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hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically that’s called hamming the bone sitting on a street curb singing making up lyrics i got a transitor sister loves cossack named jake he rides Cherokee chopper all he’s ever known is hate he’s going down underground where a man can be a man wrestle alligators live off the land ebb flow i don’t know racing chasing hair-pin turning at 150 miles per hour downshift to 3rd spread the word sweet sour naked flower touching skin deep within defies all sin with a grin speed speed speed all i need i’m getting off coming on you tawny scrawny bow-legged pigeon-toed knock-kneed Don Juan Ponce de Leon Aly Khan all wrapped up into one going to have ******* good time good time tonight i feel like an orphan mom and dad seem so far away tonight i feel like an orphan you make me feel this way hand slaps shoulder knee rhythmically hand bone hand bone

Odyseuss drifts job to job construction worker office assistant waiter whatever he does not understand how road to recognition works continues showing portfolio to art dealers but they react indifferently he does not know how to attain notice in art world begins to suspect there is no god watching over souls instead he imagines infinite force juggling light darkness creation destruction love hate Mom and Dad insist he can earn respectable income if only he will learn commodity futures like cousin Chris Mom says you can work down at the exchange and paint on the side a part of Odysseus wants desperately to please his parents he considers perhaps Mom is right for the time being maybe build up nest egg it seems like sensible plan he wonders why Dad and Mom never speak about money how to save manage they treat the subject as forbidden topic Odysseus has no idea what Dad or Mom earn or investment strategies Odysseus is about to make serious mistake the decision to get job working at commodity exchange needs deeper examination why is he giving in to his parents what attracts him to commodities trading is it Chris’s achievement and the money? does Odysseus honestly see himself as a winning trader or does it simply look like big party with lots of rich men pretty young girls is that where he wants to be why is he giving up on his dream to be a great artist does it seem too impossible to reach who makes him think that? is he going to give up on his true self? he halfheartedly follows his parent’s advice begins working as runner at Chicago Mercantile Exchange several friends including Calexpress disloyalty for entering straight world commodity markets are not exactly straight in 1978 clearing firms pay adequately hours are 8 AM to 2 PM over course of next 6 months Odysseus runs orders out to various trading pits cousin Chris rarely acknowledges Odysseus maybe Chris feels need to protect his image of success perhaps in front of his business associates Chris is embarrassed by Odysseus’s menial rank and goof-off attitude maybe Chris senses what a terrible mistake Odysseus has made

Chicago suffers harsh winter in February Roman Polanski skips bail in California flees to France in April President Carter postpones production of neutron bomb which kills people with radiation leaving buildings intact in October Yankees win World Series defeating Dodgers in November Jim Jones leads mass-****** suicide killing 918 people in Jonestown Guyana in December in San Francisco Dianne Feinstein succeeds murdered Mayor George Moscone in Chicago John Wayne Gacy is arrested

darkness descends upon Odysseus his heart is not into commodity business more accurately he hates it he loathes battleship gray color of greed envy he resents prevailing overcast of misogyny he meets many pretty girls yet most of them are only interested in catching a trader it is rumored numerous high rolling traders hire young girls for sole purpose of morning ******* remainder of day girls are free to mingle run trivial errands commodity traders typically trash females it is primitive hierarchy Odysseus bounces from one clearing firm to another then moves to Chicago Options Exchange then Chicago Board of Trade on foyer wall just outside trading floor hangs bronze plaque commemorating all men who served in World War 2 Uncle Karl’s name is on that plaque Daddy Pat bought his son seat hoping to set him up after war Uncle Karl’s new wife wanted to break away from Chicago persuaded him to sell seat move to California Uncle Karl bought car wash outside Los Angeles with Daddy Pat’s support Mom and Dad encourage assure Odysseus commodities business is right choice they promise to buy him full seat on exchange if he continues to learn markets they feel certain he can be saved from his artistic notions the markets are soaring in profits cousin Chris is riding waves a number of Chris’s friends are sons of parents who belong to same clubs dine at same restaurants as Mom and Dad Odysseus is not alpha-male like Chris Odysseus is a dreamer painter poet writer explorer experimenter unlike Chris who has connections Odysseus starts out as runner then gets job holding deck for yuppie brokers in Treasury Dollar trading pit Odysseus holds buy orders between index and middle fingers sell orders in last 2 fingers arranged by time stamp price size in other hand holds nervous pencil he stands step below boss in circular pit in room size of football field full of raised pits everything is traded cattle hogs pork bellies all currencies gold numbers flash change instantaneously in columns on three high walls fourth wall is glass with seats behind for spectators thousands of people rush around delivering orders on telephones flashing hand signals shouting offers quantities every moment every day calls come in frantically from all around world space is organized chaos sometimes not so organized fortunes switch hands in nano-seconds it is global fiscal battleground rallies to up side or breaks to down side send room into hollering pushing shoving hysteria central banks financial institutions kingpin mobsters with political clout daring entrepreneurs old thieves suburban rich kids beautiful people pretty young females abound big guns **** in same air stand next to low-ranking runners everyone flirts sweats sneezes knows inside they are each expendable Odysseus is spellbound by sheer force magnitude he feels immaterial only grip is his success with girls it is not conscious talent he grins girls grin back Chris’s trader friends recognize Odysseus’s ability they push him to introduce girls to them it is way for Odysseus to level playing field he has no money or high opinion of himself he simply knows how to hook up with girls

1979 January Steelers defeat Cowboys at Super Bowl Brenda Ann Spencer kills 2 faculty wounds 8 students responds to incident “i don't like Mondays” in February Khomeini seizes power in Iran in March Voyager space-probe photographs Jupiter’s rings a nuclear power plant accident occurs at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania in May Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime Minister in England in Chicago American Airlines flight 191 crashes killing 273 people in November Iran hostage crisis begins 90 hostages 53 of whom are American in December Soviet Union invades Afghanistan 1980 in November Ronald Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter one year since Iran hostage crisis began

he meets good-looking younger girl named Monica on subway heading home from work he has seen her running orders on trading floor she is tall slender with long dark brown hair in ponytail pointed nose wide mouth innocent face she confides her estranged father is famous Chicago mobster Odysseus recognizes his name they talk about how much they dislike markets arrant disparity of wealth between traders and themselves Odysseus says i hate feeling of being so disposable worthless Monica replies yeah me too he tells her if i was a girl i’d ******* myself to several handsome generous traders Monica acknowledges that’s an interesting idea but who? how? which traders? do you know? he answers yeah i know exactly who and how Monica says if you’re serious i’m in i have a girlfriend named Larissa who might also be interested i’ll call Larissa tonight following day Monica approaches Odysseus at work agrees to meet at his place after markets close that afternoon Monica and Larissa show up eager to learn more about Odysseus’s scheme Larissa is petite built like a gymnast giggly light brown hair younger than Monica he lays it all out for them cousin Chris and his buddies the money ******* both girls are quite lovely he suggests they rehearse with him he will coach them on situations settings techniques girls consent for 4 weeks every afternoon they meet at Odysseus’s place get naked play out different scenarios he shows girls how to pose demure at first then display themselves skillfully fingers delicately pulling open ***** spreading wide apart buns working hidden muscles he directs each to take up numerous positions tasks techniques then has them switch places he teaches them timing starting slow gradually building up rhythms stirring into passionate frenzy having two mouths four hands creates novel sets of possibilities one girl attends his front while other excites his rear he positions them side-by-side so he can penetrate any of all four holes he stacks them one on top of the other many other variations after reaching ****** several times making sure to reciprocally satisfy their eager needs Odysseus dismisses girls until following day finally after month of practice Monica and Larissa feel confident proficient primed Odysseus arranges for girls to meet with 2 traders through Chris most traders have nicknames Twist who is hosting event is notoriously wild insatiable on opening night Odysseus behaves like concerned father Larissa and Monica each bring several dresses and pairs of shoes Odysseus helps them choose suggests Monica ease up on make-up he styles Larissa’s hair instructs Monica to call him when they arrive again when they leave he requests they return directly to his place Monica wears hair pulled back in French twist pearl earrings sleek little black dress black stiletto heels she stands several inches above Odysseus Larissa wears braided pigtails pink low-scooped leotard brown plaid wool kilt just above knees brown suede cowboy boots he kisses each on lips then pats their butts warns them to be careful mindful Monica winks Larissa giggles more than an hour passes as Odysseus sits wondering why he has not heard from girls suddenly reality hits he does not want to be commodities trader and certainly not a **** this is not how he wants to be known or remembered Odysseus wants to be a painter and writer Monica and Larissa are good sweet girls whom he has misguided he calls Twist’s place Twist answers Odysseus asks to speak with Monica when she comes to phone he questions are you all right Monica answers yes we’re fine we’re having a fantastic time why are you calling what’s wrong he explains you were suppose to call me when you arrived i began to worry i think maybe this whole arrangement is a bad idea i want you to call it off and come back home i don’t want either of you to become prostitutes i love you both and don’t want to be associated with dishonoring you Monica says it’s a little late to call it off but we’ll see you when we’re done kissy kiss bye Odys another hour passes then another he frets wondering what they are doing after 4 hours as he is about to call Twist’s house again doorbell rings Monica and Larissa both giggling beaming Odysseus can spot they have a coke buzz Monica announces you should be proud of us Odys we got each of them off 2 times we left them stone-numb and tapped out the girls open their purses each slaps 5 hundred dollar bills unto table Monica says this is your cut Odys we both got a thousand for ourselves he replies i can’t touch that money we need to sit down and talk Monica demands no talking Odys take off your clothes he insists i’m serious Monica i’m never going to send you out again Larissa claims there’s no turning back for me i had too much fun Monica  pleads come on Odys we’ll be good we promise now take off your clothes Twist and his buddy never attended to our needs i’m ***** as hell Larissa where’s that little bottle of dust Twisty handed you

Chicago Monday night December 8 1980 Cal and Odysseus sit at North End they're on 4th round feeling buzz the place is lively adorned with holiday decorations Cal says you’ve changed Odysseus questions what do you mean? how? Cal says the commodity markets and your cousin and his friends they’ve changed you when was the last time you painted Odys? are you dealing coke Odysseus looks Cal in the eyes answers they’re so ******* rich Cal you can’t believe it one drives a black Corvette Stingray another a ******* Delorean anything they want they buy girls cars clothes condos boats yeah i’m dealing coke to Chris’s friends it’s my only leverage remember the Columbian dude Armando we met at tittie bar? i score from him and keep it clean Chris’s buddies pay up for the quality i don’t remember my last painting maybe the black painting i never finished after breaking up with Reiko Lee a girl falls off bar stool crashing to floor at other end of bar Cal says Odys, you better play it careful you’re messing with the devil got any blow on you suddenly bar grows quiet someone turns up TV volume they watch overhead as news anchorman speaks slow solemn camera pans splattered puddle of blood pieces of broken glass on steps to Dakota Building Cal looks to Odysseus John Lennon has been murdered Cal waits for Odysseus to say something tear rolls down cheek Cal glances away stares down at floor they drink in silence
FIRST DAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

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

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

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

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

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

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

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

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

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

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

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

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What level
is he speaking of?

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

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

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

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

This seditious talk!

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is the true level
of this city.

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

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

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

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

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

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

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

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

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

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

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

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

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

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99
Added today to commemorate the birthday of Carl Sandburg
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2019
.you can never really write any poetry by not covering the "heartbreak" the loss of your own "printed" words: how much different is the internet, from "real" life? just asking... since: internet banking & internet shopping... to lose a poem / pre-scriptum is not exactly the same as losing a person to mind: father's day... i cooked the dinner, i took out the trash, i wrote an invoice... i guess that's much better than leaving a card of greetings... and, come to think of it? why are we the sort of people subjugated to nostalgia, with but also "without" a history? aren't we subjugated to nostalgia and a history as a "fiction"? the beginning of the 21st century, the end of the 20th century... the 19th century germans associated themselves with a nostalgia for ancient greece, we're the only people who have an inbuilt nostalgia "safety-mechanism"... the only people in time who are nostalgic about the life surrounding their own existence slot, which doesn't have a trans-temporal dynamic... i remember times when we would be teenagers... spitting on people from car-parks on imaginary tonsures, buying *****-magazines from indian cornershops, or belgian freebies of non-insinuations, white lightning cider while sleeping over at youth centers playing snooker throughout the night... even at school: attending a catholic school with the irish east enders... uniforms, sure... a chequered shirt: blue, red, white... tag? made in canada... and if only capitalism worked as it once did, made in canada? lifetime of a shirt? 20 years... now? made in china... not exactly real cotton, is it? 2 years... before ironing the shirt *****... once upon in gants hill, st. valentine's park, and the pub, recently closed, decent karaoke... in the park? golf, basketball, rowing boats in the large ponds... when the jews were there... gants hill roundabout... the hanukkah torches... jews scuttling wearing trainers come rosh hashanah: jews can't wear leather on rosh hashanah (judgement day)... shy like rats... when the jews were there (gants hill, ilford)... the park looked great... tennis courts... now, when neo-Bangladesh moved in? ****** place. what else do i remember from my original pre-scriptum that i lost? oh, that once time in gants hill... walking into a kosher bakery with ****** knuckles, having tested them on a canvas of a brick wall, buying some dough-fused-sweets? with the girl selling the sweets bewildered by fear? i like the look of fear in people when tested by uncertainty, and bleeding knuckles? later? climbing over the park fence, taking a **** while squatting in the darkened palace of the park, walking into a brothel, having my wallet stolen, not reacting in what would have been justified... high school... we wore uniforms... so no high school h'american culture trap / culture... school uniforms are the best idea, there's no chance to "shine" in telling apart the rich kids from the poor kids... there's only the standard... walking to a supermarket, past a thai surprise... sports bra, short hair... walking back... she's still there pretending to talk on her mobile to someone... you take her home with a few beers... play her some jazz... take her into the garden, the moon is a beauty... you **** her... hand in her underwear and you're still gambling... before the emergence of the nag hammadi library and the whole androgynous vogue, the thai were already readied with the lady-boys... when i reached in and found nothing but oyster... would i have stopped finding a wink-wink slouching worm? slap a trans in the face? no, not really... a thai surprise is, a thai surprise... i would have considered doing my first ****... "lucky" for me she was a she... a girl... ****** her in the garden under the moonlight... gave her my hoodie, which she drowned in... finally... the level of interaction where the female is not a mantis, i.e. a female larger than the male... she drowned into my hoodie as i walked her home... i like the familiarity with the mammalian, not resorting to insect superiority of females... these days... i find that males are strictly mammalian... while females? they are borrowing insect-esque ontologies... well, darwinism allowed the time-frame... males are mammals... females are insects, behaviour-wise... two time frame i do not appreciate the english for... darwinism is prime.... cultural-marxism my ***... what about cultural-darwinism?! no?! that doesn't exist?! cultural-darwinism is as real as cultural-marxism, and, in the former sense? it really does belong to the conservative right-wing politico spectrum! might i add? isn't psychology merely pop philosophy? i find psychology riddled with rubric cohesion, it's all oh so "self"-evident! i abhor psychologists... these gypsy philosophers... medicine-men with no pharmacological shadow of power... to prescribe drugs... arguments, persuasions, but no dialectics... psychology will forever be, for me, a philosophy primer, short-cut... pop philosophy... psychologists can treat people who have never read a philosophy book... r. d. laing... i remember this one instace... me and a fwend of mine travelled into central london, went into a bookshop shy of trafalgar sq., i spotted an edition of: the scarlet and the black by stendhal... i told him: i will trade you linkin park's debut album, if you buy me this... the transaction was made... the one book i read after seeing a film adaptation starring rachel (rakhel) weisz and ewan mcgregor... ra-kh-el: not ray-chel... we used to be humans once... at high school getting bullied back... putting pins on chairs once we got up, sitting on them... playing bulldog in primary school, slap-ball, tag, playing cards at lunchtime... 16 fatty boy... one summer in poland, comes back aged 17... the irish girls take an interest while eating a pomegranate... what was the success of your diet? don't go to the gym... excess skin, an aesthetic surgeon is not what you need... there are only two ways to lose weight... either via swimming or by cycling... cycling is the best... lose weight by also toning your body... gym is a bad idea... by going to the gym you are straining exclusive parts of your body, either the torso, your hands, etc., jogging? unless on soft ground, bad idea on concrete, arthritis... cycling or swimming... lose weight... tone at the same time, the skin is allowed the required time to adapt to shrink, and forget what propped it up in plump form with all that excess flab... ugh... i hated being attractive to the opposite ***, i never used it to my advantage! imagine... an irish lad comes up to me, on behalf of some girl while i'm donning a french braid: you look just like johnny depp in blow, impersonating george jung... 14 year old girls walk up to you asking what shampoo you're using... herbal essences... i never used my looks... *******... now i'm a heavy drinker... so much for looks... first girlfriend? a fwend had to call me telling me she called him that she felt butterflies when i dropped her at the train platform after a day's worth of dating: tate modern, edward hopper exhibitions, cinema: troy, starring rose byrne (briseis) - honestly, a man can go crazy over curly hair... and then a restaurant date... that **** just flew over my head... i wouldn't have noticed... honestly though... i missed the whole h'american cultural excavation genesis in high school... catholic... uniforms... jesuit army-esque formation... now, i'm ageing... i'm starting to find the company of cats to be: clingy... my shadow included... i once thought that dogs were needy... i'm starting to think that cats are worse, esp. the maine **** breed... "lonely" or "loneliness" doesn't really resonate with me, esp. when thinking something "feels" like a variation of claustrophobia: hence i write... without a dialectic in place, ever since plato wrote his dialogues... what is philosophy, primarily? isn't it an off-shoot of "claustrophobia"? we write because we are seeking escape from congested thinking, a variation of "claustrophobia"... now imagine a schizoid character... having to focus on an imaginary dialectic, actually... having dialectics enforced on him, with no clarifying exodus to posit a gensis with! now, a clingy dog i could understand, given the overpowering status of the leash... but a clingy cat, when there's no leash involved?! shoom! right over my head... gone, somewhere into the distance!

what, this is the part...
were i cite...
   the weimar ******
critical condition...
       a daft punk troop
of a song,
  end of line....
blow-up a hot air balloon...
worth of blaire whire...
play the tambourine
like a ******* video...
there are,
quiet, simply,
no nazis coming...
fashionista faux pas
examples...
i'm alive,
but i'm dead,
i just forget to don
a strap-on...
  "oops"?
   that **** go down well
with
the "in"-crowd...
usual... metropolitan...
verbiage surge of answers....
   many a fetish after...
we arrive at the sensible
aspect,
"toxic masculinity"...
when guns n roses wasn't,
and nirvana was just plain
gay...
              and then...
whatever that happened,
happened..
                 and people were like:
come to the "new" tomorrow,
there's always a yesterday,
in a dream,
in some phil collins
wannabe
studio...
or... some other random ****
that
excluded peter gabriel.

                 i died:
and just about right:
my harvest had come.

great book reviews...
"toxic masculinity"...
so all masculinity is
about a clockwork orange?
   if it is?
can i be pro abortion
anti mongolian horde?
yes? no?
  which is it?!
neither...
   **** me... that's just bad
luck...

                               sundbeds,
sunflowers,
tulips,
sunglasses,
    plenty of staged
eager nights...
boring political affairs...
and...
         when gaming was
more about the narrative...
and never,
ever, about the microtransactions...

point being...
it's a game within a game...
time, is the prime concern...
you play a game,
by waiting...
you wait: by playing a game...

  microtransactions
are...
you ever move a sim3 avatar
to a computer,
and make it play a computer game?
what's on the macrocosmos spectrum?
you....

               "back in the day"...
you'd spend a saturday morning
engrossed in a gaming narrative...
metal gear solid,
tenchu, final fantasy solid...
20 quid...
and you played the narrative...
and a game became equivalent
to the worth of a book,
resident evil,

            you paid for a month's worth
of gaming,
you exchanged tips,
you sometimes bought a cheat book
because of the homework,
and that was your saturday morning
before hitting the shopping mall
or, whatever...

the current dynamic of
microtransactions in gaming?
i never, ever, do...
i'm an old gamer type...
i see the potential of extending
the life-expectancy
of a game...

   as long as you don't buy into
the microtransactions gambling habit?
as long as you play the "game"
within the game?
the game is an assured classic,
akin to chess...

              you have to play
the waiting "game"...
             time...
                           that's all it is...
whether war robots,
    or dawn of titans...
        comparison...
  you know that the best fruit,
is fruit, allocated
to the geography of it being sourced
seasonally...
you can't actually get better
strawberries,
than english strawberries...
from england, come june / july...
no ******* point sourcing them
from spain in late march / april....

    same thing with gaming...
the modern games haven't made any
elaboration...
apart from dislodging the player
from the concept of narrative...
**** me... that's almost an improvement...
given that now: time is the counter
measure, and the gamer...
   is having to invest,
in a narrative, outside of the confines
of the game,
once upon a time,
games had time-narrative
constraints...
     now: there's time,
and there are gamer narratives,
excluding them from time-narratives,
of a game...
         it's almost a faux pas...
more like a wet-*****...
****** pinky lodged into an ear,
an april fools' day scant...

        if you hacked passed
the microtransactions hype...
and didn't?
and instead took to patience?
it's free...
   where once,
a game would cost you 20 quid,
and a month's worth
of narrative,
back then, when games
resembled books,
when the gaming industry
was heavily influenced
by literature...
and now?
   the game's free...
sure...
it's "unfair", it's biased...
when you don't engage
in imported gambling
of succumbing to what, this is the part...
were i cite...
   the weimar ******
critical condition...
       a daft punk troop
of a song,
  end of line....
blow-up a hot air balloon...
worth of blaire whire...
play the tambourine
like a ******* video...
there are,
quiet, simply,
no nazis coming...
fashionista faux pas
examples...
i'm alive,
but i'm dead,
i just forget to don
a strap-on...
  "oops"?
   that **** go down well
with
the "in"-crowd...
usual... metropolitan...
verbiage surge of answers....
   many a fetish after...
we arrive at the sensible
aspect,
"toxic masculinity"...
when guns n roses wasn't,
and nirvana was just plain
gay...
              and then...
whatever that happened,
happened..
                 and people were like:
come to the "new" tomorrow,
there's always a yesterday,
in a dream,
in some phil collins
wannabe
studio...
or... some other random ****
that
excluded peter gabriel.

                 i died:
and just about right:
my harvest had come.

great book reviews...
"toxic masculinity"...
so all masculinity is
about a clockwork orange?
   if it is?
can i be pro abortion
anti mongolian horde?
yes? no?
  which is it?!
neither...
   **** me... that's just bad
luck...

                               sundbeds,
sunflowers,
tulips,
sunglasses,
    plenty of staged
eager nights...
boring political affairs...
and...
         when gaming was
more about the narrative...
and never,
ever, about the microtransactions...

point being...
it's a game within a game...
time, is the prime concern...
you play a game,
by waiting...
you wait: by playing a game...

  microtransactions
are...
you ever move a sim3 avatar
to a computer,
and make it play a computer game?
what's on the macrocosmos spectrum?
you....

               "back in the day"...
you'd spend a saturday morning
engrossed in a gaming narrative...
metal gear solid,
tenchu, final fantasy solid...
20 quid...
and you played the narrative...
and a game became equivalent
to the worth of a book,
resident evil,

            you paid for a month's worth
of gaming,
you exchanged tips,
you sometimes bought a cheat book
because of the homework,
and that was your saturday morning
before hitting the shopping mall
or, whatever...

the current dynamic of
microtransactions in gaming?
i never, ever, do...
i'm an old gamer type...
i see the potential of extending
the life-expectancy
of a game...

   as long as you don't buy into
the microtransactions gambling habit?
as long as you play the "game"
within the game?
the game is an assured classic,
akin to chess...

              you have to play
the waiting "game"...
             time...
                           that's all it is...
whether war robots,
    or dawn of titans...
        comparison...
  you know that the best fruit,
is fruit, allocated
to the geography of it being sourced
seasonally...
you can't actually get better
strawberries,
than english strawberries...
from england, come june / july...
no ******* point sourcing them
from spain in late march / april....

    same thing with gaming...
the modern games haven't made any
elaboration...
apart from dislodging the player
from the concept of narrative...
**** me... that's almost an improvement...
given that now: time is the counter
measure, and the gamer...
   is having to invest,
in a narrative, outside of the confines
of the game,
once upon a time,
games had time-narrative
constraints...
     now: there's time,
and there are gamer narratives,
excluding them from time-narratives,
of a game...
         it's almost a faux pas...
more like a wet-*****...
****** pinky lodged into an ear,
an april fools' day scant...

        if you hacked passed
the microtransactions...
       and didn't have the chance...
microtransactions are like
the old school cheat hacks...
but not quiet, but somehow quasi-,
       a modern microtransactions,
would be a cheat magazine
thorough-through
a game like final fantasy VII...
you have homework,
but you still want to complete the game...
modern games...
modern games...
there's an "end gole"?
  what modern game is worth
"completing"?
    
   again: tron, ready player one,
back to the future...
star wars just became dead
to me...
   sick people will plague hard-working
people, with a quasi-gambling
addiction,
needing to make microtransactions...
and they will,
my father was plagued by
an impostor, claiming to be a
tax office official:
and what if, that person had
an authentic position at the tax office?!

when gaming was for gamers,
the games were bought...
there was a narrative...
but now... now games don't have a narrative...
why would they?!
   who the hell plays games for
the narrative these days?
i know that on the crapper,
i need a game that allows me
to experience live-stream
interaction with non-bots...

       and these old gamers,
who still invest their money
in literature-esque-games?
so i was the sad one,
investing in vinyl?
   aren't the classic ******* gamers
just as bad,
investing in prepackaged
narrative gaming
experiences?
             a game with a narrative...
yeah... me buying vinyl
is: b'ah b'ah bad...
       what sort of game is alive and well...
when there isn't a crowd pushback
for the currency of microtransaction?

the narrative is time,
   the longer you endure the inadequacy...
the more you realise:
you're basically playing
the same game,
but in your scenario:
it's free...
   in some other ******'s scenario:
it cost him 70 hundred quid...

personally?
   i love this microtransaction dynamic...
concerning the people who
do not engage with it...
it's the perfect antithesis
   of what ruined the music industry
with genesis: napster...

you really are, playing the ultimate
game,
time...
         the one sort of commodity
that games,
without a clear narrative construct,
"forgot" to mention in terms
of them being exploited...
to their full capacity
of the one "commodity"
they "forgot", or rather,
couldn't "sell"...

              a tenchu PS1 game could
have lasted me a month...
now? a free game,
like war robots...
with absolutely no NPC?
hell... i'll be 90 and still be playing it;

what else? applause!
Sparrow Liver May 2014
1:  an economic good: as
a :  a product of agriculture or mining
b :  an article of commerce especially when delivered for shipment <commodities futures>
c :  a mass-produced unspecialized product <commodity chemicals> <commodity memory chips>

2 a :  something useful or valued <that valuable commodity patience>; also :  thing, entity
b :  convenience, advantage

3 obsolete :  quantity, lot

4:  a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price

5:  one that is subject to ready exchange or exploitation within a market <stars as individuals and as commodities of the film industry — Film Quarterly>
Dark n Beautiful Apr 2010
The ******.
They say that beauty is in the eyes of the
beholder, however the ******
is a gold mine.

Women do not even know
what their possess
many a nation have gone to war,
because of this ugly beauty,
the seven hundred wives of
King Solomon and his three
hundred concubines
a great example of what
the ugly beauty can do.

Infidelity is on the rise,
so many lies,
since the ****** is an embarassing subject
why men lie and killed for it,
For this remarkable commodity

A ****** is like a Van Gogh painting,
it gets lot of attention.
A weapon so powerful
It can break a man down to his lowest
it has a language of its own.
silly words like sup, sup, sup. during loving making
However, that was supposed to be the primary appeal
of a beer to men.

The ****** and a beer have so much in common
they both get their men all the time,
a smooth transportation,
in addition, the lamentation,
****** you are surely number one!
Men incredible dreams,
No matter how destructive or fulfilling,.

.
Dark@beautiful/or Darknlovely
Harry J Baxter Feb 2013
It's a hot commodity
yeah it's expensive
but it's worth it
so reach into those wallets
plastic only please
if you don't buy this
your kids won't fit in
they won't excel
this is just what's in right now
what's a little cash
when compared to being current
so keep on marching
left right left right
cows on a conveyor belt
about to be killed
shipped out and consumed
our brains
such a hot commodity
Irate Watcher Sep 2014
salt stings soldiered eyes streaming
i am not crying —
just releasing a weekend of wine and Netflix,
a relapse i can't admit
when people ask what I did last weekend.
Muscles burning in the agony,
their capability
long squandered,
by lazy nights and wine.
Monkey mind zombied to flashes of LED light.
Docile strides to somewhere I have to be.
oh TV, you are so tempting to a binger like me.
I think about the last episode
when I should think about the road,
leading to my forgotten sanctuary,
where limbs stretch, teachers chant krishna
and rub students with essential oils.
But as I listen to the
sitar in shavasana,
interrupted
by iPhone rings,
teacher grasps the money
from the donation box greedily.
I feel slightly annoyed,
but mostly pity —
three students
thirty five dollars
for an hour.
But I think
this is what happens when
yoga becomes a
commodity.
Like TV — a fix,
not a spiritual experience.
So we'll pay the minimum,
or stream it illegally.
different needs.
Trade,Globalization,Terrorism and Corruption
What's the difference?

Each of us look at the world with open eyes yet with closed minds.

We see the structures of society right before us
yet we can do nothing to alter its existence
Marxism, Liberalism, Elitism, lenses that see a point but not the whole picture

The age of politics is over, the market comes to be our master
I know some might argue over me in this, but hear me out still.

The world we live in is like a senseless commodity
Our natural resources is taken every day

To create excess cars, excess food, excess everything
The surplus is too much that its overflowing with decay
Another thing is war,

A place where precious lives are seen to be walking bags of meat.
The preach for violence that could've created peace, and for what ?
To protect the free world? where the rich sit in high places
and some of us pushed down to supply their greed
Globalization is a license, a license to what?

A license to ****, a license to invade other states
without the use of soldiers to force out our will
We become docile as people in their wake and companies are laughing as we speak.

These corrupt figures ,conflict is their business, opportunity and peace is their excuse.

Human integration is what they say and offer, for a better society they say.

But look at us now, where is the promise of a future in the world today?

The world terrorizes me, terrorizes the people who are willing to see
and if I am in terror, what makes the system different from the loud bombs we hear when they explode.

They only made ways to make the killings silent and the experience more traumatic.

I'm sorry if globalization is a bad thing for me, but living in our country, globalization harms before it can give
it takes before we can receive.
ronda renee' Feb 2014
Stereotypes are a   commodity
Stereotypically
My childhood should be filled with only happiness
Happiness because of my color
No struggle

Struggle should never have confronted me
Never should have shown me how to survive
Or how to better myself
Because me being me I realize

I realize the uneducated hide
Hide behind stereotypes the unconsciously enforce
Enforcing by proving the statistics and stereotypes
Statistics and stereotypes that have to have an origin

If you judge me by stereotypes
You will fail to realize
The stereotypes you fight to uphold
will never define me

I will succeed not because of my color
Or because of a stereotype
I will accomplish my goals
Only because I refuse to let others limit
The excellence I can achieve
By pushing stereotypes that hold hardly any truth onto me
Michael R Burch Sep 2020
Urdu Poetry: English Translations



You will never comprehend me:
I pour out my feelings; you only read the words!
―original poet unknown, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Tears are colorless―thank God!―
otherwise my pillow might betray my heart.
―original poet unknown, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have struck us as deeply profound ...
Hell, we might have pronounced you a saint,
if only we hadn't found
you drunk
as a skunk!

There are more English translations of poems by Mirza Ghalib later on this page.



Every Once in a While
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every once in a while,
immersed in these muggy nights
when all earth’s voices seem to have fallen
into the bruised-purple silence of half-sleep,
I awaken from a wonderful dream
to see through the veil that drifts between us
that you too are companionless and wide awake.



First Rendezvous
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This story of the earth
is as old as the universe,
as old as the birth
of the first day and night.

This story of the sky
is included in the words we casually uttered,
you and I,
and yet it remains incomplete, till the end of sight.

This earth and all the scenes it contains
remain witnesses to the moment
when you first held my hand
as we watched the world unfolding, together.

This world
became the focus
for the first rendezvous
between us.



Impossible and Improbable Visions
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eyes interpret visions,
rainbow auras waver;
similar scenes appear
different to individual eyes,
as innumerable oases
coexist in one desert
or a single thought acquires
countless shapes.



I Have to Find My Lost Star
by Amjad Islam Amjad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Searching the emptiest of skies
overflowing with innumerable stars,
I have to find the one
that belongs
to me.

...

Gazing at galaxies beyond galaxies,
all glorious with evolving wonder,
I ponder her name,
finding no sign to remember.

...

Lost things, they say,
are sometimes found
in the same accumulations of dust
where they once vanished.

I have to find the lost star
that belongs to me.



Last Night
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart―
as spring sweeps uninvited into barren gardens,
as morning breezes reinvigorate dormant deserts,
as a patient suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason ...

There are more English translations of poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz later on this page.



Intimacy
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I held the Sun, Stars and Moon at a distance
till the time your hands touched mine.
Now I am not a feather to be easily detached:
instruct the hurricanes and tornados to observe their limits!

There are more English translations of poems by Rahat Indori later on this page.



Strange Currents
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O Khusrow, the river of love
creates strange currents—
the one who would surface invariably drowns,
while the one who submerges, survives.

There are more English translations of poems by Amir Khusrow later on this page.



The Eager Traveler
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Even in the torture chamber, I was the lucky one;
when each lottery was over, unaccountably I had won.

And even the mightiest rivers found accessible refuge in me;
though I was called an arid desert, I turned out to be the sea.

And how sweetly I remember you—oh, my wild, delectable love!—
as the purest white blossoms bloom, on talented branches above.

And while I’m half-convinced that folks adore me in this town,
still, all the hands I kissed held knives and tried to shake me down.

You lost the battle, my coward friend, my craven enemy,
when, to victimize my lonely soul, you sent a despoiling army.

Lost in the wastelands of vast love, I was an eager traveler,
like a breeze in search of your fragrance, a vagabond explorer.

There are more English translations of poems by Ahmad Faraz later on this page.



The Condition of My Heart
by Munir Niazi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is not necessary for anyone else to get excited:
The condition of my heart is not the condition of hers.
But were we to receive any sort of good news, Munir,
How spectacular compared to earth's mundane sunsets!

There are more English translations of poems by Munir Niazi later on this page.



Failures
by Nida Fazli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I was unable to relate
the state
of my heart to her,
while she failed to infer
the nuances
of my silences.



Apni Marzi se
by Nida Fazli Shayari
translated by Mandakini Bhattacherya and Michael R. Burch

This journey was not of my making;
As the winds blow, I’m blown along ...
Time and dust are my ancient companions;
Who knows where I’m bound or belong?

There are more English translations of poems by Nida Fazli later on this page.



My Apologies, Sona
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My apologies, Sona,
if traversing my verse's terrain
in these torrential rains
inconvenienced you.

The monsoons are unseasonal here.

My poems' pitfalls are sometimes sodden.
Water often overflows these ditches.
If you stumble and fall here, you run the risk
of spraining an ankle.

My apologies, however,
if you were inconvenienced
because my dismal verse lacks light,
or because my threshold's stones
interfered as you passed.

I have often cracked toenails against them!

As for the streetlamp at the intersection,
it remains unlit ... endlessly indecisive.

If you were inconvenienced,
you have my heartfelt apologies!

There are more English translations of poems by Gulzar later on this page.



Come As You Are
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come as you are, forget appearances!
Is your hair untamable, your part uneven, your bodice unfastened? Never mind.
Come as you are, forget appearances!

Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.
If your feet glisten with dew, if your anklets slip, if your beaded necklace slides off? Never mind.
Skip with quicksilver steps across the grass.

Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?
Flocks of cranes erupt from the riverbank, fitful gusts ruffle the fields, anxious cattle tremble in their stalls.
Do you see the clouds enveloping the sky?

You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.
Who will care that your eyelids have not been painted with lamp-black, when your pupils are darker than thunderstorms?
You loiter in vain over your toilet lamp; it flickers and dies in the wind.

Come as you are, forget appearances!
If the wreath lies unwoven, who cares? If the bracelet is unfastened, let it fall. The sky grows dark; it is late.
Come as you are, forget appearances!



Unfit Gifts
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At sunrise, I cast my nets into the sea,
dredging up the strangest and most beautiful objects from the depths ...
some radiant like smiles, some glittering like tears, others flushed like brides’ cheeks.
When I returned, staggering under their weight, my love was relaxing in her garden, idly tearing leaves from flowers.
Hesitant, I placed all I had produced at her feet, silently awaiting her verdict.
She glanced down disdainfully, then pouted: "What are these bizarre things? I have no use for them!"
I bowed my head, humiliated, and thought:
"Truly, I did not contend for them; I did not purchase them in the marketplace; they are unfit gifts for her!"
That night I flung them, one by one, into the street, like refuse.
The next morning travelers came, picked them up and carted them off to exotic countries.



The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to dance with joyous cries and pirouettes.
They build sand castles and play with hollow shells.
They weave boats out of withered leaves and laughingly float them out over the vast deep.
Earth's children play gaily on the seashores of endless worlds.
They do not know, yet, how to cast nets or swim.
Divers fish for pearls and merchants sail their ships, while earth's children skip, gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They are unaware of hidden treasures, nor do they know how to cast nets, yet.
The sea surges with laughter, smiling palely on the seashore.
Death-dealing waves sing the children meaningless songs, like a mother lullabying her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with the children, smiling palely on the seashore.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children meet.
Tempests roam pathless skies, ships lie wrecked in uncharted waters, death wanders abroad, and still the children play.
On the seashores of endless worlds there is a great gathering of earth's children.



This Dog
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each morning this dog,
who has become quite attached to me,
sits silently at my feet
until, gently caressing his head,
I acknowledge his company.

This simple recognition gives my companion such joy
he shudders with sheer delight.

Among all languageless creatures
he alone has seen through man entire—
has seen beyond what is good or bad in him
to such a depth he can lay down his life
for the sake of love alone.

Now it is he who shows me the way
through this unfathomable world throbbing with life.

When I see his deep devotion,
his offer of his whole being,
I fail to comprehend ...

How, through sheer instinct,
has he discovered whatever it is that he knows?

With his anxious piteous looks
he cannot communicate his understanding
and yet somehow has succeeded in conveying to me
out of the entire creation
the true loveworthiness of man.



Being
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are so close to me
that no one else ever can be.

NOTE: There is a legend that the great Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib offered all his diwan (poetry collections) in exchange for this one sher (couplet) by Momin Khan Momin. Does the couplet mean "be as close" or "be, at all"? Does it mean "You are with me in a way that no one else can ever be?" Or does it mean that no one else can ever exist as truly as one's true love? Or does this sher contain an infinite number of elusive meanings, like love itself?



Being (II)
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You alone are with me when I am alone.
You are beside me when I am beside myself.
You are as close to me as everyone else is afar.
You are so close to me that no one else ever can be.



Perhaps
by Momin Khan Momin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The cohesiveness between us, you may remember or perhaps not.
Our solemn oaths of faithfulness, you may remember, or perhaps forgot.
If something happened that was not to your liking,
the shrinking away that produces silence, you may remember, or perhaps not.
Listen, the sagas of so many years, the promises you made amid time's onslaught,
which you now fail to mention, you may remember or perhaps not.
These new resentments, those often rehashed complaints,
these lighthearted and displeasing stories, you may remember, or perhaps forgot.
Some seasons ago we shared love and desire, we shared joy ...
That we once were dear friends, you may have perhaps forgot.
Now if we come together, by fate or by chance, to express old loyalties ...
Our every shared breath, all our sighs and regrets, you may remember, or perhaps not.



What Happened to Them?
by Nasir Kazmi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Those who came ashore, what happened to them?
Those who sailed away, what happened to them?

Those who were coming at dawn, when dawn never arrived ...
Those caravans en route, what happened to them?

Those I awaited each night on moonless paths,
Who were meant to light beacons, what happened to them?

Who are these strangers surrounding me now?
All my lost friends and allies, what happened to them?

Those who built these blazing buildings, what happened to them?
Those who were meant to uplift us, what happened to them?

NOTE: This poignant poem was written about the 1947 partition of India into two nations: India and Pakistan. I take the following poem to be about the aftermath of the division.



Climate Change
by Nasir Kazmi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The songs of our silenced lips are different.
The expressions of our regretful hearts are different.

In milder climes our grief was more tolerable,
But the burdens we bear now are different.

O, walkers of awareness's road, keep your watch!
The obstacles strewn on this stony path are different.

We neither fear separation, nor desire union;
The anxieties of my rebellious heart are different.

In the first leaf-fall only flowers fluttered from twigs;
This year the omens of autumn are different.

This world lacks the depth to understand my heartache;
Please endow me with melodies, for my cry is different!

One disconcerting glance bared my being;
Now in barren fields my visions are different.

No more troops, nor flags. Neither money, nor fame.
The marks of the monarchs on this land are different.

Men are not martyred for their beloveds these days.
The youths of my youth were so very different!



Nasir Kazmi Couplets

When I was a child learning to write
my first scribblings were your name.
―Nasir Kazmi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When my feet lost the path
where was your hand?
―Nasir Kazmi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everything I found is yours;
everything I lost is also yours.
―Nasir Kazmi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Memory
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, as performed by Iqbal Bano
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In the wastelands of solitude, my love,
the echoes of your voice quiver,
the mirages of your lips waver.

In the deserts of alienation,
out of the expanses of distance and isolation's debris
the fragrant jasmines and roses of your presence delicately blossom.

Now from somewhere nearby,
the warmth of your breath rises,
smoldering forth an exotic perfume―gently, languorously.

Now far-off, across the distant horizon,
drop by shimmering drop,
fall the glistening dews of your beguiling glances.

With such tenderness and affection—oh my love!—
your memory has touched my heart's cheek so that it now seems
the sun of separation has set; the night of blessed union has arrived.



Speak!
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, if your lips are free.
Speak, if your tongue is still your own.
While your body is still upright,
Speak if your life is still your own.



Tonight
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not strike the melancholy chord tonight! Days smoldering
with pain in the end produce only listless ashes ...
and who the hell knows what the future may bring?
Last night’s long lost, tomorrow's horizon’s a wavering mirage.
And how can we know if we’ll see another dawn?
Life is nothing, unless together we make it ring!
Tonight we are love gods! Sing!

Do not strike the melancholy chord tonight!
Don’t harp constantly on human suffering!
Stop complaining; let Fate conduct her song!
Give no thought to the future, seize now, this precious thing!
Shed no more tears for temperate seasons departed!
All sighs of the brokenhearted soon weakly dissipate ... stop dithering!
Oh, do not strike the same flat chord again! Sing!



When Autumn Came
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So it was that autumn came to flay the trees,
to strip them ****,
to rudely abase their slender dark bodies.

Fall fell in vengeance on the dying leaves,
flung them down to the floor of the forest
where anyone could trample them to mush
undeterred by their sighs of protest.

The birds that herald spring
were exiled from their songs—
the notes ripped from their sweet throats,
they plummeted to the earth below, undone
even before the hunter strung his bow.

Please, gods of May, have mercy!
Bless these disintegrating corpses
with the passion of your resurrection;
allow their veins to pulse with blood again.

Let at least one tree remain green.
Let one bird sing.



Last Night (II)
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your lost memory returned ...
as spring steals silently into barren gardens,
as cool breezes stir desert sands,
as an ailing man suddenly feels better, for no apparent reason ...

There are more English translations of poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz later on this page.



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of songs nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my dark, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different
but this weakness has burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing—
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.



The Mistake
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All your life, O Ghalib,
You kept repeating the same mistake:
Your face was *****
But you were obsessed with cleaning the mirror!



Inquiry
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The miracle of your absence
is that I found myself endlessly searching for you.



It's Only My Heart!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s only my heart, not unfeeling stone,
so why be dismayed when it throbs with pain?
It was made to suffer ten thousand darts;
why let one more torment impede us?

There are more English translations of poems by Mirza Ghalib later on this page.



Couplets
by Jaun Elia
loose translations by Michael R. Burch

I am strange—so strange
that I self-destructed and don't regret it.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wound is deep—companions, friends—embrace me!
What, did you not even bother to stay?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My nature is so strange
that today I felt relieved when you didn't arrive.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night and day I awaited myself;
now you return me to myself.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Greeting me this cordially,
have you so easily erased my memory?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your lips have provided thousands of answers;
so what is the point of complaining now?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps I haven't fallen in love with anyone,
but at least I convinced them!
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The city of mystics has become bizarre:
everyone is wary of majesty, have you heard?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did you just say "Love is eternal"?
Is this the end of us?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are drawing very close to me!
Have you decided to leave?
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Intimacy
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I held the Sun, Stars and Moon at a distance
till the time your hands touched mine.
Now I am not a feather to be easily detached:
instruct the hurricanes and tornados to observe their limits!



The Mad Moon
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stars have a habit of showing off,
but the mad moon sojourns in darkness.



Body Language
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your body’s figures are written in cursive!
How will I read you? Hand me the book!



Insatiable
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This mighty ocean, so deep and vast!
If it sates my thirst, how long can it last?



Honor
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Achievements may fade but the name remains strong;
walls may buckle but the roof stays on.
On a pile of corpses a child stands alone
and declares that his family still lives on!



Dust in the Wind
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is how I introduce myself to questioners:
Pick up a handful of dust, then blow ...



Dissembler
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In your eyes this, in your heart that, on your lips something else?
If this is how you are, impress someone else!



Rumor (M)ill
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard rumors my health was bad; still
it was prying people who made me ill.



The Vortex
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the river whose rapids form a vortex;
You were wise to avoid my banks.



Homebound
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If people fear what they meet at every turn,
why do they ever leave the house?



Becoming One
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have become you, as you have become me;
I am your body, you my Essence.
Now no one can ever say
that you are someone else,
or that I am anything less than your Presence!



I Am a Pagan
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a pagan disciple of love: I need no creeds.
My every vein has become taut, like a tuned wire.
I do not need the Brahman's girdle.
Leave my bedside, ignorant physician!
The only cure for love is the sight of the patient's beloved:
there is no other medicine he needs!
If our boat lacks a pilot, let there be none:
we have god in our midst: we do not fear the sea!
The people say Khusrow worships idols:
True! True! But he does not need other people's approval;
he does not need the world's.

(My translation above was informed by a translation of Dr. Hadi Hasan.)



Amir Khusrow’s elegy for his mother
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wherever you shook the dust from your feet
is my relic of paradise!



Paradise
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If there is an earthly paradise,
It's here! It's here! It's here!



Mystery
by Munir Niazi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She was a mystery:
Her lips were parched ...
but her eyes were two unfathomable oceans.



I continued delaying ...
by Munir Niazi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I continued delaying ...
the words I should speak
the promises I should keep
the one I should dial
despite her cruel denial

I continued delaying ...
the shoulder I must offer
the hand I must proffer
the untraveled lanes
we may not see again

I continued delaying ...
long strolls through the seasons
for my own selfish reasons
the remembrances of lovers
to erase thoughts of others

I continued delaying ...
to save someone dear
from eternities unclear
to make her aware
of our reality here

I continued delaying ...



Couplets
by Mir Taqi Mir
loose translations by Michael R. Burch

Sharpen the barbs of every thorn, O lunatic desert!
Perhaps another hobbler, limping by on blistered feet, follows me!
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My life is a bubble,
this world an illusion.
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Selflessness has gotten me nowhere:
I neglected myself far too long.
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I know now that I know nothing,
and it only took me a lifetime to learn!
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love's just beginning, so why do you whine?
Why not wait and watch how things unwind!
―Mir Taqi Mir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Come!
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, let us construct night
over the monumental edifice of silence.
Come, let us clothe ourselves in the winding sheets of darkness,
where we'll ignite our bodies' incandescent wax.
As the midnight dew dances its delicate ballet,
let us not disclose the slightest whispers of our breath!
Lost in night's mists,
let us lie immersed in love's fragrance,
absorbing our bodies' musky aromas!
Let us rise like rustling spirits ...



Old Habits Die Hard
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The habit of breathing
is an odd tradition.
Why struggle so to keep on living?
The body shudders,
the eyes veil,
yet the feet somehow keep moving.
Why this journey, this restless, relentless flowing?
For how many weeks, months, years, centuries
shall we struggle to keep on living, keep on living?
Habits are such strange things, such hard things to break!



Inconclusive
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A body lies on a white bed—
dead, abandoned,
a forsaken corpse they forgot to bury.
They concluded its death was not their concern.
I hope they return and recognize me,
then bury me so I can breathe.



Wasted
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have noticed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips ...
In whose imagination I have lost everything.



Countless
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I recounted the world's countless griefs
by recounting your image countless times.



Do Not Ask
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not ask, my love, for the love that we shared before:
You existed, I told myself, so existence shone.
For a moment the only light that I knew, alone,
was yours; worldly griefs remained dark, distant, afar.

Spring shone, as revealed in your face, but what did I know?
Beyond your bright eyes, what delights could the sad world hold?
Had I won you, cruel Fate would have ceded, no longer bold.
Yet all this was not to be, though I wished it so.

The world knows sorrows beyond love’s brief dreams betrayed,
and pleasures beyond all sweet, idle ideals of romance:
the dread dark spell of countless centuries and chance
is woven with silk and satin and gold brocade.

Bodies are sold everywhere for a pittance—it’s true!
Besmeared with dirt and bathed in bright oceans of blood,
Crawling from infested ovens, a gory cud.
My gaze returns to you: what else can I do?

Your beauty haunts me still, and will to the last.
But the world is burdened by sorrows beyond those of love,
By pleasures beyond romance.
So please do not demand a love that is over, and past.



O God!
by Qateel Shifai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Torture my heart, O God!
If you so desire, leave me a madman, O God!

Have I asked for the moon and stars?
Enlighten my heart and give my eyes sight, O God!

We have all seen this disk called the sun,
Now give us a real dawn, O God!

Either relieve our pains here on this earth
Or make my heart granite, O God!



Hereafter
by Qateel Shifai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since we met and parted, how can we sleep hereafter?
Lost in each others' remembrance, must we not weep hereafter?

Deluges of our tears will keep us awake all night:
Our eyelashes strung with strands of pearls, hereafter!

Thoughts of our separation will sear our grieving hearts
Unless we immerse them in the cooling moonlight, hereafter!

If the storm also deceives us, crying Qateel!,
We will scuttle our boats near forsaken shores, hereafter.



Picnic
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My friends laugh elsewhere on the beach
while I sit here, alone, counting the waves,
writing and rewriting your name in the sand ...



Confession
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your image overwhelmed my vision.
As the long nights passed, I became obsessed with your visage.
Then came the moment when I quietly placed my lips to your picture ...



Rain
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why shiver alone in the rain, maiden?
Embrace the one in whose warming love your body and mind would be drenched!
There are no rains higher than the rains of Love,
after which the bright rainbows of separation will glow with the mysteries of hues.



My Body's Moods
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I long for the day when you'll be obsessed with me,
when, forgetting the world, you'll miss me with a passion
and stop complaining about my reticence!
Then I may forget all other transactions and liabilities
to realize my world in your arms,
letting my body's moods guide me.
In that moment beyond boundaries and limitations
as we defy the conventions of veil and turban,
let's try our luck and steal a taste of the forbidden fruit!



Moon
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All of us passengers,
we share the same fate.
And yet I'm alone here on earth,
and she alone there in the sky!



Vanity
by Parveen Shakir
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His world is so simple, so very different from mine.
So distinct—his dreams and desires.
He speaks rarely.
This morning he wrote: "I saw some lovely flowers and thought of you."
Ha! I know my aging face is no orchid ...
but how I wish I could believe whatever he says, however momentarily!



Come
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, even with anguish, even to torture my heart;
Come, even if only to abandon me to torment again.

Come, if not for our past commerce,
Then to faithfully fulfill the ancient barbaric rituals.

Who else can recite the reasons for our separation?
Come, despite your reluctance, to continue the litanies, the ceremony.

Respect, even if only a little, the depth of my love for you;
Come, someday, to offer me consolation as well.

Too long you have deprived me of the pathos of longing;
Come again, my love, if only to make me weep.

Till now, my heart still suffers some slight expectation;
So come, ***** out even the last flickering torch of hope!



I Cannot Remember
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I once was a poet too (you gave life to my words), but now I cannot remember
Since I have forgotten you (my love!), my art too I cannot remember

Yesterday consulting my heart, I learned
that your hair, lips, mouth, I cannot remember

In the city of the intellect insanity is silence
But now your sweet, spontaneous voice, its fluidity, I cannot remember

Once I was unfamiliar with wrecking ***** and ruins
But now the cultivation of gardens, I cannot remember

Now everyone shops at the store selling arrows and quivers
But neglects his own body, the client he cannot remember

Since time has brought me to a desert of such arid forgetfulness
Even your name may perish; I cannot remember

In this narrow state of being, lacking a country,
even the abandonment of my fellow countrymen, I cannot remember



The Infidel
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ten thousand desires: each one worth dying for ...
So many fulfilled, and yet still I yearn for more!

Being in love, for me there was no difference between living and dying ...
and so I lived each dying breath watching you, my lovely Infidel, sighing                       afar.



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Life becomes even more complicated
when a man can’t think like a man ...

What irrationality makes me so dependent on her
that I rush off an hour early, then get annoyed when she's "late"?

My lover is so striking! She demands to be seen.
The mirror reflects only her image, yet still dazzles and confounds my eyes.

Love’s stings have left me the deep scar of happiness
while she hovers above me, illuminated.

She promised not to torment me, but only after I was mortally wounded.
How easily she “repents,” my lovely slayer!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s time for the world to hear Ghalib again!
May these words and their shadows like doors remain open.

Tonight the watery mirror of stars appears
while night-blooming flowers gather where beauty rests.

She who knows my desire is speaking,
or at least her lips have recently moved me.

Why is grief the fundamental element of night
when blindness falls as the distant stars rise?

Tell me, how can I be happy, vast oceans from home
when mail from my beloved lies here, so recently opened?



Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
Or show me the place where God abstains!



Step Carefully!
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Step carefully Ghalib―this world is merciless!
Here people will "adore" you to win your respect ... or your downfall.



Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience but lust is relentless;
what colors must my heart bleed before it expires?

There are more English translations of poems by Mirza Ghalib later on this page.



No Explanation! (I)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how deeply it hurt!
Her sun shone so bright, even the shadows were burning!



No Explanation! (II)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how it happened!
She didn't bind me, nor did I free myself.



Alone
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why are you sad that she goes on alone, Faraz?
After all, you said yourself that she was unique!



Separation
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Faraz, if it were easy to be apart,
would Angels have to separate body from soul?



Time
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What if my face has more wrinkles than yours?
I am merely well-worn by Time!



Miraji Epigrams

I'm obsessed with this thought:
does God possess mercy?
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, see this dance, the immaculate dance of the devadasi!
―Miraji, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Excerpts from “Going, Going ...”
by Miraji
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each unfolding vista,
each companion’s kindnesses,
every woman’s subtle sorceries,
everything that transiently lies within our power
quickly dissolves
and we are left with only a cupped flame, flickering ...
Should we call that “passion”?

The moon scrapes the horizon
and who can measure a star’s breadth?

The time allotted a life, if we calculate it,
is really only a fleeting breath ...



1.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
after my life has come and gone,
perhaps someone
hearing my voice drifting
on the breeze of some future spring
will chase after my songs
like dandelions.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch

2.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
after my life has come and gone,
perhaps someone
hearing my voice drifting
through some distant future spring
will pluck my songs
like dandelions.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch

3.
Echoes of an ancient prophecy:
when my life has come and gone,
and when I’m dead and done,
perhaps someone
hearing me sing
in a distant spring
will echo my songs
the whole world over.
—Miraji, translation by Michael R. Burch

If I understand things correctly, Miraji wrote the lines above after translating a verse by Sappho in which she said that her poems would be remembered in the future. I suspect both poets and both prophecies were correct!




Every Day and in Every Direction
by Nida Fazli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everywhere and in every direction we see innumerable people:
each man a victim of his own loneliness, reticence and silences.
From dawn to dusk men carry enormous burdens:
all preparing graves for their soon-to-be corpses.
Each day a man lives, the same day he dies.
Each new day requires the same old patience.
In every direction there are roads for him to roam,
but in every direction, men victimize men.
Every day a man dies many deaths only to resurrect from his ashes.
Each new day presents new challenges.
Life's destiny is not fixed, but a series of journeys:
thus, till his last breath, a man remains restless.



Couplets
by Nida Fazli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It was my fate to entangle and sink myself
because I am a boat and my ocean lies within.
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You were impossible to forget once you were gone:
hell, I remembered you most when I tried to forget you!
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't squander these pearls:
such baubles may ornament sleepless nights!
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The world is like a deck of cards on a gambling table:
some of us are bound to loose while others cash in.
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is a proper protocol for everything in this world:
when visiting gardens never force butterflies to vacate their flowers!
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I lack the courage to commit suicide,
I have elected to bother people with my life a bit longer.
―Nida Fazli, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Changing Seasons
by Noshi Gillani
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each changing season
reveals something
concealed by her fears:
an escape route from this island
illuminated by her tears.



Dust
by Bahadur Shah Zafar or Muztar Khairabadi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unable to light anyone's eye
or to comfort anyone's heart ...
I am nothing but a handful of dust.



Piercings
by Firaq Gorakhpuri
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No one ever belonged to anyone else for a lifetime.
We cannot own another's soul.
The beauty we see and the love we feel are only illusions.
All my life I tried to save myself from the piercings of your eyes ...
But I failed and the daggers ripped right through me.



Salvation
Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Anxious and fatigued, I consider the salvation of death ...
But if there is no peace in the grave,
where can I go to be saved?



Child of the Century
by Abdellatif Laâbi (a Moroccan poet)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I’m a child of this dreary century, a child who never grew up.
Doubts that ignited my tongue singed my wings.
I learned to walk, then I unlearned progress.
I grew weary of oases and camels infatuated with ruins.
My head inclined East only to occupy the middle of the road
as I awaited the insane caravans.



Nostalgia
by Abdulla Pashew (a Kurdish poet)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How I desire the heavens!
Each solitary star lights the way to a tryst.

How I desire the sky!
Standing alone, remote, the sky is as vast as any ocean.

How I desire love's heavenly scent!
When each enticing blossom releases its essence.



Oblivion
by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (an African poet who writes in Arabic)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Discard your pen
before you start reading;
consider the ink,
how it encompasses bleeding.

Learn from the horizon
through eyes' narrowed slits
the limitations of vision
and hands' treacherous writs.

Do not blame me,
nor indeed anyone,
if you expire before
your reading is done.



In Medias Res
by Shaad Azimabadi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I heard the story of my life recounted,
I caught only the middle of the tale.
I remain unaware of the beginning or end.



Debt Relief
by Piyush Mishra
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We save Sundays for our loved ones ...
all other days we slave to repay debts.



Reoccurrence
by Amrita Bharati (a Hindi poet)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It was a woman's heart speaking,
that had been speaking for eons ...

It was a woman's heart silenced,
that had been silenced for centuries ...

And between them loomed a mountain
that a man or a rat gnawed at, even in times of amity ...
gnawing at the screaming voice,
at the silent tongue,
from the primeval day.



Don't Approach Me
by Arif Farhad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Don't approach me here by the river of time
where I flop like a fish in a net!



Intoxicants
by Amrut Ghayal (a Gujarati poet)
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

O, my contrary mind!
You're such a fool, afraid to drink the fruit of the vine!
But show me anything universe-designed
that doesn't intoxicate, like wine.



I’m like a commodity being priced in the market-place:
every eye ogles me like a buyer’s.
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If you insist, I’ll continue playing my songs,
forever piping the flute of my heart.
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has risen once again, yet you are not here.
My heart is a blazing pyre; what do I do?
—Majrooh Sultanpuri, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Drunk on Love
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She quickly informed me that God belongs to no man!

Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Often we have heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I abandon your garden.

To Whom Shall I Complain?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To whom shall I complain when I am denied Good Fortune in acceptable measure?
Dementedly, I demanded Death, but was denied even that dubious pleasure!



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You should have stayed a little longer;
you left all alone, so why not linger?

We’ll meet again, you said, some day similar to this one,
as if such days can ever recur, not vanish!

You left our house as the moon abandons night's skies,
as the evening light abandons its earlier surmise.

You hated me: a wife abnormally distant, unknown;
you left me before your children were grown.

Only fools ask why old Ghalib still clings to breath
when his fate is to live desiring death.



How strange has life become:
Our evenings drag out, yet our years keep flashing by!
―original poet unknown, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Longing
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, I’ve grown tired of human assemblies!
I long to avoid conflict! My heart craves peace!
I desperately desire the silence of a small mountainside hut!



Life Advice
by Allama Iqbāl
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This passive nature will not allow you to survive;
If you want to live, raise a storm!



Destiny
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Isn't it futile to complain about God's will,
When you are your own destiny?

Keywords/Tags: Urdu, translation, love poetry, desire, passion, longing, romance, romantic, God, heaven, mrburdu
2010 one last remark about Mom she’s never had faith or trust in me she always doubts redirects me when i was little she continuously blamed me accusing me of being sick needing a psychiatrist at age 20 my parents committed me for disciplinary reasons to the Institute of Living a psychiatric hospital in Hartford Connecticut in a locked ward for 4 months Mom and Dad discouraged my aspirations to succeed as a painter/writer arguing the impracticality of my decision they thumbs downed Bayli even today she undermines my efforts to love protect her she scolds me for asking permission from my cousin Chris to allow his son Maynard to fly down here and help me pack then drive up to Chicago so i might get to know Maynard on a road trip she instructs hire professional packers for a $100. they’ll be glad to help you pack Mom has always stood in the way of my choices decisions



1975 Chicago in his parent’s kitchen Mom offers the cannolis are fresh from Kanella’s Bakery or try the chocolate fudge cake it’s absolutely delicious Odysseus replies are you trying to fatten me up or **** me with sweets Mom flirtatiously teases i’ve always been about your ruination Odys



2001 Tucson Mom comes for visit at Thanksgiving in her early 80s walking proud yet painfully on displaced hips she is an inspiration to Odysseus her eyes are clouded with cataracts yet she sees life as an eternal optimist since 1920 the world has changed so drastically yet Mom has learned to accept many things she previously did not tolerate she lives prudently on modest fixed income her fingers are arthritically deformed but she was once a great beauty many men desired her Odysseus asks if it was difficult for Mom to lose the power of her physical desirability he noticed her good looks waning in her 50s she answers she sensed her  attraction going in her 70s she still possesses regal qualities and is quite socially charming she chatters a flurry of familiar names events that keep her busy she travels around by herself Mom’s spirit endures but in reality she drifts further away with each passing season she is delicate and has difficulty remembering she echoes a distant past in the early evening of Thanksgiving Day they sit at table of elegant yet rather staid dining room of Mom’s choosing at Arizona Inn she says it reminds her of the way things used to be she wears tasteful black linen slacks black pumps thin silk knitted black turtleneck with string of pearls gold earrings her blonde hair coiffured in same fluffy sprayed style it has been for 50 years in his heart he knows a part of her wishes her son was more like Tom Steinberg who was a senior when Odysseus was a freshman at River Woods Academy The Steinbergs and Mom are still friendly Tom is a successful investment banker with a wife and child living in Winnetka Mom nervously touches the pearl strand around her neck she says you know Mort Rock’s wife Phyllis died i was such a good friend to her at her funeral they read how she said i was her best friend she left me 10 lousy thousand dollars in her will she’s worth millions it’s eating me up inside i needed that money desperately i can’t stop thinking about it 10 lousy thousand dollars went immediately to pay off loans i’m going to sell my jewelry i don’t know what i can get in the spring i’ll put the apartment up for sale or try to get a reverse mortgage from the bank i never told you kids before i’m not in good shape Odysseus comments i feel terrible i wish so much i could help maybe Phyllis Rock suspected you and her husband maybe all those years you were her best friend she read it as guilt and obligation Mom you need to be more truthful Mom cuts in i never had *** with Mort Rock that man drove me crazy he was nuts for me Mom orders the traditional turkey dinner Odysseus orders the Macadamia nut encrusted Hawaiian fish the waiter brings price fixed appetizers little circles of toasted bread with lightly browned melted cheese tiny triangular cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches roasted watercress nuts wrapped in bacon and little hot dogs pierced with fluffy ended toothpicks Mom begins to gobble as she remarks to Odysseus  why do you want to wear your hair like that? you look like you escaped from the camps Odysseus asks what camps are you referring to Mom? she replies the Concentration Camps! you’re a good-looking man and you still have a full head of hair why do you want to shave it off i don’t understand i think you should move back to Chicago Tucson has done nothing to offer look at you you’re all alone you don’t have any friends come home and be your old self again he answers my old self you don’t get it do you Mom do you remember my commodity trading debacle or my 40th birthday or you and aunt Rita’s ceaseless corrections Mom smugly retorts what do you mean your 40th birthday don’t you get smart with me you should be ashamed of yourself why must you keep bringing up the past you need to let go of the past you go into such details details i don’t remember what does it matter now it’s history we only wanted what we thought was best for you you never listened you were only interested in yourself plenty of other kids get beaten and come through just fine you don’t know what it’s like to be a parent it tears me up inside you talk like you had nothing to do with it i can’t take this abuse from you anymore her misshapen fingers hands begin trembling as her voice emotes you think i don’t realize we made mistakes with you you think we were such monsters i wasn’t a good mother i was a lousy ***** is that what you think answer me what are you a bump on a log Odysseus sits stiff in chair his voice shrinks he just sits there his legs shake under table Mom says your father was quick-tempered we were under so much financial pressure maybe we did send you away too soon if i had to do it again i’d do it differently what does it matter now it’s 50 years ago forget the past what do you want from me what can i do he listens silently wondering if Mom seeks some kind of redemption can her conceit permit it he knows he is ******* her he does not mean to be uncomfortable with his muteness Mom continues you were a difficult child remember all the trouble you caused look at you you’re still a difficult man he questions Mom can you hear yourself you think i’m difficult she answers you think we were such terrible parents you grew up in a house of violence his thumb and forefinger nervously touch his chin as he replies no you were good parents i was a problem child different from you you afforded me a beautiful home and brilliant education i wanted to investigate life and learn and grow you didn’t know what to do with a child like that as much as she tries Mom never has been a comfort for Odysseus or he for her he inadvertently stirs her to worry or snap and she in turn unthinkingly disturbs him nevertheless they love each other the waiter brings out salads Mom ordered iceberg lettuce with thousand island dressing Odysseus chose the spinach salad he takes several bites Mom remarks use your salad fork not your dinner fork you know better than that suddenly it occurs to him Mom is more fragile than he he thinks to himself silently Mom i realize your life is closing in on you your mind drifts and you need to fake and cover-up more than ever do you want me to come home and take care of you i will take care of you then he remembers how miserable they were together during his throat cancer recovery in her 3 bedroom Lake Shore Drive condominium immersed in contemplation he pushes the fork through spinach leafs Mom says sit up in the chair and put a smile on your face she self-consciously peeks around the room having lost his appetite Odysseus looks down at napkin on his lap glances at half-eaten salad bowl he gazes up at Mom the waiter arrives making a pained smile he clears the salads then serves the entrees after the waiter departs Mom speaks Odys look at me when i’m talking to you i think about a lot of things i should have done after the fact sometimes even years later Max and i made a lot of incorrect choices when it came to you he cuts in Mom you don’t have to say anymore i love you always have loved you and know you love me too Mom says you know how much i appreciate your paintings you’ve made my life richer i‘ve always been supportive of you in fact i’m your biggest fan right Odys right? thank you Mom i’m grateful Mom says i’ve spoken with psychiatrists and they all tell me the same answer tell your son to forget it why must you dwell in the past what did we do so dreadfully wrong i don’t understand you’re a hard case i wish i could get through to you i hope you can find it in your heart to forgive us you’ll sleep better he questions you know about my insomnia restless sleep nightmares Mom says i can imagine Odysseus’s eyes begin to water Mom i love you i wouldn’t be who i am without you Mom says don’t get so emotional you sound weak take it from me you must be strong in life learn discipline and willpower i love you too son Odysseus wonders if maybe he agitates Mom because he is a constant liability lacking fiscal self-reliance deep down Mom is a giggling gossiping playful girl spoiled by her father she never wanted to grow up and be burdened with the tasks of parenthood what woman of rare beauty and charm would want to give up her privilege and freedom for some kid especially a *******-up kid maybe deep down Mom resents Odysseus he stares down at the Macadamia nut encrusted Hawaiian fish and silently prays he will be released from his life all his stupid sins regrets self-pity self-hatred his vain inconsequential existence



i move organize empty shelves cabinets drawers closets edit wrap tape pack wonder if moving back to Chicago is one more mistake heaped on top of a 1000 mistakes a 1,000,000 mistakes is going home to help Mom my biggest mistake ever i simply know i must try to protect my Mom
Sweet Siren Song Aug 2014
Superhuman in this skin
Red-lipped smile sweetly
(but beware teeth beneath)

I'm Sweet Siren Song
And I won't be long left
within this mediocre maniverse

Pretty ****-portrait perfect
(But there's no staples lacerating this muffin top)
Withstand this cosmetic culture curse

Bedspread silky sodden sheets
Writhing within nightmare glare
silicon butterfly spiked beauty ages anyway
Go away,
I'm finished.

I MEAN IT!

Fucknuts
(I guess Fucknuts isn't an advertiseable commodity. What's with the cheap advertising links in my poetry!)
bedspread.
****...
Akemi Apr 2017
Barbiturate is one of the few drugs capable of killing you painlessly, so of course the state has banned it. Instead we get paracetamol, a ****** over-the-counter painkiller that leaves you in pain for up to five days while your liver and kidneys shut down. Suicide prevention is a ******* joke. Secular appropriations of Christian values that assume life is worthwhile, whether you desire it or not. It’s long been known that rates of suicide rose dramatically with the birth of modernity—techno-scientific paradise for the middle-class which stresses efficiency over existence. New forms of automation, the human body disciplined into repetitious acts, the partitioning of workspaces so that no single worker could operate the whole—so that any worker could be fired and replaced with the minimum amount of training necessary for capital to continue circulating. The body is individualised, scrutinised, and punished by rich kids playing panopticon, so that any mass agitation is coerced into silence through the threat of destitution.

Slitting your wrists barely succeeds and more likely than not leaves you with tendon and muscle damage. Catalytic converters in cars now convert carbon monoxide into harmless CO2 and H2O. Drowning is one of the most painful ways to die. You cannot escape. The state places helpline numbers around suicide spots to treat life after the fact, rather than at the source of suffering. Vocal band-aids, ****** ******* aphorisms that seek to revert you back into a happy state-serving commodity. Things will get better. Life is worth living. Think positive. Alienation is omnipresent. Neoliberal discourse requires you to be subservient to the greater system of capital and the easiest way towards this is the instilment of comfort, of pleasant nullity, the circumscription of emotional capacity and reflectivity. Suicidal thoughts are abnormal, because life is worth living. Eat your packaged food item and watch Netflix.

For a drop into water to be fatal, it has to be 250 feet. Try to aim for your head to maximise brain injury. The most prominent suicide spot around here has a drop of 100 feet. They cordoned it off anyway. Your life doesn’t belong to you. The first time I tried to suicide my mother asked ‘why would you do that?’ as if it was the dumbest thing in the world. The second time, the doctor looked at me in an exasperated manner and prescribed me lots of drugs. Geettt bettterrrr. Nobody cares about you, they simply want you to return to normal. Normality as in serving your parents, serving your friends, serving the state, and serving the market. Normality as in not questioning social norms and institutions. Normality as in get a stable job (i.e. compete against other workers in an exploitative, undemocratic system that values and inculcates self-serving desires), get married (preferably to someone of the opposite *** who is middle-class and imbibes European culture), get pregnant/get someone pregnant (but only once or twice, because anyone who has more children than that is backwards), invest in housing (those students and lower-class families need to learn how the world works; really, it’s a benefit to take their money), watch sports (to instil national pride in your children; no son, we didn’t colonise the Pacific Islands, keep watching the man with the wooden stick hit *****), eat out every week (preferably exotic restaurants), go see the world (preferably exotic locations, so you can be served by exotic people, take in exotic sights, then leave without considering where any of your money has gone to, whether any of it has reached the slums, whether the beach you lay on is accessible to the people living there, or whether it has been privatised by the tourist firm so that only rich tourists like yourself can lie on it), join a club (those capitalists were innocent, it was the indigenous folk that were making a ruckus over the new golf course; it’s not like we’ve been colonising their land and culture for the past three centuries), donate to charity (but never any charity desiring systemic change; that’s crazy), consume, always consume (keeps the economy going; why question the desire for infinite growth in a world with limited land, resources and markets?), replace your phone every year (those poor workers in Asia need our help), repeat to the point of nausea.

The most successful method to suicide is a shotgun to the head; high calibre, slug rounds. Of course, with all these methods, the chance of failing may leave you disfigured, paralysed, mentally disabled or physically crippled (spinal damage, broken limbs, failed organs), with no guarantee that your family, or even your state, will allow for euthanasia. After all, the popular discourse paints suicide as selfish—an irony, considering liberalism places the self first and society second. It is viewed as sinful regardless of context—deontologically detached from anomie, alienation, material deprivation, social pressures, psychological affectations, any cause or structure. Life is worth living. This ignores that the subject is situated in existence. The subject moves through existence to live. Life, then, is the totality of the subject’s interactions. It cannot be universalised into a single state or judgement that merges all subjectivities into a catch-all worthiness. Worth is dependent of the subject.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe I just want everyone to **** themselves, because the world is ****** and the majority of people are ******* it worse. Most people think being nice makes them good. They turn blind to the systems of oppression they partake in. A while ago my mother was asking if I’d heard about the mass suicides happening at Foxconn, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world. This year she showed me her new iPhone. I don’t ******* understand. I don’t understand how people can be outraged at humanity abuses, yet do ******* nothing to help or change their ways. Yes, market solutions are ******* ****, but these commodities are still coming from somewhere, and while capitalism is in place, our money is still flowing back. I don’t understand how people can be concerned about ecological issues, then pour dishwashing liquid down the sink every night, dissolving the gills, eyes, and organs of fish in rivers and oceans. I don’t understand a ******* thing. I feel physically sick most days. I can barely function outside of university, because engaging with real people, in real systems, just reminds me of how careless, worthless, and disgusting they are. When I first turned vegan, my dad simply said plants are living too. Well no ******* **** dad, why didn’t you ask me my reason for turning vegan, rather than simply repeating the dumb **** everyone else says? If you were stuck on a desert island. Well I’m ******* not. I’m stuck on this **** world filled with nice people who don’t give a **** about anything. I’m stuck every week walking the same roads, to the same university, where I become more and more distanced from reality through abstract philosophical theories that no one else cares about. I’m stuck walking through the supermarket every week, to purchase overpriced commodities produced by transnational corporations I don’t support, but nonetheless have to buy to survive. What alternatives I buy are mocked because it's so funny being ethical in our day and age. Because it’s so much more normal eating pies, and drinking beer, and treating women like objects, and affirming nationalistic sentiments of white supremacy, and making fun of ethnic minorities while they’re incarcerated, and beaten, and killed. All lives matter, the liberal conservatives cry out, while doing ******* nothing to help any cause. I don’t understand this world, and I have no desire to be in it if this is all there is.
ME Jul 2013
You see women, I see commodity
**** its *****
It's like Coca Cola
It''s a commodity and everybody likes it
I'm a **** ***** and you can **** it
Get on your knees!
Do I have cane in my car?
Answer me
Do I have a cane in my car?
Yes
Does it make me a ****?
...
It could
Aisha Ella Nov 2016
Please Don't Touch My Hair.

It's amazing,
It's beautiful,
Maybe its the first time you'll see;
Hair so dark and 'puffy'
As the hair God gave to me.

But my hair is not a commodity;
A thing for you to gather round and see.
It is not something I pull out once a while
Just so you can take a peek.

Please Don't Touch My Hair.

Don't run your hands through it,
Don't ask me why it act's like that,
Don't ask me if you can pull it,
Don't pet me like I'm your cat.
Don't touch it without asking,
And worst of all ask and not wait,
Are your manners really that lacking?

Please Don't Touch My Hair.

Don't stare like I am some exhibit
Brought for you from far away,
Don't mock the way it looks on me
Don't say 'I don't like the way it looks today'.

It's My hair
On MY head,
So don't you even dare.
You're not the one that spends hours
Looking after my luscious hair.

Please Don't Touch My Hair.

Because many years ago
My ancestors were put in zoos
So people like you could know
How our hair felt, and our skin looked
Instead of just seeing old photos.
As if we were not human beings
With minds, and hearts and souls.

So my hair is not on display
For your viewing pleasure,
My hair is on my head for ME
And it has worth that you can never measure.

It represents Who I Am
My Tribe, My Land, My Culture.
So don't hover around with oily hands
Like a flock of curious vultures.

So for the love of all that I know
Please DO NOT TOUCH MY HAIR.
And don't ask me why you can't,
Don't say it isn't fair.
Because would I walk up to a stranger
And ask, only to receive a no
Then go on and touch it anyway?
...I didn't think so.

Please Don't Touch My Hair.

This is the last time I'll say it,
I cannot be silent any longer
I will not tolerate it.
I've given it all I can
I have been very patient
But I will not let this continue
This I will not permit.
If you say you are my friend
You will respect this
Its My Hair, on My Head
And that's all there is to it.
Please respect people's different cultures and backgrounds; do not touch anyones hair without asking - its uncomfortable and honestly it makes me feel like I'm a zoo animal.
Tate Morgan Jul 2015
For just over two thousand years
we've held to the thoughts of the past
Followed teaching,  and the preaching
that professed faith to all whom asked

Dare we ever question that faith
we find ourselves mired in pain
Be-seeched by those, one might suppose
to be blessed or somehow ordained

Legislating morality
has never worked and never will
you can't force folk, under a yolk
of privileged who sit top a hill

Eating from the tree of knowledge
perhaps we found our sanity
We need be fair, man's self aware
one can't deny humanity

The religious right will survive
behind glass in a museum
An oddity, commodity
for all those who want to see them
You know I have given this much thought of late. The recent Supreme court decision on gay rights has split the country asunder. As for me I have a sister who is gay I simply want for her happiness. The government has no business in our bedrooms or our private life. We seek to marry those who bring our lives meaning. Follow your own path. It is not for others to impede the road upon which choose. This is not a question of morality it is a question of rights. By what right does any man have the ability to tell another who to love? love thy brother as thyself.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
preservationman Apr 2016
Position your fingers on the keys
The typing keyboard that you will master will be a breeze
Up the ladder to ABCDEF
Watch the motion of your fingers at the left
The purpose is to position your fingers and not look at the keys
Let your fingers be the guide and your mind in response being the typing lesson
Remember typing is about accuracy and not speed
Once you master the concept than you will be able to proceed
Typing is a definite commodity you will need
Typing is the basis of any business like a creed
But then again, typing can be for your own personal use
However, typing is something you shouldn’t refuse
My Grandfather taught me typing at a very early age
He would often say, “Typing is going to be your commodity as an asset”
Typing no one should have regrets
As typing will be your best bet
Learn all the elements of typing, and watch as the typing keyboard becomes your vital friend
Now type a letter.
Zigmaz F Jul 2016
And in the end,
You begin to realize who your true friends are.
The ones who stand by your side
Through thick and thin
Trial, error, and sin.

In this day and age,
Not many stand the chance
In nomination
For the sacrificial commencement of honour.

Nature plays its part indeed.
Because it is only in time
The veil is lifted.
Root by root,
Seed by seed.
Humanity reveal their true colors.

Next thing you know,
You've been cursed by a plague.
A whole school of fish
Swimming to discover their own island.
That is only for thyself.
You've been contaminated
By the human race.

Look at the social media blow up.
The narcissistic selfies,
The I, me, my's,
Gaining daily acceptance
All in disguise.
The public audience is their show.
It's needed for everyday approval.

Nobody really cares about you
It's all about
"Look at me!"
"Look what I can do!"
"You are so cool."
"Thumbs up to you!"
I'm going to abuse the word "love."

Forget the hoopla
Here today
Gone tomorrow.
Everyone feeding off of
Self loathing attention.
There is no more room for pitiful sorrow.

Truth is
Sheep lie among the prey
Victims...
Don't be another
"Nodding Acquaintance"
A distortion of the facts.

Don't get fooled.
Not by social grace
Not by exploitation of the face.
You'll just be a bargain commodity,
For their convenience.

Stand true
True to yourself
Because in the end,
Nobody else really cares.
teaching a wild creature to feed from your hand is a feat maybe maybe not Mom taught me from a young age then never let go in June 2013 the estate will cease all the coats hats shoes scarves skirts dresses blouses belts purses from Ultimo Saks Neimans wherever steaks from Gene and Georgetti’s Gibsons whatever will be consumed and she will be forced by the bank to resign her condo on lake shore drive and go live with her sister and i will be left with nothing

nothing feels better than fighting back gathering the strength courage to do that to fight until there is no daylight

the world is a mysterious place it is Sunday December 26th 2010 6AM pitch dark outside in several months daybreak will come earlier a remarkable surprise yet always been this way in several minutes firmament turns light i open eyes stretch legs look out window pink blue gray blue morning skies tree tops mountains watch flock of birds maybe 30 or 40 flying back and forth east west why do they do that how would you like to be one of those birds flapping around searching from above at the earth hmmm what if everyone had a ***** and ****** feathered wings fin distinctive tail floppy or pointed ears what if you could share breakfast or lunch with Kim Gordon Patti Smith work on poem with e. e. cummings James Joyce William Faulkner paint with Mark Rothko Anselm Kiefer play football with Payton Manning Drew Breeze jam with Jimi Hendrix Keith Richards race with Secretariat sniff with Lassie mix with Max Ernst Georgia O'Keefe Donald Judd meet with Gandhi and J.F.K. make love with Charlotte Gainsbourg Kate Moss dinner with John Lennon Friedrich Nietzsche dance with Albert Einstein Isadora Duncan share a smoke with Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) Sam Shepard last drink with Sylvia Plath Virginia Woolf then go to sleep next to Sphinx Pyramids wake with Cleopatra Mata Hari on Bali beach look up at tiny puffy clouds that resemble strange script do you understand the possibilities mysteries of everything

old is lecherous but i’m still trapped in childhood hurting wanting to be grown-up

i think i said i don’t know how to talk i was speaking to this **** greedy landlord trying to negotiate between 2 different spaces long distance and i meant to say i can’t talk right now i’m in a restaurant or shop but instead what came out was i don’t know how to talk he was insulting me bullying hollering at me on cell phone accusing me of dickering about price lease and it slipped out my terror from Dad my childhood fears repression inability to negotiate i froze fumbled finally uttering i don’t know how to talk then disconnected

i’m running scared gasping for breath heart pounding yearning praying crying for love beauty happiness success i’m smart creative powerful yet inept too shy or fearful to know how to properly spontaneously speak in person

what if consumerism is realized as a mental disorder a method to suppress genuine hunger with fetish products

what if money is identified as disease actual legal tender found to source fatal viruses

what if humanity is discovered to belong to an alien predatory race independent from Adam and Eve or monkeys

what if all knowledge is found to be deceptive invention concealing real world truth

what if existence is a chess game or trial enacted by higher forces and your every thought feeling recorded in eternity

what if progress is the enemy and primitivism the remedy

my whole life i’ve learned about infidelity my mom sister dad uncle i don’t understand i’ve never been unfaithful to a girlfriend (one is enough one is more than i can handle) why do people speak those vows then get married only to violate themselves their mates maybe that’s why i am afraid to ever get married infidelity is the most painful betrayal to find out your partner with all your shared secrets compromises them with someone else oh god

April 19th 1995 a bomb explodes in Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people injuring 759 what are Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols thinking did they act alone there are so many lunatics running around out there so much misunderstanding disenfranchisement in America

Arlington Street Asheville North Carolina June 1995 Odysseus and his dog Farina keep mostly to themselves something is wrong with his voice he sounds hoarse when he speaks it is uncomfortable to talk he goes to free clinic and waits half a day elderly doctor attempts to stick long metal instrument down Odysseus’s throat Odysseus gags coughs elderly doctor becomes irritable he warns Odysseus to quit smoking Odysseus wonders what it would be like to be loved possibly married in loving positive relationship to know all the endearing enduring connections between caring couples other people manage it why can’t he? he thinks i’ve never been a good provider nor placed enough value in money i believe in freedom and love i chose to make art and pursue a life of self-discovery experiment dang i am wrong from the moment one’s work hangs in a gallery the artist’s integrity is compromised individuality becomes commodity typically people who buy paintings have so much money they scatter a trifle on art the artwork provides the consumer with a look of ‘soul’ to be shown off to their envious friends the artist becomes needy pet of dealer and client maybe converting one’s spirituality into commercial merchandise is like making deals with the devil he thinks about Native American artists whose work is immediately esteemed and utilized in their culture he has spent his whole life seeking validation in art world he wonders how many other unknown artists feel similarly useless discarded he considers i’m forty-five years old now and i don’t have a penny to show for all my troubles i still believe i have much to give insights to reveal but no practical plan for survival i don’t know how i’m going to get through this existence the world wants young promising talent not some older painter striving for another chance women want nothing to do with an impoverished aging dreamer my dog loves me she knows who feeds her i’ve got academic degrees a long resume of legitimate shows i know how to use a computer solve problems fix toilets sinks strip and paint serve food and liquor but i can’t land a decent job i never learned how to properly market or barter my work and i’m not interested in the position of sacrificial lamb i want a home and female partner like other men have i want to be needed respected loved a creative member of a community instead of an expendable outsider working menial jobs for minimum wage what good are paintings if no one looks at them what good are noble values in a corrupt society the world runs on money and greed not freedom and love
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2019
.how did the political "debate" ever become surmount to include musicians? from what i've seen? of the KEXP radio session...  Ashish Vyas had the most fun from the session... i always admired the bass players more than those ****-offs running out of rhythm guitar sessions... bass, a tier above the drums... masturbator-grand-master-soloist... i guess this is one of those nights where i drink more than i write... elephant's ******* choking me to come... oh well... not even a Decalogue will save me... the political art is no art to begin with, curtains... all i'm seeing if curtains... and households filled with retired personel... and curtains... curtains but not blinds... it's abhorrent to have to listen to music with hushed bass guitar... notably metallica... apart from devil's dance and... where's the bass guitar? the rhythm guitar section overpowers the music... fine fine, have your solo *******, but don't silence the bass guitar with the rhythm guitar, i need to hear the drums translated via the bass guitar into the rhythm guitar... solo guitar and vocals all you want... it's like... the lessons to be learned from jazz, when all the fire prime instruments are allowed to solo... went, "missing"... i need the bass, man... frantic bass & drum genre type of music will not do lollipops for me... what was the alternative? dub-step? well... vex'd & distance... burial... who were the others? i don't remember... don't make me cite skrillex: white privelege man! yeah... at least with rabbit teeth missing, doing that well known party trick! i don't like bands that have a knack at an over-emphasis of the rhythm guitar, who neglect the bass guitar... it's so counter the jazz-inheritance... tool: grand bass, red hot chilli peppers, silverchair... i need that smoothing out layer of sound that manifests itself in a bass... a layer of sound just below the rhythm guitar and a tier above the base (not bass) of the african drum borrow... bāß... base (not bass)... yes, it's not supposed to look pretty: a phonetic antithesis... as most "things" in english...

             mind you... did i mention how heidegger
has a foot in the door?
       oh... i didn't? did i?
     the reflexive and the reflective quadratic...
the reflex of conscience "vs."
the reflectiveness of consciousness...
       heidegger:
                  language - only if speech has acquired
the highest univocity of the word does it become
strong for the hidden play of its essential
   multivocity (as withdrawn from all "logic"),
of which poets and thinkers alone are capable,
in their own respective modes and their own
directions of sovereignty.

  of the few lyrics i've entertained these passing
"days"?
             the black keys: lonely boy -
              i got a love that keeps me waiting...
borrowing from Kafka i guess:
      in that case, i’ll miss the thing by waiting for it.
   no?
   guess there's no "oops" where these words
come from...
              
    with the "passive" circumstance of the faculty
of memory...
                two tiers of memory:
the reflexive memory type,
the scholastic rubric type...
  1 x 4 = 4, a + b + a +c + u + s = instrument =
counting... etc.,
            that's the reflexive memory type...
a scholastic rubric...
      dyktando...
but memory also occupies
the reflective parameters...
          which involve personality...
a sort of memory dissociated from schooling,
and more, associated with:
disinhibiting any chances of succumbing
to dementia's grinding machine
of the mortal circus...

  the reflexive memory storage bank is
the buffer...
the "placebo": nay... the safety mechanism...
but... too much education,
too much pointless education,
and the erosion of the reflective memory
storage bank: this is not a buffer,
this is not a something equipped with
a "safety mechanism"...
        given that a self is perpetuated
within the confines of
a constant conflict with the "self"...
   a and italics / the and "ambiguity commas"...

well, there's always a place to start...
i find of like philosophy as being
a rigour associated with a satisfactory
form of vocab.,
       namely?
i can use the associated words bound
to a sentence with confidance...
unlike a ****** fiction writer,
sometimes dabbling into loan words
from a thesaurus, to, invoke:
an intelligence superiority...
  don't worry...
  when people lend themselves
to use a thesaurus, having exhausted
their adjective knowledge... it shows...

come on... a background in chemistry nouns?
3,5-methylhexane... you think?
that's the remains of a saxon past in english...
in chemistry...
germans spell like dr. faustus to begin with,
they, compound...
        the remains of a germanic past in
the current state of english shrapnel still
lives... in chemistry...
        hydrocarbons...
                  usually met with a hypen:
hydro-carbons...
       siebentausendzweihundertvierundfünfzig
(7,254)...
well, very german: what a waste of not employing
punctuation marks (', -) when it came
to the caterpillar 189, 819:
methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl...isoleucine,

Me­thionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucy­lphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylgluta­mylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonylle­ucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleu­cyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylgly­cylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylp­henylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthr­eonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucyl arginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylala­nylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalanylle­ucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucy­lprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparagin­ylleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylg­lutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylv­alylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylpr­olylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarg inylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylal­anylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleuc…

or just read the end of james joyce's ulysses
or jean-paul sarte's iron in the soul...
you do have to insert shrapenl punctuation
into this word...

but these are the last remains of the english language
being associated with a germanic origin:
compounding words...
             esp. in chemistry...
                

as any drunk would state,
to suffice...

    what was it that the luftwaffe
prescribed for the night raids
on London?

   and what did isis fighters
be prescribed?

    amphetamines?
n'oh!
   (minus the extended omega:
oooooo enough time
for a katy perry song,
an afternoon shower,
a slap in the face,
and then a few punches,
hey, jerking off became
boring)...

   so the british,
and a few polacks doing their
r.a.f. bit beat the germans
because?
   oh... **** no...
they were ingesting
an impediment factor,
durg, ****,
drunk, numb-skulled...

    we're talking counter
measure to the "enchanced"
mensch...
    high on amphetamines...
insomniac, but still going...
i guess the loci of
the amphetamine adventure
had to relocate to the anti-ego
focus of the phallus
in the variation of viagara...

****...
i care more for my giggles
and a friar tuck physiognomy...
seriously...
   it's more important than mere
gymnastics of
a freudian "metaphor"...
  ha ha...
   i guess conversation is
also allowed...
   try keeping that up...
given that most men are
******* into a solipsism...

     date nights... m'ah ah ha ha ha...
i figured that i don't
need french intellectuals to
redefine absurdity,
or german philosophers
to "redefine" existentialism,
i just needed to leech
off an nativistic english
"public"...

                      what the ruling
class spews:
   i reinterpret...
                  simple, 1 + 1 = 2...
crux, numbers,
   bounce back...
echo...
     compliment to the language...
as i stood in the shower thinking...
well isn't modern gaming
slightly "ingenious"...
money piggy...

or... reversed...
    provided the unlimited time
of experience...
no constraints,
just a game within a game,
like sims 3: making a sim
play a video game...
wormhole paradox
      and a brain shattering moment,
a jolt,

         these modern "free" games?
well... at least if you
do not invest in them,
are... games mostly associated with
time...
time is the game...

   whoever gets ****** into
the money laundering schemes
of these games,
forgot to read the cheat walkthroughs
akin to final fantasy VII,
because of homework,
and... Saturday mornings.

   **** air guitar:
here's to air drumming to posit
a point...

          the allies drunk their pint
of whiskey, slightly debilitated,
without the circumstance of feeding
a feeling of superiority,
the germans over-inflated
their superiority complex with
amphetamines...

         ergo?
    i'm either proper drunk, or just plain dumb,
or... it's related to listen, repeat,
listen, repeat: katy perry
  (sucker for POP!)....

      never mind...

games used to be fun,
games used to lead to a completion,
tenchu, that was fun,
final fantasy VII...
but this current,
money-sucker of an experience?
well... sure...
now games have reached
an anti checkmate conundrum
which it is...
because, the games are "free"...

           apparently time,
is perceived as a non-commodity...
tell that to someone stuck
in traffic...
      time: the "elder" flimsy
              construct of relativism...

try not giggling
while exchanging whislting to
either the british grenadier march song,
and the french la marseillaise...

   it's like eating pork liver with onions
fry funny...
    or at least a stew of chicken
hearts... tight tender little *******...

but modern gaming is just that...
ingenious counter measure
to the old school variation
of gaming,
    games... without fiction,
games, without script...
    continued perpetuation
of engagement "syndrome"...

     thank god,
i'm pretty sure that if i went beyond
owning a PS1,
i wouldn't have spotted this,
and have a narrative subsequently,
for the worth any sort
of compromise...

ergo? i drink...
   eh... i need to dumb down...
it wouldn't be fair otherwise...
it's not so easy,
to acquire a culture,
a psychology,
a mentality,
   and then...
     to ****... (grimmace, burp,
         snigger) it all away...

**** me, the flute always
gets me...
          i mean...
every time i hear that flute...
my feet at rambling,
itching to tap along...

   well of course it wasn't
the ******* jazzy clarinet,
was it?!
  tell that to the broad
who perfect a *******...
see if she comes back
as smart,
as smart to comply with
the intricacies
of playing, the ******* clarinet.

p.s.
aud lang syne: the only song,
of all time...
shakespeare seems
pale by comparison,
"side-note"...

          broad vs. brode,
******* giggles in the afternoon.
WS Warner Jul 2014
Corpses proliferate in soaring violence; heirloom of franchise and eminence— perish in erosion.

Timid denizens of derision, cynicism in roaring silence — optimism’s paling vapor—commodity of Indecision, our halcyon days forgotten.

Chosen token of audacity; the onyx maladroit feigns, prevaricating beneath the Sacred canopy.

Etudes of apathy; attrition unlamented; streams of guile— quixotic squall conversely merge — veiled conceit, eloquent arrow of equivocation.

The policy of attenuation.

Treason’s vine obscured beneath the blind surf of consent.

© 2014 & 2016 W. S. Warner
JD Leishman Mar 2019
QUESTION.

Poverty!
Do you think that this should be a global urgency?
Selfworth as Commodity!
Do you think that this should be a human priority?
Try telling one billion children living in extreme poverty,
And the twenty two thousand that die each day that their not a priority,
Tell them we have more important matters to adhere,
That our top ten banking bosses earn an excess of two hundred million a year,
So what about our eight hundred and fity million that don’t have access to clean water,
Tell them they dont really have a voice and dont really matter,
Clean is not fourteen billion pounds of waste dumped this year into the sea,
Clean is not two hundred million gallons of crued oil lost into our oceans by BP.

I am Jimmy.
Jami Samson Oct 2013
Shopping outfashioned hunting and gathering,
Processed beats fresh,
Groceries replaced fruit trees,
Malls superceded forests,
Churches outnumbered temples,
Countries dissolved to territories,
Places devolved to areas,
Paths broke down into highways,
Commodity converted to currency,
Laborers submit to machinery,
Masters engage in humbug,
Apprentices reduced to students,
Knowledge downgraded to education,
And education is deducted to a show of grades,
While schools are the stages,
And the corporate world is the bigger runway,
With work slumped to employment,
Wisdom demoted to profession,
Where in jobs are the only future,
Careers are the only success,
Clicking and pressing buttons are skills,
Computers are correspondent to brains,
Information refers to news reports,
Intelligence means up-to-dateness,
Browsing is preferable to reading,
Studying is in demand more than learning,
Viewing things flashed on screens yields awareness,
Transportation is to traveling,
As buying is to the three basic needs,
And needs embody worldly possessions,
Worldly possessions define happiness,
Happiness is due to selfishness,
Selfishness is traced to the lack of love,
The lack of love draws from the lack of faith,
Because faith stands for religion,
And religion stands for membership,
Where politicians are the gods,
Celebrities are the preachers,
And the preachers are the enemies,
While networking is equal to friendship,
And connection equates to communication,
Experiences require photos,
Memories necessitate uploading,
Souvenirs can be downloaded,
Smartphones are substitute to pets,
Gadgets are toys,
Holding controllers is playing,
Watching TV is exploring the great outdoors,
Internet is recreation,
And technology is a way of life;
While humans are scientists,
Nature is a guinea pig,
And the earth is a laboratory,
Where prices are misidentified for worth,
Processes are miscalculated as progress,
Impoverishment is confused with improvement,
And getting more is mistaken as getting better;
And then we wonder why
Homes have become houses,
Family members have become boarders,
Nations are separate species
Composed of tired and hungry citizens,
Children are monsters
Who are biochemically rascals,
Teenagers are zombies
Whose adventures lead to delinquency,
Adults are robots
Who just clang when touched,
And life is not so simple
As how it is said to be.
#41, Oct.14.13
In this age of 3D Entertainment
and surround sound speakers;
of high definition and films extra features,
electronic mail and internet dating.

Where tectonics fail yet can be shown on
paper graphs and charts and diagram art.

These decades of speed and cynicism.
Where digits reign as idols flop
from pedestals and into bars.
Where your wildest dreams lie not
in your heart but in your favourite shop.

In this land of greed and want
and discord of the highest scale.

Is it peace and virtue that won
you the right to work from home;
eating breakfast in bed, worrying
only if jokes are stale?

Is it fine that your success
has led others to fail?

In this game of snakes and ladders
who populates the pit?

Those who were unfortunate
enough to be born into it.
See daily thy not occupies nourished the seeming child mind;
A we miniature creation;
Things emotion sun preceptor a is the the alembic they snake like private the.
"scoriae" could from they look but.
Expression and felt grand;
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george glass Jul 2016
dear girl,
i would like to apologize on behalf
of those that will never.
the world lied to you
since you were old enough
to balance a book
to listen, retain,
consume without question

i would like to apologize on behalf
of those that informed you
your value is calculated
by the sum of your parts
that you are worth the contrast of fat deposits
over the angles of fragile bones

i would like to apologize on behalf
of those pining characters they wrote you,
every soul with a haunting disposition
who was given the noble ambition
to invoke longing within those
that remain on the outside
of the glass

because the songs that were sung on the radio
cast you as the the inspiration
but when they painted you lips for love
they denied you the language of narration
and you lived your life thinking
you could invoke magic
if you were only willing
to wait your entire life
for someone else to conjure it

i am sorry
that we filled your head
with empty adjectives
to whisper in your ear
that you were nothing
unless validated by the eyes of strangers
seeing you as nothing more
than a commodity
for which to window shop
and consume

and when they abandoned their casual browsing
their wants transcended your right
to exist
and it was you
they chose to invade
to tear open
because after all,
you were man made
a nail scratching a rib
a void to fill up
with whatever poison they thought you’d look sexier
choking on

dear girl,
i would like to apologize on behalf
of the fact that you remain unnamed,
an improper noun
a caricature,
a statistic,
a silhouette on the back window
mouth a perfect oh
that will never know words

i am sorry that the second
you entered the world with two X’s
they would reduce you
to an exquisite tragedy,
place them over your eyes
and declare that the death of a beautiful woman
is the most poetic thing in the world

i would like to apologize
because this world was never
quite big enough to hold you
and we knew
and we saw
and we opened our mouths,
took a breath,
and we closed them
Rayven Rae Aug 2018
(what blue tells “it’s a girl”)
(part 1)

emerging into the world under the banner
“it’s a girl!”
comes wrapped in nothing but pink
expectations

born pink
helium-filled mylar screams
branding new life from first breath
softness bubble-gum wrapped
cotton candy kissed
baby girl be soft

soft
soft pink
powder-puffed bunnies hide
power-puffed intentions that scream
pink for the taking
precious commodity
but only so long as the soft pink remains
intact
soft pink words rounded
nothing sharp for a baby born
without the blue
pink words saccharine-infused with sweetness
to be planted deep within
tiny bones to replace marrow
marrow meant to sustain a life
but pink
soft pink marrow
makes for a prettier picture
nobody likes a girl that’s jagged when you touch her
it’s a mortal sin to make a man bleed
red is not pink
be gentle


gentle
gentle girl
sit pretty sit silent
swallow down your voice
only open your mouth to make
pink butterflies cascade beauty
spit out only ribboned wings
floating rose-colored feathers
bubble-words all dull edges and placations
make sure those feathers land on the deserving
the deserving being those
born blue
fill the blue with your blush tones
enough to inflate egos
but not enough to touch the cyan
too much pink and blue runs
too much pink and blue changes
into a lilac sunset
blue needs to stay hard
reign in your pink
know when to retreat
know when to only
be seen

seen
seen girl
not heard
find the balance trapped
within the pink
the world expects you to be seen
swizzle sticks and cinnamon hearts
arm candy dress up the pink
you are a bloom-rose candy store that is always open
everything has a price but why pay
when it’s just pink for the taking?
show us the pink
body parts enhanced by slashes of color
not too bold but beautiful
always tasteful to be seen
full lips to spill
carmine kisses
blooming with promise
promises fulfilled on both knees
what pink wants doesn’t matter
when it comes to blue
soft pink skin slick sneaky peak
show some of that wet flesh
flush flash some of that pink
be seen girl
when being born pink
should have come screaming with a warning
caution tape wrapped tight
sealing up flushed flesh flashing pink
what’s wrong girl?
be warm

warm
warm girl
be pink pearl nail polish
strawberry lip gloss leave kisses
warm breath in all the right places
make blue melt in ways
that won’t mix with your pink
warm mouths can work magic
bubble-gum tongue lick ****
strawberry ice cream cones dripping
pink sugar running down sun-burned arms
fuchsia cloth triangles held only tight enough
to cover the pinkest places
laughter filled with light
smoky mauve curls let warm wash
soft edges over hard
but even when surrounded by roses
blue has sharper thorns
bleed
bleed warm girl
bleed crimson-tinted tear drops
with only a hint of salt
sugar and spice but mostly sugar
they will bottle it up to sell as a gift
this marrow-tinted hydrosol distilled
down to it’s purest form
liquid pink scented water stolen
more precious than perfume pressed by monks
deep within spanish caves
the monks at least have compassion
at least they ask the roses for their bodies and blood
blue just takes
they don’t call it “royal blue” for nothing
cobalt fists rain relentless
ribboned words and cloud-wrapped capes
are no match for their fury
be small

small
small girl
you are so fragile
from the moment you enter this world
swaddled in it’s a girl
swaddled in everything but blue
don’t want to be mistaken as a boy
not even right out of the womb
pink brings warmth and comfort
blue is a cool color
it bleeds lost gentleness from first breath
pink is never cool
be small even as you grow
fold into yourself to shift shape
break bones to leak out
soft marrow bubble words meant to appease
“yes” is always your best bet
when it comes to blue
blue can’t hear “no” coming from
a pink mouth
the frequency too high
vocal vibrations far out of blue’s hearing
those spoken syllables mean nothing coming from a mouth
good for only one thing
stay small
keep it tight and trim
just because you are a candy story
strawberry daiquiri lollipop curves
doesn’t mean you have to eat
like you live in one
keep it cherry girl
petite pufflette gummy bites
just waiting to be devoured
by hungry blue mouths
sweet little nothings
a paradise punch buffet
where pink is the only dish served
climb into the box
blue lays before you
squeeze yourself into that molded cage
it doesn’t matter how badly it hurts
it doesn’t matter that everything pink in you is screaming
for release
it doesn’t matter that you’re screaming at all

after all
you were just
born pink
This is the first piece on a series that I'm working on called "The Pink Chronicles".  More to come....hope you enjoy or at least, it makes you think.
Allyson Walsh Jan 2016
Late last night I had an epiphany. It could have been the cereal or the Siberia-like weather talking, but I had a newfound realization. It really was late. Late nights are great for overanalyzing. I could have been doing just that. Yet, this morning, I was reminded of my revelation.

You and I live in a generation full of selfishness. Narcissism in relationships, in particular.

That was it. That was my epiphany. Maybe I'm just late coming into the game. Maybe everyone around me made this connection before. But I hadn't.

I am patient. I like to think it's a positive quality of my personality. But, my patience tends to roll over into being a push-over. And all of the men I have been with treated me as such. Many of them used me for their selfish advantages.

Before I start ranting on and on and give you the backstory of each of my relationships, I want you to know that I'm focusing on what ended the relationship, or what caused the downfall. It was selfishness.

But, it wasn't outright selfishness. It was narcism in disguise.

Every "break up" conversation from his side started off with an "I'm sorry". Then, he would give me a bunch of half-hearted reasons as to why things weren't working out. Finally, he would end with an "I'm doing this for me."

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about being there for yourself. Sometimes, we need to find out who we are as a person. That exploration can be muddled when you're pursuing something new.

But as I was letting the cereal digest and watching the ice form on my windows, I finally realized it. Many men of this generation are selfish. Selfish to the point of self-sabotage.

Within the last year, I've briefly and not-so-briefly dated three men. These were their break-up lines:

Man #1. "This is the year I start getting into my major. I feel like I need to figure myself out. I'm doing this for me. I need this."

Man #2. "I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have tried to get into a relationship with someone right before I was headed back to school. I need to do this for me. I need to be able to figure myself out."

Man #3. "I've always felt trapped in Minnesota. I need to go to Arizona for me. I don't have time for you. I can't focus on a relationship right now. I need to focus on my life, my job, and my schooling, for me."

You might be reading this and thinking that I'm great at whining. I'm just a girl who's bitter, burnt out, or hurt over what once was. You might be thinking that I choose all the wrong guys; that I'm prone to "bad guys". But I'm none of those things.

All three of these men were different. All three came from different backgrounds, different states, were various ages, had various personalities, and different interests. Man #1 was shy to the nth degree. Man #3 was extremely outgoing. Man #2 was well-off. Man #3 worked a minimum-wage job and scraped by. Man #1 was an athlete at heart. Man #3 loved metal and Netflix. Every man was different... yet they all had one similar commodity.

They were selfish.

Each one asked himself, "what am I getting out of this? What's in it for me?"

Maybe I was intimate with them. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I was the one with the car or the finances. Maybe I wasn't. The situations were different in each of the three relationships. So, I have a feeling that none of these factors influenced each man's decision.

They were selfish. That's the only way I can pinpoint the end of each relationship down.

I'm not saying that all men are dogs. I'm not even saying "To hell with men!" Although, a part of me understands that relationships weren't meant to be viewed with this mentality. The whole, "what's in it for me?" forefront is the exact opposite of what a relationship should be.

And that's where my conclusion stops. I've finally realized that many men of this age are egocentric... but I don't know what to do about it. I now know what I don't want in a relationship. Now, I can see the red flags clearly. But I'm unsure of where things are headed.

What I do know is that I won't settle for selfishness. I won't settle for a man who wants to know what he can "get" out of a relationship. I won't settle for a man who puts half of his heart into something and keeps the other half for himself.

I will wait for someone who is willing to ask himself what he can do for me... not what I can do for him. I will wait for someone who will put all of himself into a relationship. I will wait for someone who will leave his selfish mentality behind and put me first. I will wait.

Sure, no man is perfect. You might be thinking that I've put my standards too high. But I deserve high standards. I deserve to be looked at as rare, beautiful, and treasured. I wasn't meant to be cast to the side for selfish reasons; for "finding myself" or "doing this for me".

I was meant for more, and I won't settle for anything less.
For myself.

Not poetry. This may be my last longer "essay" or "letter" piece for a while.
The gold that flows, through our elaborate veins,
The crop that is known, by many names,
The gift that alleviates, our daytime pains,
The commodity that plays, one too many games.

Our world is nothing, but a bottomless mine,
Simply waiting, for the wrath and plunder of humankind,  
Oh labourers please, wait your spot in line,
For it was not you that made, this incredible find.

You’re a fool to think, the system needs a redesign,
For your fate and this chain, are forever intertwined.
Stay in your corner, as they wine and dine,
For it is you not them, contained by this chain’s bind.  

Posing as a gift, that elevates their daily grind,
The brown gold is no longer, part of your bloodline,
It was their chains after all, that made this incredible find,
For it now flows away, from the Plateau’s skyline.
  
You continue to hope, for these chains to be redefined,
But to imagine you even exist to them, is asinine,
Yet you believe a consumer movement, would be so inclined,
For you forget that chains were made, to always confine.
This is a poem dedicated to the hard working smallholder coffee farmers around the world. This poem is intended to speak to their struggle, the inequalities of coffee value/supply chains the world over, and the unfortunate reality that these farmers face. This poem can certainly apply to many smallholder farmers and other labourers (landless or not) who suffer similar fates. Note that coffee in some circles is referred to as brown gold because of its economic value.
LeV3e Feb 2018
"How are you today"
"Good, and you?"
"Good, a bit chilly out"
"Ya, at least the sky's blue"
"Well, how can I help?"
"Oh, I'm just looking around."
"If they don't fit, we carry belts."
"I think I'll just take the gown."
"That'll be twenty two, thirty five"
"Can I just swipe my card?"
"Sure, your ID looks nice."
"Thanks don't get too bored."

Rehearsed conversations
Fitted like a mold
Commodity interactions
Just doing what you've been told.
Christine Oct 2018
I don’t really like to play the victim,
But I'm being failed by this system
7 hours, a hostage to cinder block rooms
With nothing to do but let myself be groomed
Into someone's labor source  

If I don’t have money, I cannot live
But nobody seems to have a thought to give
To my Life being turned into a commodity
Something to be owned, taxed, a luxury  
That sometimes I’m not able to afford.

So much stock is put into democracy
But we don’t matter to bureaucracy
Unless we use the paychecks earned
From the Liberties we burned
To fill their empty promises

They call us ungrateful and lazy
For recognizing that this life is crazy
And resenting all the thought and time
Spent in the Pursuit of a rich man’s dime
Instead of our own Happiness
Carly Salzberg Sep 2010
Because the thirst wouldn’t simmer; it ruptured cities into boils,
turned cultures into armies, an armageddon of cheeky stubborn Irish Catholics and thick veined Germans couldn’t imagine a world without their stout hearty headed pint.

Because white dry protestant angels thought crime existed in a vacuum, in a filthy saw-dusted saloon, the hub spawn of evil.

Because twice as many of those saloons were ******* by unlicensed blind pigs, not through free swinging doors on the streets, but in the domestic sphere; in the dark crept crevices of household sanctuaries.  

Because bootlegging capitalist princes turned the industry into a stenchy liability with their home brewed distilled poisons. Alky cookers wrapped the commodity fetish and dubbed it moonshine.

Moonshine – spirits for the poor and blind.

Because this social reform was a moral reform lost in the oblivion of politics, lost in the timeliness of progressive spring-cleaning referenda’s.

Because the ragged, toothless class had to be scold, striped clean of their traditional barings,

because wisdom is everything and they’re spirits ran vilely wild.
WS Warner Feb 2012
Miscommunication
serendipity, anticipation,
blurred reality -
lost in the dialect
of a dream,
in pursuit
of Love
find callous irony;
subversion of desire
what's it all about?
to know and be known.

Mere seconds
of scrutiny
inferior,
I am shown.
Her appraisal
eviscerating
my warm flesh,
her tilted criteria
supplanting the interior,
voluble with
saccharine neologisms
and preferences
for the exterior.
(not mine)
Ironic was my
attraction to
her brain.

Lines, features
and symmetry,
image - the commodity,
aesthetics, the
currency
in this transaction,
cursory liaison,
incendiary,
collapse of the
insurgent ego -
there was no
us in the
the affair of
nothingness.

Bruised in
abasement,
I'm not the one -  
I thought I was.
Hyperbole -
the center
of delusion,
a curious
diversion -
avoid my life.

The allure of
the illusion,
transference,
the ordinary to
the romantic,
the perfect other.
Searching, the
absorbing project -
aquiring wholeness,
did she reject me?
I rejected me.

The escape into
fraudulent
sadness,
to mourn,
is to displace,
the disowned heart
by self is tragic.  
Should
I not mourn for
the one I'm
deferring?

Inside of me
It's safe,
to lament
the loss of
identity -
tension is agony
without resolve
sequestered,
in my pain,
self-imposed
familiar terrain,
upon retrieval,
awaking in
renewal,
mystery and destiny
providentially,
I am free.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2020
you can undercook pork - a little bit of pink
is rather - favourable -
you can undercook beef - a little bit...
let's go full bleu: which has a name... pittsburg
blue...
but please don't slaughter the cow,
send it to the butchers for the cuts...
and then shame it by cooking it well done...
thrice the cow thus dies...
aside from... fish...
well...
i was never a fan of chicken *******...
because whenever someone cooked them:
i.e. my mother - they tended to be... dry...
chicken drum-sticks and the almost grey area
of muscle flesh close to the bone -
these days? the former schnitzel fan has
become a chicken roulade fan...
because the stress for 165°F - and 5 minutes
worth of rest... for the cooked meat...

Ciara - another daughter of U Kʼux Kaj -
she can still be felt in the early night
when walking the streets...
some storms never reach essex -
and that's probably why i decided to grow
my beard long - to feel it combed
by the wind... this elongating chin to match
the moon's scythe -

point being... cooking chicken is unlike cooking
beef or pork... because...
well beef is born from blood -
in the body of another -
the mother - the pork is born from blood -
in the body of another - the mother...
you can undercook it... most certainly:
esp. the beef...
trouble with chicken: is the trouble
with undercooking fish...

to perfect the cooking of chicken meat...
is very much like cooking the perfect
soft-boiled egg...
you want the yoke to be runny...
and the white to be a: ścięte białko...
a coagulated white...
it's quiet amazing how chicken meat
behaves like the egg - the protein
in the atom -
how you have to mind cooking chicken:
for that juicy chicken breast roulade -
in the same way as minding a soft-boiled
egg...

i've never noticed this...
apparently that's the glaring obvious...
it always was!
beef you can undercook: cook it perfectly:
overcook it...
pork you can undercook: cook it perfectly:
overcook it...
chicken? you can only cook it perfectly
or overcook it...
undercooked chicken is a bit like...
finding a raw scallop nugget kiev-esque
in your chicken -

perhaps because: we can eat a poultry abortion:
the egg -
that i forgot or never minded to think:
the meat will behave like the egg -
the protein is borderline with seafood...
after all.. the birds are fish with wings...
that we managed to domesticate
a wolf and breed it with a dingo
and give it a bark...
how did we pluck the hawk from the sky
and gave it marching orders among
the strutting gehenna-game of the wehrmacht
with the geese...

i have no "beef" with the british and their past...
how many zulus became slaves?
hot topic...
if only a people were as fortunate -
not to be landlocked -
the last known invasion dates back to
1066 - nothing is spoken about the ottoman
empire or the mongol empire at the gates...
perhaps other people too...
could have their idle -
and been left to their own devices...
their high tea and all sort of *******...
but i'll still bemoan that...
this language does not have any orthography...
but it does have: n'dubz...
and a york-shyre from peckham and the rest...

- you simply can't undercook chicken...
you can either cook it to perfection...
or overcook... anything undercook is not going
to be eaten!
an undercooked chicken breast roulade?
that's scallop nugget in a kiev-esque chicken..
but why didn't i see it sooner...
how chicken meat would behave like
the egg when it was being cooked?
after all... what becomes of the yoke
when translated into the full-grown chicken?
the internal organs? the bones?
i'm pretty sure the egg-white translates into
the skeleton...
and the bones? it's not like the egg-shell
implodes...

in my hand i hold a chicken's egg:
a poultry abortion...
in my hand, also... a babushka doll...
this: little matron... бaбушкa...
because who would have thought that...
cooking the perfect chicken roulade...
would be akin to... 15 minutes extra...
when working from a soft-boiled egg...
oven-baked of course...
prior to the skin needs to be butter-fried...
and you can't enjoy
a chicken's neck... if it's not poached...
too many bones: not enough meat...
the neck of the chicken needs to poached...

again: one feels inclined to stress the importance
of curating the meat: curing it is one "thing"...
but it's almost an art...
as long as you respect the meat...
i find that most vegeterians or vegans
become thus...
because they have not learned to respect
the meat they're about to eat...

beef you can undercook... the sooner you do so...
the less chance that you'll butcher a second time
with a well-done: eating sand...
wishing it was poppy-seeds itching at the gums
between your teeth...

to respect the meat is to also bite off the heads
of the bones... for the over-cooked marrow...
i once held 30 or so poultry hearts in a cusp of hands...
hands prior to romeo & juliet's amen and kiss...
before i imagined what 30 hearts would otherwise
look like: if i was given the remaining body parts...

or 30 poultry stomachs readied for the broth...
with groats...
i too would become a vegeterian...
if the only chicken ******* i ate in my life
were: usually over-cooked...
dry... simulating imitation cheese
and chalk... the sort of meat: overcooked...
whereby your teeth start to experience
protein glue... and it's hard to pull the jaw
from the skull apart...

i have mentioned pittsburg blue, haven't i?
you can undercook beef and pork...
but you can't undercook chicken...
now unless you want to encounter
a pocket of a raw scallop sensation...
a chicken has to be treated as well as an egg...

most of the time you need to undercook
beef and pork...
but chicken requires...
oh glory be to the poached egg on toast...
the scrambled eggs undisturbed fried on
some pork dewlap...
when you can tell the difference between
the yoke and the whites...

such a versitile creature - this domesticated
hawk... this chicken marshal...
this would be cannibal... i've seen how one
becomes butchered with an axe -
one chicken, one axe - on stump of wood...
the rolling eyes of the decapitated...
the other chickens didn't mind...
they'd run up to the altar with the running
blood of rivers making letter markings
on the woody crumble...
and drink the blood... peck at left-over
flesh from the decapitation...

"gender expressions"... and... what's that?
leftover grammar from french...
translated from inanimate objects:
as being either endowed with a phallus
or a floral pattern -
but in english almost all objects of worded
interaction are gender-neutral!

native tongue "endowement"...
słońce - sun - is feminine...
księżyc - moon - is masculine -
krzesło - chair - i'm siding with masculine...
stół - table - that's clearly "gender neutral" /
alias: hermaphrodite... alias for the *******...
son / daughter of Aphrodite...
kamień - stone - masculine...
góra - mountain - feminine...

and so the heavens opened and became:
short on breath and soul...
the groundwork of earth...
the earth itself... started to nibble
on the delicacy of feet - the wind whispered...
and the echo: and the footsteps...
and the dutch clank convened and called it:
marriage!

how grammar transcended casual english
usage... how it bypassed orthography...
how it never attained orthography...
oh yes... the russian have it...
but... who would have expected it...

n'est ce pas?

what was once the gestalt primer...
that became a rorschach test...
i say: it's either a ink-blotch of a pelvis or a moth...
but with regards to the selfie:
i always require two mirrors...
i still remember the days when someone
would take a photograph of you being:
oblivious...
as if god: the narrator...
convened and descended upon the scene
and imposed directions of keen: montage...

the basis of gender neutrality of nouns...
it can't be extended to encompass verbs...
an oak: dąb - is male...
but a pine - sosna - is female...
all fruit bearing trees are female connotations...

whatever sheryl crow's debut album was...
wasn't alanaise morissette's jagged little pill -
however the conundrum spins with no
favor for the electric currents passing via
Ariel... give me the wind god...
the daughters and barons of: the lesser involved!

because i'm a far cry the alpha...
kindred of the omega... and all that alphabet
of meaning behind letters...
"self-imposed"... less a ******* and more...
feeble guide of watching others get
pleasured by the mantis
and the black widows of tomorrow...

a cactus would grow in my palm should
i witness germany re-united:
at least that's how the proverb stood its ground...
before common or passed on "wisdom"
learned to gravitate toward...
soap bubbles pop... charcoals smoke...
ms amber becomes a river
when there was no river expected...

the tides are hardly shy: they're buying time...
this one last commodity of the rotten mind
of the gambler...
puny prophet - of fate -
alongside the weathermen of a forgotten
afternoon: come birthday prior to noon...
and the fungus umbrellas chat
among themselves in a premature autumn
cascade...

fungus or just... lungs... devoid of a body?

my god: the kids are going after the grammar
that has already absolved them...
knitting mosquitos and lambasting
gherkins' worth of would-be:
pickled cucumbers...

that herring tartar... with dill and juices...
that baltic sushi never to arrive
at the cusp of the Caspian sea...
Molotov shots;
the Russians will always bring glasses
and ***** with them...
because... they somehow can...

- and that's because...
sheryl crow's debut album wasn't
alanaise morissette's...
but never makes the cards of a...
poker-match-up to better not earn
money if all that money is a gambler's
Eden...

- there are better ways to get away with
cooking an egg...
there's this entire myth of...
no poultry sushi...
mein gott! how the meat agrees with
abortions...
you can undercook beef,
you can undercook pork...
but when there are poultry standards...
they're just as risk-aversive as when...
a soft-boiled egg is required...
same with meat...

this direct translation of the atomised meat
in an egg white...
how it needs to coagulate to pristine juice
and all that perfect *******...
and... ****** via the runny yoke...
because i believe there's a puritanical
aspect of all life in general...
when hard-ons are sold
within the quarantine confines
of a viagara episode of: ***** into a hard-on...

chuckles and whittle charlie chaser says:
no man was ever ***** into a hard-on...
no?!
when charlie met chuckles and chuckie
and charles...
it must be a russian "thing"...
they have them... and hide them better...
there's nothing to hide in english...
just bad grammar and trans-grammar....

i.e. чa-чa-чa
            believe me... they managed to fold...
hide the caron in that alice through the looking-glass
of greek mu: μ - or (h)atches open!
how about hiding...  (letovers: č              č
the caron, in russian?          č č             č č         č)
or the H and the Z in english and polish
respective - whole - attached to the S?

epsilon lying back... the toil
of Sysiphus is a bore: шit...
****... and... шarp...
and... mateuш...
    
maybe people... or so we at least,
have inkling to hope to be receptive of...

щ: twice the hiding caron...
it's not that the russians don't use diacritical
markers - they just hide them differently...
the self-exposed vowels...
last of the reminders...
because there's the carpenter's obligation
to chisel a Y into an I...
or at least a J...

to add this currency of momentum is...
to... leave without a memory spare...
whipped along the trail via
a maine ****'s finicky worship of
air that will never translate itself
as being: breathed...

and yes: i drink... i drink to relax
my lexicon from the everyday strict: rules
and obligation of formal mr and mrs
and what doesn't fit into
a metaphor tuxedo...

over-cook pasta: we'll never talk again...
over-cook beef or pork: ditto...

it's an art to treat cooking poultry meat
with a quasi seafood status of scallops...
to curate a soft-boiled egg -
not quiet the abortion portioned
within the confines of a lost shell when
thrown into the dead-bath of
a lobster's litany when the neither alive
nor dead is cooked...

some bloos is necessary when it comes
to either beef or pork...
but you can't just have undercooked
poultry...
the grounded clipped wing marshall:
the decency of cooking poultry has
to be equated with cooking
a soft-boiled egg...

otherwise the common saying:
one apple a day... keeps the doctor away...
well...
one poem a day... keeps the psychiatrist away...
no? who are the circus freaks
the pseudos and the quasis of what...
has to be compensated by mr. rather dr.
surgeons and... the better half of whatever
becomes the butchering degree:
a degree in: what's not to be eaten...
but what has to be left intact
and reused?

less the homosexual yet still la la land...
not quiet cuck...
but still... every time i visited...
and never managed to peer at
the sort of first-person doom shooter experience
that otherwise third party sources would
allow me when...
the best fallatio is done in third-person...
talk about having someone to sit
on your face like...
never the literal metaphor translation
of ****** acts...
face-grubber from alien and...
performing oral *** on a woman...
no... none of it is true!
******* and winding archaic clocks...

some would even call it electricity should
it come from a burning candle!
Andrew Rueter Nov 2017
I don't live here
I'm only camping
On this planet
I didn't plan it
Yet I feel the need to explain it
As the plaintiff
To the sheriff
Imposing tariffs

Money is their concern
While my emotions burn
They are somewhat surviving
At the price of dying
That's the cost of lying
It makes us stop trying
Only commodity buying
While silently sighing
And violently frying
Through fruitless searches
No matter what we purchase
Or how much we spend
The gripping grief never ends
When there are no hands to lend

There are no problems with these items
When we willingly refuse to sight them
They are from where our problems erupt
For we neglectfully allow them to disrupt
The connections that our hearts yearn for
And our wallets burn for
When we spend our emotions on inanimate objects
To avoid the intangible subject
Of love

We're frightened of phantoms
A life heightened by tandem
Is not in the cards
We buy for each other
They don't begin to cover
The way we feel
They are a shield
For our true emotions
Objects can't evoke one
Yet that's our language for expression
Consumerism acts as our lethal injection
I shouldn’t be drinking coffee.
I shouldn’t be reading the news.
It makes me anxious, and it’s not only the chemical interaction.
Somehow, I associate it with “adulthood”—reading the news,
Drinking coffee—I can’t tell you how many days of the last few
Years have been spent entirely in this fashion. The coffee
Growing cold and the news colder still. I don’t even taste the
black, fluid drops. I don’t hear the screams of people I read
about. I just want to hold on to something—so I raise the glass
to my lips. I can’t say

the shocking words when my mouth’s full; I can’t tell

about my experience, my privilege, when I’m drinking it.


The production of the commodity

creates a line from some equatorial region
to central America, and my mouth.
I think about the Autumn I worked in a corn-seed
sorting facility. What a short experience—
and yet,
something that weighs heavy on my imagination.
I was a temp worker.
I chose to work there out of shame and guilt for having
missed the deadline for college enrollment.
I could have done anything else; but there were people
there who wanted nothing more than a job. They needed
to be
there.
And I think of the people involved in producing coffee beans

in much the same way.
Removed
from the thing they’re making, as the raw materials are shipped
to places you pay workers more.
Why shouldn’t I swallow with difficulty when faced with the pro-
spect of a person supporting their entire family with the type
of work
I did
reflexively, as a choice?

Now I sit here, reading about North African riots,
a region, where coffee is produced—
ARABICA COFFEE— and I think about what’s sitting
in my cup, how I have
spent more money than they make in a day
to buy
one container

and sit here
for an afternoon
doing nothing but reading about their families’ misery.

I am a human parasite.

And like the bedbugs that have crawled meticulously
between my mattress and bedframe, hiding in a safe spot
until they can come out, undetected, and **** my potency.

I sit here, in the comfort of an apartment furnished
and paid for by my father who grows corn in a highly-
mechanized, agricultural society. I take more and more,
festering to the size of a blistering, red dot
blinking in the dark, in the form of the record light on
my voice recorder.
I expect so much more from myself, simply because of
this position of luxury.

But I don’t take time to think about my reaction to these
stories or how I am involved in them, in shaping their plots.
I’m even eating more now
as I’ve nearly lost my concern with avoiding certain super-
markets.
I smile at the greeters, make small talk with the cashiers
whom I am openly exploiting. But it’s ok, because
I worked for a month at a cornseed manufacturing
facility
and I read Marxist Ideology,
and I know about the Arab Spring
and I was against American intervention in Libya
and I disdain the air strikes from robotic planes
(unauthorized by congress)
and I disdain congress
and I support gay marriage
(I stopped eating chicken).
I don’t drive to the suburbs of my city.
I walk and ride my bicycle as much as I feel like.
I use public transportation at times.
I try to get to know women.
I practiced safe ***, once.
I write poetry.
I tell my mom I love her.
I bought my nieces birthday presents.
I’m not overly nice to people of different
ethnicities.
I voted for Obama.
I’m trying.
All these things make it seem less bad
to smile at the cashier.
But then I think about my black studies Professor
who used a walker to come to class
because she fell
and spelled the word Amendment “Admendment”
on the board when talking about Reconstruction.
I think about the war in Syria.
I think of people dying from cholera in Haiti, in 2012
A.D.
I think about fracking and oil spills and …
irrevocable damage to Indian reservations.
I think about football coaches molesting children
and people eating fried butter.
I read about people
upset
with a movie
who protest in the streets for days.

It makes me realize I shouldn’t smile at anyone.
I shouldn’t be drinking coffee.
I shouldn’t be reading the news.
I love you
Three words that don't tell it how it is
I more than love you
I want you,
Need you,
Have you,
Feel you,
Miss you,
Fear you,
See you,
Hear you,
Kiss you,
Adore you,
Taste you,
Breathe you,
I more than love you
I worship you
As my friend
As my lover
As the ruler of my heart
You are all good things
Yet you're like no other
I would kiss the ground
Your feet have walked on
Then I'd kiss them too
Not to prove I'm worthy
Just because I enjoy the sensations
Of trying new things with you

Time with you is a commodity
Much easier to part with
I spend it frivolously
Purely for enjoyment
We live for memories
Sleep for dreams
I sleep to wake up next to you
One thing I always look forward to
Is softly kissing your back
From top to bottom
Then bottom to top
As though I am your wake up call
Your human alarm clock
"Rise and shine gorgeous,
it's already ten o'clock"


I want you to know
You are priceless
Beyond value
Beyond worldly things
Invaluable to my happiness
And
Detrimental to the pain
I more than love you
Unfinished
"Love is a fragile commodity. It gets broken even with the right buyer or owner. Imagine how shattered love is with the wrong buyer or owner.
DISASTER!"

— The End —