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Tyler Castro Jul 2017
Neither girl nor male… So what am I? Am I the so-called perv aiming to invade the wrong bathroom? Am I a heretic aiming to impose my wickedness onto the world? Am I the clocking stares they give me? How about the result of a broken home or a broken heart? Does my mere existence force you to reevaluate your identity? When all I'm trying to do is figure out mine. Neither girl nor male… So you tell me where I am to relieve my bowels. Or am I to stitch them shut for your comfort? While I'm at it, shall I stitch my eyes shut as to not burden you with running mascara; which further assaults my "feminine façade"? I'm sorry to burden you with my fake *****, of which a second of labor (turning your head) would relieve you of your distress. I'm sorry you'd rather slave away starring and clocking them. Clocking me. I am sorry that I was born male yet refuse to live up to such expectations. I am sorry that despite my best efforts I cannot pass for how I feel. Believe me—for the life of me—I am trying. As punishment for lack of natural *******, I stretch my skin to form a pleasing cleavage. As punishment for having the wrong body type, I wear a cage around my abdomen two sizes too small that cuts into my rib cage dare I seek the comforts of sitting down. As punishment for being born with a male anatomy, I crunch my disheveled sack of nerve endings between my chaffing thighs. Dare my body have the audacity to ***** itself for any reason I bend the muscle, in such a way never intended, between my legs just to have one less aesthetic reminder as to what I am not. Your clocking stares painfully remind me that I may never be seen as how I see myself. But ****** do I try. Until I do, I am condemned to be neither male nor… female.
By far not the worst struggle in the world. Disheartening nonetheless.
Time never sits
always stands
constantly waving its wavering hands
and it brings me relief
also fills me with grief
and a terrible belief that it's waiting for me.

Time has a price
it's not free
wait and see what you pay
for tomorrow
today.

Time will throw you a rope and then hang you with hope
for more time
and time has its laugh it's a gas
until you pass the point where the two hand meet and you meet the great clockmaker who in time is going to take you for a walk.
There is silence in the talk of time, just whispers and you know that time's not mine or yours
a little sign
one little tick a bit of sickness,the thickness of
time catches in your throat and feeling just a little hot
time waits but time is all you've got
and then there is no time at all.
Nick Strong Apr 2015
There, amongst the northern skies,
Tears driven by ghostly squalls to
Fall on the blackened, bleak rooftops
Of this northern town, forgotten.
Left to a grey Victorian rot
Decaying factory ceilings collapsing on,
Litter strewn floors, newspapers decompose
With triumphs from yester year
Industrial dust stained brickwork
Grimy reminder, of the grim past
Haunted dim gaslight probing the fog
Days, nights only separated by murky light
A ghostly silence, hangs like a grimy fog
Cloaking lost sounds of dull beating on metal,
Boots tramping over cobbled stones,
The sounds of clocking on, clocking off, no more
An image of a dying or dead industrial northern town
Desperado Dan
Is a man with a plan
To cash in a bit of Kensington
On some high grade *****
Cos right now he's got a couple of scores
But not a great deal more to loose

You see, our Dan is a master of the modern day quill
He works an open office, clocking in and out at will
But after reading all the greats from his and every bygone age
He lives in a time where the mp3 subverts the written page

So night and day he hums away
Searching for that hit chorus
And he knows you can't cut corners
When it comes to tanking up on creative juices

A Desperado is larger beer spiked with tequila
Some say it's for scoundrels to make charming girls easier
But our Dan's quest is noble.
He has a dream we'd all like to believe in
He simply wants to do his whole life’s work in just one evening
And a Desperado seems to conjure all six hats within one head
So if two minds are better than one...well, nuff said

He dilutes them at first, pulling the wool over his own eyes
Until, catching reflections on the glass, he sees through the disguise.
And before long you'll find him chugging straight from the bottle
Then, in a blur of paper and pen, Dan writes like there's no tomorrow.

He writes and writes and writes some more
a couplet, a bridge, an underscore
Ploughing verses like trenches through the ****** white paper
Dropping napalms just to see what pops it's head above the wreckage.

Then, surveying the new landscape, he quarries in every direction…

Linearly; because it's most straightforward like that
Circularly; because they used to think the world was flat

Logically; because... Well duh!
Laterally; which gives the brain a stir

Diagonally; some kinda a + b = c rap from back in the day
In reverse; because sometimes we unknowingly face the wrong way

Unapologetically
Down dead ends
Just to see the view

He picks up clichés and looks under them for clues

Desperado Dan
Calls for desperate measures
As the evening wears on
He indulges all his earthly pleasures

And down they go with a Yo ** **
What a ***** desperado!
***** I say! Now he's mixing with ***
Still his pencil flies with a blistered thumb

'E starts to drop 'is H's
And forgets to cross his l's...sorry t's
He paces back and forwards
An he talks like mushy peas

Rummaging frantically through chaotic pockets
Conjunctives falling to the floor
He can't find the word he's after, but who cares? There’s plenty more!
He begins to vengefully split infinitives in two
And hurl metaphors across the kitchen
Sending mountains of ******* up ***** of paper flying
Like snowballs after the thaw
Which slowly melt into puddles of lonely vowels and consonants.
Long after he has gone.

----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------

But all that was before the "Doodley Dee"
And his dream came true with a change of key
The song which people can't help to hum
From OAPs to the I-generation
And people hummed it all over
And in all sorts of weather
Until someone decided we should hum it forever.
And they paid Desperado Dan for every hum
Not bad work for a blistered thumb

So now our Dan seems a lot less desperate.
From time to time he evens finds an hour or two to rest a bit
Sitting on the veranda of his studio in the south of France.
Applying the finishing touches to another comedy romance.
Sipping a very fine Sauvignon, no Desperado in sight.

They're all safely packed away in the cellar

Just in case he gets the urge

Late at night.
My Dear Poet Feb 2022
Sunlight, moonlight
Come with their own greeting
Sun says, “good morning”
Moon replies, “good evening”.

Clockwork shift change
Little conversation on the horizon
Clocking in, clocking out
Leaving and arriving
Nidhi Sharan Jul 2020
The grandfather clock ticks away! day after day, everyday ,
it doesn't stop to listen to the baby gurgling, or the toddler screaming
indifferent to the many sounds of  angst and ecstasy!

the small hand of the clock controlling every hour of our lives
the big hand, a mere spectator to the brevity of those moments lived
the silent ticking of the pendulum,
  a call to take a second of respite!
from life, from living, from only "just existing"

I did try to stop time once, held the hands of the clock in my own calloused ones
and that is when the Townclock  chimed somewhere, faraway!
Denel Kessler Jan 2016
Petite arctic terns
navigate the sky
on epic migration
wings clocking
45,000 miles each year

it seems they know
how to go
with the flow
by thumbing a lift
on atmospheric airways

that crisscross the planet
adding thousands of
seemingly needless miles
to an already
arduous journey

flocks congregate
in open ocean
to rest and fuel up
on fish and krill
for the last push home

these tenacious birds
understand
the cliché
it's all about
the journey

they synchronize
with invisible currents
because to beat
into the wind
is a futile expenditure

they pause
in community
to re-energize and feed
on unfathomable
bounty

four ounces
of feather
and hollow bone
instinctively holds
these truths

there is much
to be learned
from an
arctic
tern.
Humor me...
: )
SammyJoe Jun 2020
On behalf of me and some others,
My story I would much like foretold,
what is it with all of you humans,
and your mighty fear of growing old?
"TICK"
Every second are eyes focused on me,
every minute of every second I am timed,
every hour of, every minute of, every second,
goes tick, tock, tick in my mind.
"TOCK"
For I am merely made up of numbers,
and maybe some old batteries,
I bet even if I turned myself off,
surely no doubt you'd reset me.
"TICK"
All these years of constant tick tocking,
has been really messing with my head,
for I have literally served my time,
I've been used and even misread.
"TOCK"
So all I want is some pity,
believe me I have had it rough,
As i'm just an old rare antique clock,
But today guys, I am clocking off.
andy fardell Jan 2012
sleepy sleep

sleep in sleep in sleepy town
my eyes need wakey up
sleepy sleep my bed does call
me lids so glued there stuck

look at me at half past three
a hedge still in me hair
eyes so red a cameras light
saucers oh my dear

give me bed a silent night
cos sleepy snooze is me
time to snore and wake you up
me fidgits sleepy sleep  

na na night its time for kip
me bed is calling me
clocking tick soon far away
a dream of dreams i see

rise and shine yet i need more
some sleep will do me good
bags of spuds upon each cheek
come on dont wake me up

sleepy in as sleepy does
im staying where i am
soon be dinner oh thats good
a lay in i'll be dammed
Steele Jan 2015
Confession: I have no idea how this whole challenge thing got started.
Whoever it is, I hope you like my contribution.
For your reference, I'm made of different things than when I first arrived.
Back then I was broken hearted,
writing retribution.
But just when I think I'm getting ready to move into the next chapter of my life,
The man I was before comes in and the recipe is ruined.

Ingredient the first is of course the man I was before.
I'll admit, he wasn't all that bright, and a bit of a know it all and a bore.
but according to every guide who helped him open newer doors,
"He has so much potential!" So let potential simmer for about a minute before you add in Life. But be honest for a second. Life's a cold, disdainful *****.

Ingredient number two was life, but it's far too large and full of emotion,
so grab your knife and cut a smaller portion,
mince, and mix it with a few one night stands.
Sprinkle in some daddy issues.
Add a dollop of fairy dust, and prepare to bring the tissues.
Next comes epilepsy, pill bottles to your eyeballs,
death, and loss, and missing parietals,
cheating, beatings, midnight meetings
with guys who will sell you memory loss for a few hundred bucks.
Caution: This recipe calls for zero *****.
Add them in at the risk of ruining the mix.
Let it simmer and boil with rage,
and eventually your mixture will break it's cage;
He'll run away, start over fresh somewhere, and lie about his life to all who ask,
then slowly, he'll open up to strangers over the internet, and bask
in the complements his poetry gets him.
Then he'll get a job like a real person,
and his cold dead heart will begin to tick,
like clockwork, which he'll be obsessed with,
and he'll start clocking people for money instead of kicks,
and be paid for it.
and get laid for it.
(because come on, why else do people become athletes? To get ripped.)
His life will, briefly, be a fairy tale,
and he'll believe for a moment that his old life has called it quits.
This is a crucial moment, don't **** up the recipe like I did
Because then...
if his old life finds him.
his runaway streak is over.
See, if it doesn't cook all the way through, food poisoning is in order,
and he is poisoned once again but that cruel *****, Life,
and his life becomes again a game of "Pick-up-sticks"
as his old life comes crashing back, and then, stage left, ENTER *****!
She finds him.
and before you know it too much Life was added to the mix,
he says "**** it" once again,
opens up for just a moment more,
***** up his rhymes, and moves out of his apartment,
packs his bags, says his goodbyes, and pays his rent,
then leaves to close more potential doors, lost and disillusioned.
Too much life came back too soon, before he was ready to be served.
Too much life was added in, and while you totally can say h'orderves
without saying "*****", life's a *****, so you add too much more,
and the recipe is ruined.
My life on a page. Bye guys. Time for me to disappear again for a while, and move on. It's been fun.

Addendum: Nevermind. :)
On the production line a product of the time
and a time for busy bees
with beehive hairdo's and the permanent wave
not many dreadlocks
but that's something I'll save for a rainy day
I like to play my fingers through them
and when she gets a bit naughty and the temps reached about forty
well, things go on
but that's not for on the production line
a time and a place for many things
and she brings me most
then cooks me a meal,
sometimes I feel like a king
and to her who would love me
I bring but a man
with faults and defaults she can discover at will and she will.
and still I remain like a tomato ketchup stain on her dress
She, under duress tells me later
I wait on her shift at the factory but it finishes and me I'm still here
waiting to see her.

Her life is her own and I own none of it
not a drop or a little bit and as she has so often said,
'you can get that idea right out of you head'
She is strong and I long for her
She is weak and I comfort her
but these things she does for me
I wait and see what the next instalment will be
her and me
me and her
on the production line where love isn't fair nor is meant to be
it's the economy
got to blame it on something and that seems about right
got to make light of it and that does not
what she has and she has an awful lot
is what I haven't got
and maybe never will
and that's another will I can't fight
and another something that isn't quite right.

Life goes on and we get old
and maybe we never get to hold what we wish for
maybe that's not the way
perhaps we'll always have to fight for our day in the sun
or pick up the gun and demand it or take it by force
and of course as a pacifist
I would desist from taking that step
which is one step away
from the hangman.
Matt Shao Jun 2019
M. E. Shao

An Ode to the Letter “A”

A picture says a thousand words
At least that’s what they say
Although they can’t describe a thing
As well as the letter “A”
 
“A” means that there’s others
As if there’s two or three
And if there was just only one
“A” would become “the”
 
An Ode to the Letter “B”

Behold! A letter that can be
Better than numbers one and three
Because it sits quite neighborly
Between it’s buddies A & C
 
Boldly standing faithfully
Barely used the same you see
Bugs will spell it differently
But one less E and then it’s be
 
An Ode to the Letter “C”

Can you guess what letters next
Clocking in at number three?
Careful how you use it now
‘Cause it confuses frequently
 
Certain times it’s overlooked, like
Chief – the “I” before the “E”
Can’t use “I” that same way though when
Coming after “C”
 
An Ode to the Letter “D”

Dare I try letter four
Daunting as it may be?
Duly note this verse might prove as
Drab and dull as me
 
Don’t say there’s other letters of such
Deep complexity
Desire to speak in a past tense?
Dread not! Just add a “D”
 
And Ode to the Letter “E”

Ere I forget I said I’d commit
Ever mindful I shall be, and
Execute my promise, my Oath
Elegantly thanking thee
 
Eyes see so much wisdom
Ears hear so much glee
Every single word of love
Ends, with letter “E”
 
An Ode to the Letter “F”

Finally a letter without a long E
For those are easy to rhyme
Frankly it’s fun to come up with a pun
Fresh from out of the mind
 
Forever I wonder, over and under
From bottom to top, all the time
For a bold new way to come out and say
F this…but with no moral fine
 
An Ode to the Letter “G”

Goodness gracious, golly G!
Gifted writers inspire me
Gernsback, Goddard, de Graffigny
Grouped in glory’s category
 
Guiding words with paper and pen
Grandeur achieved by all of them
God bestowed them minds of gold
Goals to emulate when I’m old
 
An Ode to the Letter “H”

Heavens hopeful, but all should know
Hell awaits for heathens below
Havoc, hatred, halls of stones
Heated seats on hopeless thrones
 
Helping mortals foster love
Hoping for the gates above
Hearts are kind for constant fear
Horror and nightmare might be near
 
An Ode to the Letter “I”

I love the vowels for how they serve
In bridging letters, creating words
Insanity comes, ’cause if not for them
Illegible messes that none comprehend
 
Idle time attempting to read
It’s pointless were it not for these
Irked by consonants, throw in the towel
If you want a word…just buy a vowel
 
An Ode to the Letter “J”

Jack and Jill went up the hill
Jogging straight up and down
Joking and playing, having a thrill
Joy till he broke his crown
 
Jumping in fear, Jill looked around
Jolting across the way
Jeering, she returned and scooped him up
Jill’s stick was shaped like a J
 
An Ode to the Letter “K”

Knobbed in darkness, twisted wood
Knuckled as can be
Kinks and dead spots all around
Knotted is the tree
 
Kindling yes, our God will need, as its
Key for making day
Kind, He brightens nights with knights by simply adding
K
 
An Ode to the Letter “L”

Little, little, did I know
L is oh so great
Like the time I drank that wine and
Lulled a pretty mate
 
Lords and ladies, boys and girls
Like all, must pay the well
Lay respect to that which lets us
Love – the letter “L”
 
An Ode to the Letter “M”

Middle of the alphabet
Molded like a gem
Most will say there’s nothing worth
More than Letter “M”
 
Maybe M hates W
Malice with a frown
Mercilessly mocked by him when
M is upside down
 
An Ode to the Letter “N”

Naughty naughty little N
Never helping me
Nothing useful ever comes from
Negativity
 
No and never, none and nor
N is oh so rude
Neighbors M and O must want to
Nix that attitude
 
An Ode to the Letter “O”
Over, under, bottom, top
Odes to letters never stop
On the day I get to Z
Old and wrinkled, I may be
 
Or young and youthful, hopefully
Only time will tell, you see
Our lives are short, we need to grind
Otherwise we’re wasting time
 
An Ode to the Letter “P”

Paper, pencil, pen and ink, in
Prose I’ve grown to speak and think
Public platforms, message boards
Poetic guide of rhythmic chords
 
Poems are pretty, I think it naught
Pretentious such as some have thought
Pious I shan’t think it so
Poetry shall help me grow
 
An Ode to the Letter “Q”

Quiet! I must concentrate
Q is hard to satiate
Quarrels make me want to quit
Quirks in words which don’t quite fit
 
Quorum comes when all are here
Quickly now, our quest is near
Quantify a love for two
Q is married, to the U
 
An Ode to the Letter “R”

Regal existence, loved from afar
Reality dictates we need Letter R
Rigid and rugged it’s straight and it’s curved
Reading is easy when Rs are preserved

Rallying troops or driving a car?
Really won’t work without Letter R
Reason without one, your point is moot
R runs the game, expect the boot
 
An Ode to the Letter “S”

Supposed vision we are told will
Save the world today
Sorry if I disagree
So many told to stay
 
Spite and harm are currently
Sawing through the way
Someday hope for peace and love
So hate will go away
 
An Ode to the Letter “T”

There never was a letter
That can do as much as me
Think about it really hard and
Thank me when you see
 
The other letters hate me
Though, because of jealousy
They say it’s not fair that I rhyme
That super easily
 
An Ode to the Letter “U”

Usually I’d try her number
Unfortunately my hearts asunder
Used to love her, used to hold
Useless now, attempts are cold
 
Until things change for now I’ll be
Under this cloak of melancholy
Urging progress, longing for more
Unable to close the heart wrenching door
 
An Ode to the Letter “V”

Very strong, vivaciously
Voltage high, tenaciously
Veer this verse, voraciously
Vaulting over prose you see
 
Violence in these words you read
Viking frame of mind have we
Vibrant in philosophy
Verbiage is our currency
 
An Ode to the Letter “W”

Well, here we are
Woe is me!
Winding down, finally
Wrapping up this poetry
 
We’re almost done, from A to Z
Writing alphabetically
Won’t be long, but wait! We’re not free
W was easy….X will not be
 
An Ode to the Letter “X”

X can mark the spot I see
Xanax needed this entry
Xi is Greek, it’s fourteen
Xeroxed words, all randomly
 
Xystus too, as I mentioned Greece
Xebecs sailing open seas
Xerosis I suffer cerebrally
Xenial X was not to me
 
An Ode to the Letter “Y”

You may think these odes of mine
Yawn-inducing, wastes of time
Yet I attest validity
Yes they’re written passionately
 
Yesterday I couldn’t show it
Younger me was not a poet
Yearn for greatness, one day bestow it
Years from now, I hope you know it
 
An Ode to the Letter “Z”

Zealots desired to bless my soul
Zilch is my energy left
Zoned out, these odes have taken their toll
Zoo in my mind, though ’twas deft
 
Zip up this project, my brain can now rest
Zero letters now lie ahead
Zephyrs now soothe me, caressing my chest
Zodiac today – time for bed
Minuscule Ego Jun 2018
A low moan escapes her lips as the ****** hits
She lay basking with a sated feeling
The coverings all wet from perspiration
Believe me, this isn't an infantile conversation
He placed light kisses on her bare shoulders
She felt how intense he was against her thighs
And heard the testosterone's fueled manly claims
That came as a whisper for a magical scene
She’d realize he was not solely hers
So she just cleaved to enjoy the moment
Leaning crabwise, he slide within her fountain
They both cried with anticipation
The highest form of their admiration
Heavens’ gates unfurl
Times seems to halt for a second
There could have been an explosion
But he paused, new position.

He has never been interested in a single relationship
At least not anymore- promiscuity suits him just fine
With her curvy body, pumped breast and his small statue
They tangle together- entrapped within their own tier
Some call him a ****, although they be circus jokes
He be content and blue ***** free- shining bright for all to see
Letting em live their judging lives
And make those mistakes they thought he would make
He has never seen himself going without the white packet scenario
It’s all about self-importance
One that leads easily to pandemonium
But being promiscuous was assuring
The less you give- the less hurt you receive
Life is short, but there’s much to achieve
One cannot be caught slacking
Those hands are clocking
Day and night without cessation
He’s no expert
But I’m sure you admire his aversion
And believe it or not
The better our efforts- the wetter our treasures
A promise that our goals will exceed the ****** pleasures
Seeing that our thoughts recreates the Today
Let me redefine the topic.

He thinks of her as a pineapple
Chipping off her cries to reach the fountain
Till she openly veto yes! in all excitement
As he plunged in the deep of her mountain
Screaming twas some lustful announcement
That mimic a sedative smile, and a softer groaning
Activating him to go wild again tearing her lotus
She cries! He moans: “I’m just teaching a lesson”
His manly locus was indeed a blessing
Its thrusting brought out the louder racing
Making em both bobbed like a drum set
Nobbling feelings begun shaping within his breast
His noble ****** was moving towards the heavens
They were climbing the unobtainable heights
That could make their explosion vast
And leave her screaming his name
Like forever admiring his fame
He’d hoped to have done enough
But will hate to get deeply involved
For promiscuity was the affliction
That diseased him ages ago
And it met him just fine.



For an icon- Wale
“We are not perfect beings; we all evolved from our mistakes to make a better one.”
Isabel May 2019
You tell me tales of Rio
Thailand, Fiji, Cairns and Rome
I know that you are thinking
I'm a boring stay-at-home
Here's me, so rough and scruffy
-You, impeccably dressed
I know that you expect that I'll
Be suitably impressed

But while you're clocking air miles
I'm planting trees at home
To **** up all the carbon
We have recklessly let go
And while you're busy shopping
Trying to buy your life some zest
I'm too busy laying hedges
Too be suitably impressed

I'm sorry, these things you boast of
Are not doing it for me
Not all the things that one can buy
Compare to just one tree
I really shouldn't show off - but
You see my life is truly blessed
With each flower, bird or bumble-bee
I'm suitably impressed

So stop boasting of your travels
Stop judging by the cost
If that is all you care about
Such treasures will be lost
Your obsession with your image
Your concern with money, wealth
Is ultimately certain
To affect your mental health
Just stop. Step outside into nature
It's a simply made request
I'm sure you'll see the wonder
And be suitably impressed
Just occasionally I end up doing old fashioned regular rhyming poetry. I think it's a defence mechanism.
Iraira Cedillo Mar 2014
21–40 of 11462 Poems
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Faith
BY MICHAEL *******br>When I cannot believe,
The brown herds still move across green fields
Into the tufty hills, and I was born . . .
Teusaquillo, 1989
BY MAURICE KILWEIN GUEVARA
Flowering sietecueros trees:
How easily we married ourselves
to the idea of that bruised light . . .
Bright Pittsburgh Morning
BY MAURICE KILWEIN GUEVARA
This must happen just after I die: At sunrise
I bend over my grandparents' empty house in Hazelwood
and pull it out of the soft cindered earth by the Mon River. . . .
Hanukkah
BY HILDA MORLEY
This season for us, the Jews—
a season of candles,
                                      one more . . .
Winter Solstice
BY HILDA MORLEY
A cold night crosses
our path
                  The world appears . . .
And I in My Bed Again
BY HILDA MORLEY
Last night
                     tossed in
my bed . . .
alternate names for black boys
BY DANEZ SMITH
1.   smoke above the burning bush
2.   archnemesis of summer night
3.   first son of soil . . .
Listen
Attenuate the Loss and Find
BY ANNE WALDMAN
name appears
everywhere and in dream
body armor removed . . .
From “Citizen”
BY CLAUDIA RANKINE
/ 

You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there. . . .
Listen
History Will Decide
BY ANNE WALDMAN
All writing around the sides the persons a galaxy all writing resounds a hot history. All writing is in fact cut-ups history will decide games heated and heated economic behavior. To rise up scene all sounds of Tahrir and inside supply side threatened. A long delineation. Longer than I would . . .
ICC Kenya Trials: Witness
BY SHAILJA PATEL
was it so I could
never say
across a courtroom . . .
Mosaic
BY TIM SEIBLES
A carpet of light, the
ocean alive < half a moon
muting the stars. . . .
sideshow
BY DANEZ SMITH
Have I spent too much time worrying about the boys
killing each other to pray for the ones who do it
with their own hands? . . .
The Last Son of China
BY **** PING
.......................    hello hello hello    ...    Weiwei    ...    where have you been?    ...    I see you in dreams    ...    bleeding    ...    in the darkness of the . . .
The Skin of Sleep
BY MYRA SKLAREW
The skin of sleep
is thin. It will not hold.
Its contents stumble out. . . .
What Could Have Happened
BY SHAILJA PATEL
Wa
gal
la . . .
Everybody Has a Heartache: A Blues
BY JOY HARJO
In the United terminal in Chicago at five on a Friday afternoon
The sky is breaking with rain and wind and all the flights
Are delayed forever. We will never get to where we are going . . .
Good Friday
BY MARIA MELENDEZ KELSON
Jesus, I want my sins back.
My prattle, pride, and private prices — 
climbing, clinching, clocking —  . . .
ICE Agents Storm My Porch
BY MARIA MELENDEZ KELSON
The Indiscriminate Citizenry of Earth
are out to arrest my sense of being a misfit.
“Open up!” they bellow,
hands quiet before my door
that’s only wind and juniper needles, anyway.

You can’t do it, I squeak from inside.
You can’t make me feel at home here
in this time of siege for me . . .
Tablets
BY DUNYA MIKHAIL
1


She pressed her ear against the shell: . . .
«1234»
Steve D'Beard Apr 2016
Beggars line the busy streets
cup and cloth outstretched
the look of desperation etched on their faces
like the dawn shadow of a carved lithograph

they don't ask me for spare change
just a simple nod of acknowledgement;
even after a shower and a change of clothes
I must have their look, that broken beaten look
the look of the street.

George Square is busy today
tourists happy clicking panoramic memories
admiration of forced foolish bravery at the Cenotaph
a list of names they will never know
and marvel at the antiquated architecture
to later revel in the wonderment of how anyone
in a civilised and modern society can do without skyscrapers
while they grudgingly share a half-measure of a single malt

I sit on a bench that marks a families love and remembrance
to the passing of a woman named Judith
the pigeons flock in carnal mass gatherings
knowing I've been there for 3 hours already
because I have the look of someone who hides his crusts
because I have the hungry eyes of the look of the street.

The well dressed man at the end of the alleyway,
the plume of carcinogen cigar smoke
like a coal fired power station  in the sunlight
this is where they go for over-priced craft ales
with Sautéed Wild Rabbit starter and £65 Wagyu Tomahawk Steak
a place for fine pickings in the alleyway ashtrays
dispensed cancer sticks left disregarded
the half-finished defiance of another £9 packet
that was simply spare change to begin with

I hover around making false promises on a deadline phone call
pretending in mime to be semi-OK
that the compadres are running late
and "tell me about the theatre show later"
the misdirection amid the camouflage of plastic peace lilies
while my other hand rummages the unspent tobacco
and the black-on-black door steward keeps clocking me
because I have the look of the street.
Work in progress
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2014
a story, a long strange poem, and a thank-you note of a sort
~~~~~~

swords and verbs,
subjects and nouns,
participles and particles,
participants of past and futures
transitive and intransitive,
none can get pen-rooted,
sic transit gloria verborum eius
(fleetingly passes the glory of his words)

slow or swift, overhead, all unobtainable,
from the atmosphere unpluckable,
no deposit, no return, no po-ahem,
only a sad sonata denominated,
Air on the E(mpty) String continuous playing

likely something is a brewing,
clock internal clocking,
but no talking, just tic tocking,
ideas stumblebum in and out,
inebriated, fuzzy speeches,
don't reach out to touch or savor 'em,
those weird words were made for walking,
not for retrieval, sorting, storing, and
subsequent lots of
some assembly needed...
poetic conceiving...not

perhaps they are disfigured?
important but disguised?
definitely not credos and codas,
mission statements, definitions,
nah...not me, unimportant amateur passerby,
my only "laurels" come to
die at holiday time,
lariats to lasso, tether and then brownout,
a wintry green,
gone to nether garbage cans, timely and expediently,
per a calendar deadline

but an overheard conversation
on Eighth Avenue,
a ******-onto latched-onto,
undid this parlous state of
an evenhanded hypnotic flatlining,
a perilous mind,
infected with no-inspiration

"Why I do not share,  
or publish on the Internet," she said,
"what I write is so
precious to me that
the thought of it,
orphaned and drowned
amidst the unending pixels,
water-falling words
into ocean trenches,
unborn, yet ignominiously dead
just the same,
at the same instant,
an unbearable pain,
childbirth and death,
all in one, unthinkable!"


"Publish" he begged her,
"too good are you
to deny this world of this,
the world needs it proofs,
you are a proof!"


stunned by an emotive slap,
I knew kinetically,
I too must have,
proofs,
of me,
worthy of presentation,
if only,
to prove worthy of
your time and thus
prove to myself
my very own existence,
even derision decisive,
is an extant proof of sorts...
~~~~~~~

My Proofs

having come so far,
task so vast,
bedeviled and bewildered,
I am the face I have seen
in photos and mirrors,
but how can I stake my claim
to be more than just a
passing fancy virtual reality?

you cannot bite me,
though willing do I tender
my body for your impression
upon my body permanent

you cannot caress my lips,
though oft imagined it,
the multiplicity tender of that dream,
makes the would-be reality of it,
pale with a shame of insufficiency

bleed and wept poetry for the unity us,
so hard, so oft, so free,
my tablet machine
human tear-tracked and deep red scarred,
the Apple Geniuses,
when they see me coming,
whisper it's him, Poet-man,
who made an
iPad into a tissue
that cannot be repaired/replaced,
and run away and hide

have I not confessed enough my colorful sins,
but alas, all you can see is blackened dots of crimes
hosted upon a white background
of pleadings for forgiveness,
i's dotted with rejection slips,
t's crossed with painful slivers
of writings crucified by me,
therefore, for the grace of god in man,
they died unnamed and lived only briefly

perhaps if you saw a man by my name
on your television, you would say
"****, that is/was him, it cannot be denied,"
but you cannot be sure, imposter,
what must I do, to make the evening news,
and claim existence, therefore I am!

I cannot say with certainty,
am more then a running-around,
neurons and electrons colliding,
a mess of sub-atomic particles
invisible and in periodic possession of a flavor
of the god factor or Einstein's hanky

but if you come to my city,
I can give you a location,
a centralized park, a wooden fruit-box stand,
at an end corner,
(cause corners end well)
where a man stands and recites
and sorta sounds like what's his name

if you want to be sure it is that one,
look for teeth marks on his body,
reading out loud from a tablet unique,
alternating stanzas with Siri
his spiteful spitfire editor and sometime fan,
the box upon he stands transported
grapes from California, oranges from Florida,
can't be sure, the stickers rain washed away,
and if he weeping as he chants,
odds are it could be me,
I mean him...

to be sure you must place gentle a finger
or your lips across, upon his,
if electrons you sense and taste,
and yours they embrace
as naturally as if they were waiting

just for you,
you can almost be sure,
don't ask his name, unnecessary,
for he will face you with these words:


*"Thank you, Thank you!
you are my proof..."
a story, a long poem, and a thank-you note
to one who is known as
Jara Fan,
from Saskatchewan,
writ as an attempted proof of our actualized mutual existence
beyond
mere pixelation
Alicia Moore Oct 2021
The tedious graveyard shift comes around again,
The ghosts and ghouls of my past clocking in.
We meet each other at the silver gate;
We greet each other with the same stare each night.
I wonder if some will stay overtime with me under this moon,
Or if we can led our own paths once more come morning.
Scottie Dec 2014
Forcing my eyes closed
I try to plunge back into dormancy
Clocking out
To dream that dream again
Squeezing the light out
With my hands
A gun,
There’s a boy without a face.
Looking over the black river
Seeming so barren, deadly.
This nightmarish scape
We go somewhere,
I can’t quite recall, but it was handsome.
I ask his name
He tells me.
       I want to die with you
He tells me.
I ask his name
I can’t quite recall, but it was handsome.
We go somewhere,
This nightmarish scape
Seeming so barren, deadly.
Looking over the black river
There’s a boy without a face.
A gun,
With my hands
Squeezing the light out
To dream that dream again
Clocking out
I try to plunge back into dormancy
Forcing my eyes closed
Retro Jul 2018
I can’t help but remember the night where everything ended.

The make up running down your face.
The clocking stating that it’s 2 AM.

The door of my cheap apartment room closing as I watched you left.

It’s 2 years later and I’m still in the same apartment room.
Instead of me remembering,
I drink and I forget.

But I slowly begin to realize.
That everything...
S t a r t s

To go

b
     l

ur

      ry

And I can’t seem to put the pieces back together.
I wake up and it’s all bleak.
It hits me like shattered glass.
It comes in fragments.

But I’m okay with this.

Because I remember the night it all ended.

Your makeup running down your face.
The clock stating that it’s 2 AM.

You leaving my cheap apartment.
And me staying there.
Just to stay.
And think.
And believe.
And hope.
That someday.
You would finally come home.
Lyn Senz Nov 2013
A locking click
the clear is hall
a clocking tick
is hear I all
a rocking drop
the near is fall
a blocking chop
I fear the saw

a pampy crapper
I nose my hold
a campy happer
I clothes my fold
a fighty scrapper
that big is bloke
a lighty snapper
I cig my smoke!


©2011 Lyn
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2022
who would i consider to be the greatest teachers on women?
Stendhal, Marquis de Sade, Ovid...
Flaubert: most certainly Flaubert... but now most certainly
Ovid too...
i might go as far as to drop Knausgaard into the equation
(oddly enough)...
how else would i have learned a little bit about women
if not men who learned about women and recorded
their findings... i might even whisper the name Nietzsche
to further my "question"...

it started with her showing me her leg...
   some ugly spider bit it in two places: she was so disgruntled
about it... she showed the bite: started to squeeze it:
if i could have guessed: if she could bend so far low
she would have probably tried biting that piece of flesh
out of her...
i told her a worthwhile remedy:
OCET SPIRITUSOWY (10%) you can go into and ******
delicatessen and buy it... rub it onto the bite mark...

but that still didn't lift the mood: i felt awkward...
i can sniff a lie from a mile away: women are the greatest
liars when they speak: unfortunately:
they're the worst liars when they don't speak...
you can lie by speaking lies...
but you can also lie by not telling the truth:
i.e. by not talking...
a burning thought oozes out on the body and the body
cannot lie...
there was some ill in the air...
the entire room was on fire... even she said:
why is it so hot in this room when outside it's cool?
the entire room was on fire...

i think she was furious with me...
i promised her that i would come on said day and i did:
perhaps i've become too predictable for her liking?
something ill was in the air...
it wasn't just the spider bite and her annoyance
with it: a woman can make the smallest irk
into a deluge of irks...
   the smallest thing can become the greatest discomfort
for a woman...
i could feel it: although she said nothing
when i asked her if she was o.k., whether she was tired...
something strange about her eyes...

ah... eye-lash extensions: i didn't compliment
on them... i noticed something different about them...
after a super-quick quickie:
i don't know... there's something potent about
the ******* position in front of two mirrors...
her kneeling on the bed me standing by the bed
thrusting... maybe i was too tired ergo too *****
i couldn't perform to her pleasure: only to my own...
thankfully my male pride wasn't hurt...
i always brush off under-performing by laughing
after the ******...
i'm not going to explain myself beyond:
not every woman climaxes every time during *******:
not every man can go on for an hour
without climaxing... i told her just that:
it depends what mindset i'm wearing...
  sometimes it takes me as much time as it might
take a woodland pigeon... enough time to only
balance on the female while flapping its wings...
sometimes in the ******* i'm peering
into the eyes of a mantis and hoping she will not
eat me afterwards: ergo: i try to not deposit any
albino tadpoles into her...

afterwards we lay ****-naked side by side
on the bed... then i noticed her elongated eyelashes...
we talked about them... how they're new
and are itching her eyes...
woman: natural born sadists and that sadism concerning
beauty to boot...
i said: you noticed the trend among black girls?
camel eyes: eye-lashes for thick and long they could
possibly brush their eye-brows...
and nails... my god... you can't do anything with nails
that long... and hair?! once upon a time black girls
adored their afro curls... now?
they're imitating white women's hair... Asian women's hair:
they even employ wigs to imitate that raven slickness...
i remember a time in high school when black girls
would use vaseline cream to smooth out their afros...
she agreed about the nails and eye-lashes:

come on! you can't make a ******* sandwich with nails
that long...
nails... i looked at her nails... she showed me that
she needed a manicure... she showed me some designs
from the internet that she'd like to have...
then she showed me her toenails...
that's another thing... i knew something was wrong...
she didn't take her socks off during *******...
that's a major sign that something is wrong...
seriously! who the hell ***** with their socks on?
it's like that Iron Maiden song: die with your boots
on...
something was seriously wrong...
maybe it was me: maybe it wasn't me...
it's too late for that...

once upon a time women were the greatest mysteries
of the literary world...
men would spend aeons contemplating
their mysteries: and if not mysterious per se...
then men would mystify them!
now? women are sabotaging themselves...
they're exposing themselves in ways so crude so...
sick... so... unappealing...
it's hard to mystify women these days...
me? hardly having lost touch with reality:
i've lost touch with an un-reality...
with romanticism...
              
Michaela, as a woman? not every man's cup of tea...
but then again i like large women...
not obese... when she lay back and feigned tiredness
putting her leg on top of mine...
chatting... i played her Le Trio Joubran's
Majaz... and told her the story about how i first
heard the song...
i was in Amsterdam with this Egyptian guy...
i was drinking beer, he was smoking ****...
then he gave me a drag of the ****
and told me to put his headphones on... he played
the song: and i showed her my reaction:
my JAW DROPPED... my eyes closed...
i was suspended in a "falling gravity"...
no... in a "whirling gravity" of my own empty canvas
presence... an implosion of Heidegger's dasein...
there was no "there"... there was either
sein or nichtsein and hier...

ha ha... i was talking to my father today in the car
as he helped me get my second bicycle
get driven the repair shop... finally!
i'll get my mountain bicycle up to speed...
i'll get off the roads and head into the wilderness...
£80... not a bad deal for the repairs needed...
and he mentioned that there's this Romanian
woman working the hoist on the construction
site... he said that the most difficult word in Romanian
is... 11...
unsprezece - uns... one... pre: before... zece...
i need diacritical markers for this one...
or? just employ Italian...
unsprezecce...              unsprezeče...
hell... with the expansion of the European Union...
of the Polacks that came in 2008... most have left...
only a few remain...
but the Romanians stuck to their guns...
after all: they can easily mingle with the hordes from
Asia... come to think of it:
England is starting to glisten with a demographic
akin to Brazil... i think i'm going to start calling
England Brazil no. 2... it's clearly post-racial
in what ecosystem we have...
black boys loving white girls...
white boys not really into any other race:
well... i have my exceptions... Turkish and Romanian...
but that's me...

but sort of woman in what sort of mood doesn't
take her socks off during ***?!
i find it most irritable: not ******* in the dim
lights with your socks on...
maybe the ill and the fire in the air
was my own self evaporating into their air...
irritated by this lack of aesthetic...
maybe it wasn't her: maybe it was me...
then again: she's was already thinking about going
back to Romania...

better than being a rock star...
what i wouldn't give: none of my books...
to become a blues-man... a Howlin' Wolf...
then again: i wouldn't do nothing: absolutely: nothing...
having spent 2 years of my 20s reading
up on Heidegger...
i'm good... if i get really thirsty: i'll just buy
half a watermelon and gorge on it like
it might be a woman's ******... i'll get my beard wet
and try not to bring either ****** or umbrella:
cheap *** ******* little questionable
little me...
i didn't say i'm a millionaire...
but i said i spent more money than a millionaire...
love those lyrics...
blues and ***... ******* becomes
distasteful after a while:
the while you realise those people are
actors... and *** is hardly acting:
*** comes around to you in its most authentic
claim of your self you can ever have...
while ******* disrupts all of that...

it's never going to be a pornographic flick
when real life hits the fan...
the **** can lie as a pile dragging itself to the status
of diamond among flies on
some random hill...

tube strikes... only start working from 8am...
of course i'll be late for my shift at Fulham...
but i'm still drinking...
enough of whiskey and enough of the blues
and enough of thinking about thinking about ***...
i'm not going back to the brothel
until Michaela ***** off to Romania on the 28th of this month...
i already have two girls in my sight...
deer-in-headlights... sitting pretty: sitting scared...

i need to become more unpredictable...
i need to ensure the girl takes her socks off...
Michaela is very much unlike Khadijah...
she doesn't wash herself after ***...
and she's the one asking me for extra pay
for unprotected ***...
at least Khadijah washed herself...
i washed her... she washed me after *******...
i like *** + hygiene...
must be a Turkish "thing"...

                        no... i'm not going to feel **** about
myself... there's no point:
i simply can't change other people by pretending
to change myself... i'lll wait until Michaela is out
of the picture... she put me off *** for a bit...
i can sink into a diet of sexless days...
but no... you don't get away with being sloppy...
you don't get to **** with your socks on!

she might have thought that i didn't notice that
she had eye-lash extension...
what's with the socks?!
  you forgot you were wearing shoes,
or something?!
******* while still having your socks on...
oh man oh man oh man...
that's why the room was on fire!
**** it!  start donning fishnet stockings!
i could manage that...
start donning long knee-teasing leather boots!
i could stomach that! but socks?!
i can't stomach that...
           i'm expected to put on a ******
while... a woman is not expected to take her socks off?!
throw rocks at me! throw 'em!

there are just aesthetic standards...
that's the last time i paid so much eye-candy on a woman
no prior man would pay her her dues...
me neither: i have skin like it's worth
grating a grand cheddar cheese on...
but... tender... i can: be...
she just felt bored... and i felt predicable:
onto the next...
maybe she flashed her phone before my eyes
to boot: showcasing her grand achievement
of a bambino outside of wedlock:
probably raised by her grandparents...

Darwinism is a scam in my cards...
either Poker or Blackjack...
i'm a sore loser with genes that ought to be replicated...
20-20 vision... pretty **** good hearing...
i've never broken a bone in my body...
if i get hurt and my bones are affect?
i create bone outgrowths... bulges of bone...
genetically? i'm not too bad...
but in terms of reality: i'm not a safe-bet...
and guess what? i like mediocre people...
shadow-grey-people...
i like them: they make good traffic obstacles...
they make me churn out a practice
in spatial awareness...
i can denote them to THINGS and rob them of
the status of NOUNS...
something... this thing... that thing...
whatever... no bother... i'm casual like that...

hey! like for like!
Michaela: the 28th of this month better come sooner
than you leaving for Romania! make sure you have
your socks on! all the time!
that ****** me off... a woman that keeps her socks
on during *** is like... is like... a woman eating a meal
without a knife when a knife and fork is required!
or a man... for that matter...
socks during *** is just a massive turn-off:
i best finish early... i'm ******* clocking-out...
no! not on a whim! i'm clocking out because aesthetics
and the blues and thinking about what *** is about...
Eden...
not talking... groaning and moaning...
onomatopoeias...
                        
hmm! that's why the room was on fire!
i finished early because? she was wearing socks...
that's why the air in the room felt ill!
because she never bothered to wash herself
after we had ***... Khadijah did...
each time... i showcased washing my genitals after every
genitals:
i might be a brute... but: in terms of hygiene:
i'm pretty exacting regarding what's appealing
                                               and what isn't...

i can't stand filthy people...
show me a rat...
             show me a bunch of rats...
i'll show you a pretty cheese chamber with plenty
of the right sort of gas...
i'm not joking...
   i wish... oh i wish i were joking...

                      by now... does it even matter?
by now i don't think it even matters...
should it matter shouldn't it?
it never really matter given enough time...
             time truly flies: regardless of whether you're
having fun or not...
by the drop, the drip, the drool or either blood
or water... or a sprinkle of salt or sand...
what's good is wasted over so much time...
while what's bad... wastes the mind over a time
best entrusted in keeping a memory of the good times...

my beard! my ******* violin!
i stroke it and imagine playing a sad sad... song;
but the cynic in me: laughs...
just like a dog looks up at his master when being walked on
a leash!
The moon peeps out and she's just about home,
the day was so long without her,
on the phone, she'd said, 'soon',
but that was ages ago.

I watch the clock watching me
watch the clock and
she'll be
home soon.

She might blow away
she's so light and
it's windy,
it was windy earlier today
I didn't worry then
wasn't waiting then
when she was
indoors,
chores,
you know.

Watching the watch
clocking the clock watching the clock clocking me,
she'll be home soon
the moon winks
the key in the lock turns and
I blink
my eyes.
Lauramihaela Nov 2014
Being a writer
Is not a part-time job,
Like being a nurse
Or a teacher:
Where clocking in
And out
Is as simple
As lifting and putting down
A pen.

No,
Writers have words
Flowing though their veins;
Poignant thoughts and emotions
Shape and reshape themselves
Into poems in the writer's mind
Almost by instinct.

But
Do not be fooled:
The writer's world
Is no paradise:
Thoughts tug at our brains
In the middle of the night,
Like a child pulling
At its mother's coat
Beckoning us to the page
Where finally we free the thoughts
That have been held captive.

And finally with sleepy,
Satisfied eyes,
We place the final fullstop
On our latest masterpiece
.
Where once the waters of your face
Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows,
The dead turns up its eye;
Where once the mermen through your ice
Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers
Through salt and root and roe.

Where once your green knots sank their splice
Into the tided cord, there goes
The green unraveller,
His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose
To cut the channels at their source
And lay the wet fruits low.

Invisible, your clocking tides
Break on the lovebeds of the weeds;
The **** of love's left dry;
There round about your stones the shades
Of children go who, from their voids,
Cry to the dolphined sea.

Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids
Shall not be latched while magic glides
Sage on the earth and sky;
There shall be corals in your beds
There shall be serpents in your tides,
Till all our sea-faiths die.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
the thermometer's rising red mercury,
a truest signal-fire of  the
approaching well-fated
army of summer days,
their inevitable return
prophesied and more accurately foretold by heated degree,
than any solitary red X penned,
marked upon an island's
dog-eared firehouse kitchen calendar

the imaginary sounds of their solacement
inside the heart beats louder
than any timekeeper's ticking clocking counts,
mechanical reminders of a return inevitable,
comforting but impoverished upon compare,
to the warming solace of hearty silent sun sounds
far louder in the mind, than that of measuring throbbing metal

for nigh, nigh the hour's of your carriage come hither
does near approach and laden heavy by
the long time distanced poet's exhausted hopes,
a labored long voyage, soon to be ended,
yet worthy-word laden,
promised peace, carried within it,
a steady straight forward rolling gait heard,
that, it's Paul Revered lanterned combined signaling,
one if by land, two, if by sea,
for I will come back, traversing both

"return, return poet
to where thy fellow musketeers,
wind, sun and sea
have impatiently waited,
we, your corporate grayed chair's guardians and protectors,
memorizer's of the poetry of our yellow scented,
electric conspiracy, rusted silent, now too many months,
your voice transmogrified
by sophisticate urban airs,
man's unnatural pollutions,
we woo and will you, make over"


Ah, that Adirondack throne,
my summer body's glove,
magical wooden carpet
flying the mind's eye
to places where unfriendly times,
give way to reworked words
in a refreshed world, that makes sense again,
the joy tears that layup on and in it imbedded,
know only of the comfort of a
nature's shelter never withheld

"the winter's pale thrashing has skinned
and stripped your voice of its true timbre,
you gaze only inward, obstacled your vision,
seeing only whitecap seas of internal distress


come hear the seagrasses waving windy welcome
listening rapt  to your summons of convocation,
and the celebration of your traditioned blessed evocation,
a combine of old poems, old tears, and fine oak memories,
new candles lit, new waves crashing but soul soothing,
let us cleanse the taunting taints that inhabit,
our duty to inhibit the unforgiving stale self-reproach
of winter's ugly poems and slushy fears


we are folk honest, your summer companions,
acknowledging that what haunts your interior,
to the task of cease and desist we are inferior,
but in your chair, by the bay, the old words refreshed,
and the new poems of hope and scents
of yet better days promised


of that, of that
we do not promise,
of that that we bonded guarantee
a pledge of mutual fealty


we smell you and taste you in every old recirculated breeze,
as you inhale us and exhale toiled tribulations,
we will be married-vow renewed,
a new peace of sorts imbued,
far far better, than no peace at all!
"
I write more and will post less,
but this weekend I hope to journey
my own one hundred miles, across three isles,
employing bridges and ferry,
to get back to where I write a different kind of poetry,
and the bad, the surface cracks within welded shut,
the winter's road ruts,
filled and sealed,
melded by nature's lighter than air cement

though the cracks within cannot be
filled or healed
by them alone,
a lush quietude invades
and does the best it can...
the photo my winter's hairy tale,
scissored and dispatched,
and an old memory restored, replaced,
my new island audience and followers,
who disapprove or approve of what I write,
by leaving, or honking OK!

if you care, search my old summer poems,
and discover the story's of the chair, the island, and it's unforgiving
demand to write...
Enlighten Me-
I’m always underestimating self-master bating-
Graduated-
At the top of fund frustration-
My motivation needs money relations-
The contemplation of money making has my mind at a constant hating-
My breaking patience-
Has my mind like a **** relating-
Regulations of all my banking-
See my bank account disintegrating-
I’m suffocating-making payments-Late fee statements-
Debit-Credit-Cash-oking
Debit-Credit-Cash-oking
Racki­ng bills my back is breaking-my nerves are shaking-
Shaking more than I anticipated-
Now I’m here with a life to fear-
Writing till my mind is clear-
Writing till I feel what’s real-
Writing till I seal a deal-
Multiplying-
Adding-Subtracting-and dividing-
Signing more checks than providing-
It’s suicide I’m not denying-Rhyming trying its crucifying-
Clocking in before the sun is rising Grinding flying hoping griming-living life nine to fiving-
Its re-revising-Re-defining-Rectifying-
More so that I think I’m hiding-
Killing with finical violence-Violating my banks alliance-
Maxing plastic so fantastic now I need some re-advising-interest rates have a grown man crying-Million dollars seem so un-winding-
Now I’m whining-
Constant buying-
Gas rates got me into biking-riding-fighting-
Just surviving-any discount seems so delighting-winning lotto seems o-so-righteous-buy one get one is so exciting-
Boot leg buying I ain’t lying-
Being broke is constant rewinding-It’s reminding-so relying-over drawing is my new binding-it’s confining-so I’m finding-Making takings of my disliking-Making takings that are so dang freighting-dollar scratchers are so inviting-
But this realization is so enlightening-
Moving as fast as a bolt of lighting-
I’m asking you G-d to help me like this-
I’m feeling the pain and I think I might just-
ROB ME A BANK-
BY:
RICHARD ITSKOVICH
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2017
the hangover is a losers' complaint...
what's with these hiccups?
       it's a bit like feeling guilty
    listening to the bangles....
   because musical preferences
  are "second" to your sexuals ones;
       i'm going to **** this penguin...
you tackle the giraffe...
              the **** is up with hiccups?!
       i'm not choking... i'm not practicing
                           rich girls' eating disorder...
i'm starting to think that i'm
    actually boxing, i.e. someone's
            punching me in the stomach...
    hiccups!
                          hiccups!
      ­                                                 hiccups!
         a music reference to the 19          80s...
            hip to be square...
                                   walk like an egyptian...
puff the hooka pipe... puff the viper...
                 ******* hiccups... that are
    180 in terms of hook-ups...
              getting punched in the stomach or
the ******* neck...
    ostrich...
                          head in the sand...
            hiccups?
                                    am i trying to burp?
i really feel like
                       farting, easing a **** out....
gonna be swiss... and ease that **** out...
to be honest...           clocking somehow into uni...
                         hiccups!
            to be honest hiccups aren't funny..
   they're not as funny as coughs... or farts...
                           hiccups aren't funny.
Lyss Gia Jun 2014
You told me you dreamt of stars
From before cave painters
And ice ages
Celestial


You said you came from the time
Before “Let there be light”
When light and dark pooled
And eddied together


You said we could exist
In an isolated state
When even oil and water were in love
And we are but atoms


And you said
We could run away from
The ills and the joys and
The businessmen clocking in on time


But I am a cynic
And a threw down your sonnets
And your romance
Because I’m not a dreamer
Pink Taylor Aug 2010
I wouldn't normally understand
Quite how to say it
But if you listen close
This might just start to explain it
You see, it's a secret
A tiny little world
Where a boy can be a boy
And a girl can be a girl
I had a house there
that I shared with my friends
We resided there quite peacefully
Drinking, dancing on the weekends

But an earthquake shook
the whole wide world
When my third friend
took to flight
Flew back to Earth
on a pretty pink balloon
Now he's the moon
But I don't see it out
That often
Maybe if you're lucky
One day the clouds will open
But I don't think that's
gonna happen

My second friend and I
Flew back as well
But compared to our tiny world
Earth starts to look
a little like hell
There's no bandanna in the
crack between
the bed and the wall
And I can't smoke ***
when I walk down the sidewalk

But that's okay
We're here to stay
Without the moon on our side
But we still got a whole world to change
I won't tell you how
I've told far too much already
But anyway back to the story

My second friend is lost
outside somewhere in the dark
the clouds are clocking out the moon, she
can't follow her heart
And I understand her sorrow
Cause I'm just a moth
on the wall
that was attracted to the moon's glow
Where'd it go?

But I got too close to the light
And it almost burned me
Don't get too close to it
It can burn you too
But it's beautiful
Magnificent and magical
If it would just come back
I wouldn't be
scared of the glow
I'd keep my distance
She loves the moon too much
I don't know if she can resist it
Or if she even wants to
the light burned her
so much she kinda lost it

"I wouldn't blame you
If you wanted to fly
our spaceship
Back to our little planet."
I can't tell her that
Cause I'm not sure
either of us know
exactly how to get there
Our only chance is to
take a picture,
make some changes
We just have to get out
of the dark

Which way is that again?
Well I forgot where we parked
But we can find the light again.
Vale Luna Jun 2017
There's a gentle metronome
Resting on my writing desk
Like a robotic lullaby
Humming me to rest
Tick-tick-tick
Through the night
Let my wrongs turn to rights
A dream that's a home

Tick; goes the metronome.

There's a fragile metronome
Posing on my wood bookshelf
The only sound in the room
Echoing all by itself
Tick-tick-tick
All day long
A sharp, melodic song
Cranking out a soothing tone

Tick tick; goes the metronome.

There's a cracked metronome
Sitting on my windowsill
Clocking in and out
The worst type of sleeping pill
Tick-tick-tick
Night and day
Hypnotizing it's prey
True tranquility stands alone

Tick tick tick; goes the metronome.

There's a defective metronome
Laying on my bedroom floor
It's sickening harmony
Rots me to my core
Tick-tick-tick
Losing power
I'm awake every hour
A heart weighed down by stone

Tick tick; goes the metronome.

There's a shattered metronome
Placed at the foot of my bed
A sound that’s lost its tempo
A heartbeat that's fled
Tick-tick-tick
In my brain
Repetition in vain
Break me til I'm nothing but bone

Tick.
Stops the metronome.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
you really need spectacles to read this, zone-in like a humming bird, given all the see-through gaps on the page - reading the Latin alphabet is like looking at x-rays - it's what happens when phonetic encoding borders on geometry that you get problems, or a joke of the gods (erase gods from poetry and you can erase Chernobyl from the history of Ukraine or chlorophyll from the study of biology.*

mother with a                         u...
like the tips of a parabola enjoining to make a double-o?
i.e. moother / μωθηρ? no wonder
the umlaut given specification against the omicron....
this is why greek shouldn't attract diacritical usage,
necessarily borrowed via the Ω-square:

u                            oo



ω                  ­           ü                                       ¨

              (term it as a parabolic union of two dots
          and the twin omega kissing the sky, a limit of
                linear rubric, sentencing
a...............................................................­.......
b........................................................­.............
c..................................................­....................
                                            ­                           and 6ft1 tall)...


or sigma, or castrato sigma M wonky...
who the **** is reading this compass, drunk?
it's all over the place! west... matter... σouth
Σorph...                 ρita pread... the ****?!
this is turning out to be a right Bermuda Δ:
cockney humour, please, we have children present!
i'm teaching them to count matchsticks in a pine forest!
skeleton (a) says to skeleton (b): give me a jaw,
i can't laugh without it.
skeleton (b) says to skeleton (a): conjure up
a diaθragm for me.
skeleton (a) says to skeleton (b): you mean a diaφragm?
skeleton (b) to skeleton (a): any squiggly line will do right now.
compass!
                                             d


b                                                            ­                            q

                                  ­      
                                              p...

and you thought you needed an acid trip.
the above is a hall of mirrors, it's not a compass or
a Kabbalistic magic square... it's a hall of mirrors.
please excuse the Greek gentlemen for applying
diacritical marks to their beautiful alphabet -
that left Brits still standing stark naked in Eden...
                                                                ­ we're waiting;
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. hello?!
you'd sooner shove an armadillo into an aardvark's ***
than expect the "masters of the universe"
to put on some lipstick to their gobs:
it's not even about being pretentious as it's about being
donkey stubborn; budge *******! budge up!
i need a can of sardines from you, it won't work unless
you turn into custard or fudge!
you have to forgive my friend, he still thinks he's
part of an empire - which he squandered for politically
correct speech like those Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth
noblemen who squandered in three partitions
while ******* on their ancestral grave... the last remnant
of the empire, nortern ireland saved by black market cigarettes
than the good friday agreement; hong kong ping pong
is still going on between Mr. Chi and Forest Gump,
sit down street protests, hippy protests in asia not fuelled
by marijuana... he is a bit deaf: SHOW'S OVER!
PACK UP YOUR PRIDE AND SHOVE IT INTO THE HAUL
OF H.M.S. BELFAST... ****** doesn't hear me... ******...
well, keeping an empire is like keeping an *******,
doesn't last forever, better chisel out a ******* emblem
and pray to it while knee bending at Stonehenge come
the summer solstice. Mr. Bellybutton pimps it gluttonous
in pomp at the Greenwich meridian: clocking up an ancient
0, although not slicing apart A.D. from B.C., just the time
difference: London 9p.m. is Moscow's 12a.m,
hence the 24h news reels.
Keith Wilson Jul 2019
I suppose they still do it
eight o'clock sharp
stamp your card
8:02 you are still alright
8:03 stamped in red
lost fifteen minutes pay
and so on
and so on

A regular 8:03
will have you in the office
for a good telling off
Nazanin Feb 2018
Nothing managed to warm me
~before burning my skin
You too tried to harm me..
~In these circles I spin

But the rabbit has warned me
~"you are running out of time"
There is not much in this land
~dreamland is too long gone

They chopped the poor rabbit's head
~his broken watch in my hand
Which only clocks the true hours
~of me in my wonderland.
My wonderland
grumpy thumb Mar 2018
Evening light washes pale
traffic scrunches up the motorway
weary bones heading home
minds coiled tense as a spring
ready to offload
wasted hours devoured by work.
Autumn sunset
douse me in red fire
let me not forget
the time.
The universe is immeasurable,
  we are merely infinitesimal
    machinery keeping pace,
as churning cogs tick wildly
  transmitting within allotted time,
attempting heartbeats' cohesion
  clocking our own honed destinations,
accumulating illusions 'tween mass
   waiting to return as a speck of dust
      in the never-ending saga of
           inexhaustible collectives amidst
         systematically creative contrivances
tick-tock
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
Brian Molko was already doing the current wannabe-trend of trans-sexuality long before trans-sexuality was a common "thing"... tracing back some ulterior taboo settings... today on my way to work i spotted my first trans-******: wow! obviously he had manly hands... large... he was tall... he had large feet... but slender legs... and a face, with all that necessary make-up of eyeliner... hair? not very long... shoulder length... yes... a deep voice... but then again my godmother has a husky voice from all the smoking and drinking... but i fancied him... the dynamic on the tube was magnifying... three women sat beside him while he was talking to his geeky (maybe, probably) boyfriend, a plump chap with eyeglasses... i couldn't stop thinking: ah... the solidarity of men... when in shortage of supply of women, men will find alternative avenues to compensate for women, men will find women in men... the idea that i might be a transphobe never occurred to me: but it did occur to me that women: for all their supposed glorification of acceptance would never allow men to be attracted to men who are: beyond merely the thespian gay-lord, *******... ally... this... "freak"... i fancied this man... i could omit all the stressed "imperfections"... but such a feminine-feline face... it really suited him... i wanted to kiss him... i was thinking... i'll tend to the "oysters" and all the tender bits and bites of being with him... andd do the butcher's work with a *******... problem solved... this skin-head middle-aged (i'm coming to middle age, or life expectancy, not the lottery of mortality, mind you) sat next to me and was sort of nudging me with a shadow missing in the full-glare of the lights of the tube... you fancy him? insinuations via body-language: yeah... i do... is it wrong? nope! check the women sitting next to him... do you fancy them? nope... me too... of the three or four women sitting next to this trans-****** specimen... none had a lovelier face... mutations just... "happen"... the eureka-oops moments... i could seriously forget about the shared dimensions of large hands twice as big as that of a geisha, same with the feet... i could forget the baritone voice... i really fancied this boy... in a way that gay-lords just make it difficult having mingled with actors too much and not retaining an aura of: suspense and: something in me is frigid, alien... i shouldn't but... hell... i really should! i will! benevolent London that is... he was prettier than all the women i saw that day... like my grandfather once said: there are no ugly women... there are only abandoned... if not abandoned then neglected women... to think that women could ever be neglected: says as much about neglected men... men will find alternative avenues to women when the women self-exfoliate in their "privilege" of: first-come-first-served-and-thus-the-only-served menu... **** that! but what was special about this trans-****** specimen? it reminded me of the time i fancied Brian Molko, still do... in a non-gay sort of way... in a Plato the Plumber there's a blocked toilet of reincarnation afloat... it was actually, sort-of, actually-sort-of-funny watching the women on the same carriage trying to read my reaction... for once a man was more attractive than a woman to me! wow! being accused of trans-phobia... in London? well... only if you can't pull it off! it's like saying: coulrophobia! fear of clowns! with the clowns being without make-up? conflating the Apex Twin gargoyle from Window-Licker?! yeah... scary ****! the grin that's the length of the equator... i couldn't be attracted to a standard homosexual... Thespian leeching or intellectually pleasing akin to a Douglas Murray... or body-building blah blah... but this trans-****** specimen? that's an affront to a woman... all women... a man can have a prettier face to a woman's if... a man deems the exampled woman to be nothing more than akin to a lineage of... never arrived at cosmopolitanism... beetroot countryside proud... all red and irritated... i fancied this one... i was one step away from askig him: can i have your number? again, to reiterate: i didn't mind the deep voice... i didn't mind the size of hands that could match mine or the size of feet that could match mine... i was... infatuated with the magic dust of PIXIES! maybe that's what i learned from going to the brothel... but if you're going to play the trans-****** game... can you please avoid the mishandling of the Hippocratic oath... so little is actually necessary to accomplish a ****-heterosexual confusion-attraction that leaves women feeling inadequate: you, wouldn't even want to begin to believe! i'm now currently thinking of that film: the Odd Couple... Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Jack Lemmon as Felix Unger... Felix being the male-feminine counterpart of the feminine-man slob child pampered to: or however this quadratic works... i wouldn't be doing the cleaning and the cooking out of a feminine dignity to avoid doing the hard work of society's demands... no... i'd be perfecting my cooking to match up to the sort of food available upon heading out to a restaurant, i.e. not eating out... i've seen some car-crashes of trans-****** attempts... but this one stuck out for me because i started to think along the lines of: who needs women if men can appear prettier than women?! i'll just close my eyes when hand meets hand... it's a sickly sweet sensation but i could stomach it: if the conversation was kept to a satisfying lubrication: and it wouldn't be even remotely associated to the feminist-gay "commonwealth"... alliance... i don't need homosexuals to tell me XY&Z... i'm actually grooving this trans-****** trend: if spotting the exacting specimen to curtail all the wannabes... if there's an authentic Brian Molko specimen walking around... wow! reimagining being *** starved on the Western Front... a few guys with more artistic inclinations... rather than the rough sea-faring roughage of **** on the spot job done become involved... prettier faces than those of women... i could: no! i would succumb! it's just the terror in the eyes and on the faces of women... hey presto! a stick has two ends! freeze eggs... follow a career... demand a car a mortgage blah blah... my my... what a curiosity this trans-****** worked up to a perfection specimen of disphoria awoke in me... good enough cushioning blanket of sleeping with enough prostitutes... now i really want to sleep with a man... which is not gay... i'm bored of prostitutes... they're like any other woman: you pay them... yet they still complain as if you haven't paid them when not getting a hard-on because of (x) tiredness, (**) distraction, (***) life... per se... whatever... but those female faces... i pretended to be snoozing... they knew i knew... i kept an itch of a blink at this specimen... woman: ANGRY... no... actually... not angry... woman... what the **** is going on? of the times i went to a gay club and didn't pick up a Francis Bacon i wondered: did i drink enough? homosexual lust and all that same-for-same feminine-pro erotica of the jealous stone-rub-stone-offensive... the trans-****** "confusion" is a bright light... if done properly... done... naturally... i'm mesmerised... without... obviously... without... people succumbing to the breaking of the Hippocratic-oath... obviously... i despise the gay-pride movement... at least the authentic trans-sexuality movement is subtle... it's philosophically laden with a curiosity of more lips and less **** stressing fist-*******... this morphing of the pareidolia toward: seeing a female in a man's face... or seeing a man in a woman's face... hardly gender dysphoria... *****-utopia and... just as children look alike, regardless of ***... so do old people... also regardless of ***... but to achieve a heterosexual attraction in the realm of trans-genderism? it can't be forced... it has to happen ha-ha-naturally! i'm laughing at myself... only briefly... i'm more inclined to see the female in a man without seeing the homosexual... because homosexuality is like that quote from... no... not Human Traffic... about being gay and eating *****... how... eating ***** is not for real men... while ******* **** is all All Spice Alles Mensch... whatever... the gays are too proud might as well look out for the shy, proper, proper shy... trans-sexuals without any anti-Hippocratic-Oath mishandling(s)... the women become jittery thus...

i should have come home and reflected on spending
the past several hours on a shift
in Bishop's Park, overlooking Putney Bridge
watching the tide of Thames' recede back into the great
mouth before mingling with the salty waters
of the North Sea...
     all loved-up with the cold the dark and the wind
putting on some Woljiech Kilar soundtrack music
from Dracula - love remembered...
well... i was in the mood for something like that:
i put the track on... nope... can't feel it...
i'm tired, i'm cold i need to put on something to groove
to... we ain't going out like that - Cypress Hill...
tiredness swells the imitation pigeon-strut
in my head... bouncy-Billy will also ask for a chance
to express himself...
    the joke ran with Martin's team (Chelsea)
losing for the first time since 2006 to Fulham...
         the police officers were in a good number...
they even brought their horses...
two stood across from us when the final whistle was
blown... one of them started "laughing": if that's
what horses do, i.e. laugh...
no onomatopoeia here: hey Martin! even the horses
are laughing that Fulham beat Chelsea in the most
local derby of London...
    Craven Cottage is what? a mile at max two from
Stamford Bridge...
          one can only love the ever infuriated Martin...
but still the Thames receding...
   at first glace i might have stretched across
the balustrade and probably touched the surface of
the water... by the end of the shift when the river-bed
started to be exposed i started to wonder:
all that volume and now apparent air where once
there was water...
  no river in the world akin to the Thames...
tide in and tide out... at Westminster it's a river
that rid itself of the kettle and is nonetheless standstill
and boiling - during the day...
while eating a chicken wrap of torsos and tortillas
talking to a Norwegian who came over to watch
the football for the week...
last time he was here in the 1980s... have things changed?
the oyster one-touch travel card...
sure... it has just become a little bit more expensive:
but nothing has changed that much...
but during the night, and if its windy... well: clearly
there's a flow... a tide in or a tide out...
by the time i got to Goodmayes i walked past the brothel:
thank god i have nothing more to prove
thank god i have satiated my base needs and that's that...
what am i looking for? a compliment to a pharma-knock-out
of generic painkillers in the form of a bottle
of whiskey...
    too tired to **** not tired enough to think:
maybe i could fall in love again...
   fall in love... fall in love: but... ugh...
               fall in love and not pamper a woman's needs
with all those basic "tattoos" of courtship...
i might as well ask any future father-in-law:
so... where's my cow, my wedding dowry?
                     where's the pick-me-up to work with?
well if manna from heaven will not drop into my lap...
i hardly think... who the hell needs a car in London?
given the oncoming ULEZ restrictions?
bicycle, underground and the trains, plenty of buses...

today i was sent the most odd message from a coworker
who i am supposed to do a shift at the ice rink
on Sunday...
i was rather surprised - a "box" i never thought i would
unbox (as it were)...
i'll be honest... she's damaged - seriously damaged:
i'm on the "top" of the pile of damaged goods...
a mythological schizoid - ageing - each year turns
out easier as the madness spreads around me:
madness or the crushing mundaneness -
mundaneness or mediocrity -
    in a democracy it's all and the same: in the grey yolk
of bureaucracy -
         pushing letters through keyholes that leave
no door open: unless playing the "system" like
a criminal or a mummy with five different shades
of children from five different fathers...

                       the trouble with Russian girls is that...
they don't like a boy who appreciates music by Placebo...
huge disagreement... her take on Nancy Boy was
rigid and could never be biding: no appreciation of the music
for you... well... that be that...

this girl is hurt... i am hurt: everyone's hurt...
but i still find reasons to find silly happiness in cooking
cleaning, general groundwork labour of changing
the garden - some carpentry: cycling...
keeping up appearances of a well-kept diet
and perfumery of all sorts... at least dressing like
my idol Karl Lagerfeld... like an animal wears its fur...

she even changed her name to Frankie -
Frankie... i.e. is that Franklin, Frank?
no... it's actually Francesca...
the running joke with another girl i work with
runs along the line:
wouldn't that be something, to put on your CV
if you managed to convert her?
convert? or reconvert?
after all she has managed to produce offspring...
god knows why she's not in contact with her daughter...
but it's not like she was always a lesbian...
forced lesbian... it's not something a priori:
it's a posteriori...
after the facts that include: her biological father
beating her biological mum...
her biological mum abandoning her and her siblings
to escape with her dear life...
    how her step-father is like her biological father
but then the problem arises: the mother is unhinged
and now her step-father is facing splitting up with her
mother... of all the siblings she's the only one
keeping contact with her mother...
the other siblings, at least one... is ******* up to
her biological father who was: the greatest intersexual
boxer of the domestic environment to have ever lived
(in her eyes at least, i bet Tina Turner could compensate
such allowances of vanity)...

she used to be a man's woman once...
but now she switched... ******* without all
the Hippocratic misdeeds of the modern, current, narrative,
cutting off ******* and other genitals,
hormonal treatments... it's almost as if Joseph Mengele
died in body but his spirit lived on...
it's like a never-ending Auschwitz or at least
encryptions of mad-scientists for thirst of knowledge
have continued on a side-note of eugenics...
but at least with the closure of the 20th century
there was safe ******* experiments undertaken
by individuals without any authority of government:
the boys would grow their hair long and put
on eyeliner...
    perhaps even use girly perfumes or wear
dresses, nail-polish... hell... even sniff ******* or wear
them... but not with medical authority creating
irreversible ****** changes...
the girls would put on more weight or work out
and pretend to be East Germany's Olympians...
cut their hair short... who came the Pixie girls...
get tattoos wear signets: those bulky rings worth not
a gram of gold but their own worth of bulk...
    and like Francesca get an undercut with a Mohawk...
change their tone of voice... defence defence defence...
and become suddenly less and less agreeable...
still retaining a feminine smile and the odd feminine giggle
that could be unearthed...
or like with her text...
'hey... i want to go ice-skating after our shift...
do you think you'd be up for it?'
sure... although i only ice-skated twice in my life...
a long time ago, 13? i fell every single time...
i looked like someone who escaped from having
suffered from Polio...
i'll still look like someone who suffered from childhood
Polio akin to Israel Vibration's
Wiss", "Apple Gabriel", "Skelly"
      or Ian "Lane" Drury...
                                    instead i sent her a text replying:
sure... but i'll look like a spider equipped with
roller blades... i'll need to bring a casual set of trousers
just in case i fall and rip my work trousers...
'ha ha ha ha(insert crying with laughter emoticons)...'

oh sure... it's not a date... i'm not just going on a date...
we're not going for dinner...
i'm going ice-skating with a lesbian...
a butch-lesbian a hiding woman...
tattoos six-pack and muscle...
no wonder: only hours prior i was admiring
a would-be Brian Molko on the tube...
        
she followed up with a text of yet more defence:
but i'm skint - it will cost £10.50 for an hour
and a bit...
      we'll see i reply... as if she was implying:
if we can't get in for free... would you be willing
to pay?
i didn't reply with agreement to paying for...
then again: i'm not thinking about ***,
or homosexual conversion therapy...
i just don't remember when a girl last asked me to
go on a date with her... after all:
isn't a girl asking a boy to go ice skating with her
sort of asking a boy to go on a date?
she said she was quiet adapted to ice skating:
she owns a pair (of ice skates)... and i'll be the hilarious
polio walker / spider strapped with roller blades
trying to swim in quicksand...
mind you... i'm trying to rid myself of the past two
interactions in the brothel... terrible ***...
that one with the madam where i was limp...
the fate of the Sabine men gripped me...
i won't deny it...
second time... she calls herself my favourite:
she isn't... she's deluded... to the amazement of the other
girls i like to **** in the brothel...
i only extended my per usual 30min stay
by clocking up an extra 30min because i was so close
to climaxing from a *******: knock knock on the door...
time's up... no... not this time...
i'm going to finish... ergo...
but even she has paved her way onto a path of too much
physical augmentation...
if the **** don't come first... then the duck quack lips
reveal themselves first... she's an aging *******
and she has never done anything in terms of work
prior... no laundry no till service...
pregnant aged 14 and in the profession aged 16...
this is the murk and the sully of the gallows
of everyone: once, former, youthful idealism of love...
trotting a horse with broken legs like
waking up into birth by a man sitting in akimbo
for too long... standing up with numbed legs...
moving awkwardly...

obviously i was going to be robbed of Khadra and Mona...
Mona became stupid for getting pregnant
with a customer... hmm... i wonder who...
last time i saw her i teased her without a ******
and this massive fright gripped her face
because i was only teasing and she thought i was
a premature ejaculator... clearly a ****** was subsequently
used and the deposit in it: **** knows...
she should know... i haven't seen her since...

i think i'll text Francesca (Frankie) and tell her...
bring your skates girl... if we can't get in for free i'll
pay for the two of us...
only two shifts prior she was insinuating about
going for a pint: i just replied: i would...
but i had to help my father write the fortnightly
invoice and send it in...
like tomorrow... tomorrow i'll have to help my mother
with the taxes and VAT...
they're getting a new accountant and she lied
about doing her taxes on a spreadsheet...
**** me... i probably used Microsoft Excel twice...
twice, properly... but since i only used it twice...
i'm a bit rusty... so much worth of secondary school
education or the university...
   they taught us the bare minimum of real-world
life-long tools of the onslaught of technology -
   hammer and scythe i can use to count heads...
oh well: there's bound to be some crash-course for dummies
on the internet...

i waited until 9pm for the three of us to sit down to
eat some fajitas...
i overdid it using Kashmiri chilly powder
and three fresh chillies in making the pineapple salsa...
but the hotness neutralised itself with the addition
of the tomato salsa i made... and the guacamole...
the sour cream and obviously cheese, esp. cheddar
neutralises all possible excess spices...
we ate, chatted... one big ******* family,
me, father and mother and my "brother" and "sister"...
well... at least the cats meow and don't bark...
oddly enough: i'm happy... mediocre sort of:
that scene from Hellraiser: Inferno...
were the protagonist - a corrupt police officer -
is forced into a nightmare of having to relive his
eternity in his childhood's bedroom...
living with his parents...
shouldn't the horror be... your parents getting divorced?
i don't know why mine are still together...
they must be freaks... i must be a mutant:
well... born only two weeks after Chernobyl:
no riddles, only clues...
     i keep the conversation going...
i help around the house...
  
                        Frankie dealt me two nuggets of hashish
in the past 4 months... once i was desperate
when the hashish ran out so she gave me the number
of a marijuana dealer: great green all the way from
America... i only used the service once...
maybe that's me being bulletproof...
i'm cutting down on drinking and i will never return
to smoking marijuana to achieve a Buddha-esque glow
meditating while high and hungry...
weighing in at 78kg... it's a bit of a yoyo with me these
days... from 99kg through to 103kg...
but then... i pinch myself: i summon the ***** to pinch
back... hmm! no man-****... so i could try out for
some amateur rugby matches...

a butch lesbian asking a boy for a date to go
ice skating... i feel... truly terrible for all the conventional women...
i would have offered a cinema date...
she beat me to the better sort of entertainment...
she said: let's go ice skating...
i would have retorted: i do own two bicycles...
how about we go cycling in the night...
round and round Raphael's Park...
round and round... and if we're lucky...
and if the winter air aligns itself with some idiot
setting off fireworks... we can get snippets of whiffs
of imitation autumn... as if the leaves of the trees
have fallen in the dry crisp air and someone
set them alight and there's no rot and knee-deep
digging of plush-decay exfoliating a sickness
in the air... how's that?

i'll send her the text... hell... i'll pay for her...
i'm not interested in ***...
she might be a butch-lesbian trying to hide her
femininity... but she still smiles like a woman...

oh sure... i remember the last conventional:
heterosexual date i was on...
we met in a sweaty night-club... if we kissed we kissed:
i don't remember... she gave me her phone-number
i gave her mine... i was in the company of
about 3 girls who i met elsewhere, otherwise:
also randomly...
at least one made something of her life...
she ****** off to Norway - totally off-the-grid...
by now probably breeding huskies for sleighs...

the next time we met... i bought two bottles of wine...
the "date"? a job interview... we talked...
subsequently we went to a pub while i had a pint...
she was feeling claustrophobic...
i was the alcoholic and she became the **** of boredom...
she excused herself: some prior engagement
with her girlfriends... i guess she thought she got away...
i way happy to get away by same mechanisation
of oppositional psychology...
all this talk within the confines of carpe diem that
centred upon: what do you / what's you living
should i think about life insurance - will we live to be 70
years old?
well... that's the cherry on top with Francesca...
you want to go ice-skating? sure...
you want to go cycling with me in the night?
sure... life insurance / what do you for a living?
how much do you earn?
             can we live a little outside a prison within a prison?!

so much for Dawid Bovie's idea of the androgynous man:
if i'm to be surrounded by "butch" lesbian
and prostitutes: that's my lot then...
i'm not going to succumb to the CV-project-veritas
in-vitro infanticide females with CHOICE
like... my spunking into a bucket and calling it:
falling asleep with the sound of rain
trickling trickling on a metallic roof...
in the night when the horrors come and horrors
claim all the little details of frailty
of mortality...

                  for every tear-jerking sympathy for
a Romeo there's the mantis of
   a Judith kissing the decapitated head of
                                                             Holofernes:
**** it... the prostitutes i truly loved ******* are either:
pregnant or on "holiday"...
i passed the brothel only two nights ago...
i spotted a man walking out from the door...
he froze like a doe in the headlights and didn't move
until i turned my head and kept walking...
i was about to blast out with wind and voice:
no shame in having to share women
we will never impregnate!
start thinking like a woman, dear man...
think on ground of evolutionary bias...
for every women there's this boast of:
50% of men reproduced successfully...
while all the whole lot of them the 100% of train-wrecks
and Piccadilly butcher's antics with the flab
have... their greatest success story to ever live...
i could be worse off... than right now...
i could have married an ugly woman:
by definition: if a most feminine man
grows his hair long and applies some slapstick
makeover creases of eyeliner...
i can forgive him his match-for-match size
of hands... height... size of shoe...
but never an ugly woman... UGLY...
that goes beyond mere the physical-glass...
i'm talking: character... there's no prime-ego
LEGO building block... no architect's corner stone...
there's nothing to work with...
just everything to work around...
to avoid...
                    
    if: for ****'s sake... i'm not planning: i'm providing
the revenue... i want to go ice-skating!
she doesn't have any money? i have "too much"...
i don't: but for the worth of life in life that's only
to supposed to span a month's worth of living it...
hell: i have no better idea to pass the time...

at one point i found out that Francesca has some Irish
roots... you're Aye-Reesh?!
              really? never would have conjured up
a sharing of ******* on a leprechaun...
**** it for good luck... like circumcision:
that's apparently Hebrew for: good luck...
with the addition of: ensuring your bride to be
be donning a niqab and all those "other"...
culturally sensitive, exclusive terms of
cultural-dis-appropriation: or whatever the **** is
coming out of H'America...
             once upon a time when that cultural export
was relevant: these days: nothing new to be
found... except the abandoned moon...

well... i sent the text... sure... i'll pay for the ice-skating...
but you have to promise me to go cycling
with me during the warmer months
with me... don't worry about having a bicycle...
you can have my mountain-bicycle
i use for the winter months
while i'll get on my summer month
road-bicycle...
we'll head toward Thurrock...
and elsewhere that's Essex friendly
and far away from London outer-suburbia...
fresh... fresh...
Jean Claude van Dame...
                       Fresh: that's her idea of working out
before the shift... and then going ice-skating...
FooR x Majestic x Dread MC...

                oh well... life in Loon-downs...
or is that: no apples... i'm sure there are no apples...
if she takes the bait...
i.e. i pay for both of us going ice-skating tomorrow...
she better go cycling with me during the
summer months...
she says no to ice-skating tomorrow
i'll become Trojan in my own defense...
if she wants to be all ******* lesbian defensive...
i can be defensive too...
i'll arm myself with enough brothel visits to erase:
first... comes... oh my grandmother disappointed
me... i could have been there for my
grandfather stabbing himself in the leg
while entering the state of AGONIA...

                    i could have been there: she? trying to protect
me against the advent of mortality?
or her... biting my grandfather's alcoholism she
induced by being a terrible woman?
his last pleasures?
crossword puzzles... cycling, fishing,
rekindling with the day-tripper postcard sender
vouch! you're the simulation tourist with
his... grand... chill... no... not -dren...
his... sole and only grand-child... i.e. me...
him buying me the books i read over the summer holidays...

women are so ape so cruel...
i stopped believing in what's idealistic and rare before
me: which i can't replicate...
i'm happy being freed from:
i don't earn the sort of money that the state
demands taxing me... weird? no!
i don't earn enough to be taxed!
weird... i'm sort of pretending to be a jellyfish
afloat... simulating gravity:
gravity is always a simulation in the medium
of water...
                by air contra vacuum:
the mountain breathes in winter a cascade of
frigid snow slides down...
a Michael Schumacher goes skiing...
****** races cars at 200kmh... one loose turn and twist:
cranium like an opening of a watermelon...
jellyfish fighting for life dead-locked style
in a sick-bed while people nearest to him
think about magic-spells: how best to live without
him: how best to milk the cow with *****
instead of milk... hmm hmm hmm...

if she wants to go on a date with me to go ice-skating...
and i'm supposed to be paying for it...
she better be readied to go cycling with me
during the summer months...
if that's not going to happen:
she shouldn't have suggested
going ice-skating in the first place, for ****'s sake...
like: anything by Bricktop in ****** is
Shakespeare to me... perhaps even more...
living with the times...

                                oh well some well: Samuel!
Samuel: you're not Samantha... learn to become
a transvestite first... before we employ the ****
Hippocrates to mutilate you, o.k. darling?
    learn to grow your hair long...
learn to put on make-up... learn to wear dresses...
learn to sniff female underwear...
Samuel! Samuel! you're not Samantha (yet)!
we will not give you up to the Joseph "Hip-replacing-******"
Mengele: shy away from everything American
in the realm of: worth being culturally exported
and influencing foreign cultures: esp.
in the basin of the origins of the English ZZZUNGE...
that's England...
                  
HIPS FOR KNEES!
                    America: beacon, former: beacon of the world
to come... came one Cain for every second cannibal
no Satan was spawned: at least that's Iranian paranoia
covered: converted, shut the doors on Tehran...
bigger whoops happened when...
Garry Glitter became pop once more
with the release of the Joker movie
and that mad dance scene...
on the 132 steps where Shakespeare Avenue
meets Anderson Avenue...

    i will never, ever... visit... anything... remotely...
resembling... or being curated as being:
North America... i've had too much north american
cultural anemia...
             prior to words not being so much politcal
as agent orange doing all the "talking"...
                                  
  tam tam tam dam dam dam... ditto... do no more than
the necessary "evil": just, bass: on the base
on insinuation;
hell... if the afro-cosmopolitan is the new "cool",
the new "groove"...
let's just keep it... marred: in murk: in murky.
FLOWERS

pioneering and experimenting
in search for myself,
I stopped looking
after the sixteenth year in life
as I planted a seed in a place
where nothing grows
and blossomed like a
beautifully, unblemished
nuisance of the dandelion.

but, if the world was the
gardner of life, it sprayed
**** killer on my soul and
continously pulled me from
the roots in hopes that I would
one day sprout into an orchid
or a water lily or a daffodil,
trying desperately to mold
me the way they wanted to
but I'm no tulip you could
easily pluck from the
moistened soil, just the
aforementioned ****
deep-rooted into the
hard concrete.

each year after that,
I fed myself plant food
on the compost heap of
jobs, women, *****, madness,
fathering and mothering
two children, cooking
cheap meals and avoiding
religion and fashion and
politics and responsibilites and
marriage just so I concentrate
on surviving while feeling
brutalized and institutionalized
by the roses of society,
until the day came when I stepped
in the bear trap of literacy and
was confined with a typewriter.

and now I'm married with responsibilities,
fathering my two children and
the meals have gotten dainty,
the woman are gone,
the ***** has prospered,
the madness is here to stay
and I'm still impassive towards
religion, fashion and politics.

so why am I clocking in and out
of life for 23 hours a day
for everyone else so I sparingly
enjoy one hour of the day to
be myself and write?

because the world creates chaos
and I take their chaos and
create poetry and just when you
thought they've completely
diminished my soul,
a little piece of ash still glimmers
in the thick gray haze where the
victory garden dances with
burning flowers.

no one in this world,
not even my sworn enemy,
should have to
fight for
or
work for
just to be
themselves.

and if the end of
each day isn't a
5 or 6 hundred page
novel to write about
and bookmarked with
a crushed daisy
then what the ****
are we even doing here?
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2014
These special summer afternoons
have no time markers,
no human dividers,
no watches watching
or clocks clocking,
just grins and smiles,
divining the divide,
painting lovely
the one canyon
of humanity and nature
attending to each other

These summer afternoons
have no time markers,
but drift perfectly sequentially
from sun to nap to
black striped grilled franks,
and red watermelon,
orange cantaloupe,
cold coronas,
and desserts of
indeterminate beach walks,
and quiet talks

These summer afternoons
are as close
as I remember,
what it was like to
be seven or eight,
years of age,
knowing only
carefree summer months
that were
carelessly treasured,
thinking there is
always another,
looking forward to tomorrow
to do nothing in
exactly, happily,
the same way innocently

I am an adult
and that means,
cares are ever present,
ever fair or fear not,,
they lurk and
attack the goalie,
with noisy or subtle unrelenting attacks

but as I overlook the waters,
scenario soul gentling me
under the cooling coverlet of
the perfect breeze and
what lurks
is the moment
the eyes and heart
are fulfilled,
satisfied by what they see

The bay,
dotted with the boat traffic
not too much,
but just interesting,
a right tiny armada
to entertain,
all of us,
inattentively observing
the submerging
descent of
summer daytime friends,

and I think of you only,
at this perfect second

and I am besotted
with grief
and guilt
why can I not grant you the moment,
that I desperate wish to share

my arm is not, not,
careless slung, but
grasping firm with squeezes tight,
finger under chin chucking,
come friend be with me,
and for just this moment


your anti-toil tool here,
your plight beyond my comprehension,
though I live a life on the unknown edge,
what matters is the relativity of us,
and I relate to your weariness,
I weep with desperate knowledge
transporting you here is still an
impossibility

though my eyes see glory,
though my heart cannot refuse
the scene's peace invading me,
it is not fair, it is not fair
and I want you
to have this more than me
so I can keep it too

until then it is a glaze,
surfacing the coating,
that is me
but substance is untouched
until this guilt morphs into a
shared pleasure
And I mean it...just reread this a few weeks later, and, well, I really like this poem

— The End —