When I think back now to when I was little (to when I was young)
The words "I love you" I don't think were ever spoken, not in our house anyway (now I could be wrong)
It would have been something silly to say
That was something you'd only hear in a Hollywood movie
Between glamorous movie stars, glamorous people
It wasn't part of our reality
If you were feeling anxious about something and needed comforting
You'd be told not to worry, that you were being silly
You'd be given a hug maybe or 'a treat' something nice
Usually something sweet, a biscuit and a hot cup of sugary tea or cocoa
A chocolate sweet if there were any
You'd be allowed to stay up late and watch the late shows on TV
Me! I was always a terrible worrier just like my Mom
Food most often was the comforter, the soother, the remedy to all
(Some say our relationship with food is the closest relationship we ever have in Life).

Yea! I don't think the words "I love you" were spoken where we grew up
Our parents they loved us as best they could
But they didn't have the words, the words to say it
It was strange...it was almost like they were forbidden to.
Of course, you could love your neighbor alright and your neighbor's neighbor
And your neighbor's neighbors neighbor's neighbor
And all the feckin' neighbors in the whole feckin' world
But the one thing you couldn't, you mustn't do
Was love yourself, this was the Big No No, the Big taboo, the Great Evil
It was the one thing you must never do,
And every Sunday at church, the priest way up on his pulpit
He'd never tire of telling us
How evil and selfish and bad the Self was
And all the bad things it got up to
Yea, your neighbor was always better than you were
Put your neighbor above yourself always
Love your neighbor and you'd be alright
That was the message loud and clear.

                               2

So, so we got treats instead of words of love when we were little
On Friday nights when Dad would come home from work and the pub
He'd always have with him lovely Apple Turnover buns
And a bag of crisps for each of us
And so, we'd all sit there together in the evening in front of the telly
After the maelstrom of the school week with  its lessons and scary teacher
Trying so hard to understand and get your homework done,
And despite all we'd laugh and enjoy the TV shows
And this... this was Love, us all just sitting there with our buns and munching our crisps just watching the TV together
Knowing we belonged and that we were loved kind of...as best they could
And that we had a couple of days off, days of freedom
Before we'd have to go back to school again,
It didn't get any better than this.

And when we'd be going down the country to see our Uncle John
My Dad would always stop off to visit a pub
And he'd get us a Club orange and a packet of crisps
It couldn't get any better than this... this was Love
The lovely sweet taste of that fizzy Club orange juice
And those wonderful salty cheese and onion flavoured (potato) crisps or maybe salt and vinegar flavour
Or later on, lovely smokey bacon flavour,
As we'd sit there Dad would be talking to the barman or some of the locals
But we didn't care what was being said, it didn't matter to us
It didn't get any better than this
This was heaven... this was Bliss.

Sometimes during the summer months before we could get summer jobs
Maybe it'd be raining outside and we'd be stuck indoors and bored
But then Mum would up and say "I know I'll make some chips"
Now Mum's chips were really something special, they'd be lovely big chunky potato chips, hand cut
And maybe she'd have beans in tomato sauce with them,
And maybe there'd be a good film on in the afternoon
Well, this was it, nothing could top that, a good film and a plate of Mum's big chunky chips and beans
Sometimes she'd even make these lovely mince beef pies
With minced beef and flour and onions, salt and pepper on them
And they were really something else
It couldn't get any better than this... and this... this was Love
(I can still remember the kind of meals we ate
And my Mum in the kitchen, and my Dad).

                            3

It's how people grow up in the end I suppose
They find someone inspiring, some teacher or book that makes a strong impression on them (if their lucky)
Or a partner who broadens their horizons, makes them question things and expands their vision of life and all its wondrous possibilities
But what if you don't find those good books, those inspiring teachers
Those voices that'd offer you a better vision of tomorrow and what this life could be
What if you only found bad books, bad books purporting to be good
That'd rob you and leave you lost and desolate, fearful and confused
What if some of your teachers turned out to be alcoholics
That some even done away with themselves
What if the people you met were even more lost than you were yourself...

And you'd go to a job interview and the man, he'd look at you and say
"So, what are your aspirations in Life, what are your values, your goals, where do you see yourself a few years from now ?"
And you'd look back at him blankly, Aspirations! Values! Goals!
What are these words, what's he talking about...
What am I looking for in Life ?
To have some fun I suppose...maybe (if having fun was still legal now as an adult)
Fun!!! Whatever that was now ?
Or to get drunk and stay drunk, escape this grim world I'm in somehow
What am I looking for ?
You tell me...I don't know, what is there
For all I knew I may as well have said
"A Club orange and a packet of crisps".

                              4

Now the faces they have all faded away, the voices too, have all gone
There's only me here alone in this room
It's Friday evening and I've got a readymade dinner from the supermarket
Just need to pop it in the oven for a few minutes
And I got a Dvd from the Dvd store,
So I sit there and eat my dinner, I savour every bite
But still it doesn't last very long
And I can lick my plate but it doesn't make any difference
I can lick it all I like
But I can't make it last, and I can't bring them back again
Those people that are gone;
And the food, it doesn't taste the same, doesn't taste as good as it tasted back then
And the movies too, their not like the ones we used to watch...

When I die it'll probably be like that movie Citizen Kane, at the end his last words "Rosebud"
The name of his beloved childhood sleigh
He used slide on in the snow,
I'll say on my death bed "I too have a memory of Love and Joy, Yea!
A Club orange and a packet of crisps".

Curry Crisps
In 1981 and 82 at Littlemoor School I was in Junior 4
With the rest of the little wankers who were my classmates
I used to buy curry flavoured crisps for 10p at break time
I got them every day and even now miss them  
They were the best crisps I ever tasted so yummy!
In a curry coloured packet oh what’s to come!
They were the highlight of my time in that school
Where I went from the bottom of the class to the top
England defeated Argentina in the Falkland’s War
I destroyed a school bully in the bogs by hammer punches
We called our teacher Miss Oliver Sergeant ****
The thing I remember most is curry flavoured crisps
I wish I could go back and get ten boxes of curry crisps!

My crisps are potato creations.
My chips are micro, that's for sure.
Cheese and onion, ready salted, good to munch as snacks.
Offer me prawn cocktail crisps.
They make me sick, I'll give them back.
Smokey bacon, boy I'm quaking,
Almost tasting the flavour in anticipation.
From my head down to my toes.
Smokey bacon crisps, tantalise my nose.
They tell me new crisps and fries being created every week.
Cheese on toast crisps.
Well I never,
Roast dinner, sadly missing vegetables.
Holy ghost crisps.
Gone in a puff of eerie green smoke.
Think I'll stick to fries.
Can't do salt and vinegar.
The pong it makes me feel ill.
The taste is even worse.
(c)LIVVI

The forest of legs swayed in the moving shadows beneath the chatter over head, each threatening to block our path and crush our attempt to get to the first fallen crisps of the party season, which as yet laid undisturbed.

We weaved and advanced as fast as their legs allowed, eager to scavenge the waiting bounty before they were trampled underfoot by the oblivious adults who were intent on a seasonal ritual of their own that went on high over our heads.

We emerged unscathed at the edge of the forest and raced across the open parquet to the cover of the drapped, white topped trestle tables catching our breaths and crunching our snatched crisps planning our next move toward the plateau above.

Our scout had reported rich pickings, but when we looked around, seeking signs of our brave advance party, we could find no trace beyond a half eaten volovant and what might have been regurgitated mushroom. We shook our heads in despair at their folly. Every kid knows to stick to crisps and to processed meats, avoiding anything that might contain vegetables. We saw an open French window just beyond the trestles and heard plaintive heaves that had a distinct 6 year old strain.

We checked each other's resolve and saw on each other's faces that we believed our mission was more important than any one stomach. With a maturity that would have surprised our parents, we pushed the plight of our friend to the back of our minds and focused on the task at hand.

We each reached up with practiced stealth, taking only a second to check the food on offer and with a speed bred into us by the curse of older siblings, we each grabbed our prize.

Acknowledging the hazards of the return journey we devoured the meat at hand and with hyena grins savoured our just rewards. While our fallen friend heaved once more, we saluted one another: the season had started better than any of us could have hoped.

Potatoes, potatoes! They grow in the ground,

When you dig them up they're muddy, brown and round,

Potatoes, potatoes! Delicious mashed,

But they don't taste so good if they've been bashed,

Potatoes, potatoes! Steamy in their jacket,

Potatoes, potatoes! Fresh in their packet,

Potatoes, potatoes! Can be made into chips,

Potatoes, potatoes! Are best when they're crisps!

Five days a week
   for six months now
I have crossed the street
   from work
to the little shop
   that sells sticky buns
pork nuzzled by pastry
   and perused the food
something for lunch
   and almost always pick
a baguette brimming with chicken
   chilled cucumber disks
a sprinkling of lettuce
   plus a muddy-coloured latte
for that extra afternoon kick

though today is different
   I’m feeling ruthless
a shimmery packet of salt and vinegar
   waits for me to pluck it
from the shelf
   squeak it open
the lady says hi and I reply
   with a we’ve spoken
five days a week for six months now
   and it’s about time I told you
these small encounters
   brighten my day
a rotten cliché I know
   so I leave quick with my grub
but a tiny grin on my face

unwrap the baguette
   take a satisfying bite

.i'd call it as far as deciding upon: ethno-dysphoria... given that the lingua franca doesn't like to entertain hyphen "riddled" word compounds, and how german never bothered with the hyphen... i'm pretty much convinced that ethno-dysphoria exists... i guess only the jews are immune to this phenomenon, as... i'm pretty sure, the dutch are... i once overheard an american talk to a dutch girl before ******* her in some park in stockholm: who cares about the dutch? what? more the people, or the language? the english language doesn't give a **** about either language or the respective people utilizing it... oh i think ethno-dysphoria is real, more real than any gender-"dysphoria"... no ****-wit from the gender-"dysphoria" camp will **** you... but sure as pork-chops and potato crisps... an ethno-dysphoria case will, "somehow" become a jihadi.

oh sure, i'm all for "free speech",
until the time comes,
and it usually does,
around the same time,
that these advocates
                   are given a: script.
yeah:
when they are asked to read
a "typo" interface...
               when the, said,
"freedom", is allowed to be
scrutinized,
   under the barrage...
     of "mishandling" literacy...
most of these free speech advocates
do not welcome
                reading,
printed words...
                     co-defendants...
funny, this, "barometer"...
   you are given the freedon
to speak freely...
   let's see how free you are...
when being asked to:
     read "freely"...
      see the disparity?
   people don't have a freedom
of speech,
when they are exposed
to reading material...
    given that exposure to reading
material,
          doesn't coincide
with the final statement
      of the ecclesiastical class...
relieving their literacy monopoly...
i'll take two examples...
both are instances
of a freedom of speech advocates...
one is given a script to read,
the other is not given a script...
just like Kierkegaard predicted:
some people are
just more concerned with
a freedom to speak,
                         rahter than think...
i'd say:
   as much freedom as your
reading ability entitles you
to entertain...
          this, "freedom" of speech...
i'm freely allowed to breathe...
this cul de sac of freedoms...
  different matter
when you hear the so-called
advocates of "freedom"
recite a draft of reading...
god-forbid they begin
entertaining diacritical markers!
yet you notice the differnece
between free speech: ignored,
and the same freedom,
coinciding with an ability
to read?
                  free speech was,
once upon time depicted
by joyce and the plagiarized sartre:
andsoitwascocerningadepictionakintothis...

      never mind the
aesthetic constraints
of punctuation marks...
that's freedom...
breaking from aesthetic constraints
of encoded speech...
           you can hardly find
anything suspect,
within the concerns
of the pedantic community...

enlighten me...
   i'm pretty sure
the same assortment of freedoms,
associated with
the "confines" of a non-script,
would be missing,
should a script emerge,
and the whole lot of us
would be left,
with something,
akin to making a signature
akin to the X marker;

     who said anything about
stripping this freedom,
what i was implying was...
some of us care about
punctuation & conjunctions;
as free as you want to be...
point being:
this, "freedom" of speech...
infiltrated by written text,
being read (no variant
past participle spelling
variation outside of: red)...

    this "freedom",
is only a freedom,
when being freed from
reading, scripted, text;
now posit the same advocates
against
    a page of script...
freedom? what freedom?!
unless we all forget
to write,
     and join the simmering
**** of: the all of us,
in the blah blah parade...
maybe i'm being overtly
pedantic...
            a "freedom" of
speech would,
subsequently,
imply:
            no point
in clinging to scripted speech,
esp.,
with a decision to
impose punctuation markers.

⚠Trigger Warning:
The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to ****** assault and misogyny. ⚠
~
you call the ******

*****:

because the hair between my legs reminds you of a cat's fur? reminds you of an animal that is frightened by the simplest of matters--yes, you call me weak.

but that is just the way you prefer us, isn't it?

with our backs arched (but not too high).

forbidden to leave room for a man to crawl under our bodies.

a man is not meant to lie beneath a womxn, no;  

for, a womxn's place is between the man and the mattress.
___________________
***­:

is that all we are good for?
__________________­
box:

many things can be put inside a womxn, an empty vessel that you believe it is your role to make full again.

storage locker where you keep your **** rent-free.

slab of cardboard collecting filth in the attic.
__________________
bea­ver:

another animal analogy.
_________________­_
cookie. cupcake. ****(in). bean:

to butter up. to Flick.

inhaled, not savoured;

nothing more than a midnight fast-food run.
___________________
min­k:

skinned and sold and worn-- a notch in your belt (and your bedpost).
_________________­
cherry:

popped(!)
____________­_____
clam:

stolen treasure.
_________________­
kipper:

in the staff room, someone has left an unopened bag of shrimp crisps. A man I work with walks in and says it smells “like bad ***** in here.”


i laughed.


why the **** did I laugh?
__________________
flo­wer:

plucked from the garden of eden.
__________________­
*******:

blackout.
_____________­____
hoo-ha:

a battle cry.
___________________­
****:

a word i was taught never to say aloud

(i do it anyways.)
_________________­
***:

you abbreviate our bodies.

our voices, too.

will we never make it to four letters?

(love)
__________________­
whispering eye:

a whisper is but a gateway to silence.
__________________­_
You call the ******

*****.
***.
box.
******.
cookie.
cupcake.
****(in).
bean.
mink.
cherry.
clam.
kipper.
flower.
*******.
hoo-ha.
****.
***.
whispering eye.

but never what it truly is:

Beautiful.
____________________

Betwixt of any sense beyond experiment, I sat on the bed between shifts and out-whipped the bag of Concerta given to me by Matt, o'timey hard-worker-soft-souled Matt, who felt, perhaps, that I had a legitimate reason to explore this legal avenue of pharmaceutical mind-manipulation for reasons he would rather fathom in retrospect. I popped a single pill, and voilà, the legal-cocainnabinoid began to flow between my red and white blood-cells playing cops and robbers.

It is when I feel nostalgic that I feel the need to write. I remembered, at work, with all those strange everyone-elses faces gliding past (and myself annoyed at the general lack of positive reception "Hello there!" "h .. i ." is one sour-looking businessmans sultry whispered reply.. once, a woman told me 'look, I know that you are told to say hello at the door to everyone who enters, but I don't like it. I just want to shop in peace, and no, I don't need any help' and without case to what my managers could say, I somewhat-hissed-back, "if you don't want to be greeted, then perhaps you shouldn't walk into big private corporate establishments to find the books you're looking for," and she shrugged and muttered some ****-talk under her breath and glided upstairs to find a copy of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead or Machiavelli's The Prince to validate her bitter attitude, I bet, the sour witch), my time spent living in that backwater Esso suburb of Port Coquitlam back in 2011 when Occupy Wall Street was still a hungry potential, not yet bogged down in procrastinates over herbal teas and talk of chakras and enlightenment and how the typical Wall Street businessman probably never had a real ****** and hence had never truly satisfied the energies now burnt-to-crisps inside his Root Chakra or whathaveyou, where I believed I would find a better, more interesting world further from the musty-smallness of forest-drenched rain-drenched Powell River, only to discover I may be right outside my front door, but that's EXACTLY where I was, no further than right outside my front door.. I mean, for Goddaskes, I was born in Vancouver, this isn't a culturally-shocking move to New Delhi or Kathmandu--- and so on and so forth is how I once berated myself thru constant cycling thoughts of no-escape, I, a little walking hell of devils-advice and panic disorder-- the Great Big Port City of George Vancouver only succeeding in further overwhelming my already delicate attempt at false optimism thru self-voided Buddhist smalltalk as I travelled from bookstore to bookstore reading Alan Watts in shady attempts to save-myself but only digging my walking grave even deeper into the soil of feared-insanity.

Port Coquitlam itself was a small-town wearing a business suit and holding hands with an angry father forcing him to college for computer networking as it's the most economically viable market at hand.. at first, I did not see this. I saw my idolized imaginings of Vancouver (never Port Coquitlam), the shining water-reflected skyline of my past and present legacies, where my father once snorted ******* with a bohemian group of someones, and my mother tried LSD just to prove to her friends how bad it was (and lo and behold, what a terrible time she had!), all this Otherness, Strangeness, yet still Connected-- an Otherness with which I was taken, left to whisper into empty Campbell's cans so-as to speak with the city from a distance, two children growing older together 'til my inevitable return and our agreement to share costs on rent.

I returned, as planned. I returned, and found that old-best-friend hating the Homeless and loving the Rich-- spending time with the Peppy Plutocracy whilst enslaving the Middle Classes (first Letter Capitals to Assist YOU in Grasping my Anger with All Five Thumbs) and the horrors I saw in my already delicate state, all the starving addictives slouching-inching down the sides of ***** old walls, the only thing missing a smear of blood to follow their corpseish collapse, all just footnotes to history, footnotes to wealth and progress-reality, all footnotes with no shoes O my God O my Goodness and O Canada, Our Home and Native Land!

It hurt like it did, but I felt powerless and gaited. Felt like it were just as well me (*** it just as well is), I, in Vancouver.. *Great Big Port City of George Vancouver.. saw the end-stretching-cold-legs of Nietzsche's Dead God.. those in cutthroat-black-suits armed with calculators and wives could afford private jets and yearly trips 'round our globular strangeness whilst others had to beg and berate and debate and break-down to get a crummy old bagel and a past-due mostly-empty jug of old milk and perhaps a 'side of fries with that order.'

What crushed me so much about this playing a Witness to God's Death (or, not so much a 'witness' as a relative asked to the morgue to identify the body) was my intuitive grasp that this is the poverty of the First World.. this is not as bad as it gets and on a scale of 1 to 10 this would only be a 3.. all the poor and displaced of Eastern Europe.. Moldovan families indifferent to the whims and what's taken.. someone called me a Socialist and said I would later grow out of it as 'reality' angled its rearing-ugly head to chop me smithereens like it did so mercilessly to the Poor and Irrelevant.. I looked at them and still look at people like them and think 'that is evil unsure of itself.. that is evil unaware... that is evil and evil is  evil to watch..' the Evil Act being the use of Money to purchase the world, demanding us all to pay royalties (mass royalties) for the privilege of life so afforded by them.. (the Sons and Daughters of God first stabbing their father then stabbing themselves then locking away and ignoring their young brother with cerebral palsy '*** he could never be armed with a calculator, nor wife)..

I learned, thru practice, to cope with these evils as laws-for-now. Coping did not mean tolerance, nor did coping mean agreement.. I had charged at life expecting hugs and bottles.. what I got was hugs and bottles.. all while I watched over the shoulder of whoever embraced me and saw young-others doing the same, where are the hugs and bottles..? they sank into the nether as the crowd ebbed past, ignoring the cries of pleading love, pleading love over time so traumatised as to distort this love (so inherent and implied in the Heart) into confusion, confusion into loss, and loss into hatred.. as the crowd ebbed past, the crowd ebbed past..

After 3 and a half months, I moved back home to Powell River.. the soggy ol' calm of what I already knew.. the warm arms of the rest, the warm arms of water-reflected sunsets.. and I got my hugs and bottles.

but was this really a happy ending?

exude the moment;
you are a transformative fulcrum

of intersubject's rent and awe:
anthropomythic ecolaw

the dream cascades into words,
birds fly little crisps of meaning
into morning light. last night's
snow leaves a crystalline spark
of you subdued, become a finer point
of tantric sight, gazing rose-blue pulsar
lashing through a cosmic garden,
delicious fruit of spacious letting be.
i'm grasping for that pleasure,
vermillion moan of lifestring vibrance,
but the wind carries on outside,
swirling pieces of the mind in
flux of upturned joy~
our heartbreeze summoned,
now whispersssoulsounds to come
and earthly darkness grips the future frost,
thaw, break and steam as it wills;
the churning ground sings to us
of bear-sleep and jackal-howl,
of seasons transpiring,
one lost sled of memories
leaves us empty, pressing crystal sky:
my aching ideality trounced in bliss-meanders
!stunning revelation! you! You! yOu!
bringing all to be a second time,
as it was.. in me.. now new,
sweet novelty of union,
this gathering of nervure self,
gliding insights, sudden soundsss.

like a node of forest-echo swirls
it dazzles: unseen colors for my inner eye;
ancient tones of fog ripple
off something you are,
creaking center easing of my sidling,
spirit drop and wavelet growth:
as if you were a branching greenery
of my own once lost other-self,
last gasping there as what i pictured 'you'~
swayingss.. sun-spikes speaking,
sky-gaze and soaking barky iris sssuck,
moulding into me the wisdom of our past leavings,
those raspy kites of sap-filled yearnings
shadow sunshower evening.
i would be a tree with you and
let you pierce our foundations
with roots of gaiasight slipping though
our primal urgings, concrete deference
under sun arch, spin of moon. let
ignorant insistence on fetishized divides~
slipping past my grounded darkness
still unknown, remain
my underself unleashed
my silent trunk-swilling soothed,
stable chaos-other, self regiven,
life renewed in leaf,
the touch of you imbued.

the whole vision lost
but for that glimmer~
it finds me writhing unknown spirals:
ringing wonderment in a seed,
or dormant sporocarpic lineage of life,
the vast hyphae-humming cups of death-born
nethergenesis of cycled hyle me.
a womb that never knew of pain
or being evertorn in dessicated spectre-sea.

the burning desert-storms helixify our rain,
a heaving hiss-like suncry
from that dark, sandy baobabic throat.
the earth consumes in shifts,
and blossoms toward the alterbliss of you, too,
an expanse of solar flare
its beautific reach engulfing terribly,
nepho-logos spanning all the air.

ssssunlit boughs of winds' remembrance
grow soft across this window,
then shift with forest breath,
their snowlace puffed before
an azure true expanse,
the burdened greens stirring a needlish depth
of metawinter, all-too-human
starfields constellate in hiding
far behind my starshine there a curtain blue,
whose prismatic humor lights more
than scenic treescape, frigid dust.
hair, nose, glass enframed by sapless wood
of window cut to square my void revision of the world.

the colors whirl into mindflow,
inter-material upsurge-undulate,
abyssal cauldron seething passions stilled by
comic symbols of a secular mystic;
dancing eddies convey my sense of sight
just thought, then lost into a wider dance
of tensions eased and drawn,
of geometric visions seemly here and gone,
inner, outer: conveyed by stroke of
spinal eidos, its rhythm set
before my time, its tone the vital,
draping earthverse
recited in my veins, the sinews of my
life in other lives,
the song of us expressive in my gaze~
one blink()a single point of beauty
fades into another haze,
lighted icedrift iridescing evanesce.

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie thing to do

then they go off to the pub and say wanna beer to you

i didn’t know what to say at first

these people do like me, yeah

they think i am cool very very cool

yeah they enjoy my company a lot

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

ya see the aussie thing

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

and a hamburger with the lot

ya see ya go to the footy and the first thing you hear is

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie thing to do

then you go off to the city

to a nightclub, a man blows his cigarette smoke right in your face

you say what, are you doing, then

you say

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie thing to do

you see you think your a man but you look like a hooligan

yeah, your aussie mate true blue

you look rough and ready to punch the guy next to you

and then you say

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie thing to do

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

better being a true blue

you see they look ***** and very very rude

as they say

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie thing to do

you go to the footy and then the cricket

and then off to the pub and park illegally and you get yourself a ticket

the police have arrested you, then they let you go

and the first thing you say is

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie thing to do

you see there is nothing wrong with the australian way of life

as long as they just leave me to do my own thing

i would love to have a packet of crisps

but i hear this

wanna beer wanna beer wanna beer

the aussie the aussie the aussie thing to do, MATE

I hadn't been there in ages, hadn't visited, I had no reason to
But then the Covid virus struck and Dublin where I was working was put into quarantine
I wasn't allowed to go up there anymore to work,
And I had no computer at home and no broadband/ WiFi at the time
So they sent me down to the Old Town
It was nice driving down the motorway, it was Autumn and the leaves they were all changing colour
The different shades of red, brown green and yellow
With the sun shining on the mountains and on the bay
It felt almost like I was going on my holidays,
The Old Town it had changed so much, there were all these new buildings,
Retail parks on the outskirts, hotels, new schools, civic buildings... coffee shops
It was lovely and clean and tidy
Like those living there were really proud of it,
The old town I'd known it was there also, in the background, a bit dusty now
There was the big old gothic church my Dad used take us to, to Mass some Sundays
There was the Port and the big ships along the Quay
There was the secondary school I was meant to go to... had we stayed...it looked old, a bit dilapidated now
I wondered was it still being used as a school,
In the Main Street there were still old names of shops that I recognized
The shoe shop where my Mom used buy us shoes
The chemist where my brother got his glasses... the Bakery
The cinema where we seen our first movie "The Magnificent Seven", it was all done up now... all different...
In the office things were... well...weird! ghostly!
A big modern office and some days I was the only one there, just me all on my own
Was like something out of a Sci-fi movie
Other days maybe two or three might come in to join me
All the others of course, they were all working from home,
Often I'd find my mind just filling with old memories and nostalgia...
I could hear the old ghosts calling, calling me to go back
I knew... I knew I had to go back there
Back to where it had all begun for me
The little seaside village where I was born.

So going home I took the coastal road not the motorway
Just the sight of the headland and the blue mountains sloping down to the sea
With the lighthouse there at the end
Just seeing them again gave me an old feeling of my father, my Dad
And then the village itself, the seafront... all the colourfully painted shops,
Sweet shops & novelty shops, the amusement arcade, pubs and hotels and B&B's  (Bed and Breakfasts)
After being away for nearly fifty years, it still looked...it still looked pretty much the same, was hard to believe
I stopped my car and went into a little supermarket shop to get a sandwich for the next day
As I looked around, I seen these two mature ladies there, they were around my own age
I thought to myself 'I might have gone to school with you once many years ago, one of you might even have been my wife had we stayed here and not moved away
I might have lived a more normal, a different life'
But then I thought 'Life is never that simple, is it'.
Outside I decided to go for a walk, to look around and reminisce.

There was the path, the pavement I used go to school on with my brothers
It was like returning to the scene of a crime
How I used to dread going to school sometimes
There was a teacher, a lady teacher that used scare me a lot, she terrified me so
I remember I got sick in class on several occasions
She put me outside once sitting on an upturned bin
I can still remember sitting there on that bin in the sun, feeling so lost and that I was a really bad boy, wishing I was home
I remember I used to get hives, itches on my skin
My Mom used keep me at home
She was afraid, she thought I'd give them to the other kids
I missed the addition and subtraction tables at school because of this
To this day I still don't know what 7 + 5 is, instead I bring it to 10, I know 5 is 3 + 2, so I say 7 + 3 is 10 and 2 is 12
And I know all the doubles, 7 + 6 is 6 + 6 is 12 and 1 is 13, funny that
How I used to dread going to school
Until that was... until one day I did well at something and I received some praise
Then things seemed to change after that, I wasn't as bothered anymore, I think then I realized I was doing better than some of the others in my class and that seemed to make a difference
I remembered sitting beside pretty little girls who used have lovely pink pencil cases with lots of fancy colourful things
Whereas me I barely had a pencil, a rubber (eraser) and a ruler
They were strange lovely creatures, the Girls with their lovely long hair and their cute little faces...
I remembered walking home on my own, with my little schoolbag on my back with all my books in it
It was such a beautiful place, the view with the beach and the sea and the faraway blue mountains
And yet, I used to worry about so many things
It's like even then it was all about...all about survival...
There was the big Chapel on the hill
Once before the Summer holidays they were looking for altar boys and someone put my name forward
Then on the first morning back to school after the Summer holidays
The teacher said you better get down to the church right away, like fast!! you're on the altar this morning !!!
I was terrified, I didn't know what I had to do, no one told me anything
So there I was on my own kneeling on this cold hard marble altar and it was hurting my knees something terrible
And the priest he's talking about God and the Devil and Evil or Hell or whatever
And all these people, the whole congregation their all staring up at us
And I'm petrified, and I started to get faint and nauseas
The priest had to stop the Mass
I can't remember if I got sick or passed out
I was so embarrassed and thought afterwards I was such a terrible bad person, I knew it'd be all around the school the story.

I walked on...our house was gone, knocked down, where there used to be three houses together attached, now there was only the end house
Our house used to be the middle house
It didn't look right now, the symmetry looked all wrong
It was like there was two missing teeth
Why did they have to knock it down ? I wondered. It saddened me a bit...

At another house I stopped, this used to have a shop, a small shop,  the shop was no longer there
This was my Best Friend's house, all the days we used to play football together in the back garden
Kicking the ball to each other
With our jumpers/ sweaters as goalposts
The first to score ten would win the game
I...I usually won
I always found you easy to read, it's like you only ran in straight lines,
I think you were a bit in awe of me for some reason
Maybe you wouldn't have been my friend if you'd beaten me
How did we become friends anyway, I wondered
I suppose coming home from school
We lived on the same road and were in the same class, we'd have met each other
I had two older brothers whereas you were the oldest
So our families would have had a different dynamic
I remember you had a delightfully silly younger brother
I remember your Mom, she was very pretty, she was a lot younger than my Mom
You used bring me in and give me a meal sometimes, we'd all sit and watch TV
There was a different feeling when I was in your house...a different atmosphere
But when your Dad would come home, he was a bit scary
And I knew it was then time for me to go home
You'd wonder afterwards what the lovely Mom saw in the scary Dad, adults they were a bit peculiar.

We were inseparable in those days, many mornings you'd hear the knock on the door
And the familiar greeting
"Hello Mrs B---, Is G---- in, is he coming out to play?"
We were always playing soccer up the garden
Or down on the beach, going out for miles to meet the tide, catching *****, looking under  stones to see what we might find
I remember we were very entrepreneurial
In the Summer we used collect returnable glass mineral bottles, Orange and Lemonade and Coca Cola
And we'd bring them back to the shop and get money back for them
And then we'd have a royal feast, we'd buy bottles of Orange and bags of crisps and ice cream pops and chocolate bars,
Remember all the different Ice pops there used to be, Choc Ices and Brunches and Orange splits, 99's... Ice cream cones
Chocolate bars, Smarties and Malteasers, Milky Bars and Milky Ways, Dairy Milk chocolate bars, fruit gums and Love hearts with little love messages written on them
We used hang around the amusement arcade, play the slot machines, maybe help some old lady collect her winnings, she might give us a tip
There was the bumper cars and the swingboats and music playing all the time on the jukeboxes
It was the seventies (the 70's) and glam rock was all the rage
Marc Bolan and T-Rex, and Slade and The Sweet and a million others
So many great songs, we couldn't wait to grow up and become one of those amazing creatures we saw on the telly
I'd never lived since as intensely as I did back then,
We'd stay out till late
We were like young hustlers going around,
It seemed the days they were never long enough, all the things we got up to,
We'd Caddy in the local golf course
And retrieve lost ***** from the ditches...
Heh! Remember... remember that time... the Brennan sisters, we were up one day near the school
There was building work going on
And there was this big high mound of clay
So we climbed to the top to take in the view
And then the two Brennan sisters came over
They lived nearby
They were in our class at school, we knew them only to see
They were smiling and laughing and giggling
They beckoned for us to come and follow them
We went wondering what was going on here
They led us back to their house, I think their parents must have been out
One of them came up to us and smiled
And then she pulled down her pants and showed it to us in all its wonderful glorious splendour
It was amazing... incredible... such a sight
Her beautiful...her splendid... her lovely... bare Bottom!
I remember thinking it was like a lovely ripe pear
One of Life's great mysteries had just been unveiled
And her there with this huge impish grin,
When we were going home we promised each other we'd not tell anyone, our parents, not even the priest in confession
About that great vision we'd just witnessed
It was the height of naughtiness
Yea! Those were the days...

I wondered, 'Whatever became of you Old Friend ?
I looked you up online but couldn't find your name anywhere, couldn't find anything about you
Were you even still alive ?
50 years was a long time, I'd barely made it this far myself, and I had a lot of scars to show for it
I thought rather amusingly that I should knock on your door
Maybe you were still living there,
But what was I hoping to find ? I wondered...
"Whose at the door ?", a woman's Voice inside might say,
"Just... just some crazy guy talking about 50 years ago" her dutiful husband would reply
That's probably how it would go
I felt like I was Rip Van Winkle awakening after being asleep for 100 years or in my case 50 years
What did I hope to find
What did I hope to see, an old man now just like myself
And I bet you'd tell me your opinions on the government and the economy
And how the village had changed over the years and how other old schoolmates of ours had got on in life
But No! that's not what I wanted to hear or see
I wanted to see you there again just like you were as a little kid
Your lovely youthful face smiling back at me
And you'd say, "I'll get the ball and we'll have a game, the first to ten wins"
This was what I was looking for, this was what I wanted to hear.

We were very close, were going to grow up together, go to the same schools...college
We'd always be friends
We'd meet all the trials of life together....
I hope Life worked out well for you, my friend
In a way...in a way I almost didn't want to know
If I learned you did well in Life I'd probably only get jealous
I'd start to think I was better than you and that I should have had those things you had
Life, this world it makes enemies of us all... eventually
It divides, is all about competing and comparing... and beating (I suppose).

I still remember that last night before I left forever
We were down on the beach, it was twilight, the tide was coming in... the waves slowly advancing
Just like in life I had no power to stop it, to change things,
I had no say, I didn't want to go and leave you Old Friend
No! I didn't want to go....

Thank you...thank you for being my friend, for being there
For all the time you gave me, I hope I didn't hurt you in any way.

I have a photograph, one solitary old black and white photo of the two of us
We're sitting on a barrel in our back garden on either side of my Dad whose in the middle
You look a bit uncertain, unsure of yourself, probably lost in the dynamic of my family,
I look at you and I think
"Whatever happened to you.... Beautiful Friend, whatever became of you"
And then I look at myself as well, and I think, I whisper
"Whatever became of me as well".

ah... Saturday... completely switched off...
in between watching the Wimbledon matches
a nature show came on...
all about bears...

                           bears... funny creatures...
pretty ingenious creatures...
    i think my totem is a bear...
     perhaps it should be a fox...
or an owl... perhaps even a rat...
    maybe a wolf... or a European bison...
or a stork...
      but i feel like a bear...

i'd oddly placed in this world...
i'm a carnivore that's actually an omnivore...
i have thumbs and pandas have
sort of thumbs too...
   pandas need to sit down to eat...
horses... maybe my totem is a horse...
or a boar... perhaps a snake...

but i like bears...
   i sort of walk about lazily like one: from time to time...
bare: bear: beard: beer...
at least in my native language the word
for bear is: niedźwiedź...
bare: bear: beard: beer...
  boor... that's another b-b-but... of course...

i think evolution span to great jokes...
man and bear...
       let's face it... what animal is intelligent
enough to grow thumbs...
and... tell winter to *******...
eh? the hardships of winter?!
   i think i'll just sleep it off...
and come autumn... when all the fruits
have fallen and are starting to ferment...
i think i'll eat like 100kg of rotting apples
and get drunk...

i've seen footage of drunk bears...
no cat video can top it...
drunk bears and drunk deer...
          i mean: cat videos are boring my comparison...

so in between watching Wimbledon this
bear show came on...
          they're carnivores but some "chose" to be
herbivores, they forage... men used to forage...
some are omnivores...
   the only carnivore among them is
the polar bear... what the **** grows in the Arctic
that also green? there's nothing green
in the Arctic except for the Northern Lights...

i feel like a bear...
           i want to be the joker among the carnivores...
be like: hey! look at me!
i can eat berries too! i can slurp honey
climbs trees like a monkey and rip into
coconuts... i swear to god...
apply biology to a geological timeline
and i can almost see some strange creature
emerge out of the bear that would
completely obliterate the origins of monkeys
and the evolution of monkeys...

or perhaps... that wouldn't be the case...
and that's only because bears are loners...
oddly enough: i'm a loner too...
sure... when social-stresses come into play
i switch gears... but... dump me in
a forest and i'll start wandering...
on the odd occasion i might curse at myself...

then again: bears don't have a clue about
conjuring a minotaur, a cyclops(e),
that horse-man-torso-"thing"... or mermaids...
then again: the Egyptian gods had heads
of animals and bodies of man...
hard to combine...
there was never an ancient Egyptian god
with a head of a monkey and a...
a shaved body of a monkey...
      i wonder why they were blind to such
imaginings... perhaps they feared
the obvious?! the similarity?
                            
they must have sensed it back then...
  they would rather put a jackal's head on a human
body than put a chimp's head on a human body...
name them: Amun,
      Anubis, (i'll exclude Apophis and Ma'at)...
  Ra, Horus... Thoth... Sekhmet...
                   Sobek...
but to be honest... i never found the Egyptian myths
alluring... i just mention them now because
i'm thinking about bears...
    but i couldn't just chop my head off
and chop a bear's head off and switch...
for starters... invert this head-chopping business
and put a man's head on a crocodile...
or put a man's head on a cat... or a crane...
hell... sure... enlarge the body of the animal...
for the "shoe to fit"... and what do you get?
sphinx riddles...
                    i'm really ******* surprised the ancient
Egyptians didn't invent the guillotine...
i'm actually shocked they didn't...

wow... what a strange advert: get better therapy...
it has a woman talking to her
Google Nurse... gizmo... or whatever you call
her... the grand A.I. project...
interesting is a buzzword for the tool...
toxic relationships etc. and the advert ends
with: seek real contact with real people...
are there unreal people? most probably...
are there unreal objects? yeah... inanimate objects
that can travel at the speed of light:
given that light is animate "object"....
the sun might be an orb in the sky...
but look at it with naked eyes and you'll
soon see the Ultraviolet pulverising sheen on it...
it doesn't shine... it doesn't glow... the moon does
that...
         the sun is chaotic... it sort of twirls
and "froths" and whirls... in Ultraviolet...
              it's like a melting metal when sieved...

come to think of it... is anything in this world
inanimate? French philosophers loved thinking about
chairs and tables...
i like to think of a chair on an abstract planet...
is the chair inanimate? but the planet is moving...
this advert prompted me...
so many people live a life of lacking question-worthiness...
people ask these stupid questions about
their stupid mistakes they keep repeating...
like the phenomenon of the recurrent dream...

only today i had a "blackout" dream where i was
eating a burger... but i think it was a dream
that informed me that someone was dreaming about me...
because i didn't see anything:
i think i just read while asleep: YOU'RE EATING
A BURGER... am i? i didn't see ****...

i'm dying to find out if i can write the...
right... at least the Hebrews are consistent with their
deity: they always said: it's all scripted...
there's no imagining "him"...
right... so what's the Tetragrammaton in Katakana?

    my best approximate is:

ヤハワ    (ya-ha-wa) - hmm...
                     i know, right... no Adam-and-Eve of the original
hiding of the vowels... and that W is not part of wHEN
but part of vERY...

what's the alternative?
       it's sort of "counter intuitive" when it comes to Katakana...
since? the language is orientated
with syllables that begin with consonants:
consonant-vowel...
there are no syllables of a vowel-consonant nature...
there's MA
                   but no AM...
and with the mysterious Katakana N sharing equal
status with the vowels... hmm...

so it's like: can you please hide a Y in an A?
that's how it works... i had it all wrong...
i seriously had it all wrong... the whole WIKIPEDIA
matrix of Katakana was not
about hiding an A in a Y... but a Y in an A...
for example...

    it's not about hiding ア in ヤ (A in Y)
but Y in A: ヤ in ア...

          タ (T) in ア (A) and not A (ア) in T (タ)...

K (カ) in A (ア) and not ア (A) in カ (K)...
it even looks logical like that... how the vowels
accommodate the consonants,
they "unravel"...
even though there's no AK to each KA...
the vowels are ingesting consonants...

there's only one "strange" dynamic...
between the free-standing vowels and the only
free-standing consonant: N...

the vowels:

ア イ ウ エ オ (a, i, u, e, o respectively)

   the "consonant" N: ン...

it works differently in this instance...
in this instance the "consonant" is ingesting
the vowels... not the reverse of the vowels ingesting
the consonants for the syllables...
just look:

ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ (na, ni, nu, ne, no, respectively)

but all other consonants work in an opposite
dynamic: although they're written as BA MA KA...
how they're written is actually AB AM AK...

but of course i'd also revel in Hangul...
the Korean script...
but not all websites are compatible with it...
while almost all are compatible with
the Katakana...

i feel like a bear...
            and i'm also feeling terrible English...
there's this current ad. project...
crisps in? or crisps out? in / out of where?
sandwiches... IN! IN!
but unlike someone who's "terribly" English...
sure... crisps inside sandwiches...
but i'm talking about vegetable crisps...
dried beetroot, dried carrots...
dried sweet potatoes, dried parsley...
i don't mean putting standard potato "fries"
into buns of bread-dough... with cheese...
maybe some fresh celery stalks...
some pickles... yummy... i'm already salivating...

last night i got back home around 2am... limping...
the previous night i had a tumble on the stairs...
drank about 35cl of whiskey... tumbled...
****** up one of my toes...
throughout the shift i was walking with a quasi-limp...
trying to re-orientate my toes so i could
place my foot better...

i got home and drank another 35cl of whiskey...
went to bed around 4am... woke up around 2pm...
i felt mentally exhausted...
i love it when they throw me into these situations
above my usual pay-grade...
while about 12 people have been laid off...
i'm still punishing myself with ambition...
well: if i'm aiming to be a chemistry teacher...
might as well learn crowd control...

even today: i'm not even drinking that much...
but i'm already exhausting myself mentally by
peering into the Katakana...
i already mentioned: i would look into Hangul more
often if i could simply ctrl+c / ctrl+p more
of the script... but i'm only allowed 2 examples
of Hangul at a time...

for example?!
                           너    (-|)
     N  (eo)                                 i.e. you...
sort of... better example on:

oh man... but that match at Wimbledon?!
   between  Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas
today?! that was something...
this is me returning to the sensible secular reality of...
i started watching a tennis match...
i ended watching a tennis match...
but there was this bear show in between matches...

i suppose any European can appreciate
either Hangul or Katakana...
   personally? i can't be the next Ezra Pound and fall
in love with Chinese ideograms...
just like most Europeans can't fall in love
with Russian ideas...
       i abhor English egalitarianism...
                         a lot of people abhor Communism...
i abhor that Capitalism usually invokes
making money from the misery of other people...
or the concept that they are nothing
but useless consumers...
    hmm... just start buying whiskey...
the odd shoe once in a while...
and bicycle parts...
                                start going to prostitutes rather
than trying to get a girlfriend and spend
money on gigs...
       i've distanced myself from pair-bonding...
i can't stomach that pair-bonding *******
when in public... i couldn't stomach a girlfriend
who ended up telling me "what a special we were"
when she was competing for the attention of other
women to show me off...
        
and how hard is it for two bears to mate?
given they solitary creatures?!
pretty ******* hard... but it's purer than some
chimpanzee harem...
perhaps bears didn't evolve to shed their fur
for a ****** good reason...
personally?! i too would love to hibernate
and never have knowledge of winter...
no... i take that back... i wish i could sleep through
the summer... i abhor this cult of:
*** only happens in the summer...
    *** should happen in winter
so that two bodies can warm each other...
counter what nature dictates...
after all: i stand outside of nature,
i stand outside of time i stand outside of space...
i am the abstract quantum of this world...
because i admire fire as much as i fear it...
should i find myself in a forest ablaze...
because i admire water as much as i feart it...
should i find myself in a leaking boat
in a middle of a storm at sea...
    but compare that with drinking a glass of water
on a humid day...

that's my answer to: and you will know the difference
between good and evil...
by consensus that's already decided:
but it's lied about... it's left hidden... for the advantage
of others to gain from...
will i be conflating polar opposites?
will i call night day and day night
should i venture as far north as Alaska during the summer?
should i call 4pm night during winter
but also call 4pm day during summer?

eh... sure... perhaps Latin looks sterile... it doesn't have
a Nomadic aesthetic similar to either Arabic
or Hebrew... but i don't appreciate either
of these scripts... none of them could
have perfected mathematics
in a way that Latin script could...
the Ancient Roman concept of the coliseum would
never be translated into a football stadium
(that massive hole in the ground,
like a meteor crater of the past rumbling
and agitating the present) like the Latin script has
preserved...

since even the dangling sacrifice on the crucifix
couldn't overpower the stature of the Latin script...
i'll call it what it was and is:
a Greco-Hebrew conspiracy against the Romans...
even that couldn't undermine the death
of this script like what was used to undermine
the death of the Babylonian Cuneiform...
and sure... the Glagolitic script died...
   as did the Runes... but they are still retained
and fondly remembered...

but of all the other scripts of the world?
i have envy for two... the Katakana and the Hangul
(the Japanese and the Korean)
respectively... i have no care for the Mandarin
hieroglyphs... they do not speak more sounds than
me: i speak more sounds than them...
their encoding is just too pedantic: ancient even...
alien...
               because they write without
a consonant to vowel differentiation...
Mandarin isn't superior: it's all ******* emoticons!

🐩 🍞💩

basically: less skeleton and more form,
which reads as: dog eat ****...
            but hieroglyphs are hieropglyphs...
the eat might as well have been written as
ate...
     dog ate ****... who cares if it's a poodle?!

i couldn't find an emoji with eating...
so i chose bread...
because... what do you do with bread?
throw it?! you throw rotten vegetables
in a theatre... cabbages and tomatoes...
the best you can do with bread
is dry it... in an oven...
so it doesn't venture into... turning mouldy...
or you soak it up... in milk...
and mix it with pork meat...
and create Slavic pork-burgers...

dog bread ****...
i.e. dog ate ****... no?!

just reminiscent of yesterday... how stressed i was
at the beginning... but then how i dug deep
into the role... how other supervisors spoke
of trouble with some of the stewards
and how i had: ZILCH...
you're never up in a hierarchy...
you're always down... ******* down...

it's so much better to keep them in position
and if they're gagging for a coffee...
you get the coffee for them...
you don't tell them to ask for a toilet break:
you just allow free reign...
it's not ******* prison...
         when you give them free food
how happy they become...
of course i fancied two of the girls on my shift...
one ****** Somali goddess...
i swear i was looking at the Queen of Sheba for a bit...
then this mixed race girl with
my wild hope: god give me a girl with curly hair...
god give me a girl with curly hair...

but i kept roaming... i was always present...
my feet ached by the end of it...
but CONTROL messaged me... 0 times...
i told them: you can be on your phones for as along
as it might take to pretend to checking the time...
how many did go on their phones?!
none...
                  i'm going to celebrate myself...
why the **** not...
   i did a good job... i fed my "pride"...
my... "heard"... i checked on each one...
are you happy? yep... most were happy...
i was just waiting for one of them to say the words:
it was a pleasure working with you...
once that dropped i knew i was waiting
for some other people to get fired...
for... egoism... nothing else... pretentious egoism:
"pretentious" without any cultural
knowledge...

**** me... some websites allow Katakana...
all the emojis... but no enough Hangul...
****** me off...
        
i was really enjoying this match-up between
Kyrgios vs. Tsitsipas...
                it's tennis... ****'s sake with football...
then again: it's tennis... and not squash...
i just remember myself being stressed...
but once the herd / pride were fed...
it's how you look...
               people respond to looks so
much differently when it's otherwise an attitude
assurance...
              the less i spoke the better they
behaved... and the fact that i kept them fed...

walking and walking... more walking...
                 more walking...
                              even i was telling them:
i'm tired of ego-mani(a)c hierachic busy-bodies...
obviously i had one lose canon...
i told the rest of them:
just break yourselves... ignore him...
ignore him...
                 they ignored him...
let him... let him: feel rejection...

                        he's a spare wheel
when the 4 are already working...
                my pride... my herd...
                             that's what i was aiming at:
a reminder... can i work with Matthew?!
i just need that... i need the word to be passed along...
what did "Matthew" do?
he allocated us breaks...
he fed us...

                   that's all i need...
                                 i don't need ego-tripping
hierarchical measures being implemented...
i know i'm dealing with jokers:
but i'm also not a woman...
i don't need minor cues...
as a man i know that when i snap
i'll bite rather than shout...
    
                 perhaps that's why i love the ontology
of masculinity...
           ontological-masculinity is
the antithesis of what's to be ever approached
via the movement of feminism...
the counter to feminism is... ontological-masculinity...
crazy women and ***** men...
perfect coupling... although there's a "third":
***** men: perfectly crazy:
as the prostitutes disclose... ***** men and
prostitutes...

A thousand angry fingers are fighting.
"I’m right! Im right! There’s wrong in your writing.”
There’s a war of opinion, it's a slaughter of facts,  
as fearful dominions blame who they can for the acts
of hate that they scrape across our tired eyes;
and as we try and decipher truth from the lies.
So soon people point, push, drag and despise
anyone they believe to be the devil in disguise.  
“ Hang them, hit them, beat them down.
Don’t let another one of ‘those' in my good town”.  

I tried to tie my own tongue and keep quiet.
But my fingers felt need to fight in this riot.
Though I am not seeking a thumb from anyone,
I was beginning to fear I was a disloyal son;
for our mother is weeping for every child.
Whether radical, righteous, anxious or mild.  
She’s worried this war, like a fire in the wild,
won’t stop until all is consumed but the ash that is piled.
“ Stop this! Stop this! My dear children!
  Life is so much more than the motives of men"

And I watch this war from a cafe in Glasgow;
outside enjoying coffee, crisps and tobacco.
The smoke swirls my head into a strange sense of comfort,
as before my eyes I watch my own world distort.  
Where political posts attempt to equal social justice.
Where blood, bodies and bombings add to our numbness.
Where others opinions slowly shape and become us.
Where poets lack rhyme, guidance or substance.
Where In friends we see foes, and in fellow citizens: dangers.
Where we speak with our fingers, and to ourselves become strangers.

A Crop of Lies irrigate farmland
Deception grows and dies
Its corpse sustains
A cycle refrains

Cold, this night is
Cracks open the ground
Revealing a sight
Seeping through with light

Regions were found
To be taken and conquered
Sailors sailed to eat sailors
And they as well ate bread

Sounds of paranormal had
Guided every boat, then plane
Then spaceship, to the inside
Of a toy box they made

“These Crops dictate Truth”
Says Man (or monster)
Every night is cold; cracked
These Crops are impure

Livestock tell stories of their leader
It’s more of saying really
Because they’re ******* livestock
The Truth cannot tell nor talk

Reason slips off their skin
Like water off oil
Harder and harder it is
For Man to let joy soak in






Journeys of discovery
Travel through the television
Crisps, colas, pies, and cakes
Is what ******* does it

Beef pulp, French toast, tomato paste
Is what ******* does it
All we consume is ****
Crying fat morons decompose

“I really like the rain”
Says ****** with pudding stain
And her body melts and pours
As the rain does inexcusably

Great big dogs soak up in the rain
Unlike Man with his walking cane
They are all dying as they retreat
Underneath a roof of sin to replace

Emotional politicians claim they’re drug-free
As they smoke cigs and drink alcohol
Infant babies were torn apart in shopping malls
Did the World set them free?

Man (or monster) propose
To have a war on anything
Must any more children die?
Or can they get high; watch television?
What the **** is wrong with an aspect
Of harmless self-discovery
Can Man wager livestock’s epiphany?
Is it o.k. to live in a subdivision?

Or on a farm, or in the television?
Do these Crops have to dictate
Which victim we choose to mate?
To dictate our truth?

Can the fake astronaut admit?
He got ******* high; watched sitcoms
Ate potato chips, ate cereal out of the box
Never told a soul it was a hoax

Crops soak in the sweet rain
As the political Man weeps
These Crops become true
Dying Men no longer retreat

A Crop of Lies
Become so true
This wisdom is beauty
What we see now
Is as clear as day

The bomb site
is the best place
for chickweed
Helen said

so you went
to the one off
Meadow Row
and gathered up

handfuls of the stuff
and took them back
to your flat
to feed the budgerigar

you were looking after
for the old couple
along the balcony
who had gone away

for a few days
you watched
as Helen poked
some through the bars

of the bird cage
with her fingers
and you noticed
her tenderness

and determination
as she pushed it
through the narrow
gauged bars

her tongue poking out
of the corner
of her mouth
her eyes focusing

through her
thick lens spectacles
does it sing?
she asked

don't think so
you replied
least I’ve not
heard it do so

she talked to the budgie
in her little girl voice
and sang a few lines
of a hymn

the budgerigar
just stared at her
and walked up
the other end

of the perch
with a beak full
of chickweed
as she sang to it

she held her head
at an angle
and one of her plaits
of brown hair

hung downwards
do you want
to come back
to my place afterwards?

she said
you can help me
bath my doll Battered Betty
and then

Mum'll get us
some bread and jam
or bread and dripping
and a mug of tea

you had wanted to go
to the bomb site
for half an hour
to gather ammunition

for your catapult
but she had that look
about her face
that made you say

sure why not
and so after poking through
the remaining chickweed
and washing your hands

under the cold water tap
in the kitchen
and drying them
on the towel hanging

behind the door
you walked down
the concrete stairs
and out into the Square

and down the *****
into Rockingham Street
where you walked past
the coal wharf

where coal trucks
were being filled
with sacks of coal
and by

the Duke of Wellington pub
where you used to get
bags of crisps
and bottles of Tizer

on Sunday evenings
then under
the railway bridge
and she talked

of some boys at school
who called her 4 eyes
and fish face
O don't mind them

you said
they just can't see
your beauty
too blind

dumb idiots
do I?
she said
have beauty?

sure you do
you said
putting on
your serious face

never seen a girl
with more
and she smiled
and gazed at you

through the thick lens
of her spectacles
showing the large
brown conker like eyes

when you got to her place
her mother
was just finishing
bathing a young kid

so she let Helen
have the water after
to bath Betty
and gave her

an old towel to dry with
you helped her
prepare the doll
but she took off

the baby clothes
an old cardigan
that had seen
better days

and a creamy dress
with small buttons
at the back
which were a hell

of a job to undo
and a pair of
doll *******
that fitted tightly

and were a struggle
to get off
well
Helen said

the water's nice
and soapy
so we can wash her
as it is

and so you watched
as she dipped the doll
under the water
(it might have drowned

had it been for real)
and held it there
until bubbles came out
of the neck

and she lifted Betty out
and wiped her over
with a flowery face cloth
and Betty’s eyes

opened and closed
and you helped dry
and studied
(as boys tend to do)

the seriousness
of Helen about the task
the tongue hanging
from the side

of her mouth
her eyes focussed
the head to one side
like an animal

trying to understand
a human command
and the small hands
working with calm concern

just as you'd seen
your mother do
when she made a cake
or rolled out pastry

for a pie
once the doll was dry
and dressed
she put Betty back

in the tiny cot
her dad had made
from an orange box
and her mother said

sit down
and I’ll get you
some bread and jam
or bread and dripping

and mugs of tea
and off she went
to the kitchen
humming some hymn

and you looked at Helen
sitting there
with her plaits of hair
and big eyes

showing no fear
and a smile
from ear
to lovely ear.

I've got a rubberface
Rubber arms, rubber taste
The sloshing pit I make
Does more harm than I take
Peel my eyes one layer deep
And fry the slivers up to keep
I weep, a creature feeds the creep
What you perceive is just skin deep
Crusty crisps of cornea
Sell big in California
But I must warn ya,
What you see is more than bargained for ya
Limping gait on limp old limbs
Swollen canister to rim
Go with him, a restless whim
Bare witness to a songless hymn

the world according, to a star-studded journalist -
writing the magazine Saturday column, a she, mind you,
all learned about seeing the world: well, only New York -
she's hip! she's funny! she's downright a prop'ah scumbag -
and i say: the iron curtain should have turned into an iron skirt...
but then Pope Jean-Claude von ****, the second, opened up
the brothel... i too would have liked a ****...
but hell, it was always going  to be a bony **** at best...
raise a family? REJECT! they think their post-colonialism is an
affair of scented parchments of hope, what they did in Africa,
they're suddenly doing in Europe... shush-bags of wisdom,
let's get the house in order: i'm a perverted snail, i **** toads for
practice, i ***** out salty ***** on the rotunda circuit of cries:
justice! justice! well, if ever i spotted a deaf ear, it'd be now.
so there she is lazing about with a column on Saturday,
and she drops the New-Irish words: and M & S, buying swimwear,
hoping for a Burkini... the lighting and the flooring gave the place
an unhappy, postwar, eastern European (a new continent, mind you)
vibe. i half-expected a forklift truck to drive past me,
delivering potatoes to some far corner's "thursday potato display -
sprouted ones half price." out of the blue a leprechaun jumps out,
a real ventriloquist by trade, and does a rendition of that famous
song: we all eat potatoes here, nothing but *** *** potatoes!
tra lala la. this fetish in western society, potatoes: the famous mash
and chips... cabbage... and the famous coleslaw...
eastern Europe: land of landfill sites and mountains
of potato... which magically turn into lakes of *****...
and cabbage... i got to know more about the world by being
half the tourist i was supposed to be... and half of what integrating /
assimilating into a host culture allowed: St. George can
hang a ****** on the washing line, and Lizzy can shave her head...
     i'm a patriot of language,
simple as, a patriot of language,
not a patriot of the culture that incubated the language...
first of all check-out North Korean propaganda films,
second of all ask why you received the Marshall Plan
funds, inc. Sweden, which was neutral during the war...
then bewilder yourself as to why you're selling us
a farmer's stereotype, but as the grand observation
of the bellybutton suggests: they're the ones stuffing
crisps into buns and eating it with cheese and ham
at every lunch-break... farmer here, farmer there,
******* potato fetishist anywhere...
and you wonder why i retain a patriotism to the language
rather than to the people that speak it...
they didn't make it easy, and they're certainly not
making it any easier... Leprechaun Irish -
potaytoe - potaytoe - potaytoe -
so the expectation is... i'm a slave, you're the master,
i get to visit the opposite of Auschwitz in the cotton
colony? well, at least the existential answer is simple
in Auschwitz - our german brood will do the job more
effectively... we don't need you, off to God you go...
in a cotton colony? our people are superior,
we need slaves to do the work that our people are not fit
to do... and this is diabolical logic, i don't deny it,
but i'd rather be told to die than be told to live and work
for someone's amusement and benefit...
simple... p'ahtaytoe!
                                    it seems that whenever they
came to Poland they only came to Auschwitz, now,
all of a sudden, i'm the collaborating ****,
the stain on Polish soil, as already noted:
Egypt has its pyramids, Poland has German chimneys...
******* choo choo and Thomas the tank engine rolled into town...
how can you ever attempt a full discrete and competent
assimilation / integration when you have to end up
a solitary form of ethnic cleansing, where bilingualism
is treated as a mental illness, and you have to, in effect,
spit at your parents to embrace an English wife,
with an English household, with 42.3% chance of divorce?
what's the ******* point of that? at least in my
culture monogamy had a sense, not here, among
the brutal brats: who rather than having learned to care
for children, after petting an animal, just leave them
like stray wild dogs, not free to roam in forests and
fields, but in angst ridden kennels...
                                       well, Japan is selling me euthanasia,
cos reaching old age was going to be such an achievement,
that everyone started begging for the living standards
akin to Sudan: dead at 40, dead at 40 and nimble.

I don't think I'm a very nice person.
Dead people can have *******.
The weirdest part of this morning was the tropical bird that was road ****, but I thought was a bag of salt and vinegar crisps, in London.
Always ******* up, ******* up all ways.
I'm your green grocer.
Mental collapse is quite close.
**** my ****.
A gale of wind.
Sitting by a canal in the sun with a coffee at 7am.
My time is now.

That isn't sarcastic, it's brilliant.
I saw a werewolf drinking a Piña Colada .
Need an adventure.
like peas in a pub.

This is it.

Your big moment.
Taking time at these crossroads.
Your decision determining destiny.
A moment all your own, never to be replicated.
skittering circuits buzz, obedient to your commands.
Hours lay ahead of you, stuffed and bulging with the static you will consume.
Channel 2 or channel 4?

This is it.

Your catastrophic downfall.
An outcry was made, now the civility is shattered.
the acquaintances you once held as companions,
may now cut icy glares as the senate did to Caesar.
alarms ring, as you feel reduced in their eyes.
You got the wrong change at the cafe,
so you ask for a fiver.

later on,
your banquet awaits, golden and sunbaked.
stewed for months, in rich and creamy crop of the land.
taking your throne, in the cool shaded flank in your garden of eden.
A cup of soup and a bag of crisps.

these grand odysseys still raise up those same emotional epics,
as moments in youth locked in the past.
like lying on a blanket at the very edge of one of the seven sisters.
alas, you are still perched upon oblivion,
cup of tea in hand.

i am a fine eater i eat everything

i feel like eating chocolate and many other things

and i feel like giving up and i have a craving

a craving for toothpaste

but i don’t wanna eat it because it is for teeth

i feel like drinking orange juice as well as chocolate

i eat chocolate and i gain weight

i want to stop eating junk food

he;s eating junk food, he’s like us now man

i feel like a chocolate bar as well a a chocolate mousse

i feel like a packet of biscuits as well as a big bottle of coke

please stop theser cravings please stop these cravings

like LOLLIES, YUMMY OLE LOLLIES, makes you fat but still tastes great

lollies put on a lot of excess weight, too much sugar

i am 162 kg, from eating too much sugar

yeah, dudes, my sugar count is high

i like cheesecake or vanilla slices as well as butter popcorn

which, that tastes soooooo nice, like me, i guess

i feel like two flavoured milks which can put on a lot of kilos

and i feel like a nice packet of mint slice biscuits and a 2 litre bottle of lemonade

lovely lemonade, and a 2 litre bottle too, and a beautiful sponge cake

sugar causes diabetes, and diabetes is caused by too much sugar

and i buy a tub of ice magic and pour it all over the ice cream

yes, i do feel like a tub of ice cream

and i have a sweet tooth a very big sweet tooth

chocolate and vanilla slices and milkshakes make me tick

and the yummy ole lollies make me feel happy

but each ounce of sugar i do eat can add on the weight

like every bottle of coke i do drink refreshes my mouth and body

like red coke and vanilla coke and coke life and coke zero really adds the fucken flavour

i do a poem in the poetry slam and coke is my reward

i was walking today and i smelt the wonderful cake in my fat body

i don’t want to be fat, but the sugary is solo addictive

the toothpaste is so addictive, but i must stop myself

i know i have a sweet tooth but i need to look further down

because sugar causes belly problems and dental problems

and my mental illness medication is making me crave all these wonderful foods

like hamburgers and chips and mexican nachos and cream buns

puts on weight, i can’t resist i ****** can’t resist, it’s clogging up my arteries

but i can’t seem fro stop the cravings

money buys sugary foods and drinks, i feel poor

i want to be rich and resist  these foods, i would love to have mates

but i am poor and i can’t resist these foods

i hear old school chums calling out to me, eat it brian eat it brian eat it brian

sometimes i can’t resist not to

but i want to, i will eat all these foods in one day

who can give you chocolate for many times you knew

who can rip the strawberry out of strawberries and cream lollies yeah

yeah i can eat a whole packet of marshmallows and strawberries and cream

as well as milk bottles and freddo frogs as well as a packet of 10 cherry ropes

i can eat chicken twists and cheese twists

as well as a packet of cheese and bacon *****, again too much sugar or saturated fats

bad for me very very bad for me, but i still eat it

i got addicted to coke when i was buying my second coke, and the lady said

you must be very very thirsty, mind you i was very thirsty but the sugar put coke ahead of water

and i went to the club and had a few sugary cokes and i bought a few packets of saturated fat crisps

as well as another sugary chocolate bar, i was thinking sugar is better than alcohol

but they both are as bad as each other

it is a lot of food to consume

who loves orange soda, brian loves orange soda is it true, yes i do i do i do oh yeah

you see food is the wicked witch and your body are the children she has

today i bought a nice sumo salad, a takeaway option

and i had two oranges as well as two dips, still bad, but all this are my preferences for a dessert i don’t need

i mean, that **** is weirder than the scots deep-frying chocolate bars (mars, mianly, even though i think snikers would taste better), or slices of pizza; yeah, and they say: euro-trash... how much more ****** can you get?! i don't even want to know what the irish culinary fetish is; it's enough knowing that the thai like deep-frying locust.

i never understood it, this english "thing",
there is probably no nation in the world that has
a compulsion to mix two carbohydrate heavyweights...
heavyweights?
         pasta... bread... rice...
                 crisps...
          so i was reading the yesterday's newspaper
and this recipe was included in the magazine:
      pasta with beans and pesto...
sounds good enough...
but i read into the recipe...
          400 grams of linguine,
                       300 grams green beans,
        200 millitres basil pesto
                    freshly grated parmesan...
and then it hit me:             *1 large potato cut into
                     1 centimetre cubes...
    but now i'd be asking americans to: not bother
getting a passport...
      in school i watched the english lodge crisps
         into sandwitches...
     this is the most oddball of all current nations...
who the **** combines two heavyweight carbohydrates?
they even have this standard of lodging chips
    into buns...
               like my father once noticed on the building
site, this black guy, stuffing a banana peanut-butter
            and some bacon into a sandwitch...
              fair enough if you lodge a plantain into
the mix... but a banana?
              about as weird as the english
                     using crisps + bread... or pasta + potato.
having a glimpse at this pratice,
seems more fascinating, than, say, spotting a yeti.

And the prophets all dressed in their Sunday's best,
Waiting for the secret of the sacred test
While the little red birds and the ******* crows
Sang a tune, "One above, one below"
And as she whittled the knife cross her wrist,
She came across an ancient tryst
A place she knew from way back when;
The place she knew that she would end
It had hands like hers, and vulnerable eyes,
But the mind did not shake, the soul not disguise
It drug her away from the beady-eyed ones,
While she stared from below with a mouthful of guns
It took her away to a quiet room,
Where around her was no one she knew
She turned to look at its face, but only emptiness
She turned to ask it a name, but only vagueness
And what did you mean when you said you had a dream
Full of colorful squares and the butter king?
And why did the man drinking gin from a can,
Provide such a riddle on the night of the ******?
"He'll come to you in chains, so take what he gives"
Does this mean that I'll die, and he lives?
Is redemption the path for the doomed and the great,
That comes only when called upon by your fate?
Where then is this world, with chips, ruffles and pearls?
Where is my ticket to? Heaven or Hell?
Either way, I'm not meant for this realm,
Where I'm flying blind with no one at the helm
The haunted attic days are over
No more crimson, no more clover
The lollipops are frozen, the crisps have turned black
They possess everything; I only love what I lack
So rid me of here, or obliterate it all;
Being "self-contained" just isn't my call
I could be strong and keep a tight trigger,
But these unborn chicken voices are bigger

We're all walking cliche's,
So what's the big deal?
I can  wear a beanie and a gay pride tee shirt and moccasins,
And listen to Neutral Milk Hotel,
And talk about feminism and politics.
Do not kiss me with your mustang convertible and your ****** piercings.
I am a taken woman.
But I will take your free drugs.
Thank you very much.
Stop mourning me,
My arrogance should never have been a turn on.
Pretzel crisps, tattoos, and student loans.
It's hard walking down the boulevard of broken dreams,
And bumping into all the other lonely souls.

I like the smell of cut grass and dew in the morning.
Sunshine and rainbows and when the sky's dawning.

Coffee and baked bread, and crunchy leaves in the autumn.
Singing and dancing, and anything that cures boredom.

Roast chestnuts in winter, and painting and reading.
Skipping stones on the water, warthogs and weeding.

Going on adventures to places unseen by my eye.
Also, cheese and onion crisps and chocolate, at the same time.

The smell of the rain and a good thunder storm.
Blue sky and the starlings when they gather in a swarm.

Anything purple, walking my dog in the evening.
Randomness and laughter, all of these are appealing.

I like music, my long hair and wearing a hat.
My high tops, my guitar, cheese and also my cats.

I like the drum of the rain on a caravan roof.
The thud on the ground from a horses hoof.

The warmth of the sun upon my face.
The crackle from a log burning in the fireplace.

I love my family and friends, and my happy places.
Meeting new people and putting smiles on their faces.

I like birds, all animals and frost on the window.
I love the look of the countryside when it's covered in snow.

A cobweb with raindrops, taking photos and nature.
My book collection, seafood and the blue of a glacier.

I like making cakes, playing risk, and flowers and trees.
Writing poems, walking, reading, and I love bees.

I like the crash of the sea, and the trickle of a stream.
The sunset in Africa, crypic crosswords and a good dream.

I like a lot of things, as you can see.
There is a lot more you don't know about me.

Maybe another poem will pop into my head.
Always at the time when I should be in bed.

When it does I'll write it down somewhere to show.
Then more things about me you shall know.

so now, here is the thing.



as a kid i was not allowed

crisps.



gran disapproved

& mum had little money,

on her own with four

of us kids to feed.



it is just potato.



i had game chips when

i went to the marsham



court hotel to dance

the new year in. i wore a kilt.

my mother did not come.then

my nice brother went to work

on the railway. one day in secret

he bought me a packet of my own.



early employment as a cook

entailed cooking crisps, oh joy,

& paid for it.



these days i eat them as & when i like.



#salty



sbm.

We share blood you and I,
and have shared
golden pocketed memories, sticky ice-creamed fingers
back seats,smelly packs of cheese and onions crisps
and jokes about the two in the front arguing over directions,money- us.
Yet we couldn't be more polarized,
Your a young soul but your older,
you used to whisper scandalous grown -up things
and I  would swallow your information as gospel.
Under sapphire skies,
I'd follow you around just wanting your attention
and I know now how annoying it must have been
to have a whiny little sister wanting you to play Barbies.
And I won't lie,
I love you most days and hate you the rest
for all those times you'd beat me up(really just a punch)
and pronounce  me the Loch-ness monster and call me  fat.
It'll always be Love/Hate with you and I
I'm the chalk and your the cheese
but you make me laugh until my sides ache
and I know you love telling me the news of your latest exploit.
There's a camaraderie well that implied,
I've got your back and you've got mine.
we table tennis tease but we both draw a line
and we won't cross it.
because we share blood you and I,
despite nurture over nature
or blood is thicker than water
know this big brother
I love you as a person.

standing in front of the pacific
sea salt hair, frothy finger scooping
water back into the sea
gulls hungry desperate endangered
if not for stranger's crisps
clawed baby *****
pincers at the ready
crushed by babies human
shell fractured by skin
hands held together by other hands
threaded together like a lifeline
families laugh, dolphin-like chortles
over nothing
at all
and sons and daughters
forgo their differences, chuck them
into waves with grey shore rocks, protect
their towels and castles and bodies
with sand moats, a starfish
plunked dead center
far away from home
iridescent sea shells collected
as jewels, worn around pretty
bruised necks of housewives
content in their one-day
ocean excursion turned revolution
solitude as i watch
and sit and think and think and
feel and watch some more
eyes like those saccharine
candy floss treats, cloying to
tongues and fingertips, alone
in another universe i am
with a family
tossing our children into ocean waves
dunking ourselves into the deep
collecting glinting shells for
our jewelry, breaking them
as they are shoved into plastic bags
but today
in this universe
i am the crab
crushed by skin
and flesh
and bone
a soulless thing
careful to observe, cautious, fleeting
miniscule
to be fed upon, ******
dry by trauma,
licked off the fingers of
would-have-been acquaintances
a carcass of longing
for moremoremore

yet never quite certain
how to crawl towards it
lest i be
stomped upon
again

so i sit on the beach
inhale saltwater and laughter and affection
through my skin
and make friends with sea creatures
as lonely as i am
as insignificant
as me

the age old adage rings loud

1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila
FLOOR!

I look around and I see some simple *******
some lying in their own filth

when will you learn
it is sip not slam

god forbid you order training wheels
next one with lime and salt
better be eating crisps not drinking

bartender pour me the long glass
let me savor a whiskey back


i've got drinking to do
tequila for me and everyone standing

i plan on looking at my liver in the face tomorrow.

bring me the bottles
because if you didn't know
joe crow and jameson are long lost cousins

and play something loud
lets see if this liquid gold makes them dance.

:D

i stand and stare, fridge is bare
no carpet on the floor
washing soaked, heating broke
bailiffs at the door

roof is leaking, house is creaking
single dad, sad moaner
middle aged, without a wage
christmas round the corner
but.....

a little boy in india
not eaten for a week
no shirt upon his back....
a grin upon his cheek

he's never tasted biscuits
crisps, or orange squash
always wears a smile
but never clothes to wash

unaware of fridges
heating run on gas
never seen a carpet
school room or a class

materialistic *******
food that goes to waste
life we take for granted
he will never taste

happy ever grateful
for simple things of need
never witness our ****
of gluttoness and greed