham loads of times… it was exciting, exhilarating... almost sport, his game!
He was off the hook,  became an ace. It gave him that 15 minutes of fame!
Free to thrill - a hero! Standing out from the crowd with every daring step. His aim!

He wasn’t just a petrol head… this bloke had aviation fuel in his blood.
Adrenalin on tick-over. Nought to 60 in 2.7 seconds with 22,000 Horsepower under the hood.
He left Epping full of fuel, just 90 miles away, so in two ticks he was with us, fully loaded and, the weather? It was good.
First up after lunch at half past one… he streaked across the crowded field.
Over and out and up, up, up… Little did the spectators know that Andy had forgotten he was flying a Hunter…
He thought it was last year’s aborted routine in a Jet Provost… The one they'd stopped part way through being, too risky.

"He’s not gonna make it… I can’t look!" There was a hush… a nanosecond’s silence and then the rush,
the whoomph that said it all… that hush! The ground shook!
And the eleven - plus others injured - went up in Andy Hill’s very own fireball!
No, of course, Mark wasn’t the only one to die that day.
Ten other ‘innocents’ left us in pretty much the same way…
Maurice, Dylan, Tony, Matthew, Matt, Graham, Mark R, Daniele, Richard & Jacob.
Mark T, our Mark, had the distinction of having two funerals, not just the one…
More remains were discovered, analysed and found to be his!
Even after he’d…already well... ‘gone’.

The injustice that eleven spectators or just passers by should die
when the survivor, the off target driver, who sped too low from the sky, should, after a suitable pause in this ghoulish game, be exonerated and not take any blame.
Well it’s all sort of things… It's ridiculous, pathetic, obtuse, a joke… who do they think we are?

But the great and the good deliberated, scratched their heads and worked hard to make everything look ’right’…
Tolerance for the bereaved to grieve, platitudes, condescending attitudes, a memorial service.
Thanks - genuinely - to the emergency services… Not just a little buck-passing… But the public often judged them. Arsing about - to cover their corporate backside.
They can’t insult me (or us)… intelligent people have tried…

Andy Hill was judged to be not guilty of 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence.
But he claimed he blacked out in the air, having experienced ‘cognitive impairment’ brought on by hypoxia … possibly due to the effects of G-force…. Of course!
The 11 were either hit by the plane or roasted in a fireball caused when the jet flew too low and too slow. But if it wasn’t Andy’s fault then whose was it?

Surely this can’t be the end of this travesty of justice!!

BUT, there IS a new memorial to the dead. And, trust this...it’s a good one too…  The best that money can buy - and that anyone can do.

But there's is also a very bitter taste, still today…
that somehow... just won’t go away!

She says she doesn’t have the strength within herself to write poetry.
Yes, her. The one who so often nourished me with song
til my soul began to learn how to hunt for itself,
whose word carried weight in leading me to pick my own instrument,
albeit one of a different tone,
as the key in keyboard became prominent for the first time
and the sound of purposeful fingers upon it could be considered,
only in the right light,
synonymous to the plucking of strings, just as rooted in emotion.

Yet she's the first to say that she herself can't do it.

Thing is, I suppose we’re politely at odds on the matter.
She favors poetry that’s sharper, with a cleaner cut,
that’s message is immediate and jarring
as a conduit running from soul through skin,
or a loose-lipped diary finally freed from lock and key.
And when she declared it, I started to consider what my poems seem to me:
Blackberry bushes (but kinder, I hope)
that snag and immerse just long enough
to make me feel I’ve had an effect.
I’ve used writing to expel my most gnarled feelings
to any passerby who’s maybe felt the same.
Like crying in a mirror:
alarming, but oddly refreshing,
and an indefinite reminder that our aches are never only our own.

Still, I'm not sure why it blows my mind
to hear that even the most glamorous hearts,
who wear confidence as a summer breeze that's always in their favor
and who inspire, from beau gestures to sleight of hand,
are included in those who find themselves pacing back, back and forth,
begging curbside at the dime store
for a scrap of the same feed that convinces a heart to pump ink.

But she says that any art that's enjoyed is worth it.
So while she seeks out words that bare the bones,
I’ll stay and make a meal of the marrow,
hollowing them so that the poetry may have a rightful place
to reverberate as hymns in a universal monastery.

But hell, like I’m any old soul.
I dress nicer than I otherwise would,
turn to the mother who told me I don’t meet her lowest standards,
and ask for a critique.
All for the moment when she greets me at the door with a legendary G#.

...Now please, could you spare a dime?