cab cunningham tenía cincuenta años y un ciruelo
cuando descubrió la maldad
los ojos se le pusieron verdes la boca gris y azul alternativamente
daba señales como al empezar el día

eso no es todo:
del vientre le empezaron a subir vientos que lo hacían volar
y girar alrededor del planeta y de su casa
como un alma maldita o en pena que trabajara a todo tren

¡oh! cab cunningham no se hacía ninguna ilusión
con lágrimas secas regaba el ciruelo
que florecía de espaldas al asunto
peleando con los pájaros que lo venían a romper

eso daba música que cab cunningham escuchaba a la tarde a modo de consuelo
entre ciruelo y pájaros había una especie de tratado o misión
y prolongaban temores ruidos
miedos luchas elecciones furias

"¡oh cab!" solía decir cab
"he aquí que las casualidades que organizan tu cuerpo
son como los monos santos de Panini
caprichosos y verdaderos tristes"

decía cab cunningham y más
"oh carbono y nitrógeno detenidos por mí" decía
"¿oro serán ahora que termine? ¿adónde
irán ustedes huesos
o carne sangre ojo perfil dientes que era?"

nunca se supo adónde fueron o
qué fue de la congoja de cab cunningham los viernes por la tarde
cuando era hermoso y parecía encenderse
bajo el cielo imparcial

pero se supo lo siguiente:
toda la biología atada por cab cunningham
crepitó libre cuando murió
y áhi el ciruelo se detuvo
nunca más trabajó con los pájaros
nunca más hizo ruido, ciruelito

like *******'s paint splattering on canvas
like Warhol's Campbell soup in print
like Cunningham's democracy on stage

she loves him like that; she loves him like Art

The Top Ten Epigrams of All Time

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.—Albert Camus

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.—Eleanor Roosevelt

If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning.—Catherine the Great

If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and his impersonators would be dead.—Johnny Carson

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.—Oscar Wilde

To err is human, but it feels divine.—Mae West

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.—Mohandas Gandhi

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.—Virginia Woolf

I'm not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I'm not dumb, and also I'm not blonde.—Dolly Parton

He does not believe, who does not live according to his belief.—Sigmund Freud



In April 2014 A Poet’s Glossary by Academy Chancellor Edward Hirsch was published. As Hirsch writes in the preface, “this book—one person’s work, a poet’s glossary—has grown, as if naturally, out of my lifelong interest in poetry, my curiosity about its vocabulary, its forms and genres, its histories and traditions, its classical, romantic, and modern movements, its various outlying groups, its small devices and large mysteries—how it works.” Each week we will feature a term and its definition from Hirsch’s new book.

epigram: From the Greek epigramma, “to write upon.” An epigram is a short, witty poem or pointed saying. Ambrose Bierce defined it in The Devil’s Diction­ary (1881–1911) as “a short, sharp saying in prose and verse.” In Hellenistic Greece (third century B.C.E.), the epigram developed from an inscription carved in a stone monument or onto an object, such as a vase, into a literary genre in its own right. It may have developed out of the proverb. The Greek Anthology (tenth century, fourteenth century) is filled with more than fifteen hundred epigrams of all sorts, including pungent lyrics on the pleasures of wine, women, boys, and song.

Ernst Robert Curtius writes in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1953): “No poetic form is so favorable to playing with pointed and sur­prising ideas as epigram—for which reason seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Germany called it ‘Sinngedicht.’ This development of the epigram necessarily resulted after the genre ceased to be bound by its original defi­nition (an inscription for the dead, for sacrificial offerings, etc.).” Curtius relates the interest in epigrams to the development of the “conceit” as an aesthetic concept.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined the epigram in epigrammatic form (1802):

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole;
Its body brevity and wit its soul.

The pithiness, wit, irony, and sometimes harsh tone of the English epigram derive from the Roman poets, especially Martial, known for his caustic short poems, as in 1.32 (85–86 B.C.E.): “Sabinus, I don’t like you. You know why? / Sabinus, I don’t like you. That is why.”

The epigram is brief and pointed. It has no particular form, though it often employs a rhymed couplet or quatrain, which can stand alone or serve as part of a longer work. Here is Alexander Pope’s “Epigram from the French” (1732):

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool:
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

Geoffrey Hartman points out that there are two diverging traditions of the epigram. These were classified by J. C. Scaliger as mel and fel (Poetics Libri Septem, 1561), which have been interpreted as sweet and sour, sugar and salt, naïve and pointed. Thus Robert Hayman, echoing Horace’s idea that poetry should be both “dulce et utile,” sweet and useful, writes in Quodlibets (1628):

Short epigrams relish both sweet and sour,
Like fritters of sour apples and sweet flour.

The “vinegar” of the epigram was often contrasted with the “honey” of the sonnet, especially the Petrarchan sonnet, though the Shakespearean sonnet, with its pointed final couplet, also combined the sweet with the sour. “By a natural development,” Hartman writes, “since epigram and sonnet were not all that distinct, the pointed style often became the honeyed style raised to a higher power, to preciousness. A new opposition is frequently found, not between sugared and salty, but between pointed (precious, over­written) and plain.”

The sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, and sometimes sweet-and-sour epigram has been employed by contemporary American formalists, such as Howard Nemerov, X. J. Kennedy, and especially J. V. Cunningham. Here is a two-line poem that Cunningham translated in 1950 from the Welsh epi­grammatist John Owen (1.32, 1606):

Life flows to death as rivers to the sea,
And life is fresh and death is salt to me.

Excerpted from A Poet’s Glossary by Edward Hirsch. Copyright © 2014 by Edward Hirsch. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.



collected in
collection
A Poet’s Glossary
Each week we feature a new term from Academy Chancellor Edward Hirsch’...

Captured in the psych ward part 9




Ron was having a great time with his grandson, going to Philip island to see
The fairy penguins and going to the Melbourne zoo and also having a lot of
Fun with Dan's son bill, and Ron was having a lot of fun, but as he will soon
Know, that, the HDU is changing, the only two remaining members are Pete
And patty roe, because the others were released and a few went to IVU, that
*** robert, cause he had a few outbursts, and when Billy's dad David came
To pick him up, Ron thanked him, for letting him spend some time with his
Grandkids, and then Ron had one more sleep to go before he went back to
Work so he treated himself to a gamble at the casino, and, man Ron, who hardly
Goes to the casino at all, won $12-000 and went home loaded, and
He was ever so hsppy, and bought himself a 2 litre bottle of coke, to relax and
Watch the TV, and the show he watched was parenthoodm because his favourite
Happy days character was, Richie cunningham and he looked like a real ******
Drongo as he was drinking his coca cola, and it made him tired, and again he fell asleep
On the couch, and woke up at 6 am and got himself ready for work, shower, shave
And breakfast and then he went for a coffee at that cafe, where Fran and Dan worked,
And he ordered a cappuccino and a vanilla slice, and then went to the hospital to
Clock in, and then went to the HDU and the staff said that patty roe and Pete were the only two there, and Ron did his rounds, delivering the medication, and as he started to
Bring the medication, the security guards were bringing this man in, who had a ******
Episode when he through all his belongings outside the house, saying the most stupid
Delusions of all the time, thinking that all the men's kids in the old days were waiting
For him in party town up in the sky,,and his last voice which was just in his head was,
We are going to have plenty of fun with music and parties and alcohol and power for
You, man, tonight, you are like us, man, ok and the neighbours at first tried to calm him down and then this was weird so they called the cops and they took this man away
Even if he wanted to go to party town, and he screamed out, I wanna go to party town
But the police officer just ignored the crazy person in the back, ready to let this crazy
Person think he is in his imaginery world, and I am sure, this dude, is trying to get in the real world, and the other police officer said, how about we send him to Ron Cooper, you see
Ron will put him right, anyway he made it, and Ron sat down trying to understand what
Went on in his life, why would you think, there was a party town, and this bloke said,
First my name is Charlie Chaplin, you see good old Blimie Charlie, and Chaplin is my last name, and Ron said yeah, he is dead, what is your job, and Charlie said, I work at broadway
In New York, every night, I sang great broadway songs, and I was brilliant in silent movies
And Ron said, well old Blimie Charlie Chaplin we will keep you here, till you realise that
What you did was against the law, there is nothing wrong with believing your Charlie Chaplin, that is fine, but we are going to keep you here till we see the medication we put you
On, does what we want for the real you, Charlie had games with patty roe and Pete, and
They also argued with the doctors and nurses, saying, you fucken stupid ****, why
Don't you get me out, you see all my mate were waiting for me at party town, I don't want to be in here, this sounds so uncool. Mate, let me go,I want to go to fucken party town and I wanna do it right now and the nurses brought out the lunch and pete and patty and Charlie
Went to the table, and Charlie said, why the ****, are you stealing my lunch patty roe, and
Patty roe, said, I haven't touched ya ****** lunch, I wouldn't touch ya ****** lunch, so
Why don't ya ******* ya fucken funt, and then through the door came a ghost from Charlie's past, saying, to Charlie, that I am sorry I bullied you as a kid, and I am very sorry
Cause the truth is, I hated what they did to us back then, but we have to move on, do you know, why you are saying you are Charlie Chaplin, cause if this is a delusion, shut up turk,
Because,mi liked Charlie Chaplin, cause he started the future in all the old fogies, so buddy
I had to steal from you, so you can think, that your family, prefer the rich life, and Charlie
Said, but you do too, you see I wanna go to party town, cause my folks want me to be
A medical person, and Ron said, why don't all of you please shut the hell up, why don't you all shut the hell up, ******* ya ****, and Charlie went over to watch the TV and this young
16 year old girl started picking on him, and Chatlie said, why don't you ******* ya fucken
Stupid little ****, you are a stupid little baby, and the girl said, I am not a baby, I am a
Girl who arrested for disturbing the peace, and it looks like you want to help us, but
I want to get a fork slash your wrists, cause you see you Blimie Charlie Chaplin I
Want to **** ya, and I want to do it, to-****** night, and Charlie said, hey little teenager
I will **** ya tonight, you will suffer, and suffer ya shall, and Ron went over to Chatlie,
Well old Blimie Charlie old pal, this gal, is bad news, and you need to speak to her and
Say, stop, and you know that but, she ain't playing, but, Charlie told Ron that this girl
Needs the type of loving, that she should get, cause only nerds say things like I can't expect a free ride, but still be careful, old charles, hey and then Ron clocked off and went to the cafe and had an afternoon coffee and said to Fran, how was your day, and Fran said
It was great, and we made a lot of money in tips and how was your day Ron, I met Charlie
Chaplin and I tried to reform him as well, saying if you want to cope in the modern world
Chatlie, you need to stand up for yourself, even if you do like them, and care for their welfare, and I feel for him, but he needs understand the psych ward isn't the place and Dan
Said, what did Charlie do, and Ron said he through all his belongings out of his balcony in
His unit, and he needs a lot of support, and he needs strong medication and Ron went to the fish and Chips shop and bought fish and chips and watched TV all night, and fell asleep
On the couch


Sent from my iPad

i'm going to pretend i'm merce cunningham
on my bike ride home from work
hope it's survivable

"He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone"

****!
*******!
Cheat!

We condemn others,
For mirrored shortcomings.



"Love thy neighbor."

Mr. Jackson runs to catch the door,
You let close in his face.
As you rush to Church.

I help Mrs. Cunningham with her bags.
We stare a moment.

My friend says "you'll get good Karma"

I could use it in Hell.

i'm the witness protection, so get with the program
i'm playing the dudes, like chess against an blind man
We can battle in your homeland, where your're the man
I'll call in from Pakistan, secured lines, I'm a grown man.
My confidence is high, light years past the sky
even a wise man asking, who is this guy.  
Like Dan, I'am the Maine man,
you just a part of the plan.
Funny styles, like arnold doing the running man
I'm Arm strong, like Cunningham.
a good look, your'a short gram.
I'm am a cunning man
you are green-eggs and ham
eating you like a grand slam
recording it on my i-cam
coming out the pocket
like a bad stock pick
I'm a line-backer
like a brak-it,
I stopped it
like the opposite of a profit
you ***** made, hope ya bra-fit
you diss didn't even leave a scratch
i warren buffet, without getting off topic
these dudes need to stop it
perfect timing, equals a prophet
so the smart money is on me,
I'm like Master P- when it **** to making a profit
so these P'on's get peed on,
for ions, i'like tre songs,
My game that long,
I been gone

I remember getting the call that things are over.
I did not care because my heart was getting unattached.
No tears or remorse I took it in like a soldier.
The heart beats on with a feeling that will never be matched.
I took all the pictures down no need to ever wonder.
New love will eventually be in the air.

Ansel Adams and Minor White
Both saw the Light reach to infinity...
Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham
Created Art in black and white Photography

Revealing the unseen that's right
Before our Eyes in plain sight
The Click of a Shutter seals
What the Negative will reveal

What it lacks for color Fades
Viewed in black, gray, and white shades
Plucked out in Artistic Form in sight
The sway and flow of shadow and light

They taught fruit to be Art and
The desserts to flow like rivers
The sharp flow of Sand awash upon
The banks of the Dunes and gone


All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack

You are my best friend and someone who has stuck it out through issues that were thick and thin
When I failed and hung my head your motivation wouldn't let my ambition end.
You pray for me and cook for me and transcend my spirits to a level that *** can never reach.
Though far from perfect you're everything that I need through I'm learning more within.
PLEASE DONT CHANGE!

Erin Moran has died at the age of fifty-six.
She was special and a credit to all chicks.
She was adorable when she starred as Joanie Cunningham.
When a person dies that young, it's always hard to understand.
I learned about her death on Facebook and it made me feel bad.
When we learned of her passing, it was tragic and so very sad.
She had a wonderful figure and good looks.
When we watched her on Happy Days, we were hooked.
She died too young and her death has devastated her fans.
Sadly, we have to say goodbye to the talented Erin Moran.

"Les femmes jouissent d'abord par l'oreille"
Dit Marguerite Duras
Toi, mon HYDRE-MUSE, tu jouis
Par l'oreille absolue et frivole
Magnifiée
Par la danse à contre-temps
De la poésie pénétrante
Du saxo et de la tumba
Du coupé décalé et de l'azonto
Entre violons et accordéons
Qui fait voltiger sur tes hanches
Toute la copelia complicada de ta libido.
Je rentre sans hâte dans la mue de la couleuvre
Et je te ceins la taille.
Réinventons les croisés en cinquième position
Du ballet classique de Noureev, Petipa et Balanchine
Et à quatre pattes virevoltons dans le Bolchoi.
Setenta y ocho :
Je te tatoue le bas des reins
D'un tatou boule qui exécute
Des renversés arrière multicolores
Dans les plus intimes sillons de ta peau.
Cero :
Verbum Sapientiae Principium Est !
De mon pinceau chatoyant je dessine Des pas de bourrée étourdissants
Aux confins de tes cambrures
Setenta y siete :
Tu miaules des entrechats charnels
Et tu tournoies comme un ventilateur
Et tu me dis : viens, mon prince,
Montre-moi tes ronds de jambes doubles
Ochenta y quatro :
je te prends par les orteils tout en te caressant l'oreille
Et je te dis vas-y
Cuarenta y cinco :
Dombolo baroque dès que tu bouges tes fesses pour m'inviter à tes
Messes de sabbat
Très y media :
Demi-pointe sur les tétons qui frémissent et qui clignent des yeux
La peau de ton aréole gauche  danse la biguine
Ton sein droit fait voltiger du jus de grenade
Sesenta :
Un deux trois cinq six sept
Un seul fouetté
Tu enchaînes les figures libres et académiques
Passe après passe
Tu plantes dans le taureau farceur tes aromates
Et je crie Banco et tu me mordilles la paume de la main.
Setenta complicada :
J'aime notre gourmandise choreographee clitoridienne, anale, phallique et vaginale
Cet appétit colossal de ballet épicé à la Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey et Martha Graham
Qui nous prend entre deux morts de tous nos lacs des cygnes primaux
Nous en sommes les danseurs étoiles les solistes les premiers danseurs les petits rats les chorégraphes et les maîtres de ballet
À nous deux nous formons une troupe
Réincarnée
Et nous signons de nos plumes de chair notre martingale lubrique :
Un deux trois... Cinq six sept
Un deux trois... Cinq six sept
Un deux trois... Cinq six sept

life has becoming exciting, once more...

well **** me, i really wasn't expecting that...
i only met this girl, woman, single mum(?)
at Wembley, two weeks ago for our training /
induction...

i just sent her a text on whatsapp
confirming that it was me sending her a text,
nothing for two weeks, why?

last Sunday i just sent her a text asking
her whether or not she was working,
she said she already took up a different
job, catering in a west end theatre,
eh, oh well... so i sent her a photo
inside the stadium....

'it's empty!'
well yeah, we can't take photographs on the job
came my reply only today...
then some chit-chat about work...
she said that i should be looking for
something else, getting an SIA certificate
blah blah... to which i replied:
oh don't worry, i have always something
to do, i write poems & so-called poems
attaching a picture of my hand holding
a physical copy of a book
i published...

Mateusz Conrad - Πoετιc Oπτoμετρy
you want a copy?
'is it a pdf file, do you have a pdf file,
or is it one of those: REAL books'
oh yeah, it's a physical book,
send me your, ahem ms. Evelyn... ?
and your address...

she didn't send me her address, i commented:
well, that's healthy, no need to trust me
outright like that, even though, me?
stalking? hanging around some woman's
house? **** that...

- would i like to meet up for coffee?
oh, sure... the 12th of December, 10am...
too early? oh no, no...
by the station?
well... that's a date then...

for ****'s sake... that was easy...
coffee: date? it's not exactly me coughing up
money for a meal,
but being a hermit for so long...
i can't remember the last date i was on...
no... wait... i do...
terrible idea... she picked me up in a nightclub...
worst place to meet women...
we ended up going to the park...
i was drinking a bottle of red wine,
she tried to keep up...
we went to a pub and i drank a pint of Guinness...
she bailed: she was apparently meeting up
with some girlfriends for food...
my god, i was lucky... i hated her company...
she wasn't frigid: just nervous...
i can appreciate excited nervousness
but not nervousness when you know
something is awry... when you haven't clicked...

good, she ****** off while i ordered a second pint...
and basked in drinking alone
looking at people... apart from going
into a forest, or a graveyard: watching people...
it's up there with my other fetish:
for the deutschezunge...

some other date... we were supposed to go to a gallery...
we ended up just having coffee:
i implored her: stop playing cat & mouse with me...
you're late? i'm early, blah blah...
in a cafe i pulled out a spoon that was still
lodged in her cup: you'll poke your eye out...
i don't think she liked that...
but who the **** drinks anything from a cup
with a protruding spoon still lodged in the cup?!
for ****'s sake: a straw, fair enough...
the girl was going to poke her eye out!

ugh... i never heard from her ever again...
we went on a date prior, with this other girl i knew prior
from knowing a high school friend...
this Lebanese girl... hmm... Alicia...
in school i once asked her out to go to the cinema:
RE-JECTED... i suspect: nervous middle-eastern, Levant
christian goody-girl...
but when i invited her to visit me
for Hogmanay up in Edinburgh
with my first on-and-off girlfriend
  (circa 2005) she came along... my then on-and-off
also brought a colt... a little Aussie...
annoying as ****... had a nickname... sponge?
something like that... the three of them slept in
my bed while i slept on the floor...

a year prior my then on-and-off g/f came...
days... i remember spending a lot of the time
suckling at her *******... nothing happened down south...
i can still hear the echo of her moans...
a year later... she lost her virginity to me
while Alicia was sitting in the living room reading:
the Hours... Michael Cunningham...

personally? i preferred Virginia Woolf, herself...
lucky me: not losing my virginity to a ******...
the sensation of trying to scalpel past the thin layer
of protective skin of the ******...
i don't know... pleasant, weird...
thank god i'm not circumcised...
i can have the capacity to ******* without inhibitions
but during the act pull the "excess" skin back...
ergo? no need to pay back the added "luxuxury"
of circumcision with the advent of
either Judaism / Islam...
n'ah... i have my "excess" skin attached...
**** the kippah **** the payer 5 times a day...
fasting? i do that do secular reasons...

i feel sorry for the circumcised brood...
jerking off must feel rather impossible...
plus... all that sensitivity: ****! gone...
well... that's the price you pay...
i'm a free radical: while the circumcised ones attach
so much attention to: payback...
woman... wear a niqab, woman: the patriarchy...
hell... i prefer prostitutes to begin with...
clear as day... no need for dating...
i'm there for only one thing and one thing alone...
bypass all the usual chit-chat
"job interview" types, the table(?)
sure... i cook for myself, i clean the house...
now that i'm working... i'm going to have
a confidence booster... when i was really in
a state of: de profundis... no one was there...
i picked myself up... self-help par excellence...
now?              *******...

i'm going to listen to joan jett & the blackhearts
whether you like it or don't...
reading Kant, Heidegger, Kierkegaard is finally
paying off... now... now... women are starting
to take interest in me...
sure... without any additional psychopathy:
let's play...
after all: i'm not a woman... i'm not the one with
children... but hell... if i have to fill the role
of father, i'll play... i think of
the historical anomaly of ancient Rome...
how readily the men would
take up fostering... i'm likewise...
i don't care much for Darwinism's arguments
about furthering my DNA...
DNA can go **** itself...
i'm thought prior to body, firstly...
i know that's counter to what's "expected" but,
so far... the ought-i complexity has allowed
me to navigate with more freedom than
i-will could ever satiate me with...

- even though i don't believe in reincarnation...
why? what... only an elected number of actual
people... who migrate from body to body of...
the rest of the people are what? solipsists... zombies?!
reincarnation is inhumane...
but if i were... from my given names &
as a diviner of the Hebrew deity...
three names stand out...

St. Matthew... (calling of st. matthew by Caravaggio)
Konrad von Wallenrode / Konrad I of Masovia...
ha ha... who else might the third
if not Balaam?!

- it's good to have a self-deprecating sense of humour,
i never thought myself as attractive,
vaguely curious,
i would stand before the mirror
and focus on my green eyes...
my beard... oh god: me and my beard envy...
thank god i have height covered...
but beard envy? what a plague...
sort of thin in daylight...
filled up... volume excess in artificial light...

i sometimes wonder: Antichrist or... Paraclete (ref.
Jung, in his Answer to Job)....
i stopped caring... a stolen identity crisis
that began with Nietzsche in the 19th century...
Marilyn Manson... so many people
with the avatar / moniker-666 attacked...
what horrors are to be avaited,
since our present times are so bountifully
soothing?
why am i so lucky, to have so so much freedom
as to follow Voltaire's
maxim from Candide:
England isn't my home...
but the people, the things around me...
i feel implored to tend to them,
i feel implored to care for them...
there's no reason beside reason-in-itself...
i need to... it's a duty... it's a sacrifice i am willing to make...
because it would break my heart should
i be deemed slacking...
i reconfirm this attitude by shying into
ejecting a tear, or two...
this must have taken place... i must be here....
i must do this...
i must write this...
i'm insignificant compared to a heart surgeon...
but i am nonetheless unavoidable...
i can't just magically wish myself away...
i have to stand firm...
i am: feet... i am gravity...
i am: if the most allows me: the least being
the reciprocation of experience...

oh how i wish i could give up!
oh how i wish!
so many ******* idiot! so many ******* solipsists!
so many ******* eager piglets! at the trough, are we?
so many, little people, belittling people!
if i could only allow these people an inquiry
into the basic standards of expressing manners...
of inquiring into tact...
perhaps... i wouldn't have to conjure up...
a fetish for Robespierre!

no, i can't... leave these people... that's the best
you can... let one lesser psychopath come into contact
with a psychopath that might overcome them...
let us allow reality to be: as harsh as it's necessary...
people don't learn via giving them candy...
they learn... by allowing them to imagine a carrot...
then whipping them across the head with a stick...
education is not somehow formal:
education needs to be forced...

it requires someone to be erudite: however it might
be specified...
i lament... so many people circumstance
themselves as these: self-entitled pseudo-beings...
pseudo-humans... they are so self-entitled...
what shock, when they are robbed of their
status, or when their status is undermined...
what pitiful creatures, what has time allowed,
what, has, time, allowed?
what have people in their own capacity, allowed?

i wish i could be firmly cynical when looking
at man... by way of cynicism i could
fathom a work-around: a schematic...
i'm not a cynic though... i'm just hopeless...
for the time being: i'll just pretend that everything is
somehow: obliterated within the confines
of a rainbow future...

i'll keep the orchestra surrounding the sound
of falling rain to myself...
as i will keep... the sight of snow falling
in a graveyard at night: to myself...
here i am...
                        alone, aloof... blessedly content
with both circumstances; to further mould me,
while i await my exit.

- oh, **** me... i'm working a 20th & 26th shift
at Craven Cottage...
it's the 9th today... Monday's the 12th...
i'll have to see the Turk over the weekend to get
my beard trimmed!

and who, would
               even want to own
such a creature,
let alone
                              bait it?
              chances
with a grizzly?
      second to none?
good...
    too much
of a sadist
to allow with
these mantis
cushionings
that only arabs
can seem to
                   buy.
why do people laugh
when i seriously
tell them:
i want to wrestle
a rottweiler?!
  the ****'s wrong
with
authentically wanting
to wrestle a rottweiler?!
can pet a moth...
why can't i wrestle
          a rottweiler?!
death is but
a triviality
when it comes
to the people
with a continued
extension of life!
it's like...
  well... we need shrapnel!
ugh...
      itchiness!
    secondary though:
getting mawled by
a bear-mum
would be so much more
pleasurable
than being
ingested
by an infertile cancerous
growth...
   sorry...
        pain is a piquant
sense of taste...
like eating sushi,
or getting kicked
in the *****...
         the hot-air
balloon fried ****
   in latex versions of
cotton?
       the part where
i ******* or call
             pennywise?!
if ever a bestseller had
a name attached to it
akin to: wendy cunningham...
    or:
        obliterated hem...
****:
i'd settle for sober moscow...
but...
            it's circus freaks
and the one who still
has 50cl of ***** on him...
trying to play bargain...
with everything
that's actually bogus.

All this blood,
still remaining upon my hands;
   Has now completely penetrated,
  the thickness of my skin.
     Time Soaked,
         too deep...

Stain over Stain,
   forever still remain;
from where the blood of others,
  has constantly been drained.
Hostage no more,
   to the sins of my fallen Brothers...

       Time Soaked;
       Too deep,
    Into my flesh,
Now running through my stream;
   A joining together;
     Time Soaked,
             Too Deep...
Copyright © Terry Cunningham |

If I was to write a note about pain,

should it be loud or muted, in upper

or lower case and which colour ink.


Should it have a ps composed by

by a pp and should it mention AA

the higher power or Echart Tolle.


What about voices or committees in

the head or speaking to Jo, on anon

at The Samaritans after midnight.


Should I mention Virginia Woolf's

words on the station platform in

The Hours (before the train came).


Should I take a leaf out of the book

by Michael Cunningham, find a high

window and become a deciduous

                                                      ­                
                                                                ­    





                                                           ­  poet.

In the arena, where warriors stand tall,
Smart fighters rise, they give it their all.
With strategy sharp and minds like a blade,
They conquer their foes, in battles well-played.
They don't just rely on strength and on might,
But wisdom and cunning to win the fight.
They study their rivals, each move they dissect,
In the quest for victory, they never neglect.
Their fists may be strong, their bodies so fit,
But intelligence guides them, in every hit.
They anticipate moves, they dance in the fray,
Smart fighters excel, in their own unique way.
In the ring or on canvas, their mettle is known,
They outthink their rivals, they've skills finely honed.
So here's to the smart fighters, champions of art,
In the world of combat, they're a class apart.
By: Glenn P. Cunningham