(not a poem i guess but eh)


–

Space keeps falling to the sides. I try to concentrate, - I mean, I make a token effort every now and again,- but concentration, fixation is always in terms of something external, something I'm not sure I can deal with.  I roll over and go back to sleep.

–

'Where's the flour?'
'Where you left it.'
'Which is where?'
'On the table. What you want it for anyway?'
'Which table?'
'Haha. The generic maple with the ugly-*** spandrels. What are you making?'
'You think we could afford that? Nah, it's like, faux-pine or some ****. And like muffins.'
'Oh good, there's banan's that need using up'
'No no, like, other muffins. Crumpets and such. Got any golden syrup?'
'I think there's some maple.'
'No, it's like, ply, I swear.'

–

I haven't moved in days. I need to. He'll come eventually and I don't want him to see me like this. Plus, I need to locate that smell. I can't have guests over with it here. I'm just not sure where it is though. I  feel like it's on my left arm when I’m in the middle of the room, but off to the right everywhere else. It's.. acerbic, but fermenting, like vegetables on the onset of rot but not quite there yet. Not that I know; I haven't moved in days. I don't want to smell it again. Also garlic, definitely garlic.

–

We visited the inland sea the other day. The hundred years since last time hadn't changed it one bit. The beached clay was brittle under the midday sun, and the cracking footsteps fragmented it into a hundred hexagons.
               'I hear a strain of the pathogen is airborne. It's only a matter of time now'
A group of tourists park up by the shore. A child holds out their arms and runs in small circles.

–

The corridor keeps flashing. And maybe spinning. It's hard to tell, the colour change starts at a different point each time and there's no discernible rhythm to it. You keep pacing up and down. I feel self conscious that you want to leave, but then again, you did show up unannounced. You shake the snowglobe disinterestedly. The fragments burn like molten static.
'Stop that. I feel like I’m vomiting spiders.'
'You're being dramatic.'
'None the less.'
'Don't worry; you'll get through it. The world is transitioning, and this is just motion sickness.'
'I know that, I didn't say I was worried, I said I wanted it to stop.'

'sorry'

–

We'd always go for a walk at night if we felt we needed to talk. It was an unwritten rule. The veil of amber filter let our more timid thoughts breath in the nebulous darkness. Stark daylight was always too suffocatingly real, and that was the one thing we were never allowed to be; real. You'd always talk superficially if we discussed personal matters. That day you did a one-third spin clockwise and faced my side, and talked grandeloquently, hammed up like on a stage. You gave an embarrassed smile and blew a kiss for the invisible audience. I always felt jealous of those nothings, those non-existent beings, that got to figure into your world.

–

'Christ it's warm today. I can't think.'
'so don't bother.'
I spin in the chair. Whooosh. Whooosh.

–

It's the end of a 6 hour shift. A customer, a mother in her odd thirties, was angry that a sale item was out of stock, like sale items always are: She'd only gone out of her way to shop at this store because of the advertised deal, and we had taken time out of her busy schedule under false pretence. Her child stared at the ground intensely, his eyes watering. I tried to imagine the situation through his eyes, to try and ground myself; to remain both present, but stable. She insisted on speaking to the manager. It's a relief really; He's a skeevy ****, but he at least knows when the customers are just there to start ****, and responds accordingly. He comes over, asks what the problem is. It turns out I entered the code wrong and the item was still available after all. He gets one from out the back, handles the transaction, says have a nice day and apologises for me and everything, and I just stand there blankly; I’d had the graveyard shift the night before and honestly I’m beyond feeling right now, but when she mutters 'dumb *****' as she turns away a tight feeling still twists in my gut anyway.
I come home and leave the door hanging open framed in the setting sun and just drop my bags in the hallway. You're in the kitchen, hunched over a workbench eating out of a mug.
'Whatcha having?'
'Cornflakes.'
'….Cornflakes?'
'Yep.' you pivot as I approach. 'corn..flakes.' you hold out the packet.
'coooornfllllakkkkkkkeeeessssss' I start laughing.
'coooornfllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakes'
we chorus the term in groaning monotone, and I grab the packet out your hand and throw it down and violently stomp it into the ground with every non-energy I have left. You just laugh and egg me on, repeating 'cornflakes! Cornflakes!' in crescendo, ostinato. The satisfaction of each crunch gives me the drive to smash them further, and corn dust spills out of the pulverised cardboard and gets everywhere. In the end I’m panting, my face is a mess of tears, and I collapse over onto it and just roll, bathing in the glorious fragments of reconstituted mulch.

–

'They say another ice age is coming.'
'They also say we'll be swallowed by the sun'
'well, it's true.'
'Yeah, but which'll happen first? I need to know to dress accordingly.'
'Tunnel's up ahead'
'I know, I see it.'
I deliberately swerve to the side and speed up, changing back at the last moment.
'You know I hate it when you do that.'
'What, don't you wanna die together with me? Here and now? Immortalised, as if our existences actually meant something?'
'like Diana and the nameless chauffeur?'
'******* exactly.'
We step out onto the hill, frozen **** tufts breaking underfoot. It's cold as hell but the skies glittering. You get out the telescope you borrowed off your rich *** sister.
'I think that's Jupiter over there.'
'Pfft, Jupiter.'
'What?'
'What's the blankest space you can find?'
'Hmm.. that way?'
You point it in that direction. 'Look'
I stare into it, but it's hard to keep focus while shaking from the cold. You keep adjusting and asking ,’See anything?', eventually some hazy distortion comes into view.
'See, no matter where you look, there's always something there.' You're trying to sound eloquent. 'Even when it seems like you're drowning in nothing.'
I stand back. 'That's terrifying. I feel sick.' I try to breathe but it's shaky and shallow. I stare into the ground, but I can still feel it; the blaze of the myriad innumerable heavens burn into me. Their judging gaze pierces through me and tears me to shreds.  

–

'You know, I think I read that Spinoza thought that consciousness is manifest in the ability of finite beings to continue persisting in and of their own will over time.'
'Doesn't that make a toaster more conscious than us?'
'Yeah, you don't say.'

–

We were twelve and at the department store. It was strange. I'd never taken the bus by myself to just hang out in town before. I always feel disorientated and light-headed in crowds so it had a strangeness; waves of apprehension cushioned by the homogeneity of it. one can be truly alone in a crowd; floating in a sea of otherness, where each gaze is no longer a signification of anything, but a warm static. We were among the aisles of a department store, in the toys and tacky house ornament section. Like, the junk you buy children and grandparents for their birthday. **** that you'd only attribute to people whom have no discernible qualities of their own. We were looking at snow globes. We kept trying to shake them violently enough so that the scene framed within would become entirely lost to the fog; it always felt so disappointing when clarity returned and things re-became what they were. I remember saying, 'I wonder if it tastes like real snow', I don't remember, It was stupid, I don't know why I said it, it sounded cool in my head. But you responded, that I remember, by taking the thing and smashing it against the concrete floor, and pouring out all the fragments into our hands. We tried them together and coughed and choked in laugher. It tasted awful, entirely unsurprisingly. On a rush you stuck one in your pocket, grabbed my hand, and we promptly left the store, and my heart was palpitating, it felt like all the rules, all the natural laws that had prefigured my world were crumbling, and I was terrified, trapped in the gaze of my mothers look of disappointment when we'd be inevitably caught, somehow watching me from its potential future, and I'd no longer be allowed to visit you but it was okay because I was here with you now in this moment and we were alone in this faceless mechanical place crumbling around us, and when we left, and no sirens buzzed, I felt sick with excitement at the unbounded possibility present in everything in every second. I cringe thinking back on it, and feel ashamed at finding such meaning, feeling such unabashed wholesale virtue in indiscriminate destruction, but sometimes, sometimes I still shake that snowglobe as hard as I can, till everything determinate is lost in haze, and I still feel a wave of comfort wash over me.

–

‘We’ve been walking for ages. you know where we’re going, right?’
‘It’s just up ahead. I swear’
‘You swear?’

‘I mean, I’ve only been there once before myself.’
‘****. This way?’
‘Wait-‘
‘What?’
‘Huh. Nothing. Sorry, I thought I heard a car coming.’
…
…
‘I think that’s the ocean?’
‘But.. aren’t we heading inland?’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I swear.’

–

We're in your room. Your reading on your bed and I'm in the swivelly chair by the desk, pretending to work, but really we're just chatting, talking about.. something. Whatever. It was probably stupid, laughing at our own jokes, as always, catchphrases repeated till they loose all meaning. It's been a long day and honestly we're both too tired for coherence by this point, but the lack of effort lends the air an easy comfortability. But then suddenly.. Suddenly you stare into my eyes as if you're looking at me and it's somehow different, an intense gaze that I can't escape, as if you somehow found something located there, something fixed in those abyssal pupils. The feeling is overwhelming and terrifying. I am grounded, ripped into the prison of being and frozen static like a dumb animal transfixed in headlights: I am outside myself facing in, and I’m falling away. I pull you in and kiss you to escape; now, it is your touch that is fixed, your smell, your taste, and I breath a sigh of reprieve. You hold my back as I fall into you. I lace my fingers through the buttons in your shirt and feel the faint pulse of your flickering heartbeat. At once an ever-changing epiphenomena, and a calming rhythmic certainty. I vacantly tug at the buttons and your expression changes, gone is the feeling of suffocating questioning, but one of transfixed observation. Your touch is not a reaching out into something, but a continuation of yourself; I am an instrument of your lust, an extension. Holding me in your arm, you nervously run your hand down from my nape and trace my bra from the strap over the line of my breast. The lightness of your touch is a painful tickling and I push myself into you further, my thighs wrapping around yours. Your touch shoots a burning into me, not painful, but like glowing kindling, or the warmth of a blanket; an immanence, a retreat. I let my mind go blank and we continue; you fumble with my bra as I fumble with your belt. We're both shaking but too far gone to notice, too distant to care. The dry freeze of the night air contrasts your damp heat. You clasp me as you trace your hand under my skirt and I feel your arm brush my thigh. I tremble slightly at the sharp coldness of the damp cotton coming unstuck. After a stretching moment of awkward liminality, I feel you pass into me. It's a burning smoothness, distilled liquor. The rubber is an alien feeling, and for some reason I imagine myself as a giant balloon; a malleable featureless surface, filled with emptiness. I feel myself through the threshold of your presence and I am afraid; I am a boundary which encompasses nothing, and by your passing through I fear that I will be pierced; I will burst and out will flow an obsidian wind that will wither you to nothing, but it will keep coming, an endless torrent that will subsume the world and turn everything to desert, and the only way to save you is to keep it bound up as tight as I possibly can till my heart feels like burning metal, and I feel my tears land on my hand tightly clasping your shoulder. You ask through wavering breaths if I want to stop, but I shake my head; if you left now I would be caught and torn open; no, instead I subsume your undulations into myself; till the rhythm is as oceanic noise; a surface rolling located miles above a lightless motionless centre.

–

The pale green lamplight flickers. A nausea, tepid, but understated. The sentience of moss; an almost motionless drone, but the sense of unfolding. The corridor seems larger than it once was. Blank reflections harrowing accusations, mechanically indifferent but piercing; an alarm clocks wail. I lie still, I lie still. The buzzing repeats. I lie still. I am flowing, seeping through floorboards into the pores of the earth, into colonies of worms and I am lost and free, a motion, a multiplicity, pure form without the anxious drudgery of parts; pure alimentary canal, pure Elysium absolution. The flickering quickens and gets brighter. A pulsating light, a strobe, a beat frequency wavering behind vision. The liquid earth, saturated by light, hardens and dissolves. And 'I' am lost among the ruins, a vague memory of a sentiment. A nostalgic grief, an asphyxiated longing. I reach out to you desperately in the drag of the undertow, but you are the chalk of faded bones; cast to the winds centuries prior. A thousand years pass of blanket darkness, and a unitary bell rings. The flotsam batters against the temple gates. Debris collects in cracks, and my pieces are among them. I cling to retention, and return. I am cold sweat outlining the floorboards, the feeling of clenching before vomiting, repeated endlessly.

–

A few weeks after, turning off an avenue onto the main road, I see you. You're crossing, coming this way. It was bound to happen eventually. I bite back the moisture forming in my eyes and try to remain faceless. You suddenly change your trajectory, and hit the side of a car. It honks at you and you dodge around it. I allow a bitter smile to myself; the fact I can cause you such disorientating discomfit indicates I still mean something to you. Even if it's just a discomforting anxiousness, something beyond the boundary to be avoided, I have causal powers, extension; I can see my flicker of presence in you even now, even if I cannot for the life of me find it within myself. You run around and I walk straight. It's empowering; I can remain fixed, even if the torrent of the world flows around me. At that moment, I feel the indubitable strength to persevere. I am stronger than this world; I am stronger than you. But then, just as suddenly, the feeling folds upon itself and is gone. I felt solidified, just now, by the fact that I was the one that remained in this random encounter. I won, you lost. but Won how? With the ability to pretend that I can exist alone, in a world that means nothing to me? The ability to maintain a solid spectral façade, when underneath, scratching away under the skin, I contain nothing? To continue terrifies me. Knowing that I have the strength to continue terrifies me. That last thing I ever intended was to outlive you. I feel the world drain away from me, and yet I remain, left standing, alone, in a of realm of perpetual nothing.  

–

I feel sick

a hundred years pass in the cavity of the desert. Merchants make trade off raided materials and makeshift weapons. A library is burned. A soldier, wanders freely. An insect buzzes around his face. He darts about the place in annoyance, but it remains. He can't shake it. He closes his eyes. It's still there

I feel sick

the sun burns bright arrhythmic  clicking.  A late twenties couple go clothes shopping, however the child is hungry and will have none of it. Lunch is suggested. They are jocular about the decision, but feel an uneasiness about the indulgence. The air is saturated and dries

JANUARY
Delightful display
Snowdrops bowing pure white heads
To the sun’s glory.

FEBRUARY
Fresh green buds appear
Indicating spring will soon
Energise us all.

MARCH
Lambs gambol in fields
Frisky with the joys of life
Bleating happily.

APRIL
Bluebells stand so proud
Beneath trees now sparsely dressed
Fresh green leaves unfold.

MAY
Much awaited sound
Echoes heard amid dense trees
Cuckoo has arrived.

JUNE
Parks and gardens burst
With sounds and vibrant colours
Perfect harmony.

JULY
Beaches become full
Of families having fun
In sand and big waves.

AUGUST
Ripe golden harvest
Burning sun in azure skies
Labours rewarded.

SEPTEMBER
Swallows congregate
On telephone wires ready
To migrate down south.

OCTOBER
Red and gold leaves fall,
Crunchy as cornflakes beneath
Feet on a crisp morn.

NOVEMBER
Frosty webs sparkle
In the early morning sun
Brightly bejewelled.

DECEMBER
First few flakes of snow
Dust gardens like icing on
A chocolate cake.

I'm running low on cornflakes
Their box lies on its side
And huddled in the corner
The surviving flakes abide
There used to be a multitude
My bowl was seldom bare
I wasn't even hungry
But I ate without a care
A few fell on the worktop
I just brushed them to the floor
Breakfast seemed so fancy free
There was always plenty more
But now there's just a single bowl
Until my bank is bust
And about a third of what remains
Is crunchy bits and dust

He used to call me
cornflakes
not because of the way
my body
crumbled in his mouth
but rather
for my
inconsistancies

I spend my nights getting drunk
on whispers that ring
the promises of tomorrow
and days counting
cornflakes in my milk like
birthday candles that never melt.

but whether
the sun is rising
or the silver moon ascends
you’re the caffeine
that trickles through
my veins.

I laughed in places
   Where Laughter was not asked for,
     In granite market towns
       Beneath refugee palm trees shivering.
                                    

Running from giant hands
That were covered in car wash fluids,
   The back of children's heads imprinted
     On their palms.

I laughed during disciplinary procedures,
  Before authority figures
    With cornflakes in their red beards
       And my laughter crept over the edges of their flowerbeds
         And the grass laughed with me.

I laughed at funerals,
The sounds of horses beyond the churchyard
   And a messenger ran down the aisle
    panting and exhausted,
     He had a message for my laughter
      ' Quick you must come at once'.

I laughed during marital feuds,
Laughter rising out of its own body
  above broken guitars and dried up bonsai,
   Above all the things I said
    That contradict me now.

I laughed during serious films,
The tulips drooping on top of the T.V.
   The sun slumped against the door,
     Behind heavy curtains
        I mistook for pigs on hooks.

I laughed over exercise books,
Above algebra and history
  Behind impossible bra straps
    That appeared out of acne and ink flicked backs.

I laughed at the swimming pool
Hiding birthmarks like stains,
  Drowning above the water saying
   'I am a fish I must get back in!'.

I laughed in surgeries among migraines
and told my mother that robots were taking over,
  in the same rooms where they removed my brothers' verucas
   And I saw the doctors small blade
     escape through the window.

I laughed during friends confessions,
In between the silences of repeated songs
  While pantomime dames walked past windows
     make-up running in black and yellow rain.

I'm laughing while making coffee in a campervan,
I'm laughing because its a monday morning,
  Because everyone else is busy,
   Because we have an oil lamp from a pound-shop
    Burning beneath the sound of rain on the roof,
     Because the radio's silent…..

And because sausages are best done slowly.

I need a shift,a move,a lift to lift me out of this,to raise my consciousness and unless I get it and get it quick,I'm going sick,I'm sick of it,it's a crock,a lock me in,a shut me down and shut me up,strap me tight and ***** the night,***** the day and that's the way of it.

I need a lift,need to bridge the rift that's opened up inside of me,the chasm that threatens to swallow up and hide me,
I need a lift.

Failing that
I'm heading back upcountry,leaving all and sundry in my wake,breaking ties,leaving lies as hostages against my non return.

In the heartland where I roam where my solace is a home and where Satyrs sit and sing I shall bring myself to book,take one hard critical look, and then decide if I'll hide in gaping chasms,swallowing in spasms whilst licking tics and twitches from my eyes,or I might surprise you all.
I may take the vow of chastity,live my life in poverty,flagellate in privacy but what the hell,I may just stay and wait to see
what happens
next.

a few songs can capture the modern sense of urbanity, and the
apocalyptic 5 a.m. of London - but i've become estranged from
that sort of neon addiction - there's no syringe involved,
no amateur photographers on the ready, either -
yes, a man of great love, but also of great contempt:
and that goes hand in hand.
the favourite memory of my first year at Edinburgh?
eating haggis neeps and tatties at the ***** ****'s
pub on the royal mile - followed by shots of whiskey -
in my student accommodation,
placing the amp on the windowsill, the window open,
and just jamming out far removed Nirvana solos
with a few spectators: modern day equivalent:
of mad max flamethrower guitar freak -
losing my virginity to Isabella: psychology 3rd year
exchange student - from Grenoble - France,
yep, not the ******* Himalayas - the Alps...
the lacrosse initiation ceremony in lycra shorts:
back then i'd be a stumbling buffoon after a bottle
of whiskey... these days? well, usually a closing
poem at 5 a.m. - minding the cats to come home
after spending it out in the cool on a sultry night -
i wasn't serious about the lacrosse -
jeez: the meat in this place is stuffing me -
get out before they tell you to buy your own gear:
team or group mentality? never got it -
soloist pronto - pronto andante - chirpier that way,
getting the whiff of the bubbly without stand-up:
imagine a sit-down comedian... hard to imagine.
the gym... oh **** me the gym...
you know, i knew a guy in first year that only managed
to cook up plain pasta, with salt... plain pasta
with salt... another guy ate spaghetti with
tomato sauce all year round... in the last week he
added meat to the mix... not trying to brag:
i'm even going to mention what i cooked -
                    i was living with horror seeing these
boys adapt to: mommy not here, mommy out to lunch...
daddy not here, daddy out to crunch out the income...
well... apart from the rich puppies who chose
catering accommodation, turning university
into a school with a pristine canteen - canned teens -
just as much - so if i wrote cantine you'd say:
canned thyme? how the hell does that work:
i abuse language, language doesn't abuse me -
i don't need cushions surround words like
()()()()()****()()()()() - better? much better -
hush the angry words out! use the sterilisers -
maybe that's why i never experienced anything bad
using the internet - honesty and bluntness -
maybe i shouldn't have said that. or that's just lucky.
princess and the pea and the 100 mattresses
and a fickle *** - ah itchy! it's pinching! it's pinching!
100 mattresses and still the ****** pea.
then again, staying up all night, then deciding to
climb Arthur's Seat at dawn, getting there, then
climbing down and going to Tesco at 7 a.m. to buy
cornflakes and full fat milk... that was something;
but you know what i'm really thinking about?
it's no longer a maxim, it's a cliche -
               but i'm thinking about it in mathematical
terms -                                from the verb
                           on one side, to the posit or inertia
on the other - there's no grammatical version of what
really becomes a pentagon with five attachment points
primarily - a cul de sac of facts -
                                                            but­ mingling with
grammatical categorisation nonetheless -
          but what i'm thinking about it how to make it
simpler, to use mathematical notation:
i.e.
               i think is an expression
                                       worthy of about 1 centimetre,
  given that thought is a marathon -
                   but i'll just say: could it be anything but
  so differentiated increment divisibility to
              thus provide a sigma? although the expression
is hardly an ad continuum - at some point you
stop thinking, hence to differentiate i think is assuredly
a way to say: well, not constantly - meaning thought
   is not a continuum - and can be talked about in the
same was as talk of god: that's where i place the prime
of ethical action - it's not god... i don't ascribe ethical
action in that direction: just too easy, whatnot with hell
and heaven and goody two shoes waiting for the
big spark of magic or applause and the heckler: well done!
god, dry humour is the best - sarcasm is dry humour -
satire is wet humour... and other than that?
               slapstick, nothing too witty, i hate witty comedy,
they always need canned laughter:
at least slapstick humour makes the effort for you too
make an effort... and it sometimes hurts, so it's real,
when you start flexing that abdomen and get a six smiley
faces on the torso.                anyway,
              looking at my **** it really dawned on me:
  (by the way, Descartes wasn't really out to prove he existed,
   someone thought he did, he was trying to work out a
proof for something that someone else would pick up
   and elaborate)             i think is but a centimetre
                              compared to the marathon of thought -
(sizes in this scenario is perfectly compatible) -
          meaning that               i am          (italics?
emphasis on these to expressions being unitary) is but
                 another centimetre compared to the marathon
   of being                                    or the Antarctic expedition
                      of non-being: i.e. not necessarily
   assembling: what if i wasn't here... but more like:
              what if i did something differently -
again, flea market questions -                        why bother?
    come to think of it: the former unit is more simpler
to encompass - although i agree that the former translates
into the latter: thinking proves i exist,
                            because ex omni instances
         (out of all), there's an equal compatible expression
of mutual exclusiveness: thinking - the two together are
juxtaposed to be allowed a kind relativism -
      but whereas the latter (i am) unit is not only plagued
by the nearest pentagonal absorption via the senses,
but also a definite article / articulation of so many posits
of expression: multiplex verb -
                  the former (i think) unit isn't:
a. plagued by the pentagonal... blah blah blah...
             but rather by a mandala of faculties:
   imagining things, remembering things, dreaming things,
               maybe i shouldn't have said that?
   who knows -
                             the basic thought was
about:           i think is but a centimetre compared
                               to a marathon of thought - a minor fact -
   i am is but a centimetre compared to a marathon of being -
     and to be honest: very few people would take
courage in understanding this glib in the sigma of all things -
imagine football hooligans equipped with this potential...
i can't: i was watching the Everton v. Sunderland today,
and all i could hear was the chant: YANNICK BOLAISE!
            YANNICK BOLAISE! YANNICK BOLAISE!
yes, this kind of writing is a paper mâché -
or a vegetarian starter - but, you know, if you don't
try something new, you'll definitely win a Pulitzer Prize...
  if you don't like it? chop chop, on you go.
i know Descartes wasn't wrong, and i know that
cogito ergo sum wasn't intended to prove anything -
but it did prove a founding block for existentialism,
that's where all existentialists take a **** - Descartes
is the dump where Sartre wrote his being & nothingness,
and Heidegger his being & time...
                        well, key ingredient in someone writing
a sophisticated aversion to time: space, would probably
write something about sitting next to someone on a tube
and writing about sardines and livestock -
                           humanity as a virus, etc. etc.,
   compared with someone writing and thinking out
a statement of: well, isn't this marvellous - so far apart
and clean, and solitary and chuckles.
    i just wanted to use the mathematical comparison,
deviating from the pivot                   therefore     -
   away from each of the unit's verbs and adjective attachments -
  i just wanted to stress that each respective facts,
  are but a centimetre of expression,
   compared with what each evolves into - a marathon
on either side - perhaps it's because that's a necessary building
block to something greater: i can't complain that being
aware of this fact is a hindering beginning -
       i'm not saying that being aware of this maxim is
somehow going to improve your contentment with life -
    geometrically it's not like
                                                      horizo­ntal left to right -
more like vertical left to left-up and right to right-up
             and never therefore - for a reason,
consequently... but rather in parallelism -
                   for no reason whatsoever -
                                              contra-sequential­ly;
unless you know a Queen of Sweden, i don't see how
thinking precipitates into being that might you
leave you satisfied - and let's not a put a ****** on it
either: how many thoughts about killing someone
end up being jokes with a friend late at night?

Hey Skinny Kid
one legged Anne said
have you ever seen
a *******?

no
you said
thinking it
some kind

of fish
she nibbled
at her scrambled egg
on toast

at the table
in the children's
nursing home
you mouthed

Cornflakes and milk
Anne was next to you
eyeing
the nursing nun nearby

would you like
to see a *******?
Anne asked
in whispered voice

thinking it
some rare find
you said
yes ok

where will I see it?
the beach?
she almost choked
on her scrambled egg

are you all right Anne?
the nun asked
coming over
her black and white habit

swishing as she walked
yes
Anne said
egg went down

the wrong way
well be careful
the nun said
and walked off again

yes the beach
if you like
Anne whispered
trying to keep

a straight face
but you're sure
you've not seen one?
you nodded your head

not that I know of
you said
have you asked Sister Bridget?
you added

giving the nun
a look
o yes she's seen one
Anne said

straining the muscles
in her face
did she say so?
you said

o I know she has
Anne said
you mouthed
more Cornflakes

and milk
little Miss Sad
sat nibbling
at her toast

her tiny fingers
holding hard
the other kids eating
their breakfasts

the morning sunshine
shining through
the windows
after we've finished

I'll show you
Anne said
show him what?
Malcolm asked

who was sitting
on Anne's other side
never you mind prat face
Anne said

only special people
can this see
what I'm showing
Skinny Kid

then I'll tell Sister Bridget
Malcolm said
kiss my backside
and drop dead

Anne replied
Sister Bridget
Anne swore at me
Malcolm said

the nun shook her head
and said
Anne it's a sin to swear
God is listening

you know
and so you sat
and wondered
if you'd ever see

what it was
one legged Anne
was going
to show.

Did someone scatter cornflakes
All over the ground?
Or some kind of cereal
With a crunchy sound?

When walking on the grass
There's a snap, crackle, and pop,
The dry summer's drought
Just doesn't seem to stop.

Lawns all around
Look about the same,
All turning brown
While waiting for the rain.

August 21, 1993

Sunflower cereal;
trickled clumps
cast into demi-
dune sacrificial,
China region
size cup cusp,
awaiting
the
cantankerous
gulps of pearl
globules seeped
through crinkle
cut skin petals
to sounds like
wet paper pulp
mulch peeling
in a bake sizzle.

some would call it a profanity - from the islands of northern Europe i liked the Scots the most, in my first year at Edinburgh Scottish weather played a joke, i don't remember a single gloomy day - i do remember not sleeping one night, and trekking up Arthur's Seat to watch the sunrise, then climbing down, buying Kellogg's cornflakes and full-fat milk and eating them - that magic moment just between daytime fully sets in - it's so fresh, a reality proof, just before the mundane job applicants get up, you get a sense of what's truly taken for granted in society - it only lasts for a few minutes - before the commuters' nagging sets in, and everything fresh (awaiting the new dawn) becomes custard thick - sticky, sickly honey glue pungent... anyway... i'm making a grand profanity at the moment: tier 1 - whiskey and ice, tier oblivion - whiskey and coca cola... but what i'm drinking is like a virus immune to antibiotics, no amount of citrus barley caramel can mask the smoked salmon with a tinge of variously fruity accents can mask it... Glen Moray, single malt, an Elgin Classic - it is a profanity, i agree - i should drink whiskey like mulled wine - but i'm in a hurry for a mindset, and i'm not bothered that much about passing down aesthetics - my palette says otherwise. yeah, my love for Scotland came from climbing up a ladder in the English hierarchy at school - everyone wanted to be taught by Mr. Thomas Boonce - aged 15 went into B1 (or however they noted the selection process) - aged 16 on top of my game, A1 class - a blazing comet trail of ambition, shared the same desk with my enemy shoulder-to-shoulder, the one who promised me a south american plant would give me grand hallucinations, ****** the mother of my ******* son and wa-lah! elephant trunk pulled from a top hat playing jazz - that Jesus bit about loving your enemies? esp. if they're your childhood friends and are **** crazy? you don't love them, your heart turns to stone and it says skipping on lake: what a shame... so much potential in him wasted on jealousy, the way he trusted a woman that is now on some sort of psychiatric medication... i can't love enemies, what i can do is feel sorry for a waste of human potential... (knock on chest)... yep, this ol' ticker is solid stone... and sooner or later it will be added to a mountain i'm constructing in my mind.

thank god for rabbinical literature -
i could pour days over these pages - i literally open a book,
a compilation of entries -
why hasn't anyone noticed the genius of written Hebraic?
i know in the middle east is a wasp nest of harking and
memorable achoo - or quasi (~, literary denotation,
thereabouts, so so, kinda, well, approximate too,
hand gesture in that symbol, good-in-bad-bad-in-good) -
just now i was admiring the fact that Hebraic hides vowels -
truly, they hide them, ingenious buggers -
all the vowels in Hebraic are hidden -
in translation to Latin the Hebrews treat vowels
like post-Latin users of the original S.P.Q.R. alphabet
use diacritical marks - and newspaper Hebraic doesn't
include them in print, only: i suppose in poetry and
rabbinical writings are they exposed -
which stems largely from what is cordoned off -
or rather the fruits of the work of encapsulation -
Latin is slightly biased, no letter is truly encapsulated,
shut-off from another - aye, be, cee, dee, ee, ef, hay'tch (
a distinction), em, en, ***... zed (an exception), ex, you
get the idea - there are no nouns in the post-Latin
alphabet as such - which is why in science Greek letters
were used as constants - these consonant constants
encapsulated not only the phonetic content of a symbol,
but also allowed for an encapsulation of some higher
purpose - e.g. α (angular acceleration) -
β (sound intensity) - γ (gamma rays) - δ (heat in chemistry,
the perfect error, the Laplace operator, etc.) -
ε (set theory, the limit ordinal of the sequence -
    html disapproval to be written as: ω (tier squared ω,
    and one above the squared tier ω, ω root ω double root ω -
    variant alias of this? Hebraic notation of u .
                                                               ­                   .
                                                               ­                      .
     *shurek) - Θ (Debye notation) - θ (potential temp. in
thermal dynamics) - ι (orbital inclination in celestial mechanics) -
κ (curvature) - Λ (lattice) - λ (decay constant in radioactivity) -
μ (micron, SI prefix, one millionth) - ν (a neutrino) -
ξ (a random variable) - π (too obvious, πr squared) -
ρ (correlation coefficient in statistics) - Σ (summation operator) -
σ (area density) - τ (torque) - φ (the golden ratio, 1.618...) -
ψ (the cat in a box, wave function, quantum mechanics) -
ω (the infinite ordinal);
                                         it's precisely because the Greeks to
encapsulate their phonetic symbols that so much stability
was brought up - look how poverty stricken the Latin variations
are - these are not merely letters, they are actually nouns!
you can recite the whole Greek alphabet a bit like going
to a party and being introduced to people: Jim, Charlie,
George, Rosemarie... obviously there are exceptions for
this observation to be bullet-proof (i.e. μ, ν, ξ, π etc.)
but did the scientists mind not using them? no! they kept to
this interpretation that symbols of sound need to be encapsulated -
held together, stable, each symbol needs to be a balancing act -
an ~equal amount of consonants and vowels need to be
invoked when writing either a or α, b or β, g or γ -
there needs to be an invocation of names to these symbols -
not mere ah be c e ef gee... English for its laziness in omitting
diacritical marks did the unspeakable when digital paper came
about - it turned itself into a quasi encryption tongue,
acronym fuelled and in all honestly - self-conscious of its faults
yet basking in them! but the real genius in encoding signs truly
belongs to the Hebraic school...

you find them so coerced by naked pictures,
that their outer resembles no inner -
you find them bound to an idea that the inner can
somehow compensate - but it can't -
the outer as the inner reveals nothing,
no love, merely a **** - the winged-Hussars die
in Ukrainian fertile land, and with the music,
you can only think of the drudgery of walking
through knee-high mud - you can just picture
the Cossack moustaches wedged behind the ears
like earrings - i too would have eaten my tongue that way
had it been permitted - without permission
i spoke of a stake tartar and my tongue into one -
then the mantra came - kametz, tzeré, chirek, kametz,
tzeré, kametz, kametz, tzeré, tzeré, cholem, kametz, kametz,
- i will not be treated like some dumb farmer!
      your Yurt empire is fledgling into the sunset!
  and my heart is enshrined into a bitter toil! it will love
as it pleases! not with you saying what there's to love!
tzeré, shurek, kametz, kametz, tzeré, kametz, cholem, tzeré,
chirek, kametz. what a mantra!
a, e, i, a, e, a, a, e, e, o, a, a, e, u, a, a, e, a, o, e, i, a -
patterns strangre than in a poetic rhyming scheme -
respective incisions into still-life motives of movement -
i.e. if a vowel be my hand, a consonant be a chair i sit on:
kametz of aleph (א), tzeré of bet (ב), chirek of gimel (ג),
kametz of dalet (ד), tzeré of heh (ה), kametz of vav (ו).
kametz of zayin (ז), tzeré of chet (ח), tzeré of tet (ט),
cholem of yod (י), kametz of kaf (ק), kametz of lamed (ל),
tzeré of mem (מ), shurek of nun (נ), kametz of samekh (ס),
kametz of ayin (ע), tzeré of peh (פ), kametz of tzadi (צ),
cholem of kof (ק), tzeré of resh (ר), chirek of shin (ש)... and
finaly the kametz of tav (ת)* - we really like our matchstick
men, don't we? in terms of ancients tongues,
we like our curvatures in modern tongues of Greek
and Latin, don't we?
instilled the names of vowels! kametz (a
                                                 tzeré (e
            chirek (i
                                          cholem (o
                 shurek (u
                                                           pentagon thus far,
    revealed vowels with diacritic interpretation
           kametz, as soured: חָ - tau, vowel as diacritical mark
elsewhere -
                       tzeré - or umlaut below the letter - alternatively:
           וָ qàmetz                   וֵ tzeré
וִ ḥìreq                              וֹ ḥólem                   וּ shùreq
     (c, k, q - make it quick, à, 1st),
                (é - prolong it, to catch a breath, or the first
                      tetragrammaton H),
that's the genius of the encoding though... the omission of
vowels, or vowels as diacritical marks - one shurek (u .
                                                               ­                                   .
                            ­                                                                 ­        .)
among 10 kametz and 7 tzeré - gematria at its purest -
one shurek, 2 chireks and 2 cholems -
a form of encoding deviating from obscure onomatopoeia
and the void and meaninglessness, toward
a sound ushering a word for word, and actions parallel -
but this encapsulation of breath taken and
breath released, as in writing, the speaker does not
suddenly breathe again - but is kept within limit,
a consonant starting point, the zenith of breath or soul
and a return to one body, v A v (e.g.).
but imagines being able to avoid noun insertions -
then Hebrew is very much as modern English -
when modern English ought to utilise diacritical marks
on either vowel or consonant, it does not -
it doesn't have a single sound encoding worthy of a name -
there's no omega, there is only oh -
Hebrews treat their vowels as diacritical marks -
their language is one massive crossword -
how do they even read HBRC? who the hell taught them
when to insert the vowels from following the roots
as stated HBRC toward the tree that's HEBRAIC?
this is ******* bewildering - i don't know how they do it!
what's agonising is their notion that patterns in letters
having numerical values is somehow meaningful,
as if something horrid can be averted - to me 1 + 1 = 2
is enough - i don't need alef / αλεφ / αλεθ (א) + bet / βετ (ב) =
anything but gimel / γιμελ (ג) -
this is the ****-pile of having so many prophets in your society
and not enough philosophers - the Casandra Standard -
Greeks had the philosophers, the Hebrews had their
prophets, both in excess - in the end the cult of prophecy
in Hebraic society turned into a Casandra Standard
borrowed from Greek myth - while Greek philosophers...
i don't actually know what happened to them -
i think most of them became dentists after Aristotle suggested
women had fewer teeth than men.

I died yesterday, by my own hand,
And now here I am;
Standing like a ******* idiot in my kitchen,
And craving cornflakes.

The reasons why I did it seem hazy now;
All the buttoning and unbuttoning seemed to much,
Or else a love had left me,
And now I can't even grasp a bowl.
Stupid! That's what it is! Pure stupidity!
And I just want some ****** Crunchy Nut!

The bathrooms off-limits now;
It just makes me angry to see myself lying there,
No longer able to help anyone, least of all myself,
And that body didn't seem to care
About my cereal lust.

So here I am; staring at the cupboard,
But unable to open it,
and I don't even know if there's
any cereal left in the ****** thing anyway.
All those stupid myths about ghosts walking
Through walls was wrong apparently;
I'm just slowly fading away.

So here I am; craving cereal like a spoon.
The stupid spoon that I'm unable to grasp;
That seems to chortle, facelessly, at my attempts.
And being forever angry at that
Stupid idiot in the bathroom
For whom I feel nothing but contempt.

Crunching crispy cornflakes
Gangs of pebbles bubble

White water slurping
Its early morning edges

As waves deliciously lick
their sweet vanilla sands

Man bobbing in a canoe
Ocean swinging him like a baby boy

A  bouncing ball stretches
Across the waters view

Like a picture on the wall
For a moment time stand still

The scenery seems so surreal
like plastic or cardboard

Adding a friendly familiarity
Making me so sentimental

About
a place

I LOVE

Called Home

spare me the art form to leave it unto women!
spare me! make prone to ride a horse,
shoot an arrow from a bow, and weild a sword,
don't make me, this! make only women bound
to it, akin to the pashtun, leave me sacred, bound,
to care to the billionth remark as a plumber might,
and yes, revisionist as all might be,
                 for isn't there a fear
that with reincarnartion there
came only come a set number of
Noah compatiorts?
       how are we to esteem, or
indeed redeem the said quota?
who to say failure: without a battlefield?!
  to what altar?! i ask, to what altar?
a couch and a ******* t.v. altar?
you be god or mere boredom?!
      a death in war be a spark,
and above that a flit,
and above that a flame....
    and that means should a congregation
partake in the passed wisdom:
all but one are excused..
   but pray! leave me with an oath
an ancient greek might have said:
that these women bring nothing
but turmoil... and that they should
be left, best cleaving to
    a moment's adrift, care toward
symposium of a wave...
i was never born to be ***...
       and i never will be...
shame...
mind you: i was never born an ethnicity
of vermin... and that's salt,
that's really salt, whether there's a wound
or there isn't one...
have your Knightsbridge and
24 carat plating encrusting copper... have it!
     i'll fall asleep, and have my war
contra crux.
          because, i dare believe,
i have no ethnic boundary,
or a care to remember...
                           that if i had any...
i was never rat, or metaphor...
so i am prone to faking it...
demoralising its significance...
      for a cause i am afraid to ask a: what for?
once there was a tale that a nobleman owned
a horse... and he was the most esteemed
cladden of the sort...
later came the footsoldiers and their banners...
and lastly: i can't believe i just woke up;
i am bound to daydream the past,
and heaving perfect standards of modern technology,
i am with limbs, bound to be without any...
i can't even be bound to a prison to
try to escape it...
                  why did i begin to write poetry,
with poetic populism afright, and the safety card to send
men to war.. if they remain: only half literate...
       i really need gills to breath in this
air... it's too sulphuric: not when my ethnicity
be compared to rats... not again, not another german
scheisseladen in tongue of anglo-saxon...
   if that's how it going to be...
please give me the gift.... cos i sheisse ain't
about to look at the magazines of vogue like
a human, anymore!
you call this human? i call this lesser than animal,
o.k.?! dogs and cats get better treatment
in the west than i... i might as well endorse
a jihad... just to wake certain peoples up.

i.
he tosses you a chip,
its worth, its worth
it moons over your greedy soul
and you mask them all
with your chained lies,
to your silenced smokes
that wobbles up to your
sunken, tired eyes
ii.
you've been awake and to
the miles along the rims of earth,
your little brother's math assignment
scored over twenty out of fifty
and he told himself to make mama proud,
he, then, scribbled cartoons and addition signs
iii.
you've been awake and to
the valley gaps of the sunshine drizzles
your little sister's finding it hard to
participate in the maze of real life
unkempt to her own voices and she told herself,
"maybe I was just meant to be kept in streets-capes"
iv.
and your home rested on the mountains
of well-lived dreams gauged into your veins
you've tasted perfectly soggy cornflakes
in the morning and in evening, you
could taste the shrill of cicadas, blooming
into the stars-tied rose crescent
and it shut down, I've read novels like these
and heard Kurt Cobain sang to these
it was wonderful, but I'd liked it better
when the sunflower hopes rested into your veins
v.
the eleventh time he tosses you a chip,
it lays perfectly still in your palm
the twelfth time, it took over your greedy soul
with your tear-stained hazels, it whispered
rambling, gambling Willie,
do not let it consume you, as it did Willie
but it still echoed when you knocked on the door
rambling, gambling Willie,
"I'm home," you've been awake
but then, you've found none anymore

What’ll happen when you die? Will I lose you again? That would mean finding you. Undoing years, unpicking frayed edges fixed with the wrong coloured yarn. I see you at funerals. At Mum’s you were angry. So was I - but I concealed it. Played numb. At Dad’s you were shaking. I thought your nerves were finally shot. Or that the little boy, naked standing in snow, washing his clothes after a petit-mal fit, was still shivering and waiting for Mum. Then I noticed you weren’t drinking. Said you’d been stitched (again) by police- who’ve always had it in for you. Like they pass this hatred down through rank and generation, onto every town you’ve ever lived in? So that explained the orange-juice-and-lemonade made tidal in your hand. I want to rewind you. You were trouble, of course - but you were nice-trouble and I loved you. I looked up to you. I didn’t see the Big-Brave-Wall you were building. Or the things that made us not-normal. When I was born you were thirteen and already broken. When I was old enough to understand Mum had gained an upper hand, and you always sided with Dad. Even though you showed signs of knowing he was the ******* that ****** us up? I didn’t get it as bad. She learned. Mistakes made on you weren’t made on me. For a start she never left me with him. I was less ******. Or maybe not. Maybe just differently-****** and quicker to heal. My first crush? The copper who called for you, countless times - while I curled m'self round m' cornflakes, burning - too scared to move or turn, rotisserie style, in front of the blue-gas flame. And somewhere in me, not so deep, that teenage ju, that one less-mended who danced-all-weekend-and-slept-where-she-landed, still boasts: Had him y’know. Another notch on a well-and-truly nibbled ‘post. I cried at Dad’s funeral, but I wasn’t crying for him. Why would I?

strange, there's always "the" truth, but always "a" lie... i never understood the monism of truth, and the pluralism of a lie (lies), what is interesting is that with the exclusion of articles: there's but one truth... as there is only a chance of lies... when your disregard the use of definite / indefinite articles, you are talking about truth and lies... reworded, as is necessary ti effectuate the purity of language... the truth: a lie... we speak of truth, but then reconsider this truth with: lies - lies have no uniformity, no honing foundation, not (0, 0) vector enterprise to guide a third negation (kant equate 0 with negation) - the third coordinate of negation is impossible... two negations are possible, but a third negation is near impossible, since there's the first negation of a proposition, then there's the negation of the negation of a proposition (second), but a third negation of the second negation (of a proposition) is impossible, because by second negation the third negation has no proposition to negate, only a negation, and a third denial is a contradiction, and how can a negation that's a "proposition", be negated?! magnet dynamic.

telling "the" truth (a truth) is actually
the easiest thing to do,
  truth doesn't erode the memory,
in that by not eroding the memory -
it allows a narrative a continuum
that does not necessarily have to
digress into a regression of overlaying,
repeating a said lie -
truth is hardly mingled with
memory, truth is forgetfulness -
however, lies reveal a strain on memory,
in that they have to be repeated,
to keep a narrative: intact.
    - and that's what my mother always
taught me:
              - unlike a chinese mother
who says: keep your heart small -
no, instead she said:
    don't like -
  conjure that one up against
the ten commandments:
  there's no shall, i.e. you shall
not lie, she simply said:
               don't lie -
                 if i lie i lie about
the most finicky concerns / details...
notably in culinary concerns -  
   i ask whether i under-salted a dish...
i don't lie about my drinking:
yes. to excess,
   in one ear, out the other -
a litre of whiskey is sometimes not
enough, per night,
           but then i act upon
the sober person cordiality -
              i hush my footsteps -
    i encourage bladder talk and
squeeze my **** to avoid
the unexpected gush of soggy
cornflakes...
  telling the truth is fun,
at least the narrative is glued together,
it feels almost vampire-like:
   perhaps there's a visage in the mirror
to my body, perhaps even a shadow
in the night, but when i stick my tongue
out from out of my tongue?
i see nothing.
  truth is a honing device -
lies: always shrapnel -
  a lie was never and never will be
a unifying concept -
            since there is
        no definite lie -
               as there is, a definite truth -
for there are indefinite lies -
   but no indefinite truths...
                  well, that's also wrong,
indefinite truths exist
           but their indefiniteness is
historiologically* true, rather than
historically true -
              i.e. history is a lie,
    but also a truth, when empowered
with a chance to repeat: or improve -
yet it is still necessary to denounce
  the article as sole inheritor of being
                 definite or indefinite -
              a chance to see truth (the)
applied to the definite article, as seeing
lies (a) applied to the indefinite article
is not merely singularity honing,
  or pluralism shrapnel...
              but by simple construct of but
three to four words:
  the truth...
                   vs. a lie: which implies
a singularity indefinite - i.e. a pluralism,
the truth resembles only one resolve -
a one inside a one;
     a lie?
              a lie of how many?
     hence the pluralism of a lie: lies.
                         now do we believe in
the signature ending via S?
                                        i never believed
in abstraction per se,
        the only abstraction i ever believed in,
was how to mature with one's use of
language,
              i only believed in listening to
idiots, while reading geniuses -
so much of language is burdened with talk,
that so much optics is lost...
                     i only fathomed philosophy
within the framework of how far
language could be abstracted, away from
the jovial everyday conversations in a marketplace,
thus said: how to unlearn asking
for a kilogram of apples from a country person;
but more importantly:
for to speak a tongue foreign to me,
but in a way,
as to make the native speakers:
feel nothing but shame,
and if not shame: confusion...
to become a tarantula...
for personal reasons, i rather keep
intact in the person i am becoming.

Nestled in a pencil case
And snuggled up in fluff
There snoozed a tiny pirate man
Of legendary stuff
He'd spied the hidden secrets
And trod the haunted shore
Blu-tack Beard the buccaneer
Scourge of the open floor

He stole a shoe-box galleon
And sailed the carpet blue
With pencil mast and paper sails
And crayons as his crew
They forayed on the crooked tiles
And crested every ridge
Blu-tack Beard the scallywag
The raider of the fridge

When moored up in the kitchen
With all his crew around
The captain showed to one and all
A treasure map he'd found
It bore a chart of distant parts
And quite a course it plot
It pointed to the bathroom lands
And tip-ex marked the spot

They crammed the hold with cornflakes
To feed them on their trip
They pulled ******* the piece of string
And weighed the paperclip
The crew they dragged their boat aloft
On neatly woven hairs
Blu-tack Beard the privateer
Surmounter of the stairs

They heaved their vessel restlessly
Atop the final brow
The crayon pirates caught their breath
And leaned against her bow
Then scaled tiny ladders
And each took to their post
Blu-tack Beard was at the helm
And watched the foreign coast

Through countless minutes voyaging
There loomed the bathroom door
They slacked the sail and went below
And each took to an oar
They pulled a mighty rhythm
Till their waxy arms were numb
And Blu-tack Beard the plunderer
Was beater of the drum

But though they pried in every nook
And each last inch of grout
They skirted round the skirting board
They tapped each silver spout
Illusive was their bounty
And they grew ever the crueller
They took their skipper angrily
And made him walk the ruler

He landed glum and ruefully
Amid the ***** socks
He heard the merry spiteful sound
Of laughing, taunting mocks
And saw the sight of mutiny
With waxen little smiles
Blu-tack Beard the cast-away
Alone among the tiles

He commandeered a washing cloth
And weaved himself a rope
He scaled the dreaded washstand
And stole a bar of soap
He carved himself a coracle
And set his sights on home
Blu-tack Beard the wanderer
Awash amid the foam

He slithered down the stairwell
And landed with a plan
For warmer climes and restfulness
A cocktail and a tan
And so he met his final port
Right then did he retire
Blu-tack Beard the pensioner
Of the warm spot near the fire

******* THIS CZECH SHAPESHIFTING




lost in Praha
lost in Kafka
losing myself


careful making deals
with old Nick
I said 'Beatle' not 'beetle'


*


WHEN FRANZ MET DÓNALL


'When Dónall Dempsey woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous version of a certain F. Kafka.

Someone must have been telling lies about Dónall Dempsey, he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested to find out he had been turned into this F. Kafka.

Where had his Dónall Dempsey-ness gone and why -  Kafka? He knew of but had never actually read any - Kafka He had knowledge of the tropes...what Kafka could be reduced to in terms of general knowledge that could possibly clinch a pub quiz victory so that people would nod sagely and say "I knew...you being a poet and all...that you would know the answer to that."

I found that what had happened to me...whatever had happened to me...was more extensive that I had thought so that even my initial "D" become the 11th letter of the alphabet instead of the usual fourth. I was now merely a  "K."

I realised I would have to go to Prague to bring some semblance of sense to this transformation. And when I did so...hiding myself among the many tourists...I discovered that Kafka had become me and that we had somehow traded places.

So that now there was a Dónall Dempsey cafe and postcards bearing my features and other such touristy attractions that would be sure to be a sure fire attraction to the traveller with a literary bent of mind.

I visited the grave...his grave...and sure enough...it was my name that was chiseled into the stone.
Meanwhile Kafka was enjoying my life and strolling around Guildford as if it was his own. He appeared to be enjoying being Dónall Dempsey.

"Ha ha..!" I thought. "Give it time...give it time!" And Franz would surely find that being Dónall Dempsey wasn't such a good thing.
And myself being a literary tourist attraction? I ****** well hated it  I wanted to crawl away and die or be trampled to a pulp by a frightened child who had discovered a cockroach in her cornflakes.

I go to bed again without brushing my teeth.
Cornflakes for dinner, and coffee and tea.
Four cups, of course, will keep me from sleep,
From dreams of cars-money-dread-gasoline.

I used to love everything that tasted sweet.
Now it’s the black, bitter, burned and caffeine.
Except, sometimes, the way you make it for me:
Milk and sugar.

I know I always scoff at how much you need.
Two or three spoons, then add the cream.
Drink off the spoon, unstudied, guilelessly;
The world hasn’t caught you and made you be mean.

Dear deer-eyes, sweet-tooth, rabbit-knees:
Pour a sugar mountain as high as you please.

This dissertation, written by a double-jointed stunt-double
A sentient being
It must take one to know one
Because he found me immediately
We counted the tally marks
Crushed cornflakes on a Kashmir carpet  
We met a paraplegic paralegal  
Whose views we're, for lack of a better word "perpendicular"
We we're entranced by him
He spoke of integrity and the dangers of toxic relationships
And how the service of justice is only so-so
He was enmeshed by contractual obligations and deadlines
He left us with two last pieces of advice
"Talk to yourself often, for you'll surely know best for yourself"
"Forgive yourself, for forgiveness proves strength and admitting your wrongs shows humility"

The stunt-double wrote his paper on this
And I wrote this poem
This occurrence so rarefied yet malleable
      -Tommy Johnson

I'd like to talk about I -
ergo, a poem about I
I write I poems
therefore I am
and I'd like you to read about I
and then another poem about I,
ad nauseam
Look, if I find I so obsessively interesting
I don't see why
you should not love my I
I am unique, and I mean I -
so you should find I;
and I reiterate
I'd like to talk about I
a poem about I
each ubiquitous I poem
the equivalent of a visual selfie:
the I-am-eating-cornflakes-now type
or I-am-constipated-now type
I am I's favourite - I follow I
so I'd like you to read about I
You will surely find I
(cos I know I best)
a pleasure to eye

The night he died he sat on the bed amid
my drum museum and thought about that time
at Christmas, how we hiked up Vincent’s Peak
to Leo Hightower’s log cabin with a box
of cornflakes and pancake batter all ready-made,
but with no knives or forks to eat them with.

He thought about that patch of pumpkins we
found frozen in the snow up there, a whole field full
of hued orange snow, once bright, now half eaten
by skunks and ‘*****. Eau’ de parfum de melon.
Memory, Gramps, your new pied-á-terre. He smiled and
took out his teeth. He tapped my tin drum one
last time—my mother heard—to signal earth,
her mist, his wish, their presence, ours.
He died amid what pumpkins’ say when cut
apart, for it was Halloween that night, and all the timpani…
well, the timpani try to talk come Halloween,
you know , just as the pumpkins try to die.

I just got a letter from my old Uncle Bert
and I'd like to share its tragic contents
with you here today;
but I'll edit out the ***** bits
just in case you are shocked
that an old man could still
have thoughts along those lines
or so as you don't throw up on your cornflakes
when you read them over breakfast.

"Dear Edna (he wrote to me)
It's not all that bad in the twilight nursing home
if you can bear the stale smells and moanings
of the other ****** inhabitants
and their bad breath fumes
plus the mashed food which all is pulped up
into something not unadjacent to catfood
for the sake of the toothless ones
who **** it up via a plastic tube
provided for that purpose.

"At least I take a bath once a fortnight
even though I don't like sharing it
with that Pakistani fellow Mr Ali
who always reeks of curry
and lets off stinky air from his back end
in our bath causing brownish bubbles
with a touch of follow-through vengeance.

"That reminds me of what happened
only last week when the ministry
sent some ****** health inspector round
who might have been a homosexualist
from his mincing walk I thought
and he came into our ward
you could see his beaky nose wrinkle
in distaste which was tactless we thought.

"He asked what the toiletty smell was
not knowing it's what we have to put up with day in day out
(and I know say you can't really afford
to pay extra for a clean private room for me
and not many of the others families bother either
its not as though they're the ones who suffer is it,
so let me suffer here after all I'm only your uncle
and you aren't in my last will and testament
as I never liked your mother much
fat stuck-up ***** from what I remember).

"The male nurse on duty that day
(he's the one we call Old *******
because he's so ******* bossy
and full of his ******* self)
asked all of us who had let the side down
and wet himself (or herself, it's a mixed ward
which I dont approve of as I don't want
to see anything disgusting anymore).

"Well no one owned up so Old *******
went round sniffing at everyone's rears
until he came to Mrs Jones squatting in the corner
and the he said why the **** hadn't she owned up
that she had done one in her pants today
and Mrs Jones said it had happened yesterday
or it may even have been the day before that
she couldn't really remember.

"You know, Edna, I still love miss my dear Linda
I even wish she was here
in this hellhole of a place
waiting for death's release
and not mouldering in her grave
but at least she avoids the squidgy mashed up food
which goes in one end and out the other
barely stopping for a rest halfway down."

You know, I couldn't stop laughing
for a full five minutes after I read this
as I knew, just knew, the old *******
had cut me out of his will -
well, let him rot is what I say
and that ******* about objecting
to sharing a bath with Mr Ali:
Bert's problem has always been
that he's allergic to soap and water
how well I remember the miasma
following him around his old house
before we had the **** certified.

Likewise, or
So flustered got her bewildered
About pins and needles

How could he the knock-wood
my piece quoting her,
Your my pin flower near
the pin Oaktree
Wishing upon me
The woodsy-star* riddle

Not very far they see the castle
Her sticky glued shut eyes

So delicately-pinned cries
Her pincushions like
pinwheel's of flower
He bloomed right in
Pinnochio the falling star
Trying to pick up her
jeweled pin but the
hardwood
hammered
him in
Pinnochio was left
there saddened  in
a bin
Like a mix up your
dukes up
What a fluke-prize
The gift came and went

The passionate
((Pin)) handshake
Handling with care
His wooden hand
I Pincurls she's the bay
fantasy night
land

The country-girl acts
So picky meeting
the right
heart positively
She feels she always
right so conceitedly
"I Charmed" repeatedly
At times jittery but Smitty
Any wood could talk
she knocks them pin pretty

The wood cradle of hay
What a pity she's born to
be witty
What a highboy she's
the tomboy why?

Not a Momma and
the Papas boy
Miss wooden chair
With her overall pants
Consider yourself corduroy
The woodsy Troy
He loved his
rocking horse
Met Jimetty cricket
That carved
*******, he sneaked
something Oliver twist
in his pocket

Perky pin of hats joy
Real McCoy but he's
the wooden boy

Gheppetto with his
wooden pipe Oh! Boy
The wooden
soldier boy
Cracking jokes
Nutcracker
marching
Woody Chuck is
quite the inspector

A house is not a home
Everyone smokes

Robin Hood
What a wooden hole of a
glitch for the gals so plastic
King Charles hunter
Mr.Geppetto needed a
miracle (Holy) thunder
Not a human on
facebook to wonder

Her X-husbands playing
X-infinity such activity
Picture zoom in
"Just Dream" of a
wooden dollhouse
Without your
spouse

Email or wifi
Legs were creaking
and Pinnochio say Hi
his nose was love-longing

The desk was
a bad omen flying
Inked pens and
Wood Chipping
The Woodpecker
Ancient wood heart
locket

His wooden head
wouldn't
fit into the socket

Woodcarved body
lines frame was
Eye pin curving and
stripping

The snoop dog
His paws got into
Pinocchio's puzzle
Hungry cry like a
Wolf Tie one on
Lie one con
Con one peeping Tom
Pinnochio his nose
is getting graphically
Longer Sherlock
  Magnifying nose
Like a calendar
  year whole pin
ball wizard
new nose longer
lucky 8 oddball months

She left his schoolboy
clothes on the wooden
hanger

Ringo met Pinnochio
They had something
in common the nose
has wisdom

Ghepetto and Giovanni
Battista looking for Julliete
loved classical she-devil
the cafe barista met her
Romeo

This wasn't the year
for a cup of the nose
Cappuccino
Go-Chopin he looks
frazzled
The Cook beef barley
soup

Pinned and looped me in
Her maple eyes to
  fit any tree
Her juices of bacon
Went timber chuckle
what was on his
wooden buckle
I pinned him

Pinnochio revival
Reversal or rehearsal
Get rid of the humans
Metaphyseal, things
So gray beyond any
sea cloud seal not real
If the wood could talk his
wooden rifle bang bang

Like a red white and
wood little boy blue
missile he sang
They were in school
time for dismissal
The wood is
productive

Christmas heart of light's
seductive
Flame on the fruit bowl
they weren't
watching the
Super Bowl

Strong bones with a
wood conscience
To have swooned into a
wood puzzle

  The damsel what distress
Like a hammer and nail
Buckled her smile
wood dress
They were nose long
For the devil in the
blue dress
Xmen Wolverine

The hard talker smooth
as a babies safety pin drop
Oakwood Knight
the lock opened the
****
Pinnochio looked
Like a shocking pink

Someone lied again
Her hairpin splinter
Pinnochio how he
got covered
All white flurries
star flakes of winter

Pour the milk with cornflakes
Watch out for Mr. Quaker Oats
The wolf eyes get to you
So timid to be starved

Like his fern another turn
of the century
The rim of the goblet
on the brim of time so
sublime banged his
wooden pencil
Italian art drawing
stitched stencil

But with hesitation wood
At its best the most clever
Was heavenly touched
by God like no other
Pinnochio has a heart
He carves a smile in you
You just feel him so true

My Prospero, I admit
is, yea, badly drawn

& keeps falling off
his lollipop stick.

My Caliban, on the other hand
well drawn and forsooth...sticks to...his stick.

I wiggle each
character’s characteristic

and they come alive
speak the lines, I pray you,

trippingly upon my tongue
“Come to me with a thought!”

I command my paper people.

“Your thoughts I cleave to!”
they flash into my consciousness.

“Ariel, my Ariel...”
fine-tooled from foil

that comes from fabled Consulate
& Woodbine packets.

“Ah, my trusty sprite...”
dangles from a purple thread that

is borrowed from
me Mam’s sewing basket.

All is well
in this my make-shift

Shakespeare theatre
made from Kellogg’s

Cornflakes packets.

See the great **** crow
under the proscenium!

Weetabix boxexs
construct the wings.

Rows of Nite lights
serve as footlights.

And, so...let the Masque begin!

I hum bits of Adeste
Fideles....then sing

as Prospero & Ariel
do their thing.

“Solua domus dagus!”
my voice rings out

but see how
dangerous a nine year old knee

can be
to paper theatre.

The floodlights being knocked over
the stage flames in amazement.

My patchwork Globe
of Cornflake and Weetabix boxes

burns to the ground

only Ariel survives
in an all too blackened shrunken

crumpled piece of foil.

I exit
( pursued by a clip on the ear )

the profession of producer of
the plays thereof the only begetter of

this ensuing story
lost, alas my lack, to me!

But wait, is this a football I see
before me?

Then play on Dinger Dwyer!
And ****** be him who first cries hold!

We cry "*******!" and let slip
the dogs we are!

**

I was afraid that people might be offended by the word "*******!" so I pushed Prospero out onto the stage to apologise for such language but as usual he was completely off his stick. "Oh Puck..." I cried but Puck said: "No way am I going out there and apologising for your ***** work....no way" but anyway and anyhow push came to shove and he ended up on his rear on the boards and had to come up with something!

"If we shadows have offended...." he blurted out and me and all the other characters cheered him on. I gave him a big hug when he came off stage! Caliban just jeered and said: "What's wrong with rowlocks?" "*******!" we said and Caliban just scratched his head and went away singing "Ban Ban Caliban...got a new master...got a new man!"

Sometimes it's hard to keep the characters in check...don't know how old Shakey did it! "Where there's a Will...there's a way!" as he always said to me over a pint of Guinness.

poetry is the perfect tool to plagiarise, well, technically "plagiarise", since it involves the circle, akimbo, a micro akimbo shuffle, sketching the same statue over and over until full circle, 360°.

paris, ah, paris, well d'uh, paris,
umbrella rich paris in the summer,
first year in edinburgh and it wasn't Scottish,
sunshine throughout the year,
one morn took to feet  and kneeling climbed
arthur's seat (figure of speech,
i.e. not really) to see the sunrise
better, came down, went into
a supermarket and bought myself
a bucket of cornflakes,
third year i danced on the old college
roof in the night listening to
the shins' *new slang,
tried getting a girl up on the roof,
failed, i said:
by the white fluorescent tangles
and dangles of the firth of forth are
coming up like the northern lights!
she didn't care... on a roof on
prince's street threw chimney parts
off the roof... could have killed
someone... on the same street
a year before on hogmanay kissed
a ****** in a wheelchair in full love
for the new year, got scolded by yet
another girl... god, this misogyny isn't
really working out...
on a date in a jazz cafe, first time i read
a rendition of neil young's old man
loved it so much, got confused by
the girl dragging me into the ceilidth twirl
pit akin to turkish sufi dervishes with a partner...
but paris man... oh man...
first time round we drunk ourselves
into silly animals dubbed children,
ran out of the hostel / bar into the streets
trying to find the compass point of
the city that's the eiffel tower,
didn't find...
broke an italian girl's heart, my sprechen es
tour guide, who took me atop the sacre coeur,
hostel's name? something duck...
not quacking duck, laughing duck? don't know.
second time i had a canadian-russian
tour-guide speaking quebec french (i know,
the cliche irony)...
we spanked baguettes and cheese and wine
and talk of literature bundles together
as the sun settled beneath the eiffel tower on the grass,
a group of french girls were deliberating
a fancy of my lean legs and armpits (when
i weighed 86kg and was suntanned),
and the best moment of my second weekend stay
in paris?
watching a guy high on ecstasy play ping pong
to a drum & bass drumbeat in a shady parisian club,
true too with the hand movement,
higher than a kite in a sky of diamonds he was,
and, it was fun to remember it:
no brooding exercise of thought:
memory attracts no thinking, just re-imagination
and memory in orthodox terms is happy nostalgia:
it happened because i was there...
not this modern paris the slum **** hole of algeria;
apropos - modern leftists and their censorship
of people's vocabulary... listen...
i had long conversations with a communist
party member, ok, an ex-communist party member
(my grandfather), your socialism is ridiculing
vocabulary... added to the fact that this proto-atheism
is exclusive, it's not communist inclusiveness:
god is dead, lets work together,
origin of the species and corporation,
now everyone's as selfish as a tsar...
there's not togetherness - i'd rather be a jessy james
in such times than a robber of thinking something
doesn't exist... and that's my conscience on the matter.