billboard's calligraph --
past the haze of Manila infested
by car sprawls and belching machines.

magnanimous treatise of tarpaulins,
people chin-up asking God
with askance

something like this
"o god make this bearable
like a mound of fresh fruits
from ****** labour."

maniacal sensurround:
earth-shattering frequency
of footsteps trampling the mouth
of monolith shadows - the peak
of this quake is our complete silence.

rain's catharsis in effect
sousing us in the blood of unreal light.
this diastolic shrinkage
jamming the beat of constricting vessels.
the adrenaline surges
within the dermis of this pretension.

a collective of tired beings heeding
the recherché of voice metamorphosing
into form, a dagger-butterfly
paring us skin to bone, cranial
to visceral, soul to nothing -

catapult of a trajectory spit
plummeting in eased-up pace
from Taft Avenue flyover
to a subjugated wagon of scraps
and empty wine bottles.

today's paper reads:

"Palace hits hiring
   of **** dancers"

fancying to fall right in the
spanked curved of this
insatiate melodrama - something
  prayer could not save from
this land's mutinous ignominy.

   we resume to fulfill our madness,
hundreds of tack-headed people
  rolling down the streets of Makati,
drenched with rain's trilling aftermath.

squinting to look at
  no sun, only the grieving of skyscrape,
thumbing down unidentified objects
  in the depth of loose pockets,
    desperate for home.

Often, when I'm on the
streets, decaying in *****-
degradation of the soul,
I go under the bridge and watch
the ducks.
Sometimes I talk to them.
They don't talk back.
Some days, it's the only
beauty I can see.
I think and dream of
a different world.
A land without
brutal lunacy.
I can handle madness.
It's the wicked,
smiling hatred that I
can do without.
The Iowa River beckons
me to come swim-
float blissfully to heaven.
But I know better.
Katie and Perry drowned not
far from where I sat.
It's usually at this time that
I'm fresh out of bread for
the ducks and I have milked the *****
bottle for all it's worth, that a
warm blanket of a thought comes to
me- I need help- go to the hospital.
I stumble my way there,
sometimes by ambulance.
I go through nightmarish withdrawals.
At around the third day, I get a
laptop from the patient library.
I catch up with neglected family
and friends, then I try to write.
The first four days, my mind is
like a smashed snail.
But usually, the magic comes back.
The muse kisses me gently, and I
put the shaking pen to the paper.
I can order whatever food I
want between 6 am and 8 pm.
I discovered years ago that they
have phenomenal cheesecake.
So when I'm able to eat, it's the
first thing I order.
My withdrawals are deadly.
Diastolic blood pressure
numbers like 103,109.113.
So they give me Ativan.
It helps tremendously- Ativan and cheesecake.
**** the muse's ****, then more
Ativan and cheesecake.
If I'm lucky, I'll turn out a
poem or two-like this one right now.

Diastolic memory fills mind with blood
Heart purges other unforgettable serum
Gushing in and out; valediction, invasion
Scent left on bed sheets binomial theorem

Calculus, physics computing mnemonics us
Trust not sum of it, exponents baying flux
Participles and components abject humbling
Stumbling bio discourse create sedentary crux

Stupefying brain surgeons, those of heart too
Call in mathematicians, astronomers as well
No making sense of it, linguistic doctorates few
To tell of this push-pull sensory denoting hell

Not much time to live after lungs dispensed
Entrenched questions remain to be adoring
Extravagantly historians exploring
Unanswerable examining of this imploring

Must breathe the linens till all dissipation
Your essence in the ether of our resting
Place turned into mad languid laboratory
Conjuring back moments I am requesting

I've been thinking about our hug you left me with yesterday,
The one that convulsed my shoulder muscles and made my ribs cry just a little,
But a good cry, like the happy tears after holding a new puppy.
You said in that way,
As you have made a habit of
With sarcasm and sincerity,
"You'll always be my sweetheart",
And then you said that you won't call me your sweetheart in public.
That makes me so angry,
And you think I'm joking,
But I'm not.
Because I can't stop thinking about how those hugs and "sweethearts" are dwindling,
How each time you leave for a winter in the southern states
I cringe at the thought that I may never greet you for Easter next year.
And every time we find you asleep,
Open mouthed on the couch
We only panic for a second as to whether you will wake up this time.

You stand like a family monument,
So unique in composition,
With your structured titanium back and chiseled limestone arms that threw me playfully and carried me as your cowgirl,
And transformed our red, wooden house to sophisticated tan siding when I was too young to remember,
With your skin so dark from perma-tan I thought you were black when I was 6,
With your infinite woodworking skills and artistic envisions with architecture
That crafted dollhouses and swing sets for me at 8,
With your callused hands beyond remission and your ever bruising fingernails that paddled us down the Ausable at 13,
With your steel toed boots sewn into your feet that allowed me to dance on them till I was 15,
With your artificial heart valve and five open heart surgeries.
Once I thought it was instrumental, magical, the watch nestled under your ribs.
But now every time I get that gut squeezing hug as a goodbye I can hear that valve faintly tick,
And I pretend it's not your clock,
Trembling with each diastolic and Systolic murmur,
Gears cracking and eroding inside your kindled muscles,
Struggling to keep up with its more natural brothers inside that engulfing muscle,
That which reminds your family of
Your selfless and infinitely giving persona.
But it only reminds me that your days of rock polishing
And dentured smiles are ending rapidly.

I like to believe
that nobody understands me
and I'm one of a kind
lost to obscurity
but hinting of mysterious
significance

And I feel sorry for
my uncle's three-legged dog
and the malignancy
of fear in rural America
and the failed successes
of the Bolsheviks

I wonder about the air
in Saõ Paolo in January
and the muskuloskelatal
infirmities that creep in
and make the aged
into churlish curmudgeons

There is no way I could
hunt truffles or find a fresh
Morel in the woods when
I didn't even realize until
my grandmother died that
we own a creek

Uttering vespers in moonlight
yields some sanguine lucidity
like contemplating the nuanced
differences between polenta
and cornmeal mush

It's like I'll never write a poem
in time or finish a marathon
or kiss a stranger deeply
through the crisp ventillation
of nevermore.

We might daydream the bombastic
colors of Cezanne but all
we'll ever be is some nondescript
platinum ischemic flash,
a slimy buffet consisting in
all-is-lost

An apocryphal journey
to the center of the city
faces our insubordination to plastic
with the harshness of a dictionary
in the face of the illiterate

But in the end, apoplectically
forgotten, I come to the
unintelligent conclusion,
mathematically speaking,
that there is nothing singular

nor more available
than the finite banality
of my empty, insufficiently
obscurantist words which
flow and choke and all can know
and see clearly through

though I insist that none
of this pretence is born
of any maleveloence, and I chide
"How very meta of me indeed"

to have thought of another witty
and most cleverest retort
the day after the insult
was first delivered

But I used my last gift card
to purchase this still life
to pierce the hollow
cerulean satisfaction
otherwise known as tears

Barring diastolic ******
I'll stick around to see
how this all turns out
and hope that one day I can stop
being so completely understood

And then I can hide in the lonely
and find refuge in the cave
as a single meaningless scrawl
buried in the last pages
at the end of the world.

you're the design left on the windowsill
after a whimsical,
impulsive,
condensation-initiated
doodling session.
- - -
timeless,
preserved,
and
limitless
in your reach.

in fractions of rotations,
it is filled with sun;
it is shrouded by clouds.

it is fleeting from my fingertips
like my former layers
of skin.

it is the meeting of the lips.

it is measured by minutes
& diastolic response
in this life,

by the depth of irises
& ocean currents
in the next.

I remember sitting in
Numerous wards
And clinics
With all the madmen
Around me –
Wondering if they are dying
Or whether that
Scratch has turned
Septic.
I think people enjoy
Thinking there’s something
Seriously wrong with them,
It gives them
Something to do
With their dull lives.
But it works both ways,
Doc can feel a hero
And he can tick a box.
God incarnate,
Allah, Buddah, Jesus.
I am called in
I’m sure my diastolic is up
After nabbing a handful
Of pear drops.
“Right, Mr. Hinton, please sit down –
Are we feeling okay today?”
“What can I say, I’m in a
Practice when I could be writing?”
“Ever the pragmatist... Now let’s
Have a look – your blood pressure’s up.”
“You just stuck a rod on my arm
And contorted my arm, I’m sad
It’s not through the roof.”
“Now, you take it easy on
The beer and the women.”
“You know I won’t, see you in
Six months time, John?”
I shake the Doc’s hand and
I slink away.
Immortal for another day
*******.

Stainless steel,
granite countertops,
crowded cabinets,
and branded appliances.

Whirring,
clanking,
beeps and whistles.

All ours is not.

You won’t find my heart there:
left to be abandoned in a lonely corner,
only greeting soles on holidays,
when arms are forced to open to guests
and lips are stretched to reveal lying whites
because deep darks abided in our chests.

You’ll find it in enclosed in the hall.
Confined, airless, even claustrophobic.
But there are no cobwebs here.
No mildew, no rust,
no crumbs or dust.

You’ll find it underneath the floorboards,
creaking with every footstep,
playing the chords that made up the rhythms and beats
of systolic and diastolic melodies.

You’ll find it in the windowsill,
planted with the succulents,
resilient to forgetful hands
and yet affectionate to sunbeams
who pulsed perfectly.

There are days when the sunshine feels insensitive.
But it is in every throb and rise, murmur and fall,
that life floods in.

It’s funny to me when people say the kitchen is the heart of the home.
If it was, my heart would be empty.

*—S.C., September 23, 2015

if i wrote this earlier in the day i could remember all three
dreams i had in one night,
a sort of sketch of William Burroughs' take
of My Education -
                                        having stopped drinking hard
spirits, whether that's absinthe, ***** or whiskey
and turning to a soothing diet of cider - 1 to 3 bottle
to aid me sleep... mingling that with being my own
pharmacist (well, at least getting a chemistry degree
has finally become useful), i.e.:
alcohol + phnergan + naproxen + paracetamolum =
not drinking so heavily for too long,
it means waking up in the night,
going down to the kitchen to nibble on something
and then going back to sleep and dreams...
the first dream i don't remember so vividly...
but the other two dreams?

2.
i was filming a gang-**** of a woman...
i remember picking out a guy with a fire-red afro -
by the contorts of the shadow...
oh... she must have been ****** by about
10 of them... each taking his turn...
somewhere in the shadows of a street...
intervention, by moi? 10 of them and only 1 of
me... even Bruce Lee would tell you:
terrible odds... that's why all the security personnel
at stadiums don't know any martial arts:
or have any training: the tactic is to gang-up
on a single individual, swarm them with numbers
usually a 3:1 ratio...
after the gang **** is over i cringe at the idea
that she might have actually liked it...
            she starts screaming these words i see vividly
like a Belshazzar at the feast forewarning
the fall of Babylon...
                              my dream architecture is
wonky... the scene suddenly shifts with me walking
with the girl, trying to persuade her to the authorities...
she's unwilling... ergo my cringe and almost
austere look of wonder at the double-standard...
***** but not *****... reluctant blonde... another
actress... but i tell i have the evidence...
                     white knight? getting a limp **** *******?
what?! Freud... i'm new to this dream thing...
i'm just realising that dreams relax my consciousness...
my consciousness is no longer strained by having
to utilise my memory beyond mere arithmetic
and spelling and regurgitation of recipes or
scientific facts... dreams are new to me after a heavy
drinking hiatus... i'm treating the meanings of dreams
as dreams-per-se... i don't actually worry about the content
just the fact that they simply exist is enough...
i finally persuade her... even though i don't know why
she's snuggling under my arm...
     we end up in a building resembling a school...
in one room there's this authority woman figure with
something resembling a polygraph machine -
the page in front of her is like an inverted slit of a niqab...
and text appears in the slit and soon disappears...
and the "actress" in question had to read the text while
i present the woman of authority with the video evidence
of the gang-****... hmm -
   my taste in ******* has always been rather vanilla...
even today i found myself preparing for a visit to
the brothel... Saturday? i'll be tired... i'll finish at 10:30pm...
by the time i get there it will be almost 12am...
no, i don't care what the madam said about my
underperformance... i know exactly why i didn't perform...
it's not what she said about the 30min thing...
she's the madam, 1. that intimidating,
2. she sent my two favorite girls, Khadra and Mona
away... to never work in the brothel ever again...
Mona became pregnant... with whom?
   3. she's in her 50s and she's plump i mean: beached-whale
plump which is not a girl in her 20s that's plump
but less a beached-whale and more a female sea-lion...
cows... yeah... i tried looking up the body-build of the madam...
well no wonder why she complained that
i couldn't get a ******* with her... i just diverted
her attention to pretend to be tired from work...
if i can't ******* in private to that sort of body type...
no... without pornographic make-up... rude amateur
photography: reality snaps... no ******* wonder!

mommy don't know daddy's getting hot at the body-shop,
doing something unholy -

i hope does lyrics don't imply "body-shop" to imply
a tattoo parlour, i'm pretty sure that's not what's implied...
but my god... the importance of dreams:
to hell with interpretation of the... noumenon -
dreams could be considered a phenomenon
if we all shared at least one dream, of the same content,
but dreams are a noumenon -
sure, the phenomenon that we dream...
but are there like to like interpretations based on
seeing a red hat in a dream, or a boat?
flimsy... what about seeing printed words in
dreams?
                    i don't have the luxury of interpreting
dreams: i'm basking in the luxury of actually having
dreams... since i quit drinking heavily i wake
up rejuvenated... my memory is no longer strained
i no longer grasp the razor that was once driftwood
in the sea of memory trying to keep myself
intact... now i'm rebuilding my consciousness
with dreams... their meaning is meaningless given
that i have have a better use for them...
i stopped waking up forcefully trying to remember
a "decalogue" of formidable memories...
i think i can let them pass... remember them at some
later date... for the sort of remembering
that someone like my grandfather suffering from
dementia employed... i.e. employing a Memory Cinema:
i guess dementia sufferers probably don't dream:
mix into that cocktail insomnia and the finishing
line of mortality... that's when memory needs to be
deployed... not in one's youth...
but i wanted to understand his suffering that
i succumbed to mimicking it, by drinking heavily
and robbing myself of dreams... now that dreams
have been resurrected... ah... i can relax...

2. this dream was even better...
i was placed into a mental asylum...
who was my room partner? do people in mental asylums
get room-mates?!
well... my room-mate was someone resembling
a Jeffrey Dahmer... from time to time he would
break into these mirror-shattering fits
mirror-shattering epilepsy... walking angry...
sometimes frozen in time sometimes breaking out
of that labyrinth of staggering visual effects...
i guess i was looking at myself... what was poignant
was the distinct glasses...
before i was put into this mental asylum i was
met on an edge of a hill by an orderly in pearly white
(if he only had wings i'd suppose i arrived in heaven)
who said something...
then there was this great escape... me and "Dahmer"...
the orderly came against us with a pit-bull
that was wearing a metal-mask... a bit like Alex Dumas'
man in the iron man...
    the scene shifted to me wrestling with the dog
in yellow mud... wrangling the metal-mask off the dog's
head... i could almost feel the dog's teeth...
but i didn't.... i saw the dog's teeth but what was
hurting me were the metal-mask's claps / jaws...
wrestling peering into the dog's snout...
i managed to rid the dog of the metal-caste...
the orderly ran away... nowhere to be seen...
the scene shifted to the pit-bull turned into a puppy
(almost a puppy)... lying on my torso while we lay
in a hammock or a car with a reclined seat...
pretty pit-bull eyes looking at me endearingly
as if telling me: thank you for getting the nozzle off my head...
the orderly came back and said...
non-verbatim:
   'some people take a sparring partner to get this
level of introspection,
so few manage it on their own like you have done'...

historically i wonder about about all those poets
from the 1960s and their experimenting with
psychedelic drugs... hmmm...
and i wonder about myself: drink to the point of
arriving at the abyss - and then being resurrected
from it, by one's own devices -
i.e. drinking none of the unholy spirits -
personally: i'd rather drink in a vein of gradation,
if i can write something like this after only
two bottles of cider... why would i need
to drink half a litre of whiskey and wait
for my psyche to snap into writing?
if i can write this much after drinking so little
only thanks for the added dimension of dreaming
that has been so sorely missing in my life...
dreaming that upon waking relaxes my consciousness
as i no longer need to strain my faculty of memory:
this is me returning to the flow of water in time
rather than standing elbow-to-elbow like
a stone in space:
why would i need to take any psychedelic drugs
to elevate with whatever crude tools i already have?
i wanted to stop dreaming to find out why
my dementia riddle grandfather utilized memory
to create a Memory Cinema - dementia and insomnia...
of course he could still string two sentences together
and would spend his mornings reading the newspaper
from beginning to end and solved the crossword
puzzle... that was all there...
but... the way he employed memory...
it was sort of like me "forgetting" to dream...

well... granddad has been dead for almost 2 years now...
i think i can drop the project of understanding
dementia...
no wonder i felt so good having a 2h cycling session
today in the heavenly winds...
i was asked by my local surgery's nurse to drop
by and pick up a blood test form and clock up
my blood pressure... an average of
123 / 82 heart-beat at 93...
i know... it's not the best...
but i managed to drop from a systolic 143
to a systolic 123...
                      and this is after a 2h cycling session...
while i also managed to drop my diastolic from
over 90... 93... to 83... after 2h of cycling...
i imagine if i didn't cycle it wouldn't be considered
elevated... not bad... and i only stopped heavy drinking
since... 30th December... had a whiskey relapse on the 31st...
but it's the 4th of Jan now... so... well...
at 36 years old: i was still sort of expecting a quick
recovery... given my intention were in the right place:
i strained my body because i needed to strain my mind...
to understand... mortality...
i don't think the recovery would have been that quick
if i were simply drinking heavily, sniffing ******* on
the side by being a ******* octagon-type
Wall St. Bankers... would i now? my heart was in the right
place...

the added aesthetic bonus? my body might look great
from all the exercise, but yet my face retained some
puffiness from the excess drinking:
apparently it happens when drinking spirits...
your body attempts to retain as much water as possible,
no wonder i was rarely hangover...
my body built-up a defense mechanism against
being dehydrated, it would store liquid
in undesirable places... notably in the face...
puff-cheeks... oh ****... my face is.... SLIMMING...
i have cheek-bones! it's almost looking natural!
it almost suits more than ever having a full beard...
project no. 2... i'll trim the moustache myself...
while trimming the other expendable body-hairs...
retaining a proper turf from beard through
the chest and the rest of the torso toward
the ***** Eden region...

ah! but dream 1. wasn't really a dream...
it was a thought-dream...
i was conjuring up... a metaphor in my mind...
a cherry tree...
what comes before a cherry on a cherry-tree?
a cherry blossom...
what could a "God" give unto Adam...
or rather... if antimatter exists...
what could an Anti-Satan give unto Eve?
before a fruit is a fruit...
a fruit is a flower...

and this only exist in the ****** language... what?!
the following formulation in the rubric: qua -
as being... i.e.

kamień kamieniem
woda wodą
kot kotem
pies psem
litera literą
    ogień ogniem
czas czasem
              gitara gitarą
czerń czernią
smok smokiem
prawda prawdą
    wiatr wiatrem        all... all in all:
                                (~)QUA...
    dog (as) being a dog

if the serpent supposed ******* confusion gave
the woman the fruit: he gave her the womb first...
no wonder! it is time the serpent gave unto her
the fruit, the supposed ******* confusion
her ****** back: for her to... bear barren fruit...
in full blossom outside the realm of "patriarchy"...
****-mafia of the serpent...
aren't we ssssssssssssseing it right now?
finally! women can entertain the flower...
but not the fruit...
they can have their fruit tickled and teased and
glued to as many bothersome little bees...
lick tease lick tease thump and pump...
voodoo! voodoo!
oh... but first the ornament on the altar of man:
woman being given the fruit: the womb...
only now... barren womb...
now comes a sidewinder giving her the flower...
her ****...
the fruit is now rotting in the barren pool of history...
now! the exfoliating flower...
ah... but unlike fruits... that can be turned into
jams, baked... flowers last only ever so long...

if one is allowed to borrow from the Metaphors
of Moses...
if this supposed fruit, forbidden was given in...
paradise... seems strange...
not even the correct adjective - strangely:
ah... but the fruit was given in paradise in order
for man to replicate reproduction
of all the other animals... imagine paradise with
pregnancy, reproduction,
no wonder Satan no. 1 gave a fruit rather than
the flower of the fruit that was to become:
perhaps he saw wrecking ball Adam
inexperienced in tickling flowers enticed poor
Eve: by Oedipus man will get a chance to please
you... but for that to happen:
you will need to open up the fruits of your labour
and reproduce, while he will stomach nothingness
and a bright genius in his mind
to combat the elements: water with ships
with the aid of the wind inventing sails...
he will bring down fire to ease the warmth...
i can't imagine... perhaps Satan didn't want to
pluck the flower of the forbidden fruit tree
and give the fruit to Adam...
that would have been... a mightily short story...
if Satan gave the flower of the forbidden
tree to Adam... but no... he waited until the flower
turned into fruit and gave the fruit to Eve!

as i have learned, dearest, "father"... once you eat
the forbidden cherry blossom
and not the cherry...
    perhaps it's no Eden... perhaps it's just a brothel
in your palace of arrogance of Pandemonium...
perhaps... but... i just don't care if she ate the fruit:
that she's fertile...
i've eaten the forbidden cherry blossom:
i don't need to eat the forbidden cherry...
maybe that's why the Madam banished Mona back
to Romania: what if... me teasing her ****** without
a ******... just teasing... before her putting it on...
and ******* into the rubber...
she... decided to self-inseminate herself with my *****
and ******* back to Romania?
what if God is the Madam in this story and she
was banished from the "Eden" of the brothel?!

mommy don't know that daddy's getting hot at the body-shop
doing something unholy...
ssssssseems befitting... i'll call this the year of the flies...
why would my house suddenly entertain
these... dozen if if not more... fleshy black...
dearest, "father"... is there rebellion in the ranks?
why would Beelzebub send his emissaries come
the new year?!

seems no reason, none: whatsoever,
cider is a bit like champagne: more fruity and most certainly
most sweet...
i know that this writing is but a sketch and something
more prolific could morph out of it...
something as succinct as the last book
of the old Testament: the contradictory concept
of reincarnation of the prophet Elijah as promised
by Malachi... monotheism is still teasing with
the polytheism is so despises...
no wonder that both the polytheism of India
and the atheism (conventional human wisdom
of intellects sparring) of China feels so...
sssssso undisturbed... no wonder the concept
of the civilisation-state rather than
the western take on the ethno-state...
why is it that the western world is so polygamous
in its ethnicity... the crumbling civilisation:
Oedipus gave his plucked-out eyes to Samson...
and Samson is shaking the cradle with baby-Holocaust
in it...
sure... they were Jews: given that the state of Israel
was established... but by law... they were Polish nationals...
easily forgotten... given...
the close "alliance" of resurrection of either of the people's
states...
           unlike like in England were
the last invasion happened with the Normans in 1066...
plenty of time to invent cricket, football,
afternoon tea... pastime literature...
lazing about and Victorian moral standards...
of: doth black so well without an Arabic veil!

enough! 12am has come and my bedtime has
arrived... i don't need to torture myself through and
thoroughly into the night!
the night is for sleeping... and right now?
agitate some beehive of dreamsssssss!