Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
“One of the effects of living with electronic information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload.”                                                      
                                                                                      Marshall McLuhan
So, let’s review:
Man is a thinking animal.
Stanley Kubrick took us to space to get us to think.
Marshall McLuhan:  “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”
Hemetucky: what was I thinking?
The Rapture for the 1%:   The Language of the World and The Language of Enthusiasm explains why Sir Richard  Branson’s ****** Galactic will only be taking the richest among us to space.
Ian (Limey Futurologist) Pearson:  “Binary is already the dominant language on Planet Earth with today’s machines having more conversations in 24 hours than the whole of humankind since the birth of Eve.”
Larry Flynt:  “**** is the answer to everything.”
Goofy:  “Yeah, I ****** Minnie. I shagged her rotten, baby!”  
Winston Smith:  “Do it to Julia!”
McNugget Buddies:   “Parts is parts.”                                          
Stunod: “Donuts-a -spella backwards issa stunod.” Think about it.
Tony Soprano.  “You ****** stunod, it's a joke.” (Stunod:  in southern dialect Italian means stupid, or a stupid person) http://(www.urbandictionary.com) define.php?term = stunod  / buy stunod mugs & shirts
Marshall McLuhan:    “Jokes are grievances.”
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino:  “Antonio Gramsci thought that Stalin and Bolshevism could save him and Italy from Fascism:  stunod.”
The Cloud:  My acceptance of the Cloud into my life and my changeling cyborg self is by no means a capitulation to the surfing life.
Paulo Coehlo:  “The God you seek; that someone who awaits you is you.”
Howard Beale:  “That’s the God *******.”
God:   “Because you’re on television, stunod!”
The Elders of Zion:  Nu?
Meir Kahane:  “Let us not suffer from a national amnesia that causes us to forget who and what we are. No trait is more justified than revenge in the right time and place. I know that American and Israeli elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state, who would bring on us a slow Auschwitz - not with gas, but with knives and hatchets. Vote for Newt!”

**** Jagger:    “Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out” (40th Anniversary Edition, Rolling Stones)
Keith Richards +Fijian palm tree = Stunod.  
Marshall McLuhan:   “The more the data banks record about each of us, the less we exist.”    
Howard Beale: “If there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is not only full of *******, that man is  stunod.”
The Nam, Part I:   a demented slaughterhouse within a microcosm and grains of beach sand inside micro-Cosmo Kramer’s shorts. When I was in the Kingdom of The Nam I was always under the influence of some drug, mostly my own pure adrenaline when scared shitless--a frequent condition for me—not only my own piquant adrenal juice but other stuff like ****, hash, Thai stick, *****, amphetamines, H-Horse ******, quaaludes, horse tranquilizers and Russian *****. The drugs were always a welcome and needed friend, a respite from the horrors of war in Southeast Asia. To meditate & levitate, to transmigrate & navigate, to negotiate & regurgitate myself, I needed a head start if I was going to SLIDE through what would be called a wormhole today, making a three-dimensional movement between different parallel universes, a conquest of time and space. Cue our favorite narrator:
Rod Serling:  “You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension--a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”
WWII, Part I:  A slider now, I SLIDE to my father’s war—the War in Europe in the years before V.E. Day, May 8, 1945. Suddenly I’m flipped right out of the jungle to Germania, to Deutschland in the winter of 1945. I am a P.O.W. of the Germans, sent out into the economy as slave labor. It’s February in Dresden, Germany, the Baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, the city called lovingly by her (****!) many lovers: “The Florence of the Elbe.” It was a long time ago, during the war and I Survived to Tell the Tale. I am a wet floppy Kilgore Trout; I’ve flopped right out of the Twilight Zone into what appears to be an underground meat locker in Dresden. There are animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling and the building is known as Slaughterhouse Number 5. I am a lucky ******* because even though I don’t know it yet, I’m in the safest place in the entire city. Cue the Bombing of Dresden, a strategic military bombing by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).  In four raids, 1,300 heavy bombers dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on Dresden. The resulting firestorm destroyed 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of the city centre and killed many thousands, according to **** figures-- largely discredited by the victors who not only get the spoils but get to spin the history any which way but loose. Casualty figures were 200,000 and death toll estimates went as high as 500,000. Or maybe just 25,000 total, if you believe the ******* Anglo-American valkyries who unleashed the wrath of Khan’s Smoking Joe’s Barbecue Ribs and Hotlinks. Win a war, get a medal and a seat in Congress, maybe the White House; lose a war, get indicted. You’re going to Nuremberg, pilgrim, or the ******* Hague.
Kurt Vonnegut: “World War II was over and I was standing in the middle of Times Square with a Purple Heart on and a purple hard-on.”
Colonel Kurtz:  “We fight for the land that's under our feet, the gold that's in our hands, women that worship the power in our *****.  I summon fire from the sky. Do you know what it is to be a white man who can summon fire from the sky? ...What it means? You can live and die for these things, not silly ideals that are always betrayed  . . . I swallowed a bug. Who are you, captain?”
Willard:   “Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste. I've been around for a long long year, stolen many man's soul and faith. Stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change. Killed the Tsar and his ministers, Anastasia screamed in vain. I rode a tank, held a gen'rals rank when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank. Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.”  
WWII, Part II:  The bombing of Dresden had to have been some kind of a violation of some International Code or Geneva Convention. But, of course, the bombers, the Victors, ran the Nuremberg show trials. The bombees didn’t get a chance to say much, didn’t want to make a fuss, seeing how generous the Army of Occupation was with their coal, gasoline, clothing and food handouts. But I was there when it was safe to climb out of the meat locker, and immediately got put to work on the après les bombes clean-up. I was there doing the ***** work, a corpse miner, tasked with collecting the fried grasshopper remains of so many unlucky Krauts who were simply burned alive, like heretics at the Inquisition. So it goes.
William Tecumseh Sherman: “War is Hell, Babaloo!”
Colonel Kilgore: “You can either surf, or you can fight!”
Sam Bottoms: “I dropped a tab of acid at the Do-Long Bridge, so I think I’ll surf for awhile: ‘I see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.’ Reading Blake: for years it was the only way I could block out the war, that and losing myself in a bunch of undercover assignments. Yeah, it was William Blake, I-Spy and lots more acid; that how I dealt with PTSD.”
The Nam, Part II, LT DAN:  “Good job, trooper; those ******* drugs got you coming and going, sliding so fast you’ve missed latrine duty 3 times this month. Now go get 5 gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline, mix it together and torch that ******* feces, soldier.”
** Chi Minh:  “This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around.”
***** Friedman:   “The Democrats and Republicans are the same guy admiring himself in the mirror.”

Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak:   “Vote for Pedro.”
Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard:    “Fight Fiercely!”
Marshall McLuhan:    “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”
The Author:   I am a disaffected angry old man, formerly a disaffected angry young man; a Hopi-Italian Jew with Chinese offspring, namely my left-brained son, a mathematical genius but having a tough time dealing with idiots, the many truly stunod people in the world.  Then there’s my Rose, my sweet King Lear-jet daughter, like her half-brother, not yet finished paying for my sins. My offspring are haunted, visited upon daily by their father’s  ghosts, ghosts created, ghosts hovering over me, from wars hot and cold and peace lukewarm and cloudy, like the uranium ground contamination on the mesa, visited upon mothers and infants  and children who seek only a glass of cool water from the spring not to be glow worms in the dark, leukocytes made insane by something in the water. My sins, a father’s sins; things I did to curry favor, to ingratiate and advance myself with the 1%, things I did to get ahead in life, to get what I thought my father and others in the ancestral slipstream had failed to get, twice to the Rabbi for a get (Hebrew: גט‎, plural gittin גיטין), to get the edge my kids need now, the edge I never had, and life reduced to an exercise in ultimate combat, little more than a cage fight, man against man and God against all. The things I did for money and position shame me now. And shame is a large  source of my anger.  I will remain angry. I will hang on to my anger at God and myself and all who have been disappointed in me, by me, especially the cavalcade of short-term caretakers, women used, abused, left behind and forgotten. Why am I me? Sometimes I think that’s the way I’m programmed. But it’s okay, like Gaga: “I'm beautiful in my way 'Cause God makes no mistakes I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way' Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way and will I continue to surf the Cloud: even though God is dead and I don’t believe you, or me, or them.
Basic: remember Basic?

10   A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 20
20   START STEP TWO ANGER KUBLER-ROSS INFINITE LOOP
30   GOTO 10
10   A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 20
20   START STEP TWO ANGER KUBLER-ROSS INFINITE LOOP
30  GOTO 10
10   A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 20
20   START STEP TWO ANGER KUBLER-ROSS INFINITE LOOP
30 A IS FOR ANGER NEXT 30
30  GOTO 10 Ad infinitum
Mike Jewett Feb 2015
Let’s bomb Dresden
with the black fire
of thousands
of bookmarks
with poetry
of poets
far and
wide

-so it
goes-

and
each
side is
printed
with verse;
flip flopping
through the air
each to land on
Dresden’s ghosts.
Odysseus needs a job he calls pima community college art department chairperson sends her his resume she does not respond after a week he catches her on phone she says he lacks proper credentials laughs to himself his whole life never worked lucrative or reputable position gets job working at thrift store wacky group of coworkers customers store frequently smells like public latrine job expires after 7 weeks he gets better paying job working at record exchange Odysseus always loved music everyday he learns new artist or band his coworkers are at least half his age they pester him about being slow on keyboard he never learned to type neither he nor his generation could have foreseen future would revolve around keyboard he plods on register keys people smile politely kids he works with fly fast making many keyboard mistakes November 29 2001 george harrison dies of cancer he is 58 years old Odysseus recognizes he is from past world different era of contrasting standards ‘80’s behavior is totally unbefitting let alone ‘60’s beliefs it is 2002 and one badly chosen word is sure to send someone flying off the handle he watches his language carefully co-workers mostly born in 1980’s grew up in 1990’s they live indifferent to hopelessness he struggles to bear none of them believe in higher power music is their religion he wonders what their visions concerns for humanity are? they seem addicted to consumption as if it is end in itself he questions what is hidden at root of their absorption? loneliness? despair? apathy? absence of vision? where is their rage against social conversion current administration? he warns them about homeland security act privacy infringement increased government secrecy power they shrug their shoulders why aren’t they looking for answers? why don’t they dissent? do they care where world is going? he realizes they will have to learn for themselves few coworkers read literature or know painters philosophy their passions are video games marijuana “star wars” most of them are extremely bright more informed than he often Odysseus needs to ask questions they know answers to right off the bat he is like winsome uncle who puts up with their unremitting teasing “hey you old hippie punk rocker get you fiber in today? stools looking a little loose! peace out old man” in peculiar way he finds enough belonging he so desperately needs they tell him stories about their friends *** addictions eating disorders futile deaths he is bowled over by how young they are to know such stuff job includes health insurance which is something he has not had since Dad was alive having some cash flowing in he buys laptop computer with high-speed connection cell phone trades in toyota for truck opens crate of writings he abandoned in ‘80’s begins to rewrite story sits blurry eyed in front of computer screen his motivation has always been to tell truth as he knows it he wonders what ramifications his labor will bring positive or negative results? he guesses his story will sound like children’s fable in stark brutality of distant future october 2002 3 week ****** spree terrorizes maryland virginia  district of columbia 10 people killed 3 critically wounded police believe white van responsible october 24 man and 17-year-old boy arrested in blue chevy caprice juvenile is shooter assailants linked to string of random murders including unsolved shooting of man at golf course in tucson Odysseus mentions incident at work speaks of prevailing terror madness in america co-workers kid tell him he is crazy “did you see a white van parked outside the store Odys?” they seem desensitized to increasing national atmosphere of anger panic or perhaps they are overwhelmed by weight trauma of modern life lie after lie prevailing  havoc slaughter make for dull numbness in world they know suicide is compelling option december 22nd 2002 joe strummer dies from heart failure at age 50 Odysseus’s eyes wet he adored the clash everything they stood for loved joe strummer and mescaleros he plays “global a go-go” over and over listens sings along with first track “johnny appleseed” march 2003 president bush launches attack against iraq united states seems drunk with “shock and awe” zealous blind patriotism many people politicians countries around globe question unproven line of reasoning saddam hussein possesses “weapons of mass destruction” Odysseus gripes “not another **** vietnam” record company allows employees to check out take home used product Odysseus stopped watching movies in 1980’s he has lots of catching up to do particularly likes “natural born killers” “american history x” “american ******” “fight club” “way of the gun” “******” “king of new york” “basquiat” “frida” “*******” “before night falls” “quills” “requiem for a dream” “vanilla sky” “boys don’t cry” “being john malkovich” “adaptation” “kids” “lost in translation” “25th hour” “28 days later” “monster” “city of god” “gangs of new york” “**** bill” list goes on perfect circle becomes his favorite band followed by tool lacuna coil my morning jacket brian jonestown massacre flaming lips dredg drive-by truckers dropkick murphys flogging mollies nofx stereophonics eels weakerthans centro-matic califone godspeed you black emperor magnetic fields fiery furnaces dresden dolls smog granddaddy calexico howie gelb sufjan stevens warren haynes dax riggs john vanderslice alejandro escovedo sean paul elephant man bjork p. j. harvey ani difranco aimee mann cat power sophie b. hawkins kathleen edwards mia doi todd kimya dawson regina spektor carina round neko case fiona apple nina nastasia beth gibbons mirah rasputina dr. dre talib kweli immortal technique murs slug atmosphere trick daddy eazy-e tricky list goes on october 21 2003 elliott smith commits suicide stabbing 2 wounds into his chest Odysseus thinks about music when jimi hendrix stood up at woodstock deconstructing national anthem on guitar it took courage when punk emerged with ugly screechy sounds attempting to divorce itself from melodious harmonies of 1970s complacent crosby stills nash  the dead kennedys and *** pistol did not pander to conventional commercial success what they performed were desperate gutsy songs trying to reclaim music rock’n’roll is no longer about inventing instead it imitates its glorious past hip-hop and rap come nearest to risking rebellion but are caught in gangsterism infantile self-adulation no longer does music offer vision of what is or could be instead it conjures looping escapism from hopelessness of modern life he continues working at record shop for several years store contains every genre of music cinema he grows weary of retail sales weary of higher-ups constantly changing rules dictating what to do head manager is manipulative drama queen thrives on crisis once in private admits stealing from company Odysseus nods not knowing what to say head manager works Odysseus hard keeps him down atmosphere of conspiracy betrayal hang at start of each day assistant manager routinely taunts berates bullies teases regularly calls Odysseus “dumb-****” or “****-up” other times laughs after goading Odysseus to flinch eventually bully backs off and they become friends retail pushes Odysseus to brink of misanthropy corporation requires all employees to exercise overt courteousness while serving a public of disrespectful gang bangers demanding “show me black market brotha lynch mac dre why ya godda keep dat **** behind da counter? dat’s ****** up hey old man i ain’t got all day” it always amazes him when shoplifter is caught with product stuffed down his pants thief blatantly states “i didn’t do it i don’t know how that got there” thanksgiving through christmas to new years is most swarming stressful he feels like automaton greeting customer scanning product looking at screen to see if price agrees with product typing money amount counting money into drawer counting money out handing change to customer handing customer product receipt next customer cockroach capitalism packs of masses line up in endless stream of needs stupid remarks job also involves trade appraising condition value resale probability of cds dvds video games tapes vhs vinyl news of  iraq war gets dismal mounting civilian casualties suicide bombers hostages beheadings beginning of 2004 reports of torture ****** psychological abuse **** ****** ****** of prisoners at abu ghraib prison guantanamo bay white house cover-ups denials growing insurgency increasing u.s. body count other costs he thinks about men and women who are so much braver than him then comes re-election and lavish republican parties parades cheney rumsfeld tom delay and whole regime smirk portentously on tv none of it makes sense anymore “we the people of the united states” what does it mean? the dreams and aspirations of his generation have long since faded away he is citizen of forgotten past current world is barbaric place he barely recognizes there are real pirates with machetes rocket launchers on the seas big drug corporations hiding harmful findings kidnapped children abandoned children crooked politicians corruption at every level of society horrifying stories daily ******* priests slave markets extreme heinous cruelties abruptly everyone is acknowledging society is worsening life is not the same he does not understand people and certainly does not understand america or the world he remembers when all could be so good modern existence has turned everything into madness what happened to lessons of history? it is as if Odysseus fell asleep and when he woke everything is changed he is mistaken about what he thinks he knows feels pity for people america pity disgust sorrow he misses his dog
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2017
metzger von Dresden

i'm pretty sure i'm the butcher of Dresden... feuerstrum contra blitzkrieg... yes?

goof to know that
merely
speaking german
is politically
incorrect...
gut zu kennt;
thank ****
that i speak
               polischen.

the retracted step*

perhaps it was always going to be
a cannibalistic fest,
  the monopoly of pixel paper,
as to how, and why,
   people so akin to each other in
social status, would desire climbing
over each other,
      and how they would always
play the sycophnt card to seek
a redeeming closure, but never find it,
i.e. a sycophant card to
brustle up with the so-called
"gatekeepers" of a near missing
"adventure" in being socially mobilised
to climb toward a furthering,
and an ahead...
                   it seems i will have to work
with the space i already possess -
in the number of over three thousand
examples... to have to retract a step,
by step, by step...
             and it can only be apparent,
how finicky and easily avoiding
dialectics people are
bound to succumb to,
     how despising and how self-despised
they are becoming,
          how authentic work
is discouraged,
   shunned, manhandled and sad,
a sadness that only calls forth a crushing
hammer-head to a snail's shell...
  i have no understanding of man,
for i seem to be barely a man worth
settling himself in claiming such a title...
what can you make of man,
if all but man is that which is worth
making offense at the wrong word,
wrong ettiquete,
wrong prance, stance, duty...
                among these things,
why do such a memorable number seek
refuge in god,
       if not simply, to escape the toll
of man...
                  the blackened shadow of
a bell chime, the advent of epitaphs,
   and a servitude to bring no rewards for
fellow occupants,
but merely a gest without a jesture's
prank,
              solemnly bleak and scattered like
one's ascriptions of love done, said...
         man is no creature worth
pity, for it is man's curelty against a fellow
that distances the gods from our
affairs...
     if man was truly the helpless attache
of the peak of Olympus,
he would not find the gods so un-forthcoming...
we nibble at the toes of the sincerity of
divinity,
        yet we eat off the table of man
being man unto man,
         and not daring to cusp the artefacts
of the original cleptomaniac Prometheus...
perhaps i wronged, but have i erred?
erred enough to only suffice to wrong,
without being wronged?
i'm no more immune to wrong as i am
not more immune in being wronged...
        but then again, i guess,
it's hard to insist upon a cosmic Netwonian
ambition of causality,
there is no equilibrium to speak of these days,
there's a cause, but an unbalanced effect...
as there is an effect, but an unbalanced cause...
perhaps all is "relatively" simple
in units and numbers,
  but within the major architecture of
the human experience that's language...
there's the awry angles of spite,
               destitute attempts at correction,
a falling in line without
             a compulsory cry for *charge
!
     dragged down to the depth by an achoring
weakness...
                man, once more,
a failed attempt.
Dresden

As the war was winding down
it was decided to bomb Dresden
It had no industry and had no military target.
the bombing was vengeance
Ten thousand people were killed that night
mostly burnt to death as the attack created a firestorm.
This was ******.
The killers got medals.
With the war on the thought was a dead German
is a good German.
I think this outrage prolonged the war.
It took years before the atrocities saw the light of day,
excepts India and Kenya, few knew Britain
could be party off mass ******.
The Albinos has been revelry to many carnages and
gotten away with it.
It is time for an apology to Dresden and her people.
vircapio gale Oct 2012
apocalypse heat
i flee from black streets
my wife bathing still












.
piercingly cold
stepping on my dead wife's comb
in the bedroom

Buson (1706-83) composed this while his wife was alive. Hi wife Tomo outlived him by 31 years. Another translation of his 'fictional' haiku:

the piercing cold —
in our bedroom stepping
on my dead wife’s comb
rained-on parade Aug 2016
The car will edge past the truck maybe
and maybe we'll survive this message
playing on repeat, apologies like daft lilies
and then you go ahead and tell me that you've never
learnt from your mistakes, or my mistakes.
That mistakes are only bad unless you change the order
of analogy. This experiment has been contaminated.
Now a fresh batch. Trust me, there's a point to this.
I'm counting back from a hundred and two
and you've got me standing in the middle of the highway,
blindfolded; this is what loving you felt like,
you said. But I think it was more dramatic in my head.
Nuclear fission and the seige of Dresden dressed
up playing Adagio in D minor; I'm dust. I'm dust.
I've become ash and misery and I'm trying to stay inside you
but you've been coughing a lot, and who's to say
you were holding your breath for something exciting,
I just know for a fact that at the end of this beep,
you'll know what to do and yet
you're not going to leave another message.
"Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us."
Richard Siken, Scheherazade
Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
life more abundant calls forth an expandable reality primo,
thus wisdom, the principal thing when-ce all other
things may be made

machine level codifiers ifying
meaning back into idle words.

Keep the secret. Answer the call,
who will help the widow's son?

You, Templar, what message bear ye to my child?,
asked the widow.
Fi-del-e-tus. with a squeeze and a tap,
wink and grin

Poet, who named the prophet?
who named the teller to tales?
who gave thee hearing ear and seeing eye?

Some mind imagined those as yet unformed in forever past.
You agree. You experienced living, so far.

So good, we move on, figurative re re re al-it if-ity
Haps apt to appear be fore your veri variety of being even
hapt as a thing thought, imagined made for a function, as yet

undone. Conserve the NULL set, that whole idea is dangerously
close to fading…

Have you seen those videos of soap bubbles filled with H
and no O?
You should see those, to recall the phenomenonal pre-dictatorial
image, see the bubble, invisible but
for reflection of ambient ambits in our epigenetic radiosphere,

bubbles collapse, and for a flash, flame orange shaped
as the bubble was.
No ex-plo sion it-a-tivity, mere dis cipation,
loss of grip on the shape of things that were, now
con forms to re per ceive,

try again, get a good grip, swing and a miss, go again
take a Mulligan, I think, some game has such a rule,

We can use it here. We can scroll back up,
like a rope lift on the bunny hill at Big Bear, back when…

wheels in wheels, bubbles in bubbles, forms in forms

this is the information age I was informed. Adamkind, those
qubitical, ambitical little images of

Who, who? would a name comfort-you worth more than a breath?
Fresh air after a minuted moment twixt out and in again,

Power, create ific power haps twixt out an in again,
the cipitation, the d was missed, what if it were not?

re-read, religion once meant that, re-connect, too,
religion meant that state of having re-read the map,
re-tied the worth carrying,
stacked the worthless by the trail so
some hapless stranger may see
the treasure it was and is, to any who care to

receive, or con ceive it for the
truth I found in it and kept, which I leave to you
here:
Both treasure and truth are where ye find them,
and shall be for ever, when ever starts for you.

Ezekial, judge my riddle, please. The fool missed the
point of conception…
No, no no no

A fool's dance in a Phrygian cap with useless, symbolic wings…
gee, Phrygian, means nothing to you? Google it, you live in the future.
Later,
A time upon which a Mercury dime would comfort
a rich American Tyrant, son of the Flim-flam man,
no lie, this is mythic, you can't make this stuff up
its history. Hysterical, right
John D. Standard-for-Petropower-manifestation,
the dead's carbon footprints bubbling up
to fire and fridgin' ice, whoa, who broke the world,

I was distracted. Did you know the planet is
as self healing as those scabs on my grandkids knees?

ah, caper, eh? Capere, to grasp, to take,
ceive means accept by taking,
be liefing an idea ceived ex nihilo, is likened unto

Drinking from a still pond in a distant land. Sults,
results. may result in,
Dear Rhea revenging Montezuma, at a gut level.

However, a sort of how in an open mind facing forever,
a sort of omni-directional saliency
seeing further,
--Bomb, Jesus-bomb--

At least two reasons for thinking Jesus is objective, out side
you or inside you. You aren't Jesus. Jesus is a friend of mine,
in my mind, object-if-I-try
to pray, listen pray hopes
happen
shapes form
forever from ever point, every point, not of, in buy

a why..
why does a y on the end of every mean any thing?

That's the y-factor. You will learn why wise men still seek those.
As treasure, they are light, and the taste is beyond

the grasp of tongue to tell

that whole class of moded-ever words weave wards
whenever, forever, however, whatever
used proper, everafter,
that will save Dresden, some time, we think.

However, now, Rhea by name has entered the game.

Who is this named femofame? What game is she good in?
Or does she just knock the **** out of lying spirits?
Cool.

Ah, mother of all the gods, I recall, I mean
I meant to say
I remember, then I for got the power words hold here
exactly heare in eleven metrixed mentions,

this point, in time, not of time.
In the world, not of the world, you've heard the pharse?
The allusion is not lost on you, you know the phrase,

In the world, not of the world, holier men than I have
claimed to be, while I follow a few fine words,
linguistic kief, sprinkled fairy dust, like the stuff
captured in the gleaming film on your
microscopic-outer eye

see a salient point in time.

A pin point 'pon which one,
no more,
one story begins for ever, a gain in good net
value, if

we have tasted that word, chewed the gristle,
indigestible ligaments and sin-yews and such,
which once anchored meat to bone,

value is first good. Good e nough, nough
Gut genug, okeh,
maybe not my best, my best is yet to come, they say.

sufficient for today
------

enough (adj.)
c. 1300, from Old English genog "sufficient in quantity or number,"
from Proto-Germanic compound *ganog "sufficient"
(source also of Old Saxon ginog,
Old Frisian enoch, Dutch genoeg,
Old High German ginuog, German genug,
Old Norse gnogr, Gothic ganohs).
First element is Old English ge- "with, together"
(also a participial, collective, intensive, or perfective prefix),
making this word the most prominent surviving example
of the Old English prefix,
the equivalent of Latin com- and Modern German ge- 
(from PIE *kom- "beside, near, by, with;" see com-).
Second element is from PIE *nok-, from root *nek- (2)
"to reach, attain"
(source also of Sanskrit asnoti "to reach,"
Hittite ninikzi "lifts, raises,"
Lithuanian nešti "to bear, carry," Latin nancisci "to obtain").

As an adverb, "sufficiently for the purpose,"
in Old English; meaning
"moderately, fairly, tolerably" (good enough) was in Middle English. Understated sense, as in have had enough "have had too much" was in Old English (which relied heavily on double negatives and understatement).

As a noun in Old English,
"a quantity or number sufficient for the purpose." As an interjection, "that is enough," from c. 1600. Colloquial 'nough said is attested from 1839.

From <https://www.etymonline.com/word/enough#etymonlinev8703>
Godliness with contentment is great gain, a precept I was chewing on following a ritual holy day of gratitude to goodness for goodness sake in my cultural gut genug state of mind.
Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable square
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was silence in heaven
And silence at her end of the street.
The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet—
He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred before.
The dogs were handsomely provided for,
But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.
The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece,
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees—
Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived.
Dresden

Oh, ****. Here comes my rage again.
I thought the drugs kept it at bay.
My shrink promised it would but
said we might have to adjust dosage
and we'd talk next week. It scares
me near to death. Loose wire in rain
snaking itself wild full of death.
My kids barely shake in fear but
they do and it just spikes the rage.
I love you! I'd never hurt you!
******* it to hell!I'd never bomb
your cities to infernos like Dresden.
I'll tuck you in at night and battle
monsters under your beds.
I'll take you fishing.
I'll fix your flat tires.
I'll never burn you alive
from a great height God like.
spysgrandson Oct 2015
I was three, four--surely no more
we marched through the old city, I
mostly on father's shoulders, a place
I was perched so often back then  

of a thousand dry seas on the moon's
pocked face, only one my father chose to wed  
with a bomb crater: Mare Ingenii

to others, you were but a mammoth hole,
ill-timed casualty of the bombers wrath,
but Dad named you for a barren basin
on the dark side of the moon  

eons later, I was an ancient ten,
and John Glenn spun thrice around the globe
I then asked if we would live to see the real you,  
an astronomically sculpted scoop, two hundred
arctic black miles across  

dad said of course,
and I believed him, especially
after I asked when, and he said
a billion years ago
*Mare Ingenii is a crater, “The Sea of Cleverness,” on the far side of the moon. In the decade after WWII, my father actually showed me a bomb crater in Vienna, not Dresden.
Fire damaged china
from Dresden,
less than when, but
then
we were lucky
to escape.

All tarred with the same brush and
charred in the great rush,
we were
feathers that flew in the night.

The rings around Saturn and the
hot streets of Dresden became
fused,
a meaningless pattern that
no one would choose.

The graveyard is hard, cold
and doesn't lose any sleep,
only the china dolls weep
in Dresden.
Holly Salvatore Aug 2013
Under a big tent
Topped with stars and
Smelling of elephants
A couple of daredevils
Toss in their trailer
Restless in the Midwest

Their golden suits shimmer
In the Iowa half light
The cornstalks talk in
The breezes passing by
At night the daredevils whisper
About what it would be like to really fly
And not just on the trapeze
They kiss goodnight and dream of impossibilities

Times are changing
Since the war it's been mostly women
In the crowds the circus draws
They scream at the lions
Roar at the strongman
Gasp and applaud the two daredevils
Enthusiastically
Happily
Making love in the sky

Times are changing
Since his number came up
She's been lonely
Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri
Her gold suit is covered in farm dust
Growing nothing much
Her husband is on a bombing raid over Nazis
He's finally flying
Helped by an airplane
B52s and bloodshot eyes
No longer dreaming of impossibilities but
Missing his safety net

Since he left she's been thinking about cannons
Popcorn, scrap metal
and hoping against solo acts
She's been dreaming of
What it's like to be shot at
Really take risks
Really feel out of breath
And her husband's been writing her letters
About white picket fences

"The daredevil life that we wanted is so much worse than we thought it would be. Let that sweet silent net catch you and lie quietly thinking of me."

Times are changing
And so is he
Times are changing
And she feels like world shaking
She can hear the wolves blowing it down

But she keeps up her stunts
And keeps up her spirits
Till one day the bearded lady is screaming
Her name from the floor of the tent
Up on that tightrope she pauses
A second
There's two grim faced servicemen
Her daredevil husband is dead
Flying a mission over Dresden
Just another casualty of a world at war
Another daredevil in a dogfight and
Now one less mouth for the circus to feed

Suddenly she's high up in the stratosphere
Breathing fumes
And from the tightrope she faints
I've given him my heart, given him my onliness
She rests in her gold suit
Cradled by the safety net he warned her to hang on to
And in her dreams she can't help thinking
Maybe she dodged a suburban bullet

Times have changed
And since the war's end
The leftover men
Have gotten married
And she's been doing nothing
But lying awake in her bed
Thinking
Picturing cannons mauling
White picket fences
Her body in a gold suit
Broken on the green grass
She needs distance and airtime
To cull this restlessness
Get out of the Midwest
**** his conspicuous missingness
And come up with a solo act
To keep her fed

In the morning she finds the ringmaster
Hungover in the hay of the elephant stalls
In the morning she's made a decision
To fly like a cannonball
Through a dreamland
Times are changing
And since she woke up
She's dressed in her gold suit
Setting fire to the average
Dreaming of impossibilities
This started out being about Reba and then it turned into a short story and then it turned into a poem and I guess it's a character study now.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
"His mind would never romp again like the mind of God."
The Great Gatsby**


Does he fret,
Does he sweat,
Does he pay his bills
On Time,
Even tho his personal stash
Of anything,
Inexhaustible and
He bills himself?

Is he lonely,
So when he romps,
His greatest pleasure is
Inventing new kinds of pain?

Does he like to watch butter
Snowmelt,
Does he turn the honey jar
Upside down
Because viscosity is
A turn on?

Is he lonely?
Of course he is,
Is that why he endlessly
Tinkers with creative destruction?

Does he put strawberry jam
On his watermelon?
Salt on his wounds,
Caramelized onions in his
Cologne and parfumes?

Does he watch reruns?
The bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima?
The shaving of the heads of the French women?
What's his fav. late night host,
When he can't sleep
And. his damaged dreams
Become our unfortunate realities?

Acting childish, a métier,
So he can scold himself?
Does he keep score,
Ever say no more,
Contemplate suicide,
Or just murdering his sons?

Did he kiss Shakespeare's lips,
Or just his fingertips?
Does he sing a Capella
With Holly and Cooke,
Let Beethoven play rock n' roll?

What is he best excuse
For playing with
Tormented souls,
Making so many wonderful things
Forbidden fruit?

Does he worship regularly at the altar?
Irony his faith and skin his vestments?
Are his twisted straight,
His late, early?
His order disordered and when bored,
Does he just close his eyes and
Let us live in peace?
After seeing Gatsby.  Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke.
Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
Specialism, electro mechanical circuits,

moving parts yet move, you see, but when we read we bring our senses
inside
privacy can become a public mind, if one is connected, in a giving way,
taking thought,
as the original medium we found message in,
thought takes form
in words,
words take form in things. Right. Check.

Blake feared the objective world was being walled in,
and all the people screamed, amen.
Again

Build the wall, from icons demoted to mites of no more
weight than a tinker's think,
phe-nomenal noment-ation, if we may

Hot and cool both bubbled up as burps, perhaps from the babes
booming through the lies told before the great war.

No future? You allow that thought in your culture?
And shame and blame?
No wonder you choose to lie.

Bear with me a while, share my load, it's light.
There is a hopeful object,
we can go easy into that good night,
the world is round.

Free from Ra and Isis and all, in one fell sweep of the besom.
Broom, besom, means broom, but the effect of an e,

e-lectrix

you give us the fire we'll give em hell  a game ad in the middle of the massage
Call of duty, black ops.
they
You use you eyes to see, it's a with-spiracy,

a hair of the dog that bit you. Eh?
live in bonanza land, 1965.

and so it goes, Dresden, every minute of every day

the walls of your home are coming down,

unless you were born with a cell phone in your father's pocket.

Privacy is calling for walls from the fenced in time after Bonanza.

Ah, too late, ours is an all new world of all at onceness, a global village, happening simultaneous.
extreme with everybody else's business, huge in
volvement in every body's business

we know too much to be strangers
walls fall down, not go up,
the wallbuilding never workded, did it Grandpa?

Nineteenth century student could believe
the factory system
would use the knowledge, hard-won
from books and chalkboards,
to keep him outa the mine.

Now, the information age,

are we the leisure class? Ever learning,
never knowing everything,

but knowing walls and wars do not perform as advertised.

The safety car, that was one with seat belts, 1965.
Our body percept, it changes,
this image of which you are un
aware.

The disconnected minded man, alienated
artist living edgewise to
cattywompus.

My life is my art, eh, not the other way.
Global village information age McLuhan named these things
from Canada.
More expert than my teacher,
Pop art is not a pun, it was a bubble,
that's a fact. The-joke-with-no-story-line-conundrums,
elephant jokes, blonde jokes

Those tests, Turing would approve,
any old A.I. can play chess,
just remember every response to every move ever made in any game in the system,
like the amygdala, your lizard thought-speed brain,
at the top of your spine.

But humans can make funny seem.

Humor comes from a world of un happiness and gripes,
Jose Jimenez was the example they made. Racist, right?
The guy was a jew.
William Szathmary, Googled it.

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana>

Communicating with the logo-label-designer you wear,
messaging the world what? Exactly,
any un thought thought goes unsaid,

but T-shirts and body art, henna's the best,
those send a message with no thought whatsoever.
Same as Redcoats in bearskin hats, what's being said,
same as the judge with a wig?

What is the role?
Why the ongoing act?
It must have changed into that wigged judge from something.

Theater of everywhere, accept allatonce, or die asking y not.

Inward directed seeking
deep meaning
a role that changes

some outside
the future of the future started, a while back. not too far.

No inevitability.
An act of high poetry

envisioning,
the future was friendly

metaphysical value, brilliant, incomprehensible
a man, a thinker,
storytellers the experts say,
need some mud behind 'em. and some snow.

a mother never satisfied with her life,
brittley self confident,

the whole approach to knowing is old.
Diogenes's search for a good poem, with
shifting levels of imagery,
never shall you know,

they work
the way a word works,
the effect.
effect. fect from Latin facere,
sistere mechanically deus
The oracle of the information age
Ah,whatvoiceisheardaroundtheworld,
oh,mine.2018 Mr. McLuhan,
you'd likely lighten up a little.
Toejammspredder was mcluhan I heard on the grapevine.

Hey, mom, I'm on TV.
Up to doctrine, then destination syndrome a hopebubble

He had brain surgery and returned to Catholicism, a safe place.
But he left his vision to television's offspring.
That's about all I know of his work.
Some things shape us for our future, if we allow the time and let patience have her perfect work.
Mike Essig Apr 2015
Elegy for the Forgotten Oldsmobile**

July 4th and all is Hell.
Outside my shuttered breath the streets bubble
with flame-loined kids in designer jeans
looking for people to **** or razor.
A madman covered with running sores
is on the street corner singing:
O beautiful for spacious skies…
This landscape is far too convenient
to be either real or metaphor.
In an alley behind a 7-11
a Black **** dressed in Harris tweed
preaches fidelity to two pimply ******
whose skin is white though they aren’t quite.
And crosstown in the sane precincts
of Brown University where I added rage
to Cliff Notes and got two degrees
bearded scientists are stringing words
outside the language inside the guts of atoms
and I don’t know why I’ve come back to visit.

O Uncle Adrian! I’m in the reservation of my mind.
Chicken bones in a cardboard casket
meditate upon the linoleum floor.
Outside my flophouse door stewed
and sinister winos snore in a tragic chorus.

The snowstorm t.v. in the lobby’s their mother.
Outside my window on the jumper’s ledge
ice wraiths shiver and coat my last cans of Bud
though this is summer I don’t know why or where
the souls of Indian sinners fly.
Uncle Adrian, you died last week—cirrhosis.
I still have the photo of you in your Lovelock
letterman’s jacket—two white girls on your arms—
first team All-State halfback in ’45, ’46.

But nothing is static. I am in the reservation of
my mind. Embarrassed moths unravel my shorts
thread by thread asserting insectival lust.
I’m a naked locoweed in a city scene.
What are my options? Why am I back in this city?
When I sing of the American night my lungs billow
Camels astride hacking appeals for cessation.
My mother’s zippo inscribed: “Stewart Indian School—1941”
explodes in my hand in elegy to Dresden Antietam
and Wounded Knee and finally I have come to see
this mad *** nation is dying.
Our ancestors’ murderer is finally dying and I guess
I should be happy and dance with the spirit or project
my regret to my long-lost high school honey
but history has carried me to a place
where she has a daughter older than we were
when we first shared flesh.

She is the one who could not marry me
because of the dark-skin ways in my blood.
Love like that needs no elegy but because
of the baked-***** possibility of the flame lakes of Hell
I will give one last supper and sacrament
to the dying beast of need disguised as love
on deathrow inside my ribcage.
I have not forgotten the years of midnight hunger
when I could see how the past had guided me
and I cried and held the pillow, muddled
in the melodrama of the quite immature
but anyway, Uncle Adrian…
Here I am in the reservation of my mind
and silence settles forever
the vacancy of this cheap city room.
In the wine darkness my cigarette coal
tints my face with Geronimo’s rage
and I’m in the dry hills with a Winchester
waiting to shoot the lean, learned fools
who taught me to live-think in English.

Uncle Adrian…
to make a long night story short,
you promised to give me your Oldsmobile in 1962.
How come you didn’t?
I could have had some really good times in high school.
Indian/Native America/First Citizen (take your PC pick) poet of considerable talent and power.
Deyer Sep 2014
Sirens will sit, stand, sprint, and lay with you,
if you let them.
Sirens whisper of an incoming life
while sometimes, on the same night,
discussing one that is outgoing.
Sirens have told the people of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Dresden
that their air would be turned to ash,
sooner rather than later.
Sirens pull you to the side of the road
to tell you that you're going too fast,
so maybe slow down a little.

Now modern Sirens have taken the face of man,
the voice of man.
They whisper not to the sailors;
but to the people in their cars,
in their places of work
and in their homes.
(buy my product)
(become a member)
(Listen to Me.)
Maybe control is swaying
and man is being changed,
persuaded to
sit, stand, sprint and lay
with Sirens.
Honeysuckle carrier churning the spring-                                              
river caladium
Easterly shear delight beyond Dresden blue visage
Windy dream mermaid sea , Brown Pelican motion
Harper Chickadees stirring Pineapple sage-
banks of thought
Tempered , smitten , physical piedmont devotion
Pisciform schooners roaming wits damask ocean
Copyright April 6 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
The emptiness of disbelief
The hollow of a bell
The lack of any reason
Raising buckets from a dried up well

Looking for life inside
The largest of museums
Firebomb a defenseless city
You can call it Dresden

Step aside , don't block the way
Cause the air tastes of cyanide
Explode a nuetron bomb
And no one will survive

Hollow rings the empty bell
Surface to air missles come together
It tolls for the souls be sent to Hell
Flutters down the Angel's feathers
Keeping the memory of the manmade disaster of flight 17 shot down over Ukraine on July 24 , 2014
Begging for explosive technology
Gripping ancient ideas
Merely coordinating fresh routes

Deleting paintings to
Repaint the fire bombings on Dresden
It was probably in Dubai at the Hyatt when I met her
or it may have been in Dresden at the Steigenberger,
I
can't remember,

am I just dredging up old memories trying
to keep some flame alive?

but there are lots of things I don't recall
in this season of my fall
and more things still
I left unsaid

Bedrest
so the Doctor says
what a way to end my days
and then it came to me as
these things usually do
I met her down in Sussex
just outside
Drusillas zoo.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
papa internet goes wacko with his cybernetic compulsory
esoteric ****, says words like: the person who's to go against
the holy trinity (minus the surd no one really bothers) is no longer
a Jungian fantasy, the trigger and
the detonator of world war une and part deux,
but the paraclete isn't a person of much
relief either - cold war une and part deux -
right now, china's expressionless billion -
you squint, they look sober,
you drink, they look squinty eyed,
can't winde up that cold heart readied for
a billion polymath antonyms of your self
in automaton mobility -
compared with the fragile western championing
of individuality, China looks like a billion
despots morphed into one, you can't win.
back to Catholic bureucracy:
that's two names at your baptism -
matthew, conrad - and a third
at your confirmation (which i never
had, scouts' honour, cross my fingers
mea culpa my heart and count to 100)
would have been: Shiva -
the auspicious son returns -
well, **** me, canned peaches
and some apples and the NATO
phonetic: will you be my bride?
that's a thumbs up on the Rockefeller Sq.;
Isis: blatant espionage: mother of Horus
sister of Osiris - and i'm the Duracell bunny,
******* a clone sheep with a ***** dummy eject;
******, ***** strap-on, thingy magic eek (
the fidgety bit of putting together an Ikea table
for high tea).
you never went to a faith high-school
you never got to grips with the uniform,
or the bureaucracy, some of it invented
to simply rebel against it -
not the uniform bit, i thought that
was clean, in terms of non-discrimination
and how trans gets gendered as both, or neither
being allocated the chance to foster
would-be abortions.
hey! if Elton John can have a telly-tubby, so can i!
but this isn't your song...
and you just made an effort to scrap the idea
of singing in a shower -
poetry is never a sing-along, more or less
a thought-along - thought... a word masturbated a lot...
and i meant a lot - esp. when you're day-dreaming
and nothing you think precipitates into being
what you were thinking about -
so anti Cartesian, fair enough, thinking can precipitate
into a centimetre definition, a centimetre allowance,
self-consciousness bit - but beyond this fact
it's back to square one, daydreaming,
the disagreeing fact of thinking but not being,
or not thinking and being: the latter reserved for
entertainers and sports -
this is the secondary stage of the Cartesian realisation
that Descartes didn't mention... when thinking
does not precipitate into being - secondary meaning
a telepathic joke - or the men that stare at sheep
in the U.S. army and think they can run through walls...
of course the classical model involves the easiest
explanation, ergo as in +, -, x, ÷, take whatever metaphors
from this tetrasignum you want on a vacation into
psychiatry, i'm not one schizoid moment bothered
about firebombing Dresden either (slaughterhouse 5),
it's true enough to say that thought proves existence,
but thinking doesn't necessarily prove being -
whatever that means - it's the daydreaming bit
of the equation - Descartes is really a primer for
the study of philosophy, even Kant comes back to
this vocabulary arithmetic - as does Heidegger with
his bemusement: when people say "i, i",
cognitive identity and otherwise expressed.
the roads are divergent, or let us say the one's
origin from nothing leads to no big bang,
let us just say: a personal rebellion, not so much
that one precipitates into another,
let's just say that the ergo is worth replacing,
given our daydreams... and the fortune of never
realising our fancies... or as some might claim:
our misfortune of not realising our fancies, but
having a personal life without a media microscope
itemising our every movement... poly-diadem
dictator of western media:
                                                cogito para sum.
or, as stated by the benzene trinity affixes -
inclusive ortho- and meta-, obviously shortened
for liquid extraction - or the quip -
as in para: guard against, | |... interjecting / intersecting, i.e.
the suffix -llel (closure? not really, it could be
a nuanced noun, category affix, less familial concerns -
ah yes, an affix -llel, a suffix is a complete word:
pre- agaro -suf phobia, till the no. xi).
so a step beyond the cul de sac of Descartes -
the daydreaming part, when indeed thought materialises
into artificial intelligence simulators concerned
with the question of self-consciousness, paradoxical twins,
where thought materialises into its existential recipient standard
of never fulfilled, always unfulfilled, always demanding...
the bemoaned culture gap between youtube videos going
viral and virology on a canvas of infected flesh -
so forget the Cartesian cascade, that thinking will precipitate
into being of some sort, given current care for celebrity
culture we can't be assorting this equation with a rational
sequence, or the "as it should be", that train is long gone...
we need to defend ourselves against the precipitation of
thought into non-being - to regain a pleasure from mere thought...
not every thought will leave us richer off or as start-up
entrepreneurs - hence the need for non-materialisation,
our perfected mechanisation - the daydream - oh don't worry,
i'm not writing this from an ivory tower...
i have a constant fear too... but this ergo of 1 + 1 + 1 = 3
will not do... hence the revision, as all philosophical
standards are cared for akin to Renaissance canvases -
                                                               ­             cogito para sum:
that my thinking parallels my being - as i indulge in the former
and economise in the latter.
"The Dresden clock continued ticking on the mantelpiece
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees--
Who had always been so careful while her mistress lived"

— From "Aunt Helen" by T.S. Eliot*


It's laugh-out-loud funny
how
one death
can change things.

If she were here
I'd blame
it
on a lifelong ill-
fascination with
Charlie McCarthy
or a hang-up
that's lingered since
the bourbon-scented Santa
invited me to sit.

At some point
you've got to
get back on the horse
though my levers
aren't so
easy to work
and, I better get
more
than a stuffed Pooh bear
out of this trip.

It's still-deep
water under the bridge
because
she's not.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
so you end up reading a book review,
about the mad myth-makers of mother russia,
the Kremlin is in thrall to men once seen
as ideological crazies: black wind, black snow,
pristine glitter of the western hemisphere:
if you regret having a conscience,
blame someone else not having one either,
motto no. 1...
Euro-Asian in russian politics:
Leicester City F.C. owned by a Thai...
mongols mongols everywhere! and not
a german to converse with! rant of the ancient
mariner... rereading, plagiarism and cheap humour;
anna akhmatova's son lev gumilev
chopping his leg along with firewood in a siberian
goo goo (dubbed the prison of the wingless
anchor of national sentiment, i.e. an eagle, quasi),
why is language to be or become an IKEA
(Sweden, Abba, great meatballs)
of putting together a table, a chair, why not take
stance with Burroughs and Tzara and make it
random? a few pedestrians along the way,
you never know when such randomness might convene
you to talk Taj Mahal postcards.
the fiend from KGB riddled east Berlin...
coca-colonialists - cola-nationalists, bought
Alaska, sold three-quarters of America to China...
#loveyourimperfections... selling love is not
like selling perfume... the thing you're selling is
an an Ayers rock sized ****... thing stank so much
you're welcome to see one bush in an acre
that's the outback...
orthodox christianity? didn't get it...
catholicism is too bureaucratic...
the Koran contradicts the genesis story of
a fire that's flameless, as the Israelites marched
a fire ahead, smoke behind them erasing tracks,
the Iblis of the Koran...
da, smert! it's all coming together like
an over-fried egg... with aleksandr dugin,
a guitar-strumming russian beatnik (
hard to be a beatnik in plateau without angry
Brooklyn streets) -
(ras)Putin based upon max stierlitz, KGB-backed
t.v. from the 1970s... or Hans Kloss,
limanov co-founded the national bolshoi party
along with behemoth (the alcoholic cat
who played chess in the Master and the Margarita)...
you've not been given any instructions,
you're already fazed with advertising interludes
changing your attention like looking into
a kaleidoscope between your favourite program...
16 years in Dresden, 22 years in England & Scotland...
but if you spent that same amount of time,
either 16 or 22 years, you might have
come across accounts of German girls after
world war ii... in the book we, children from station
ZOO
by a Christiane F. (Christine F.) -
how the three allied powers were supplying
******... teenagers on ******... the western powers...
the new treaty of Versailles... teenagers on ******...
the western powers... east Berlin waited and waited
and got the emergence of Rammstein;
o.k. fair enough, teenagers overdosing and dying
but at least three world cup titles by FRG...
and GDR doing the doping rounds of revising
world records in sprinting and acrobatics at the
Olympics... in unison the chemists just say:
please use our compounds, our additives, dope up,
all the civilians are using recreational drugs
at some point during the week, please let the
olympians use our talent to increase their potential!
Kida Price Jun 2014
Waking thoughts
Lyrics to a song
Shuffle through the playlist
Find the perfect one.
Too many can describe
My mental alibi
So I just take a little time
For the lyrics to fill my mind.
Growing up there was no blue sky rhyme
Metallica, pink Floyd and the cure
Were the ones to describe my youthful shrine.
Older plays
Took some blues away
How is it that I wasn't born
In the Woodstock age?
The doors, temptations, Jim Croce
Carol king
God! It's so godly when they sing.
Then I had to hit that puberty
Like a brick to the face
Picking out my own musical taste.
Adema, korn, Dresden dolls, tool.
Stone sour, shinedown, nine inch nails
Stone temple pilots and more as well.
Give me lyrics that could scream
All the screaming out of me.
Little did I know that in my scene
I thought my music was defining me.
I'm not music. Just flesh and bone
Maybe I should expand my treble tone.
Throw some chicks in there, you know?
No one should have a song on repeat
And have that be the song you hear when we meet.
So I searched for some musical relief
I enjoy a good scream sometimes
But that's not all I breathe.
Some motion city, say anything,
Yeah I like akon, lady sovereign,
A perfect circle and deftones
Classical Mozart and Beethoven makes me feel right at home.
Silver mt Zion, some Phillip glass,
Michael nyman, now I've achieved some class.
Pink when I feel like pop or brass
Punch guys in the **** cause I'm a chick
Hell yes!
No not really. The **** part, I mean.
But I actually really do like pink.
Jon Bon jovi or Otis redding
When I want to think of this guy that I'm loving.
I might have lost track of the lyrics I was originally thinking
But with my selection I'm derailing
With musical tasting.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
how sensible it all seems, how crew-cut and with enough
anaesthetic to k.o. an elephant - outside the laboratories
the populists in whatever guise march on - as with any
congregation, atheists also muster up enough social muscle:
they too have their bouncers and other
gob-smackers with knuckle dusters -
as long as science is popularised it pushes
the boundaries of insensible chasms elsewhere -
                             but with so futile popularisation:
shortages in respective sectors: mandatory,
or as suggested: no longer rich bachelors and
         private laboratories - a science of regurgitation -
once they burned heretics, now the subtle
        championing of mingy sedatives - and since
Joan of Arc's heart no longer aspires to passion
and its all consuming fire, it turns into a wet
piece of coal - reining in the crowds of pop culture
zombies - said before, said again - but how
dislodged the feelings not ranging into absurdity
or at least nibbling on the zest of Dionysus;
but how things changed from that year, 2006,
everyone is asking, the poncy pope with glamorous
attire, the stiff-necked scientists - the pendulum
of guilt swinging in both directions - half of
the 20th century prescribed a fear magnanimously:
oddly enough - as implying: we forgive your
puny religious swooning and answering with
the easiest answers possible... here's a bomb -
so who are the sacred ones? they too are human -
the magazine dissected into:
a. what is reality? (can we be sure that the world
  we experience is not just a figment of our
    imagination) by roger penrose
     b. do we have free will? (the more we find
out about the brain works, the less room there
  seems to be for personal choice or responsibility)
     by patricia churchland
c. what is life? (if we encounter alien life,
chances are we wouldn't recognise it - not even
if it was here on earth) by robert hazen
d. is the universe deterministic?
   (however you look at it, the answer seems to be "maybe")
       by vlatko vedral
   e. what is consciousness? ("my soul is a hidden
    orchestra... all i hear is the music" - fernando pessoa)
            by paul brooks
f. will we ever have a theory of everything?
    (2000 years of rational inquiry may be approaching
  their crowning glory. just one more push could
   be enough...)
                            by michio kaku
   g. what happens after you die? (we have all
  wondered if there is an afterlife, but only a few are brave -
or foolish - enough to try and find out)
                                by mary roach
  h. what comes after **** sapiens?
  (all species are fated either to die out or to evolve
  into something else. all except humans, that is)
                   by james hughes -
so there we have it - the respective pillars of science,
whereby science replaces core beliefs into
core questions - to not hold firm, but to constantly
sway - the 8 founding questions - no more,
  no less - but how many people can perpetually sway?
   the supposed 8 universals, i.e. that every human
  being might, might not, will or will not ask -
     and for these 8 universals, exponential functions
of particulars: because that's how it's supposed
to be: chaotically democratic -
thus everyone knows the objectivity standard:
at its core is awe, outside the core pathology and
apathy - or let us say: passions and indifference -
then subdivisions of (+) and (-), and in general:
   however it is you feel: compensated or left starving.
in 2006, they congregated at a round table and
spoke god-this, god-that - no minority report,
  cold evidence never went down with women (or
so i'm told), three questions, question 1:
                 should science do away with religion?
oddly enough R. Dawkins said:
               "no doubt there are many people who do need
religion, and far be it from me to pull the rug from
under their feet." - we know that the bestseller
              the god delusion came out shortly after.
a physicist (S. Weinberg) similarly (c me la ri lee):
   "science can't provide a sense of magic about the world,
or a community of fellow-believers. there's a
religious mentality that yearns for that."
  L. Krauss: the success of science does not encompass
the entirety of human intellectual experience.
on and on this goes - i guess they have to debate for
the sake of debate - as i am sure everyone is aware:
   a debate can overpower the point of prayer -
confessions? i treat it more like poetry - but in saying
that... where is the medical profession in all of this?
we have astronomers, ecologists, biologists,
physicists, astrophysicists, planetary scientists,
cosmologists, philosophers... what's the odd one out?
it's a bit suspicious that this magazine does not
cite any chemists... and that's ****** obvious...
they're the ones making pacts with the devil -
whether Goethe's or Marlowe's Faust -
then at least to the more obscure rendition
of Pan Twardowski (Herr Tvardovsky) -
         but how odd it already is that chemists haven't
joined ranks with other scientists in their little
Friday night debating club meetings - seriously?
are those boffins serious about all of this?
            or as one said it:
i came from learning to write CO for carbon monoxide,
   and FeO for ferric oxide - or drawing electron migration
  diagrams when two compounds interact (a nice
playground of symbols) and went my way into
   some form of linguistics - primarily working on
          the tetragrammaton - i have no major interest
beyond this definition: would i debate the most
difficult metaphysical assumption of the omni-variations
in terms of ascribing the variations to a being?
i'd stumble in the metaphysical world on omnipresence,
meaning i would be a pantheist - meaning god
    would be anything and everything from the moon,
a mouse, an ant colony, my **** and what not -
            the all-in-one: for one thing, that's already much
too hellish to comprehend, let alone make comedy from.
but they haven't told you about the painkilling
saliva that beats morphine - catherine rougeo:
proceedings of the national academy of sciences,
vol. 103, p. 17979) - the compound's name? opiorphin,
or the scourge of Afghanistan. they also didn't
tell you about Saracen sabres - their scimitars contained
carbon nanotubes - forged from Indian steel
called wootz - 17th century examples studied by
P. Paufler (Dresden) found the carbon nanotubes
and even nanowires (nature, vol. 444, p. 286) -
or is this becoming to look very much like traffic
on London's M25 during rush-hour? it certainly is,
as was intended -
                   1950s: age of optimism -
influenza wave from the east, the indestructible transistor,
   television without wires, baby computer the size of
  a piano, rubber windshields, genetic chemistry,
atomic aircraft, the neutrino, sputnik 1, strontium-90
(radioactive ash)  used by manufacturers of woven
and knitted fabrics to overcome fog markings,
the coleopter, polypropylene (the remnants of German
word-compounding revealed in chemistry, and
only in chemistry, elsewhere compounding is
replaced by hyphenation, i.e. hyphenating),
                  and so on and so forth until present day -
passing through Sir, Julian, Huxley, who reinvented
****** with "positive" eugenics - oh sure, it was still
alive and kicking - quark hunters draw a blank -
             i could reference all else that was involved
in making the last 60 years - beyond that people are
call it ancient history - or are Virgil and as Horace,
and as Ovid did - turned their back to the world,
         into their poplar groves and jasmine filled gardens,
and said: ta'oh!           ta'oh!                 Tao!
  but not until then, before embarking i'm already
dreading to embark with something to add, to even
voice this -                                     but i guess i might:
  as ever, the freedom of speech is never as grand a
                                      luxury as the freedom to think.
Filmore Townsend Aug 2012
Vonnegut -
      the ******* -
implanted within my
          mind
        a concept -
           the concept -
       of time being illusory
          in such blunt words
                     that i could
          not make sense
       of them until now.

                                    Vonnegut -
                                             the ******* -
                                       stories of
                                       writing stories of
                                            Dresden -
                           is Billy alive these days?

                                                          ­         Vonnegut -
                                                               ­             you ******* -
                                                             your words are
                                                             ­     psychomimetic.
                                             ­     how do you sleep at night
                                                           ­        knowing your words
                                                          g­et people high?
Mark Lecuona May 2017
Broken minds
Broken bodies
Broken art  
Broken girl

What is the point of laughing anymore?
Dresden fires
Hiroshima pyres
Twenty two dead in Manchester
Twenty two dead in Manchester
Is it really true?
Is it really true?

Broken religion
Broken borders
Broken trust
Broken girl

What is the point of living anymore?
Planes and skyscrapers
Harbor infamy invaders
The god of Abraham silently weeps
The god of Abraham silently weeps
Can he hear you?
Can he hear you?

Broken world
Broken God
Broken belief
Broken girl

What is the point of dying anymore?
Suicide bomber
Children ******
Thou shalt not ****
Thou shalt not ****
It's nothing new
It's nothing new
C S Cizek Apr 2015
I’m sitting on a fume couch with ashtray
legs, counting the khaki strands
in the beaded curtain that dices
the hallway up into barcodes. The table
by the fridge is a cable spool lead-
painted to match the molding. Around
it is a mesh-back lawn chair, a SoCal
fold-out from a SoHo dumpster,
a spill-trayless booster seat,
and a bottle cap barstool. Everyone’s
wearing second-hand sport coats
with seam stitches as loose as telephone
wires tacked up with undersized lapel
pins.

**** Capitalism. **** Disco.
Bathe Avant-Garde. Eat Paint.
Bleed *******. Smoke Local.
Espresso, Or Genocide.
Dresden Was A Lie.
Shrink-Wrap It All.

Everyone is clustered around the cinder-
block stand record player, grooving
to the pops, looking like a rag-tag tide
change beneath the broken-oar ceiling
fan. Everyone’s wearing ironic scarves
tight like corporate ties to keep their throats
from popping ten-cent parasols, loose tobacco,
and *******. Amid their rubber flower talk,
I can pick out San Pelicano, someone critiquing
Keats’ “Politics,” and a rant regarding some
guy downtown’s stab at post-contemporary
Pointillism in some gallery I’ve never heard of.

They’re flipping between topics like a Moleskine notebook
while I skim through a copy of the Onion,
teasing the edges with a lighter I found on the floor.
Couldn't even spell Camus,
you illiterate ****,
not to mention you never heard of my dudes,
Hesse and Chuck.
I've roamed expanse, of Middle Earth,
watched sun sets, from Martian perch.
You poor *******, can't comprehend
the tortured lives Of Mice and Men.
Fail to grasp the beauty
in Ray Bradburys' words
and you'll probably never know
how Dresden Germany burned.
When "Something Wicked, This Way Comes"
you'll hardly know just where to run.
As Billy P. learned "So it goes"
Soon you too, will come to know
A strange thing I have gleaned from friend,
just "Poo - tee - weet" can mark the end.
featherfingers Nov 2013
We don't fall
like rain
or like snow
or like New Year's Eve confetti
in sweeping graceful arcs;
we fall like atom bombs.

We fall like atom bombs,
ignorantly whistling our way to the ground.
We fall like a firestorm
scorching Dresden to smoldering ruin.
We fall like night--
completely,
unforgivingly,
thickly,
coldly.

We fall like angels
from twelve stories high,
singing love songs to concrete
to drown out the sirens.
We fall like pennies
from the Empire State,
flung from the observation deck--
carelessly,
mercilessly.

*Maybe falling makes us mighty,
but we're falling just the same.
The toddler sat in the high chair,
And stared at his tiny hands,
He wondered, where had they come from,
And his name, they said, was Hans,
He seemed to recall another place
Where he’d lived, so long ago,
Before he was part of the human race
Though the words, he didn’t know.

His body felt like an alien
It was hard to make it work,
His legs and his feet were clumsy, and
He’d only just learnt to walk,
He found that his hands could pick up things
He could drop them, or could throw,
And watch the reaction of bigger things
When they’d shout, or tell him ‘No!’

They both were bigger and stronger
But the biggest one was rough,
He’d lift him out of his high chair, and
His voice was deep and gruff,
The other was soft and caring and
Had fed him at the breast,
Would carry him round and cuddle him
But the voice was shrill, at best.

Two spirits sat on his shoulders that
He didn’t know that he had,
One kept muttering, ‘You be good!’
The other said, ‘Be bad!’
‘Don’t listen to him, he’s always grim,’
Said the good one on the right,
The other had said, ‘Remember me?
He’ll make you feel uptight!’

He vaguely remembered the darker one
From the place that he’d always been,
And thoughts went fluttering through his mind,
Like scenes in a distant dream,
He knew, as a thrill spilled over him
That the good one made him sad,
And he couldn’t listen to both at once
But the dark one made him glad.

He’d watch as the bigs lit cigarettes
And the room filled up with smoke,
The haze had returned to comfort him
Though once in a while, he’d choke.
He’d stare and stare at the cigarettes
Intent on that tiny glow,
For it lit a spark in his memory
And he suddenly thought, ‘I know!’

One night while the bigs were fast asleep
He crawled on out of his cot,
Went for the box of matches that
He’d seen them use, a lot.
His tiny fingers had struck a match
And he sat and watched the flame,
As the darker one on his shoulder said,
‘We’re going to play a game!’

He struck a match for the curtains, and
He struck a match for the couch,
He then set fire to the tablecloth
And burnt his thumb, said ‘Ouch!’
An ancient memory stirred within
That would make his face perspire,
Caught in the middle of Dresden once,
And sat in a lake of fire.

The big ones woke, began to choke
And rushed on out to their fate,
They tried to rescue the baby Hans
But for all of them, too late!
He sat and chuckled within the flames
Felt nothing inside his pyre,
The dark one said, ‘So much for games,
You’ve had your play in the fire!’

David Lewis Paget

— The End —