well, mind you the curvature of the spine,
furry all round,
now glacier smooth with forehead
as naked as a baboon *** -
i'll keep you minding that image -
now, enlighten me,
why are we sending super-expensive
equipment to the celestial sahara
that's mars?
                       why are we gravitating
our inquiry there?
once philosophy was born from awe per se,
now it's born from mindlessness -
and i know it's harsh -
but given the scales, and timing,
i succumb to the physics' time-scale
rather than biology's -
before earth was to be inhabited,
before it was habitable -
the earth was smaller and hotter,
hence the volcanic volatility -
indeed there was life on Mars,
but that life migrated -
it had a different ecosystem -
less obstructive and more inclusive -
when the sun was a higher tier cauldron -
when earth was inhabitable -
when the sun was warmer -
              an earth inhabitable,
life thrived on Mars, once -
but then life on Mars begot migration;
i esteem earth as Australia with all
the convicts dumped on the forgotten
bridges of tectonic continents -
i've been here before, but not in a gorilla suit
readied for a party -
standing outside all of space & time
includes a necessary evil of abstracting either -
and by abstracting creating a different
non-collective narrative -
and so it was:
when the lifespan of the sun at the genesis
point was at its richest,
it soon passed to be excluding,
hence the nadir, the exodus of the sun's lifespan,
when earth became habitable - and was -
prior to the asteroid belt of the celestial
umbilical chord of safety -
still earth resembles the colony that australia
became administering the empire's convicts
among the Aboriginals -
but why probe a dead planet when you
have a dying star to mind?
of course the third planet in question is
Mercury, since Venus is as gaseous
as Jupiter and Saturn -
the world where the red dwarf will become
a spectacular insomnia of the girth,
the equator - but why probe a dead planet?
it's inhabitants never had the same
ecosystem akin to ours - why probe it?
all this work for a ******* ice cube?!
you have to be ******* me!
time-scales, remember, i'm as absurd mentioning
this as society is measuring the Olympic
100 metre sprint akin to formula 1 decimals of
care... i don't care... one finished 1st, the
other 2nd... all it takes is the dipping of
the *** in the sand to begin measuring
the long jump rather than the extended feet mark...
of course there was life on Mars, there was life
on Mars... but the dynamic of the sun changed,
it cooled down... so the next profitable planet
could express itself in evolution
from volcanic eczema... there was once life on Mars,
but there's no longer a case to argue for proof....
globalisation gave us unity among once
warring ethnicities... but that will hardly
accumulate in a trans-global orientation...
i've spotted a u.f.o. once, by god i did...
it was fluorescent like a bug phosphorescent
in the dark with a disco ball *** to shine...
listen... this time-scale is long enough to craft
a future history according to what the Martians
did - and this is my idea of god...
happy? no. sad? no. anything at all? mm...
now we're talking - earth was once
non-habitable, too hot, hence the cold  blooded
lizards akin to birch trees, the scouts of forestry -
then the mammals all confused turning
against each other when the predatory aesthetics
were forgotten at kin and Gemini to lions -
life was once apparent on Mars, but Mars is
a dead planet, i wish it was an antique shop
that the n.a.s.a. hopeful geniuses wish it was...
but it's not... just imagine that train of thought
surrounding the sun like you do with the march
of progress... but with the sun imagine
a rotation of progress...
              hey! i wouldn't be looking for
liquid nitrogen bacteria mummified on Mars...
i'd be wondering how the circle
evolved from O, to 0, to ∞ (8)
given the squish - the opposite of two black holes
colliding; honestly, you can find more meaning
in things while you take the big to be small;
i know i'm not famous among nouns -
i can hardly equal the fame of casual noun usage,
no one can, and i know that the fame i sought
is actually an anonymity in verbs (actions),
i forever the shadow - mind yourself to be content
with such a fate as i have found myself content in
progressing to expressing such a chequered flag -
chequered flag, the irony, the invitation of the many
participants for a game that takes two -
the irony of the chequered flag as the death of chess -
anyway - Mars was once a home to those who
came prior, prior to when earth was not habitable -
bypass Venus and you enter the history of Mercury,
the last rock to be minded -
and no one will prove me wrong, to have lived that
long... it is, i must add, rather dangerous
to posit yourself outside all space and all time -
it's dangerous, there's no saturday night awaiting you,
there's no casual talk over a coffee for mortal
problems taking fold and shape...
once you breach the barriers of sane conclusions
that the river explains you will become a cursor
in the only dimension waiting for you -
a vibrating stasis, imagining geographies for
clearer conclusions of movement -
and since man's technological advances have provided
the entire mapping of the earth,
you will be cleanly placed to usurp any other
imaginings other than those prescribed to
the reduction of yourself as x
moving between             point A                and
                                       point B -
                    now try that without geography
and with knowledge, as the greeks famously answered,
             a coordinating cursor x between
point α                    and                                     ω.

At one point I couldn’t find love to purchase
I thought you ended those searches
but now I’m getting nervous
thinking I might be allergic
to your nature absurdist
and I can’t swerve this
feeling I’m worthless
stripped of all purpose
boils start to burn us.

I’ve got an eczema
sense of a
relationship
rashly lips
can’t kiss
who they wish.

I can’t leave the house
or your eczema breaks out
you scream and shout
and make me doubt
if your love is devout
when you treat me like trout.

Stress boils through my skin
after you tell me I win
and leave my house of sin
leaving a gift in
an itch
given by a witch
to make me twitch.

You’re the itch that rashes
causing unnecessary scratches
leaving a width of lashes
on my skin in patches
your personality matches
the blistering ashes
of my skin that detaches.

I keep itching
I keep scratching
to be switching
from your thrashing
into comfort
to numb hurt
of dumb words
creating thunder.

A doctor gave me a prescription
to avoid your dereliction
and feral diction.
He gave me an antidote
in a plan of hope
helping me cope
with saying nope.

The rash lingers
like poison fingers
choking me
woefully
draining life
like rain at night
I pray for light
and wait inside.

I found cortisone
in the form of a home
with a man
so I’m in demand
not your empty hand
red from the brand
of all the discomfort you withstand
now that you’re itching like sand
seeing I’m no longer ******.

Find the lighter, use it as a lighthouse on a walk below the wall you watch along the wave-formations. Who Wants a Cold One? a Coors Light ad corrects.. When it comes to your home, the little things matter.. an insurance ad blares.. my computer is infected with 3rd party applications unremovable to my meagre tech-ability.. there is a hero as Joseph Campbell once theorized.. in myself like a sick bastardly virus waiting for moments to prove to me "I AM THE SAVIOR, I AM THE CHRIST, I AM THE WARLORD, MICE, MAN, AND VICE".. the windows of opportunity close, I am left waiting the door

& the elevator.

Thirty-thousand years ago, there was nothing but a breeze.. a viscous breeze across chill-spined pterodactyls.. warm-under-the-jungle-brush tyrannosaurus rex, and to think one day I will be just a legend in bone..
Charlotte said she thinks of death and so did Jen. They sat next to the all-you-can-eat and discussed the inevitable. I was sour and playful with no-will-to-understand, just reminding my hair of breezy summer days of 10, thinking of strangeness, of place I was in.

When it's quiet sometimes, I think of old dreams.. dreams I sunk below drown-level as a child in bed and belief. Both mommy and daddy were arguing in the kitchen, this was 7 or 8.. they argued so often one could hear mom begin to cry sometimes, and dad I could see in minds-eye with a grimace so closed and so creased he was hurt and yet honest.. I did not understand so I hid under-stood-silhouettes, oh adulthood..

once in dream I was in pulsing green graveyard like crayon realism strobe lights, tombstones all-round and faint-buzz of outside and one of those strange balded henchmen of badguy Jafar from Disney's Aladdin came peaking outta nowhere with curled eyebrow and baggy one-thousand-one Arabian nightlives parachute pants, curled toes brown-beige moccasins to.. he let out conniving 'HEUHEE!' and slapped me right-side cheek and I JOLTED up bedwise in real time to feel actual physical sting for a few lingered seconds then the sobs of poor mother outside.. I never remembered a dream so clearly again.. they all come, Pro-Found, and dizzy away after hour or two for rest of eternity or perhaps to Place I Can Visit at Death to Review Every Vision and I wonder... when your life flashes before your eyes and the light is encroaching, scenes of mother, brother, father, son, daughter, best-friend, party, break-up, heartbreak, slip-fall, first-sip, first-drag, last-leg, first-kiss, first-hit, first-game, fear, love,  HATE, wait.. do the Dreams come to? Are they all flesh-ed before your eyes as you pass into Light? Are they brought to direct remembrance as you cross the border with Passport of Gods and a Goddess (and which Picture appears on the Page)..?

I remember the old eczema taking bits of skin to carpets round-town and round-lower-mainland to disgust of friends old and new-- this was era where confidence ate itself in mirrors, the sober reality of ugly-ness chiseling away at my Goodness Attempts.. All That Pointless Pain was no Exception nor a Rule, it just **** Happens every once-and-again to the sound of life farting. I used to miss school for feet so impossible to walk on, pussing and bleeding and staining the sheets, shoe soles, carpets, and soul.. limp thru the hallways of Brooks Secondary feeling like bad flavor additive to multicultural Planet Earth-- sleeping 'til the bell rang drinking coffee singing songs I said '**** the ******* educational system and **** me I'm so flatlined..' someday I felt things would really get better and lucky young me I was right.

A half-decade later, I am 21 and hoping, floating, free in the breeze as the wings I have grown keep on wishing the subsistence down. The girl, whoever-she-might-as-well-be, sits immediately vertical chatting frantically to boy with a bit of a cowlick slouching on-up over a bundle of colored paperwork. It seems late in the season for homework, and assume they may have some affiliation with a crazy-hep computer design group in the tradition of Nouevau Silicon Valley.... I sit at my laptop, inching a word a million cubic millimeters closer to God or Divinity or Crescendo or A Bunch More ******* You'll End Up Ignoring---

It's a sunny day, the rain having slathered-off into obscurity somewhere with the Monsoons when the Sun gave the Moon a Soft Slap and the poor purity white-kid went off whimpering, bleeding nose-- I sat, the other night, playing another Grand Strategy game as Tom divided his time between a vaulted and damaged lover, his labor, and his life (friends, food, video-games, vice)... Chai, old Chai the Thai Guy mentioned past his nose in previous iterations of Depictions sat and described his pins-and-needles upset at his bosses at one his three many jobs.. desperately firing text-messages into receiving-space-panel and reflect and back unto Tom's smartphone dash asking him to order a six-pack from a local delivery service cuz his adrenal was giving him heartpain with hurt, and Tom being Busy as All-Ways Tom Is wasn't able to decipher the scramble in-time to make contact before closure of the liquor stores.. poor not-so-poor Chai at first felt castrated at realization he would miss the 11 PM dot-time, but didn't mind as he rendezvoused with Tom and I at Willows Beach where Tom reminded him of a whiskey he'd bought sitting counter-wise at his place.. we kissed a few Mary Janes rightsideup, dragging our butts in the sand to discuss what was wrong (each of us had a problem that night, save for perhaps a less-vocal Tom, I describing my annoyance that a lazy consensus had erupted in my sorry-hometown between my sorta-friends and friends-of-friends that my writing and sharing my writing was arrogant and I an arrogant *** for sharing and I just confounded that they would find my passions so trivial-- perhaps jealousy, perhaps complacency and judgement-for-lack-of-anything-better-to-do and ah **** em all if they think like that, I'll write and be the arrogant me they think I am and share 'til I'm blue in the face and dead perhaps for outspoken intellectualism in their autocratic pointless-waste worldviews.. sad that I dislike them only on the basis they disliked me first..)

I had planned to stay late and leave early-morn (5 or 6 AM) to catch a first-off morning bus back home and sleep, hoping for most part to avoid the shattered-***-mess of a home I was living in.
About 2 days ago, give or take, a water-line for the laundry machine had erupted to soak our entirely-carpeted basement suite, forcing the poor new landlord (a sweetheart of a man named Ron having just taken possession of the house from previous owner on May 1st and, it seems, left 'holding the bag' as they'd call it in day-trading-investment-lingo) to tear out the entirely-soaked carpet and replace it with sensible laminate flooring and rendering the entire suite virtually unlivable for indefinite-few-days and so for me work and friends and especially writing become a welcome reprieve to I, a first world Refu-Jeez.. us, so terribly-off I sip a latte near sunny panorama windows-so-clear-they're-not-there overlooking the crosses of Yates and Blanshard with European church of Gothic architectural style poking heedlessly into empty-open blue.. ironically and strangely there is a liquor store quite literally right next door, and's one I shop at often for its decent prices (God is Dead or Just Drinking to Cope with Sartre and Kierkegaard's Ultimate Thesis) (Kierkegaard especially '*** Kierkegaard seems a good and long friend of God the Almighty) (...I talk with such Judaeo-Christian Catholic rhetoric it never ceases to amaze myself as it bleeds to page..) (stranger thing is, tho, there is no beginning, no middle, no end.. you read or you are bored and either/or is just fine..)

There is some hypothesized crescendo-bliss Tech Singularity on the way in the try-dition of Ray Kurzweil and William Burroughs.. Oscar Wilde to.. (see The Soul of Man Under Socialism in essay-collect book De Profundis).. one day we will all be eternal happiness expressed in song and dance and LED erected-projections of Imperfect Universe (Our Imperfect Earth) with lives stuck on infinite repeat.. our idea of Paradise.. and for those with ability to remain rushed to cortisol (stress-the-best hormone) it will be Hell on Earth, so DRAB and THE SAME all the TIME and it's READ and it's WRITE and it's RIGHT.. the world runs faster with every passing day so desperate to discover the Globe is Flat so we can Hop Off the Other Side into what one might assume to be The Better Place.. elusively picking-up speed thinking 'closer now definitely closer now' unaware (or, secretly aware and unwilling to admit for what will one do when one cannot run?) they are Running in Circles Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again... cannot take the hint in the fact the Pacific (same Pacific) has been crossed a hugeillion times, nor the same McDonald's in the Azores of Atlantic Portugal is the Same ******* McDonald's stopped-thru on the then-trillionth time last year... and all whilst the International Space Station remains muted up-above crossing 'round and 'round 'til the Jehovah'n Day of Judgement (Chris Hadfield now below with advice for how to run a little faster even blinded in one eye..) then there are the dying Prophets Predicting Industrial Collapse who preach upon the Mount of Internet Sinai Eternal and state "the world is now unsalvageable and we are all about to die.. if ever you wished to find Buddhistic Nirvanic Peace, now is the time so start meditating and imagine Death as New Life and Geopolitics as Game".. forever and ever and ever and ever.

It is only natural to find existence to be 'weird..' layered with Who's That's and giant What The ***** everywhichway you turn.. did it start in a Big Bang, will it end in a Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang.. ? all questions once ignored for certain ignorance and resurrected as questions concerning the Nature of the What The ***** (also known as 'Science').. and if it did start in a Big Bang, did I start in a Big Bang..? and if it does end in a Big Crunch, will I end in a Big Crunch..? am I a sudden flash of REAL in a Universe that isn't me..? or am I an entire Universe.. perhaps even more than that...? the questions pulse in youth like bad words or bullets. I once stayed up all-night thinking of infinity with my head soaring space-wise forever and ever and ever and I stopped in sudden panic thinking: I could lie here up all night and all day 'til the towered age of 37 (I was 14 at the time) and still be no further on the Universal Map than from thumb-tip-middle to thumb-nail so I wrapped up the attempt with a mix of fear and incredulity, went to school next-day exhausted and tried to explain it all to friends.. they got it, I suppose, but we were all 14 and played basketball instead (I imagined infinite-spinning-basketball on thumb of Michael Jordan).

It's always best describing life in form of Disembodied Poetics.. sure some Philistines won't understand '*** their minds are made of Clockwork, Digits, and Blockthought.. but the general psychic underly implied in all with human faculty will ring-a-ding-ding! and remember all such ancient thoughts and feels as forgotten as a child, locked away until the Spirit rose-up from a rosey thorn prickle to flower straight-up into a Rose! or so I hope as a one-of-many writers-- all of which will write so-as to speak on your behalf.. all floaty and marking a purpose.

i remember the meningitis scare:
   oh... it was very real...
i guess it was supposed to affect a niche
proportion of the population...

so much for the "scare":
they would vaccinate us in the schools:
since children were more prone
to succumb to: and inflammation of
the lining around your brain and spinal cord...

and all that: press a thumb against
a skin... and if the skin returns to its original
colouring: there's no blemish of applied
pressure... pressing glasses onto the skin too...

the aesthetics have changed so drastically:
what can **** you is so subtle these days...
it's hardly a case of leprosy...
or... eczema of the zombie plague:
or miniature lilal mushrooms growing
out from your armpits:
suddenly breaking into song:
  'steve told us to sing... so we have
sprouted: to sing!'
       no... celeriac sized warts... hell...
i haven't seen any pictures of covid-19...
as i never saw pictures of ebola...

            death has been given: an anonymity...
but what's still kept in reserve?
shingles...
     like: hyper-eczema...
                i'm having to consolidate myself
on the luck of being 30+ and still having...
a skin on my face that i can't peel:
but i'm sure that belzeebub took a dump on...

they're either dead maggots
or dead white blood-cells...
        i guess i have so many of the latter that...
my immune system is constantly
on a over-charge mode...
          
    where are the lilac mushrooms about to grow
out from out of my armpits:
when will death become visible again:
outside her womb:
without any anonymity to behold:
when will everything... "ev'fing"
  return to the obviousness of a guillotine...
a hangman...
      a... hanged, drawn and... quartered?

the improved aesthetics of the threat is hardly
be sitting in an armchair...
welcoming this: paranoia precursor...
there's no phosphorescent yellow-green phlegm
being shot through the air with a sneeze...

i'm quite disturbed about all this...
        "sterility"...
                      well thankfuly i know that
a schizophrenic can't beget a drone-replica:
dead'ed brain: "schizz"... zombie-cult-esque
   brain: riddled with parasites like...
a disciple of burrough's fever might provide:
subsequently... by...
   by caughing a splitting-headache that might:
somehow: "later": arrive at some variation
of bilingualism...
          but never will... perhaps it should...

because: right now: i want to wrong about everything...
i want to ****** with a hard-on of doubt...
and perhaps: tease negation a little...
or rub-rub-'er very much...
but i do: most honestly...
    want to be wrong about everything...
esp. when it comes to...
   the aesthetics of the "problem":
    it's a problem-solution: solution-problem
  quadratic...
           i mean: if it was truly cosmic... and original...
would it really care for much of aesthetics...
can viruses becomes stealth assassins?
   is a virus a misnomer of plague?
or is... a virus a former case of plague...
  that couldn't be: prior... weaponized?
   the rampant exfoliation of: the obliterated
concern for aesthetics...
   oh sure... it's clean cut...
           god knows what happened to those old
curiosities of medicine...

otherwise...

   what will 3 hours spent reading nothing but
Dickens do to you...
me? i "somehow" managed to miss / forget
about a sunset...
   came the night and... yeah: when meningitis
hit...
   and i guess after the mad-cow disease...
break-dancing limp feet cows...
drunk cows... morbidly drunk cows...

      there was always that postcard reference:
now?
you could obviously see the bubonic plague
from a mile away...
you could see eczema...
you can sure as **** see a shingles belt...
        would a virus even care...
to appease the aesthetic concerns of man?
how doesn't cancer do that...
well... i just start thinking about...
the botanical cancer... viscum...
hardly seen in western europe: tree-foundation
societies... etc.
   half an hour on the road outside of warsaw...
that's enough...

oh sure: because of covid-19:
who could, "somehow" forget about...
                  metastatic tumors!
oh the joys of... <cough cough> the carousel
or that ol' chestnut!
            come to think of it...
    would ingesting a tapeworm make thinks and things
more real?
what wouldn't be bad
about acquiring a symbiote these days?
     all: postulations of the mundane...
without yet within the science-fiction universe...
the facts will simply not stand the test
of time... or will... but will be shelved...
given to the bookworms and their placenta
worm-queen...

it's actually becoming a sieving tool for acquiring
nothing lost: of the old mundane...
the sterile aesthetics of the whole under-taking...
it's too: invisible: too pure...
to be... a freakish byproduct of nature...
sending us back in time...
as the original: single-cell organism
about to usurp the crown of creation...

    my list of conspiracy theories begins
with: catcher in the rye "coincidences" and...
that david copperfield sort of *******...
      because if it's not Pickwican...
it's certainly not an account of count
smorltork:
        peek - christian name
                weeks - surname; good, ver good...

otherwise these days:
the intellect has become a sponge...
and the supposed underlying:
because it is "supposed" and there's an
"underlying" aspect to all of this...
that there is a "dialectic" and...
otherwise: the bestest of the best kind
of...            soap...

is it a revival of an "empire"...
when at the height of its decline...
there was that motto:

     panem et circenses...

     what's underlying in Dickensian prose?
well... some of the words used...
i'd sit with a page and check the dictionary
3 times on average...
because there's still that underlying:
we, Britons, prior to the "english"...
the anglo-saxons... are the Afghanistan
oopsies of the ancient world...
there are so many words with direct
connection: etymologically "speaking"
with latin...

now: the bread is still "here"...
   of the 20th century... you could see a ****
coming way back in 1933...
and the communist... whenever that happened...
and you could subsequently trickle the "evil"
archetype into movies... into gaming...
and have people hooked on a bullseye of evil...

now? greyish blips and blobs of
Kantian bureaucracy...
    
o.k. panem et circenses...
looks to me...
like the circuses are long gone...
the bread is still here...
but... of all the seismic shifts this is...
hardly a ffffffffffff-ucking Pompeii!
riddle me this: riddle me that...
what can possibly become so... overly entertaining...
about eating a slice of bread?
why are the vermin: multiplying:
what's with all this: "huddling" at a distance?
need a cape with that: herr ubermensch?

last time i checked: rats do no operated
under herd scriptures...
there's not need for a shepherd...
there is: fire! scramble!
peep-squeak and more!
          
    an impeding confrontation with a pack of wolves...
a vegetarian lion convert...
                 the bubonic plague: lack of aesthetic...
and now this...
this supreme aesthetic of: when the ancient greeks
thirsted to conceive of the existence
of atoms...
          not that i require proof...
what so of circus: though...
      is, this?!

- yes folks... in the current climate of labyrinths...
the Minotaur isn't here...
and we're out of stock on smoke...
and... mirrors...

citations of a possible prediction to allign with
some variation of borrowed horrors:
to usurp the status quo and sentences us for:
there's no "third time lucky" therein...

all that's happened though:
mental people who would never allow
their minds to riddle them...
become claustrophobic by mere thought...
can you?
translate thinking into claustrophobia?
oh god... no... we haven't reached this nadir...
have we?
thought didn't imply θ(ought)!
that erotica of a would be pronoun:
the moral quest...
                  not because i did something bad
in the past...
but because:
i did what others didn't do prior to me...
i ride the wave of what a *******
said to me once:
after an ******:
this is only the second time it has happened
to me: hello ***** envy thrown out of the window!
hello sisters of mercy in some convent
in Limerick!
'allo! 'allo!

beside the moral conundrum of θ(ought): ought i?
this narrative of the ol' 'ed...
is... claustrophobic?
             spread this negation-of-ease further:
dear kin!
   dis- prefix that denotes negation...
ah... and -ease! the suffix that complete the circle:
no contemplation is necessary!

i'm still seeing bread, though...
oh mein gott! die zirkusse! die zirkusse!
what can be done about the circuses?!

people are coupling thinking with claustrophobia...
people are implored to read
for at least 3 hours a day!
a dickens! a tolstoy! a dumas!
and then relax from congesting paragraph strain
and explore the airy side of what was
written into prose and paragraph with
the aid of poetics: that non-exclusivity of rhyme:
always missing... best missing!

i too abhor this synonym:
poetry is what rhymes...
            a set list of: knock-knock jokes...
about as tasteful as...
               roast beef: done well done...
eating the bark of wood:
now that's an adventure!

            or what's... the adjective riddle / riddled...
of: now...
permanent - adjective... these days a host
of "calling scheitmeiser for all his worth"
and what not...      
                               now: the experimental
history of yesterday and "oops"
now: the cameo cinema of yesterday...
and god willing:
you have a "savings account"
of: memories that can...
suffocate the future: the imagining...
of and for the nought of nothing...
the "conundrum": of being...
such and such... and somehow...
retain: personhood...
rather than... a mere... citizentry "status"...
of the ebbing flow of cattle meat and dung:
itsy-bitsy spider teeth itching...
before the bone!
and... after the bones!

load of crock-**** Lombardy is not
Italy... mantra...
and those rites of rats from
the sinking ship that's Wenice...
much too... quasi-important...

      H - surd of a letter...
but the skeleton supposed to behind:
laughter...

the hibernian folk know it...
the english: eh... somewhat...
          bound to θ and bound to φ...
in t'ought... but not in: t'aught...
who needs the apostrophe?
no me: not "you"...
         third: or... θird:
or... ****... or τ(au) says: "herd"...
                             and what's "spezial"...
the surd worth of π (pi)
     in ψ...
                    or      'sychology...
              then there's "all that" with...
chrome: the χ that becomes a kappa (κ)...
but not... exactly the...
the...      ah!                   CHisel!
chasing dog's tails?

                            but a hardy: hibernian:
it's not an F... it's a T...
we have to expose the H-surd! primo
pronto!

    but ψ can afford...
          πσι in that...
                      either the π... or the π...
is treated as a surd..
cited: the whittle canyon of eta (Ηη)..
            ha: if it's a definite article in 'ebrew...
or ha: if... you need a consonant
skeleton... to breathe when laughing...

toes when marching: chin ching chatter...
otherwise "K / kappa" the matter...
taught to think it all but a massive:
****!
   or... a θurd... which is exfoliating in
the gaellic concept of: third...

i'm not from 'ere...
              mind you...
              this is all disneyland for m'eh et moi...
hello whittle atom me...
hello whittle atom you...
hello: hyvä aamu... susie 'ere...
       rakastaa... että ulvonta...
                 "unohti" haukkua:
fins... drawfs... and other whittle people...
eskimos of the "narrative":
   "kaikki alkaen apinamaa"!
    pωl pυt ***...
             and there's "3" of 'em!
exactly... what about the V'em...
             perhaps a F'ought...
      but: V'ere!
            V'em!
                            who the **** gets to
assure me: this language "ving" or "thin"...
sure hands... sure hands...
it's not all grafitti from chernobyll!

and what if... Joycean would 'ave to begin
its pilgrimage toward Dickensian?
this Ezra of ours: what of this...Ezra of
Fahrenheit of "ours"?

           my atom "versus" your... "atomized" man?
my spaghetti english
versus your... i'll sooner choke on ß...
or SuS...
         or SaS
                  SeS...          sayß...
h'american spaghetti english... *** riddled:
ghetto crown-tongue...


me and finding a juggling of chuckles
with: wit... hiding the ha ha...
when θ = τ...
hibernian...
poland the playground of god:
greek... the plaground of men...
esp. those as being cited:
with origin of the barbarian tinge...

  exatly! what of WH when TH are....
thought of "wen":
this grafitti phpneticism...
this barbarism...
no code of "conduct":
what should have:
and did "have": a happen to...
when it came to the ratio
of consonants to vowels...
  of the latter there was a supposed more...
or the latter a less...

    h.i.v. vampirism romances
would have to die...
  a death... most... closely associated with:
psychopaths: or...
the general pathology is: soul-quests...
all "things" considered...
there is no "grand-Σ"
        "past-participle":
of the unconscious-conscious liver...
does the part: actor... functions
of... i robot: you, not here...

the liver does what a liver does:
even if: i r woke...
and i r: sleepz...
               eyes only on when...
orientating myself around:
a failure of a distinct "individual":
moi foie premier...
   moi estomac premier...
and of "me" or... a me...
given that... there's no: "the me"...
            load of ******* and a chewing tube
of "worded"... "circumstances"...
as: "the alternative" to...
sorry... no other alternative...
was... or would ever... be given...
errror message 404 commences: as of: now!

- or... can you?
compensate a word like... draconian...
with a word... the periphery word...
akin to... byzantine?!
the kite's high up in the ******* air
my dear lad...
can you? "compensate" this...
marry of all other:
never-poppin' up 'ins?!

that's one way of minding:
a grey-ginger...
or an albino-masai...
for "good luck"... of all t'ings:
the lerprechaun 'ucking charm brigade!
that's just 'ucking necessary: that is!

as.... the people have already mentioned
their freedom: to cite and keep up to
the rigours of salutations...
they said and they said... and they:
sad but nonetheless: they sad-***-made-"truth"-of...
"it": 'ucking wombat
multiverse l.s.d.: me typing on an old... cranky...
soviet "qwerty" imitation...

the freedom prior to the plague:
i am yet to see...
the **** covid... and the leprechaun...
and the tarantula...
and the... leech...
   **** me: raining cats and dogs:
what a scenario!
     i was supposed to get...
               not leech: not *****...
those fidgeting terse quizzes...
          *****... no... leech... no...
leprechauns: double no...
             szarańcza... old mother-tongue:
ah yes... "these":
                                 locust!

the third of the lard off the herd of the most:
"likely"... nosense to me:
something for you:              up!
otherwise know as:
quiet a bollocking... wouldn't you,
somehow... please... stage:
an agreed to?
               ****'s sake...

  tyrd the triddle twiddle torn und
towing: dublin the sorry-eye: und sore...
you freckled maverick salt
burner you... and... it's a ginger:
stick-prone... keep y'er eager distance...

eh? that's true: is what's through...
**** paddy **** and a poor ******
walk into a bar...
and the bartender is... a kippah-don
of a rastafarian:
the jokes end...
and there was never a conversation
to begin with... ha ha!
now that's a joke... to wake up...
a frankenstein!

      ginger pleb: ginger poodle!
the new africa: the new eskimo...
or... the finnish gateway: etymologically speaking...
an alternative to... *** and...
              the leftover mongols
stranded by the waters
of the empire: receding...
          the...        no: not the croats...
the...
          a very much elongating concept
of pause....
              "d" or the "v" of: v'eh...: the...
the  immortal savages
of: crimea...
      ah yes!
                  those...            tar-tars!
like the tartare steak:
or what was forever available as
the alibi for: sushi!

        because tokyo is just one of those...
forever huan: new... beijing chicken shacks...
and "tokyo"...
or some other anime typo *******...

irish catholic intellectuals...
and... the none existence of whatever
would have required a magna carta:
believe it or... eat **** sort of
mentality...
            the russian doctors
are already abiding to be hunted
if not huddling in churches...
because: co-vex said: co-vid...
co-vid: sharing blockbuster intrusion
pokes was: that last resort to
mortality: and oh...

          this should have happened a long...
a long long time ago...
  transparency tourism...
where you going?
nowhere...
  and "where" is "going"... "nowhere"...
a bit like france... and the eiffel tower...
and there's no speaking french to have
to be resolved...
because like: "**** it" and what?

the ginger-ninja... the ginger-ninja...
the ginger-ninja and...
when the reality of *****...
reaches... an escalation "reality"
of: synonym with... oh god! beards!
ugh!           vot                          ven?!

yep... and the irish were always:
the horse-breeders..
they always were...
always the catholic-intellect juggernauts...
because the hey'talians and
the spoon-innards...
and... mon deu: zee: fwench!
forget the ****** cathos-pathos...
*******-of-os...

and in me:
the gravitas for a disconcerting ambivalence...
almost a compound:
misnomer... but no...
i like the spaghetti though...
yeah: it looks nice on paper...
and off paper...
and anything to cite: the godfather with...
because: boo is a ghost story
that a solo would sell... and ******* like
that...                   yup...
which is a word: to replace the ideal trajectory of:
would be: ghost limb...
james bond...
                          roulette...
you the actors "faking it": no of course...
dylan thomas bob dylan...
"faking it" i.e. stunt actors!
what's "bob": when there's a ******* roulette:
and a devil's dozen of rich, russian...
oligarchal chick... pretending plastic is not...
new world... ******: comb-over...
creaking chair... stlye-on... style-off...
plastico-supermanoh... dynamo-oh-oh...
those "soz" and "whatsevers"...
works well...
the times column...
when your parents are... conscripted...

             mammoth playdough oh oh oh...
irish is cheap...
catholic is cheap-oh...
******...
ha ha... let's not go there...
becauße that's like...
   goldberg variations: the bwv 988 aria...
   yeah: "soz"... but... i'll ******* eat you:
if i have to: for the purpose assigned
to a hard-on... most associated with...
sparrows...
and... the pirates of the confines...
the magpies...
          
             in every period of congregational
"sanity" there's that interlude into:
madness...
howl how! oh dear world of:
that lost appetite of surprise!
        you begin to wither... and die off:
by the slow culmination of hours...
like... a picture to entomb the perfecting
affair of a decaying pear... or apple...
               and...

            and....                 and...
trickling of sentiments...
and sounds...

                           and there are commentaries...
and there are... catholic bishops...
and protestant cardinals...
and ****** popes!             ah ha!
am i to.. truly... die... from laughter?!

I look at my hands, and I stretch my fingertips out before me
Twist and turn my wrist to inspect them
See the slender digits flex and bend to my will
Run my thumb along the crescent moons of my nails in validation:
They are sharp now, sharp enough to be instruments as I drum them against a desk
Sharp enough to be weapons
Eczema, believe it or not, is torture
I look at my hands; see little constellations of bruises and cuts
I trace the braille across my wrist, unable to read something I’ve never been accustomed to, despite it being an almost constant companion
It comes and goes like a fair-weather friend and always arrives when it is never wanted
In summer, when temperatures climb up buildings and trees
I find myself not just allergic to pollen, but to myself
In winter, I peel off small bits of layers to reach for places that won’t mind the cold as much
Reaching and searching quick as chilled air finds a break in the defenses
You asked me what was wrong; that if I was sad I could do whatever I wanted, even towards you
I would never hurt you
My anger, my sadness, is directed towards myself
I want to feel the rush of hurling myself at walls
Want to feel the thud of skin against bone against hollow plaster and wooden frame
I want to feel nails run down fabric; soft, thin and fragile
Want to see them tear things apart, see feathers spill out or paint chip, all jagged and frantic
I want this and I don’t want this
I glide nails across skin, across rashes along my hand
I find myself stagnant as my joints itch for action

i asked her, does it look the same?
she gave me that funny look she gets
whenever i say or do something a little dim
it's a mirror image for a reason she said

in the mirror i see muscles, and strength
hips a little too wide and fleshy
but still muscular,
strength all the way down

but when i reflect on myself,
no mirror necessary
it is never the same

i don't feel as strong as i could
don't look as sharp and sturdy as i could
those fleshy sides, too soft
for a battle-hardened brain
and turbulent thoughts

i need angles, i need straight lines
but there's nothing straight about me
and that's half the problem

and the other half
is that i hate the softness that lingers
but everybody else loves it
and i don't want to be warm and
able to be cuddled

i want hard edges
and nimble, spindly fingers;
when i play my chords
i want my bones to tap the strings

and when sadness sheathes itself within me
i want eyes as dry
as my eczema-bitten hands

There are so many things
that you can judge upon;

all I ask from you is to act as
if my soul has long since gone.

Skin.
Skin by definition is a thin layer of tissue forming a natural outer covering of the body.
Skin is for people to tan, to clothe, apply make up to... to touch.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.

Mosquito bites.
Mosquito bites by definition are the itchy bumps that appear after mosquitoes use their proboscis to puncture your skin and feed on your blood.
Mosquito bites are for people to feel, to itch, to bleed, to scab and repeat. The entire cycle.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.

Summer.
Summer by definition is the warmest season of the year.
Summer is for t-shirts, shorts, exposure, swimming, tanning, skin, skin, skin, skin, skin.
"It's Summer, put on some shorts."
"It's Summer, why aren't you wearing a t-shirt?"
"It's Summer, let's go swimming!"
Summer is a time for these questions, these statements, these words to fester, to breed like muosquitos, to sting like the bite of a bug.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.
Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.

Dermatologist.
A Dermatologist by definition is a doctor that treats diseases, in the widest sense, and some cosmetic problems of the skin, skin, skin, skin, skin.
The Dermatologist tells me to use this and to use that. Lotions and potions, as my mother would say. Slather, rub, treat, swallow.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.
Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.

Skin care.
Skin care by definition is the range of practices that support skin integrity, enhance its appearance and relieve skin conditions.
Get up, shower, sterilizing soap, body oil, steroid cream, medicated lotion, drink water and repeat the process before bed. My daily cycle.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.
Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.

Seesaw.
A Seesaw by definition is to change rapidly and repeatedly from one position, situation, or condition to another and back again.
Seesaw, to push off the ground, into the air with a sense of victory and joy, only to fall hard to the ground with stinging ankles and sore calf's.
This isn't a playground anymore.
The Dermatologist says that if I don't get better, they'll have to put me on the pill.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.
Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.

The Pill.
The Pill is an oral treatment for my condition. My eczema.
One pill every morning at seven AM with food and an entire glass of water.
The risk associated with the pill- Osteoporosis,  Muscle weakness, Mood and Behavioral changes, Increase in chance of developing cataracts,  Stomach Ulcers and Liver Failure.
One pill every morning at seven AM with food and an entire glass of water. The daily cycle.

Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.
Itch, bleed, scab, repeat.
Itch, bleed, scab.... **** it.

I would rather my liver fail and my bones go brittle then to be stared at on the street!
"What is that?"
"Are you okay?"
"What's wrong with her?"
"Is it contagious?"
"Don't touch me!"
I itch, my nails dragging over my scarred skin and pulling at wounds. I bleed, the welts that crack and leak drops from the red river that flows silently beneath my skin. I scab, leaving horrible lumps of ugly, hardened flesh to coat the once smooth area. I repeat....

Well, I don't want to repeat! I want to be able wear the clothes I want, to walk the streets with out the judging and questioning eyes of the passersby on me, to be held and touched by a significant other without the fear that their fingers will fall upon my skin and recoil in disgust!

Without looking in the mirror and wondering when I can finally begin to love myself.

I decided that today is the day! No more Itching! No more Bleeding! No more Scabs! It's time to break this ******* cycle.

Mirror is merciful  

Lambs sleep in the willow  
Rough leaves carry heaven up  

Delivering the sinner 

Cold black mirror still love his lips
Lamb off the living

Hearts over
Hearts asthma
Hearts lie with no one
Hearts frozen
Hearts mirror
Hearts asthma
Parts Madonna
Hearts eczema
Part scoundrel
I will walk low
Harsh eczema  
I die past a week
Hearts nirvana
I don't need no lessons now
Hearts taking over
I wish I could wake up
Hearts over
Hearts eczema  
Hearts asthma  
**** your theory, and just **** everything
Love must be ashes, that's blood in the blue forest  
Ya it's the age of pure ahead of us  
Hearts over
Hard seller
Mercy I have in the imaginary nation of us
You don't want me here jerking off
Your force, I was sorry
I saw the mirror I thought off when it was all over
Heart scold ya
Oh I am every man
Watch no longer
and in the shadows
corpse scamper
Who moves even slower?
Part suffer
Move **** all day monkeys
Hearts scamper
The holy case of us
Hearts worth of love
In there walks the sheep
Part scabbed up
I was sad and got blue
Hearts taking over
Hearts never
Hearts never

I done some bad
and I've killed obviously
no sweet people, hogs, and dogs, pets  I have no beef with them
Offered me the exit till they locked me in
Harsh scalper
Harsh scalper
Lock in here with nuts that are just like me
Love must be a pacifistic
There's blood  in the small forest  
Out here in the near cosmos  

Delivering the sinner
All woman in the center
iiiiiiiiii
I fear hes lost his nerve
I'm over  living it
I'm over living it

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
iiiiiiiiiiii

IIIiii'mmm
delivering the sinner
AAAaaalllll
woman in the center

In swimming willows
Luxury feast on the edge of love
Luxury feast on the edge of love


Mirror in the sonnet
Mirroring us and them  
I heard he'd lost his nerve  
I'm over living it
I'm living it

He's found himself in the closet
After he lost to himself in a game of tic-tac-toe
And tied his lobster bib tightly
Then hid his cheat sheet, for the pop quiz he knew was soon to come

It's curtains for her
She let the cat out of the bag
And now she's up **** creek with ****** for paddles to go **** herself with
Right in the birth canal

Then we'll auction off the ******
We'll pass them off as European defibrillators
Maybe some extremist will want them
If we spew out enough mindless dribble

The All Time ****-Show is about to begin
We have
The Chronic Masturbater
The Hypochondriac
And The Pathological Liar

It was either sometime yesterday
Or sometime tomorrow
Or was it sometime today?
That you were all going to make fun of the boy with the cleft lip down at the laundromat?

Out of the three of you The Pathological Lair sticks out like a sore thumb
I can tell he was the runt of the litter
Who always bites off more than he can chew

I see the Hypochondriac has convinced himself he has eczema  
He rattles off all his symptoms
Inordinate filibustering  

Now there's the Chronic Masturbater
He looks like he's over the hill
He's only twenty one
But the blue circles under his eyes and the deep defined lines on his forehead denote his inelegant aging

I sign all your lives away in my horrible cursive
And now you belong to the ragtag trigger-happy posse of gun-jumpers
My billfold his happily filled
So I must go do some reconnaissance
Spy on those who have quit their day jobs
The fish out of water

You must find that thing that really rolls off the tongue with a nice ring to it
******!
*******!
*******?!
....*******?

No...
Go hang youself with dental flossed you home-schooled fool

Indentured servants we're just an after thought

Over the years, I taught so many classes
in many different schools,
long-term or short.
Hundreds and hundreds of  students,
all ages, three to eighteen years old.

But how could I remember
all of them?
I was the teacher; they were there to learn.
Those were our roles; that was the contract.
They would move up and I move on, for all of us
always a new beginning.

But now and then
one will return to haunt me, like the girl
whose secret friend, Little Mister Hansford,
drove a tiny red plastic car.
I keep it now, in my drawer,
and remember.

The boy, his skin
flaking and cracked with eczema, trying to resist
the urge to scratch, but always failing.
How could he bear to wake each day to face that life?
Yet I was proud he claimed me for his brother;

On a school exchange visit,
an older girl, seventeen,  
crossing the Alps in a coach,
moved beyond tears
by her first sight of real mountains.

Do they remember?
Maybe they do.  
A young man I met by chance
one day on a Spanish street
surprised me by recalling
how I read Winnie-the-Pooh when he was small,
and did the animals in different voices.

So many children, so many years have gone,
but memories, like love, can linger on.

.remember this youtube channel: harakiri diat...

i think this genre of music has a name: brutalism...
last night i watched 50 book recommendations
by the cosmicsceptic...
beside his oxford specific titles relating
to his philosophy and theology degree...
came the fictional books...
i presumed that i didn't read anything going
into this video...

i can be forgiven for not reading a christopher
hitchens when i've read some knausgård...
perhaps i presume to have not read anything...
because... i do quiet enjoy the act of reading...
so much so that... only scraps remain for me that
are: useful...

i can't imagine finding any use from a book
if it's not already in it...
apparently i'm not so under-read as i led myself
to believe...
but this is not about literature...
i was looking for a genre to encompass...
say... vomito *****...
the klinik...
the soft moon...
but i couldn't come to anything of worth...
not until i foraged for the more obscure...
the raw pulp...
primitive knot - ******* of brutalism...
again... the channel harakiri diat
has the music covered...
zeit und geist... i am the fire...
let's keep it clean...
i would go as far as to include
bohren & der club of gore: midnight radio
into this whole mix...

as much as i'd love to push for die krupps...
no can do... their stuff is polished goods...
vomito ***** is polished goods...
but there's still something raw about them...
once upon a time there was this "thing"
about doom metal... electric wizard... etc.,
but i can say... this new brutalism is...
by far... better than a gavin mcinnes diet
of punk... i never liked punk...
i never liked punk as i never liked rap...
hip hop yes and all that jazzmatazz fussion...
some solid grit...

after all... Romford, Essex...
probably the last bastion of the music shop...
a his-master's-voice with a vinyl section...
my idea of a tennis-court,
a cafe, a swimming-pool, a park,
a church even... because you can never really
own too many records...

and between me and you:
what's the difference between me and my neighbor?
he plays his music, mostly rap...
on the speakers... and sings along to the songs...
he finishes the day with some r'n'b and stops
singing... i take over...

headphones in, 6ft2 posture hunched in a chair
scribbling with chicken-pecking precision
some long lost "hierogylphic"...
and of course: in between some, literature...
but it was only about the music...
youtubers ruined youtube as much as
the "legacy media"... or the next will smith...
"vlogger"...

once upon a time youtube was a haven for people
like me: who only used it to find new music...
somehow the glitches started and the music video
recommendations died: youtube thesaurus algorithm
became corrupt or something...

would i ever sing-along to a song?
not if it's as raw as a stake-tartar and the dish
needs to be served with merely thinking to compliment it...
i'll repeat what i've already said:
gentlemen! the jukebox is ******!
- and i was the type to listen and then buy
a physical copy... even though i didn't have to...
i could go back and listen to the same stuff again...
out of principle...

no car = no car insurance no road tax...
no mobile phone = no... bill...
in terms of primitive knot, though?
would you rather go blind or deaf?
that's a tough one...

listening to primitive knot or watching
a latex lucy b.d.s.m. short *****-flick...
i know: it's the obvious synonym overlap...
but at the same time it isn't...
gimp suits or all those other unicorns of the bedroom...
but no... the most forbidden act i ever managed
to fathom in a brothel was a kiss...
one time i pulled out a ***** from a drawer
when she went with the money to the madame
of the parlour and coming back asked me:

do you want to use it?
*** to me is like rye bread...
it's not a ******* croissant...
toasting alone will do the trick...
language is already complicated by necessity...
of crosswords and the boredom
that most mono-lingual people feed not having
learned a crossword of bilingualism...
why would i inhibit this fact of voyeurism?
apparently there's something immoral watching
someone get pleasured...
perhaps i should find some rare footage of
a peter anthony allen hanging...
or Leroy Hall, Jr. at the Riverbend (Nashville, Tennessee)?
perhaps i should start jerking off on
a whim, from time to time...
over execution footage?

perhaps it's that sort of conundrum...
you see someone eating ice-cream and enjoying it...
you therefore? buy yourself a cone?
god almighty... but the added responsibility
of also owning the fridge and freezer
when that spontaneous whim passes...
after all... there's always that diet of...
the girls jerking off into the camera...
which is probably the least guilt-riddled form
of ******* on the planet...

hey! if she's doing it... and you sat down
on the throne of thrones to do the no. 1 and the no. 2...
let's call it no. 3 and taking a baptism later (no. 4)...
esp. if you haven't been circumcised...
at this point: i feel sorry for the circumcised men...
that do not live within the rigours of a hasidic orthodoxy:
the circumcised man: the subservient woman...
the circumcised man: the woman in a niqab...
i guess that's how it works, no?
imagine the problems...
if the man were circumcised... but the woman...
was not supposed to pay any sort
of "penalty"...

then again: one would expect to find the best
***** under the crucifix...
stigmata pin-head and all those dittos...
and heads... but i am a connoisseur... 1970s...
1980s... but it must be Italian...
no... not German... and certainly not English...
chances are: yes, French... but more or less
Italian... and it's always on a whim...
connoisseur... well there are videos where
you can find a pregnant woman parading her bump...
and squeezing her *******...
and that's about it...

i want to imagine what those 9 months
of pregnancy must feel like...
for better or for worse... the oral demands...
perhaps i haven't written about this sort of stuff
for a long enough period...

now an interlude where i smoke a cigarette
is bound to be... exquisite...

it sure as hell is the safest way to arrive
at some sort of *** that's purely plesurable:
a gradation of *** without consequences...
but is this a celebration?
a woman ******* on camera with
her toys is a celebration...
me my ******* and the phantom hand...
there's no theatre in it...
the utility of taking a ****, taking a ****...
doing "it"... then having a shower...
and then "repressing" it...
not having "repressed" it to begin with...

i did a month once...
i came to the conclusion... that i'm more impulse
prone, i was planning my next brothel
visit... after a month i was still planning it...
then i relieved myself and...
would you believe it? the impetus dissolved!
i don't know what these right-wing
europa-identitarians are coming up with...
so much attention on:
i enjoy reading as much as i enjoy taking
a ****... notably the constipated kind
but esp. more of the diarrhoea nature...
hello mr. **** hello mrs. geiser!

perhaps that's why i wouldn't ever be a fan
of ******... i enjoy taking a **** too much...
or perhaps i'm just too old fashioned...
but this began as something orientating oneself
around a music genre...
how did it come down to pornogrpahy?

jean genet: the thief's journal...
i was really hoping for something marquis de sade
-esque... there was still too much:

solo girl does her bit...
so well in fact... that... buying a *** doll
must only remain a h'american thing...
*** is already shamed when marriage comes
along in anglo-saxon societies...
notably the inflateable sheep or doll
on those normie stag parties...
*** and children and the joke is:
you can only have good ***...
if you're ******* for procreative reasons...
bypassing the ****** for the sake
of the children...

otherwise... well no ******* doesn't help...
if... there's no wife in a niqab in public...
or some kosher wifey either...

i still have mine and i will keep that...
as... almost... a security policy...
a prenup...

pauk-mumije (1982 bosnian post punk)...
perhaps brutalism is just post-punk?

i remember it quiet clearly...
i still can't fall asleep without listening to music...
as i couldn't back then...

otchim - james dean...
the bass and no guitar riffs until the chorus
comes... and... ha ha... it's in fwench!
just like i could **** her without listening
to really... atmospheric music...
by 2007 standards that was equal to:
the dandy warhols...
but that was 2007...

these days... hardly candles and
black sun dreamer - post-traumatic stress disorder...
back then it was candles
and type o negative...
the candles and... catching a mouse...
no trap... a labyrinth of obstacles
and she sitting on the bed giggling while
i played being a maine ****...
and i did catch the mouse...
held it by the tail... let it lose on the stairwell...
and then watch its traumatised body try to
find a hole... scuttle and then fall...
to a depth of a greater serenity of
a... vermin's suicide: with no monkey sing-along
of... this mouse has done the cheese...

and it was sad when i was naive and
i accidently killed my hamster in a similar
fashion... but some ***** Abel...
but at least the mouse allowed me to
circumstance a Pontius Pilate relief...
and she asked me: what did you do with the mouse?

oh... it committed suicide.

chicago research compilation... tape CRO15...
perhaps listening to the cure
or depeche mode was once a "thing"...
no... burtalism is not post-punk...
pisse - kohlrubenwinter...
red zebra - i can't live in a livingroom...

my one personal joke...
in england i started calling the livingroom...
the civilroom...
pokój cywilny - if it must stress the St. Cyril...
so it must: комната гражданский..
brutalism is not post-punk...

stiff little fingers... are punk's creamy pie...
oto - bats...
bodychoke - cruelty
       "            - red dog
       "            - the red sea
legendary divorce - age with us...

somehow more of my ****** valnetine...
and less sonic youth...

i do remember pretending to date...
at high school...
the first question was always a nervous
build-up to the question:
'what music are you into?'

weird party - acne puncture...

well would you believe it...
some of us are still after something that
finds no sort of aleviation
in the alternative that's an aydin paladin
video...

POPEiUM - papacidal coronation...
Münn - II. in defeat...
a john peel: a no john peel...
the sort of piano that makes
a debussy or a satie blush...
AMORT - die hexes...

the current standard of... the stoogers...
or stooges... and... air no concern...
the limbo artifact of ***...
formerly known as the... limbo pickling...
of the undead...
and all those that come with an eczema and
the scabs of leprosy...
and vampires: those syphilitic zombies...

susumu yokota, and all those stupid,
solipsictically assured cats, grinning...
menace of the grin!
full cheese impromptu with a display
of teeth!
a night promenade into the forest
listening to: demdike stare's tryptych...

i haven't tried... but from 1pm through to 5pm...
i could phone classic.fm and ask
for... a song to be played in my name...
perhaps i'll phone in...
if i catch the right "once upon a time"...
and find it... as i found...
christopher young's: something to think
about...

**** and music... many interludes...
perhaps some little borat-britain references...
and then: none...
per 1K there's a cult...
per 10K there's a counter-culture...
come the 918 apostles... of jonestown...
there's no leftover for no...
alternative...

the restless mind starts its exercise
in petty squabbling....
why weren't i the respected,
vatican proof for a plumber!
why wasn't i to become,
the undertaker!

i too feel: the claustrophobia
of the ensue of the paragraph...
what is primitive knot contra U2...
mainstream? sod it: knot it a blood
and a sundail!
blood dries... the mercurial mythology
dries a solidity of
something becoming more an echo...
and less a sodden-print of the foot...
which the tide will,
nonetheless relate itself as...
worthy of being erased...

the violin concerto...
the piano nocturnes...
and the symphonies...
and the operas...
later the ballet...
beside... a chopin would write a nocturne...
a debussy would write one also...
but...
debussy writes a nocturne...
satie writes a nocture...
but a schumann?! a schubert?!
they write a concerto!
none of their work could have been written
in solide with a solipsistic monologue
escapade...

perhaps i can only appreciate chopin via
his nocturnes...
otherwise i am not convinced...
the greats wrote.... symphonies...
operas... never accompany pieces
to make their instrument an oak...
a tree... and not something resdual
to later make a mahoganny piano / table
of...

pianists! you only hear of their prowess!
Liszt! Chopin! Debussy! Satie...
exclaim as if to: suprise the "audience"
with either knowledge or...
adoration?
can a violinist make the same sort
of statements?
a pianist will play... with an accompaniment...
he will never become the maestro
predisposition
of the polyphony...

a chopin only heard the piano...
a debussy only heard a piano: solo...
a beethoven or a mozart...
what violin solo? what of a violin concerto?!
is that a trick question?
old father bach...
no instrument: well...
shubert loved allowing a piano ****
a bunch of harem violins in a harem crescendo
of a concerto...

but a nocturne? the polyphony of...
the "polyphony" of...
two pianos playing side-by-side...

- the joint"laura's"1967 kk proto prog freak phych -
no, that's not it...
- and no... it's not omega - gyöngyhajú lány...
- well **** on me...
locomotiv moscow is not a band...
but an f.c.... beg your pardon...

as i do hope that i am wrong about
a minor "technicality"...
somehow classical, essential...
and nothing worth or being able to: hum...
or sing-along-to...
always serious and finding outlets
of a necessity in being: thought of...
perhaps there's this grand:

technicality of not finding oneself sighing
or crying for that matter...
vaughan williams is more required...
for the expanse of a cowboy movie
horizon...
or that technical term...
the: deconstruction of the dutch angle
in the perspective shot...

but we don't talk about *** as much
as we don't engage in it...
and we certainly don't talk about music...
the absolute brutal needs to be found...
a butterfly a lotus a kiss in a brothel...
all else is... the slaughterhouse....

this has been a...
no Friday night in Soho can match-up...
i've spent better nights in
Amsterdam...
and no... the red light district was
never going to be a cannabis cafe for me...
or some Vermont-esque quest for a better
pint of ale...
*** was on sale...
there was not real point of making
any money from it in the medium of fiction...
it was always going to be
ugly, frictive... below par of expectation...
but it was always going to
be fathomable... fathomable in a sense
of it being respected...
as a hierarchical undermining...

oh what since was, truly was concrete...
but the verbiage came along
and fiddled with the fog and the end-result
deems itself abstract...
there's the concrete of drought...
and the abstract of locust.
there's the concrete of a mountain...
and the abstract of a pyramid;
there's the concrete of death...
and the abstract of a mosileum;
after all... a grave is a coping mechanism
of someone who...
never began the inquiry... of mortality...
joking as a child might...
pretending to handshake his own shadow.

as i have found the antithesis of narcissus...
the man who fell in love with his shadow.

.i like the night... it's the one time in the count of 24 hours, that i am free from owning a shadow.

a shadow it like an itch,
a spot of eczema -
     itchy ******* thing...
mind you,
i've become a person
equivalent of an anti-narcissus:
i felt in love with my shadow,
an image reflected
in a mirror,
has no potency,
    no, potential...

- danzig's 1000 devil's reign -

you could have played
the identity politics card,
you could have...
hmm...

          but then the identity politicians
played the grammatical
****-poor politics game...
sorry... how can i play
identity politics,
if i am a pedigree Pole?
   you want me to fake my
land of birth, and the language i was born
into, and speak it?
you want me to... what?!
unlearn it?!
      Jews unlearn Hebrew,
and speak Yiddish...
       to i have to be the one
who was baptized
to reteach then the Sefirot tree?
mind you... i also want to learn it...

feral ferocity for learning...
a Faustian complex...
   those three years at Edinburgh
university taught me one thing,
and one thing alone...
apart from the bogus
   organic chemistry
schematics of electron migrations...

so...
     ⠽⠁⠓
   oh it's there, in the Sefirot...
      chokhmah
   (wisdom)...

   there's even  (  el  )
                   ⠑⠇
chesed, i.e. love...

              next time i'll be writing
Hebrew, i'll be writing in Braille...
Braille is the new Hebrew for me...

and have you noticed?
given this pitiable Latin alphabet?
vowels, consonants,
consonants being the syllable
architects...
  but only one letter compounded
to a noun...
namely?
        'double u': W...

  and the greeks? omega,
omicron, alpha, beta, gamma...
      no wonder Greek pursues
its prevalence in the sciences...
no actual name given to a letter
in Latin...
no covert meaning...

way too ******* apparent, and weight gain
incubating...

but where is the meaning
of ⠺⠑⠓?!
if there is a ⠽⠁⠓ in the Sefirot,
and there's the over-simplified
   ⠑⠇?
   where the **** is ⠺⠑⠓?
    so the second syllable count
means nothing to ⠓⠁_ ⠎⠓⠑⠍?

greek actually have names
for some of their letters?
what do the Romans have?
castrato choir practice
of a sing-along?!

          so... i'll ask again...
truthfully?
  i'd love to be an interrogator...
i'd ask the questions,
then ask for the torture...
and then do the same torture
to the person being interrogated...
and then tell the interrogated person:
you don't receive third-party
privileges!            
      
i hate the fact that girls cut themselves...
not that i'm haemophobic...
girls leave such a mess...
i'm pretty sure heating up a pair of
scissors, and burning your flesh
can lead to a more, "productive"
excavation of the masochistic reasons
with a tangible genesis...

          cutting is such a barbaric
practice...
     burning?
       mm... you get a chance to sniff
out a perfume of burned flesh...
which is added brownie points...
            
           what a blind man's circle...
having found the yah...
but having to persist in looking
for the weh;
doesn't help that i don't speak
the nomadic tongue,
that hebrew is...

            it's almost like they
want to forget it...
     speaking it only among
orthodoxy,
   and religious practices -
but never in public...
   i'd loath to abandon my mother
tongue...
             for a whim of
multiculturalism,
having learned that...
someone in England, at some private
school, is embarking on
learning Russian or Mandarin...

to the assimilation police i simply add:
you want my mother tongue?
and don't respect my learning
of your tongue?
   come by, with a knife...
AND CUT IT OFF!
                
oh the joys, of originating in a non-colonial
peoples... living in.
a post-colonial people's hellhole.

Es tan fácil nacer en sitios que no existen
y sin embargo fueron brumosos y reales
por ejemplo m¡ sitio mi marmita de vida
mi suelta de palomas conservaba
una niebla capaz de confundir las brújulas
y atravesar de tarde los postigos
todo en el territorio de aquella infancia breve
con la casa en la loma cuyo dueño
cara un tal valentín del escobar
y el nombre era sonoro me atraían
las paredes tan blancas y rugosas
ahí descubrí el lápiz como colón su américa
sin saber que era lápiz y mientras lo empuñaba
alguien hacía muecas al costado de un biombo
para que yo comiera pero yo no comía

después es la estación y es el ferrocarril
me envuelven en la manta de viaje y de calor
y había unas mangueras largas ágiles
que lavaban la noche en los andenes

las imágenes quedan como en un incunable
que sólo yo podría descifrar
puesto que soy el único especialista en mí
y sin embargo cuando regresé
apenas treinta y dos años más tarde
no había andén ni manta ni paredes rugosas
ya nadie recordaba la casa en la lomita
tampoco a valentín del escobar
quizá sea por eso que no puedo creer
en pueblo tan ceñido tan variable
sin bruma que atraviese los postigos
y confunda las brújulas
un paso de los toros enmendado
que no tiene ni biombo ni mangueras

el espejo tampoco sabe nada
con torpeza y herrumbre ese necio repite
mi pescuezo mi nuez y mis arrugas
debe haber pocas cosas en el mundo
con menos osadía que un espejo

en mis ojos amén de cataratas
y lentes de contacto con su neblina propia
hay rehenes y brujas
espesas telarañas sin arañas
hay fiscales y jueces
disculpen me quedé sin defensores
hay fiscales que tiemblan frente a los acusados
y jueces majaderos como tías
o deshumanizados como atentos verdugos
hay rostros arduos y fugaces
otros triviales pero permanentes
hay criaturas y perros y gorriones
que van garúa arriba ensimismados
y un sosías de dios que pone cielos
sobre nuestra mejor abolladura
y tampoco el espejo sabe nada
de por qué lo contemplo sin rencor y aburrido

y así de noche en noche
así de nacimiento en nacimiento
de espanto en espantajo
van o vamos o voy con las uñas partidas
de arañar y arañar la infiníta corteza

más allá del orgullo los árboles quedaron
quedaron los presagios las fogatas
allá atrás allá atrás
quién es tan memorioso
ah pero la inocencia ese búfalo herido
interrumpe o reanuda
la fuga o cacería
de oscuro desenlace

todos mis domicilios me abandonan
y el botín que he ganado con esas deserciones
es un largo monólogo en hiladas
turbado peregrino garrafal
contrito y al final desmesurado
para mi humilde aguante

Me desquito clavándole mi agüero
me vengo espolvoreándolo de culpas
pero la soledad
                            esa guitarra
esa botella al mar
esa pancarta sin muchedumbrita
esa efemérides para el olvido
oasis que ha perdido su desierto
flojo tormento en espiral
cúpula rota y que se llueve
ese engendro del prójimo que soy
tierno rebuzno de la angustia
farola miope

tímpano
ceniza
nido de águila para torcazas
escobajo sin uvas
borde de algo importante que se ignora
esa insignificante libertad de gemir
ese carnal vacío
ese naipe sin mazo
ese adiós a ninguna
esa espiga de suerte
ese hueco en la almohada
esa impericia
ese sabor grisáceo
esa tapa sin libro
ese ombligo inservible
la soledad en fin
                              esa guitarra
de pronto un día suena repentina y llamante
inventa prójimas de mi costilla
y hasta asombra la sombra
qué me cuentan

en verdad en verdad os digo que
nada existe en el mundo como la soledad
para buscarnos tierna compañía
cohorte escolta gente caravana

y el espejo ese apático supone
que uno está solo sólo porque rumia
en cambio una mujer cuando nos mira sabe
que uno nunca está solo aunque lo crea
ah por eso hijos míos si debéis elegir
entre una muchacha y un espejo
elegid la muchacha

cómo cambian los tiempos y el azogue
los espejos ahora vienen antinarcisos
hace cuarenta años la gente los compraba
para sentirse hermosa para saberse joven
eran lindos testigos ovalados
hoy en cambio son duros enemigos
cuadrados de rencor bruñidos por la inquina
nos agravian mortifican zahieren
y como si tal cosa pronuncian su chispazo
mencionan lustros y colesterol
pero no las silvestres bondades de estraperlo
la lenta madurez esa sabiduría
la colección completa de delirios
nada de eso         solamente
exhuman
las averías del pellejo añejo
el desconsuelo y sus ojeras verde
la calvicie que empieza o que concluye
los párpados vencidos siniestrados
las orejas mollejas la chatura nasal
las vacantes molares las islas del eczema

pero no hay que huir despavorido
ni llevarle el apunte a ese reflejo
nadie mejor que yo
para saber que miente

no caben en su estanque vertical
los que fui los que soy los que seré
siempre soy varios en parejos rumbos
el que quiere asomarse al precipicio
el que quiere vibrar inmóvil como un trompo
el que quiere respirar simplemente

será que nada de eso está en mis ojos
nadie sale a pedir el vistobueno
de los otros que acaso y sin acaso
también son otros y en diversos rumbos
el que aspira a encontrarse con su euforia
el que intenta ser flecha sin el arco
el que quiere respirar simplemente
será que nada de eso está en mi ceño
en mis hombros mi boca mis orejas
será que ya no exporto dudas ni minerales
no genera divisas mi conducta
tiene desequilibrios mi balanza de pagos
la caridad me cobra intereses leoninos
y acaparo dolor para el mercado interno

será que nada de eso llega al prójimo
pero yo estoy hablando del y con el espejo
y en su Iuna no hay prójima y si hay
será tina entrometida que mira sobre mi hombro

los prójimos y prójimas no están el el luciente
sencillamente son habitantes de mi
y bueno se establecen en mi como pamperos
como arroyos o como burbujas

por ejemplo las dudas no están en el espejo
las dudas que son meras preconfianzas
por ejemplo los miércoles no están
ya que el espejo es un profesional
de noches sabatinas y tardes domingueras
los miércoles de miércoles quien se le va a arrimar
pedestre o jadeante
inhumano y cansado
con la semana a medio resolver
las tardes gordas de preocupaciones
el ómnibus oliendo a axila de campeón

los insomnios no caben por ejemplo
no son frecuentes pero si poblados
de canciones a trozos
de miradas que no eran para uno
y alguna que otra bronco no del todo prevista
de ésas clue consumen la bilis del trimestre

tampoco aquellos tangos en Ios que uno sujeta
en suave diagonal la humanidad contigua
y un magnetismo cálido y a la vez transitorio
consterna los gametos sus ene cromosomas
y entre corte y cortina se esparcen monosílabos
y tanto las pavadas aleluya
como las intuiciones aleluya aleluya
derriban las fronteras ideológicas

verbigracia qué puede rescatar el espejo
de una ausencia tajante
una de esas ausencias que concurren
que numeran sus cartas
y escriben besos ay de amor remoto

qué puede qué podría reconocer carajo
de las vidas y vidas que ya se me murieron
esos acribillados esos acriborrados
del abrazo y el mapa y los boliches
o los que obedecieron a su corazonada
hasta que el corazón les explotó en la mano
sea en el supermarket de la mala noticia
o en algún pobre rancho de un paisaje sin chau

poco puede conocer de los rostros
que no fueron mi rostro y sin embargo
siguen estando en mí
y menos todavía
de los desesperantes terraplenes
que traté de subir o de bajar
esos riesgos minúsculos que parecen montañas
y los otros los graves que salvé como un sordo
así hasta que la vida quedó sin intervalos
y la muerte quedó sin vacaciones
y mi piel se quedó sin otras pieles
y mis brazos vacíos como mangas
declamaron socorro para el mundo

en la esquina del triste no hay espejo
y lo que es
                  más
austero
                                        no
hay auxilio
por qué será que cunden fas alarmas
y no huy manera ya de descundirlas

el país tiene heridas grandes como provincias
y hay que aprender a andar sobre sus bordes
sin vomitar en ellas ni caer como bolos
ni volverse suicida u miserable
ni decir no va más
porque está yendo
y exportamos los huérfanos y viudas
como antes la lana o el tasajo

en el muelle del pobre no hay espejo
y lo que es
                   más
sencillo
                                        no
hay adioses

los tratemos que estaban en el límite
las muchachas que estaban en los poemas
asaltaron de pronto el minuto perdido
y se desparramaron como tinta escarlata
sobre las ínfulas y los sobornos
metieron sus urgencias que eran gatos
en bolsas de arpillera
y cuando las abrieron aquello fue un escándalo
la fiesta prematura
igual que si se abre una alcancía

hacía tanto que éramos comedidos y cuerdos
que no nos vino mal este asedio a la suerte

los obreros en cambio no estaban en los poemas
estaban en sus manos nada más
que animan estructuras telas fibras
y cuidan de su máquina oh madre inoxidable
y velan su garganta buje a buje
y le toman el pulso
y le vigilan la temperatura
y le controlan la respiración
y aquí atornillan y desatornillan
y allí mitigan ayes y chirridos y ecos
o escuchar sus maltrechas confidencias
y por fin cuando suena el pito de las cinco
la atienden la consuelan y la apagan

los obreros no estaban en los poemas
pero a menudo estaban en las calles
eon su rojo proyecto y eon su puño
sus alpargatas y su humor de lija
y su beligerancia su paz y su paciencia
sus cojones de clase
qué clase de cojones
sus olas populares
su modestia y su orgullo
que son casi lo mismo

las muchachas que estaban en los poemas
los obreros que estaban en las mulos
hoy están duros en la cárcel firmes
como las cuatro barras que interrumpen el cielo

pero habrá otro tiempo
es claro que habrá otro
habrá otro ticnlpo porque el tiempo vuela
no importa que ellas y ellos no estén en el espejo
el tiempo volará
                             no
como el cóndor
ni como el buitre ni como el albatros
ni como el churrinche ni como el venteveo
el tiempo volara como la historia
esa ave migratoria de atlas fuertes
que cuando Ilega es para quedarse

y por fin las muchachas estarán en las mulos
y por fin los obreros estarán en los poemas
ay espejo ignorás tanta vida posible
tenés mi soledad
vaya conquista
en qué mago atolón te obligaste a varar
hay un mundo de amor que te es ajeno
así chic no te. quedes mirando má mirada
la modorra no escucha campanas ni promesas
tras de mi sigue habiendo un pedazo do historia
y yo tengo la llave de ese cobre barato
pero atrás más atrás
o adelante mucho más adelante
hay una historia plena
una patria en andamios con banderas posibles
y todo sin oráculo y sin ritos
y sin cofre y sin llave
simplemente una patria

ay espejo las sombras que te cruzan
son mucho más corpóreas que mi cuerpo depósito
el tiempo inagotable hace sus propios cálculos
y yo tengo pulmones y recuerdos y nuca
y otras abreviaturas de lo frágil
quizá una vez, te quiebres
dicen que es mala suerte
pero ningún espejo pudo con el destino
o yo mismo me rompa sin que vos te destruyas
y sea así otra sombra que te cruce

pero espejo ya tuve como dieciocho camas
en los tres años últimos de este gran desparramo
como todas las sombras pasadas o futuras
soy nómada y testigo y mirasol
dentro de tres semanas tal vez me vaya y duerma
en ml cama vacía número diecinueve
no estarás para verlo
no estaré para verte

en otro cuarto neutro mengano y transitorio
también habrá un espejo que empezará a
   escrutarme
tan desprolijamente como vos
y aquí en este rincón duramente tranquilo
se instalará otro huesped temporal como yo
o acaso dos amantes recién homologados
absortos en su canje de verguenzas
con fragores de anule e isócronos vaivenes

no podrás ignorarlos
egos le ignorarán
no lograrás desprestigiar su piel
porque será de estreno y maravilla
ni siquiera podr á vituperar mi rostro
porque ya estaré fuera de tu alcance
diciéndole a otra luna de impersonal herrumbre
lo que una vez te dije con jactancia y recelo

he venido con toldos mis enigmas
he venido con todos mis fantasmas
he venido con lerdees mis amores

y antes de que me mire
como vos me miraste
con ojos que eran sello parodia de mis ojos
soltaré de una vez el desafío

ay espejo cuadrado
nuevo espejo de hotel y lejanía
aquí estoy
                  ya podés
empezar a ignorarme.

November 17, 2017

Red dry patches there
Red dry patches here
Red dry patches everywhere
Irritating, itchy , and ugly
“Put some lotion and everything will be fine. It will be gone and it won’t be fugly”
They said
If only it was that easy as a book I just read
But no.
I always keep myself on the low
You see, sometimes these patches bleed
And I cry, because it hurts and wish it will heal at such greater speed
I cry because when the water cleanses my body, it sometimes burns
I wish we could take turns
So you would understand
Why I can’t simply put myself with such confidence within myself, as I seem like a lost strand
Why my insecurities are high off the roof
How I want my body to disappear, like “****”
How I’ll never have decent skin until many months from now
From time to time admiring other people’s fair skin and I say “wow”
I wish I had normal skin
So I wouldn’t have to be dry and flaky, I would’ve had some sort of win
I wish I could be able to wear clothes that reveal some of my beauty from my body
But being snapped in reality, it’ll just disturb everybody
So I shall wait
And just deal with everything as it is my fate

I first cried
where freshness itself struggled
to breathe. Outside
the Ganges,
asthmatic,
began to cower
back in fear, in
disgust, in
disease, browning
like the discarded banana peels
on the roadside below.

I first cried
in a dirt town
where kings and queens
drank to grass avenues
and swaying music in the realms
of history books.

I first cried
where those books
aged quietly
in forgotten rooms.

I first cried
where the streets bled
out crumpling homes and
cardboard stores with misspelt names,
spilling children in dust dresses
and hair matted
into rust pieces.

I first cried
where those children hung
babies on their arms
like my mother swung
her handbag, a flag
of Valentino, while stumbling on
crushed cans and dog ****
and foetid mud-water
on the way to the dentist.
And the children cried
out snot, their arms
perpetually reaching
for a rupee
from the traffic.

I first cried
where white-lit department stores
sprouted in defiant sanitation
between eczema-covered apartment blocks
in which washing lines drooped
and parking was always a problem.

I first cried
where many gods and goddesses
resided on the footpaths
decked in glitter
and cloths of rouge
as old men with
skin weathered into mottled
leather shook
beneath sheets of jute
on the roadside below
and offered tiny flames
to their gods
as morning bellowed and their coughs
grew worse.

I first cried
where stareless men burnt
their fingers
on the Chinese noodles with too much
chilli powder
they cooked and fried and cooked
for those who never saw them
but to haggle over a ten
rupee note,
on the roadside,
on every corner.

I first cried
as thread-blanketed teenage girls
with wrinkled faces
squatted amongst cows
in the middles of roads,
chanting prices, in voices
full of tar,
of the mound of peas
they were selling for that week.

I come every year.

And I'm ashamed to say
I'll never live here
but in my verses
because I can't stand the smell
of the place where I was born.

I first cried

here.
I first cried here.

He told me i was prettier in person
the night after we kissed in my best-friend's foyer
awkwardly missing the mouth because he was afraid
he would make a mistake
with a mistake
who had acne on her lip
and crooked teeth he'd luckily missed
when he kissed mouth closed
the second time
He told me Jesus Christ I was lovely
the moment I returned home
to cover my legs unfairly scratched by grass and flowers
with CVS brand diaper rash ointment, all over my fingers,
in my eczema cracks,
because I couldn't take the pain on my knees any longer
He told me to please not move
when I laid my head on his shoulder,
my unshaven arm round his waist and unshaven leg touching his own
and I could feel the bridge of my long nose
pushing in to the carotid artery where his heart pulsed faster and faster
as he ran one soft and gentle hand through my hair
and held my eczema cracks in his other, my grandmother hands,
that the other boy had called contagious, and the other girl had called
Alligator Skin
He told me he loved to walk behind me
though i had forgotten to suffer through bra stuffing
and wore baggy pants to prevent my knees against the trees
and my figure resembed a giraffe, knobly and unkept mane and all
He told me nothing
when He leaned in to kiss me a second time
and He put his hands in my mane
and His leg under my CVS knees
and His face in my Alligator hands
and my unstuffed bra near his chest
And His open mouth on my acne covered, crooked toothed mouth

because I am prettier in person

The old man who visits
in December and is loaded
with blustery showers
has forgotten us.

Lady July who enjoys
dancing in creek beds
draped in ferns and flowers
now has eczema instead.

The summer of smile
and flush I know well
has unexpectedly
become a dance with fire.

my whole mouth tastes like metal,
copper pennies from before
The Great Zinc Switch
filling my warm wet mouth.
cigarette smoke hazing
my sinuses like a frat rush
and I'm desperately in need of an Advil.
let me place my coppery lips
on your bronzed skin,
Amman to Atlanta,
nails like knives and
The Book of Biology
teasing hormonal touches and hydration.
iron oxide keeps flaking off my
skin, eczema and psoriasis in rust, and
the guitars in my ears are ******* furious.
and still:
sweat and *** in the sheets, your love
lingering on my palate like a
too sour wine; you fermented and curdled
in my mouth, and
to taste you now
is agony.
time is dilating around me in ripples;
I cough until the gas in my stomach releases itself; crystal abrasive.
it's all drugs and
tinder matches these days,
****** kids...
total sunbeam, in my opinion
there's still enough for
a couple more
hits, it's still rolling,
words cloud around my head like
so much weedsmoke, Storm clouds
on the horizon of my parietal lobe
and I feel fine.
I am fine.

Everyone was saying it'd hit 40°C tomorrow, a truer marker of summer’s arrival than a pinch and a punch on the 1st December. But I was leaving today. Bags packed, ready. A last smoke on the balcony before the taxi would pull up below. Right now on Scott Base somebody was probably typing my name into all the necessary [NAME HERE] gaps in the arrivals documentation, but by the time I’d be in a position to sign along the final dotted line it'd be too late to back out. Flights out of NZ’s base in Antarctica leave every second Tuesday morning and book up more than a month in advance. There are no flights at all from February through to August.

I had nowhere else to go anyway, the spare key to her apartment kicked under her door three weeks ago.  


---
Within just a handful of days of each other, we’d somehow both of us slept with other people. "Slept with." What a frigid way to put it. Of course I do mean ****** – the sleeping part simply an awkward optional accompaniment to the consequentials. So, we’d both of us ****** other people, and although nothing was said the weight of the truth buzzed between us, unsettling and persistent.  

I’m unsure which of us had gone first. I imagine it was ladies before gentlemen.


---
It was six years ago that I‘d followed her over to Australia, six years ago that she'd looked up over some textbook and said with a smirk that she'd never dreamed she’d let a man with such "offensive paws" anywhere near her, let alone fall for him.

It's true that within a few weeks of starting my apprenticeship my hands were stained black, with slow-healing sores opening up between the fingers, and the crusts of tired eczema aggravated by the incessant and optimistically futile scrub of soap. I was known for leaving behind dark smudges around light switches. But she hadn't seemed to mind my leaving soft fingerprints on her.

“D’you think there’s any language that's got sufficient words for all the different kinds of love? Like the Inuit and all their words for snow?”

I took a tray of ice cubes from the freezer, held her wrists behind her back with my right hand, and tipped the frozen cubes down the front of her warm and crumpled shirt.


---
And then? And then.

I won't detail the cruel and gradual tilt apart, increasing degree by degree up over the years, sliding us into roles and positions neither could recognise ourselves in. Mutually check-mated. What better way to tip the chessboard than start playing with somebody else.


---
The day she left her computer on and Gmail logged in the first grass fires of the season were reported in the north of Victoria, and the Bureau of Meteorology was predicting yet another “hottest summer on record.” I could only read the top three messages from him and her responses before logging off.

I hadn't even thought to ask for any somebody else's email address.

I grabbed my own laptop and opened a new browser. Google: jobs antarctica.


---
My best mate and I had dropped out of high school together to be taken on as plumbing apprentices: petrol and beer money in exchange for bubonic hands. At some point during those early days of drain and dame laying I came across a profile piece in the NZ Plumber about a guy who'd done a 12 month stint at Scott Base. Back then I’d doubted that I'd ever become the kind of man who could survive the snow and ice and dawnless darkness of a polar night.

You get what you think you want
But you’ll never be satisfied
So get comfortable
Because that’s what growing up is
Denying your desires
Ignoring the itch

You want a piece of everyone
But keep your entirety to yourself
Collecting kisses
Assembling your gallery of lovers
What a beautiful collage they make

Spilling blush red paint
On the canvas of my lily white skin
Dye me technicolor
Like your t shirt
Roll me up and breathe me in

It’s takes more love than you thought
To fill your empty vessel
More pleasure than is acceptable
To pacify your self abuse

My tendency to pursue chaos
Out of boredom
To create my own tragedy
Rather than face banality
Makes me question this feeling

So I will **** it
I will suffocate my restlessness
Force myself into complacency
Cut out my tongue
Cut off my hands
Because I’d rather bleed out
Than reach for something that isn’t real

This is life lived in the Kinema
on the outskirts of a town
called Eczema,
where the usherette flicks cigarettes
at the players in the pit, they
think it's ****
but we love it.

The owner, eyes like razor wire,
tongue tied puts the price of
entrance higher,
with a look from the hook up on the screen
I take a slice out of the scene and
catapult him from the frame,
all in the name of art.

In the interval, we fill the time by
smoking dope and drinking wine because
the Kinema is where we're king, where
anything goes and often will.

dear john,

how are you?
[i wonder, 'cause i'm getting
crazier for every second
i feel your heart wrenching absence-
i think of you constantly -
it'd help to know you're all right?]

do you ever think of me?
['cause i don't think you
do so anymore. you stopped
responding to my letters weeks ago,
and i refuse to
believe they got
lost in the mail.

i simply refuse.]

does the sun burn your skin?
[i hope the summer gives you
eczema and scalded cheeks.
i hope it hurts so much you
can't sleep at night from the pain.
then you can use the gained
hours of awake to read to this letter]

dear john,
do you think we should give up on us?
**['cause i think i did months ago.]

I have been living on a diet
of cigarettes and digestive biscuits.
My bowels empty into the System
and my hunger concedes
to the supermarket glow;
bigger names
under surgical lights.

The operation was not successful.
You can see it in the grey faces,
upturned collars;
that manic headphone stare.
The lone smoker skulks a bus-stop
like angry eczema
on a bride's upper lip.

I see it for myself now.
How crowds congregate by light,
stamens of fat and sachets of salt,
then separate as sadness
cuts through the delusion;
working poverty and panic attacks
on the hard kitchen floor.

The ache of anxiety
caught up with you again.
Self-imposed catastrophes pile up
as you find yourself walking against
the grain of lunatics passing your way.
The pupae gather and slaver
at their freedom;

you broke through The Promise.
I followed the path of your recovery.

The library is more like a hospital.
Bleached lights cause migraines,
the words too clinical and exposed
like eczema scars on my wrists.
It is too bright to fall in a thicket
of cognitive thought  and blind imagery.

The secret of beauty is good lighting.
I could never fall in love with a word
under such a surgical glow,
all intimacy on show in a place meant for
German Dictionaries and free wi-fi.
A place for the missing to sleep,
and not a place to daydream.

There is no smell of coffee,
only the occasional whiff and crackle
of a surreptitious sandwich interrupting
the stale breath of printer ink and ointment.
I am all for public places
until I find myself within one.

Exposed under these artificial stars,
I come here for a chance of no distraction.
Each time, however, I find myself languid.
Eyes set to some indefatigable point
whilst I catch the taste of shared air,
the sirens in the distance,
the location of nowhere.

Spinal column
a stairwell of books,
rungs of untouched vertebrae
avoided by the bibliophile herself

[myself].

Brain is wired differently
than the rest of them.

At first,
I thought it was a matter of being
****-retentive.
A veteran perfectionist
who strives to imagine every detail
as intricately and accurately
as the author must have intended.

Character's faces morph into
sloppy, patchwork collages,
features copied and pasted from
beautiful strangers and
celebrities who played
in the movie adaptations.

Their appearances are both
cliche
and
incomprehensible.

I am told a character is pale,
but can only manage to visualize a complexion
the colour of notebook paper,
penetrating blue eyes mere apparitions
against a wintry terrain--
her ears
nose
lips
misplaced beneath the tundra.

I lay the book atop my collarbone,
its cover pitched into a make-shift tent.

(Cautiously).

Almost as if I am
afraid to disturb
the seriffed constellations
that flicker above my heart.

I stare up at the ceiling
(vacant, as am I),
my eyebrows scrunched
into nooses of concentration,
several minutes passing before
her cheeks gradually begin to thaw,
warming over in an ombre
of pinks and olives.

And I rejoice!

Strike down the tent,
pupils hungry for prose.

But there is always
another character.

In Valley of the Dolls,
a handsome man,
whose hairline I cannot
properly envision

(this makes him less handsome).

This time,
when I lay my book down,
I do not proceed with caution,
the corners of its pages
dog-earing against my body.

Google:

men's hairstyles, 1940's

(I need to commit to memory
three different styles
so the three different males
I am working with
are not trite clones of each other).

I can only manage three pages
at a time
before having to take a break.

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is an exponential task,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting
Jaqueline Susanne's vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

on the first
(second...
third...
I don't know...)

try.

Turns out
this is more than just
being ****-retentive.

This is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

I yearn for times of old
junior high
when I could finish a novel
in a day--
ramona and beezus
butterfly lion
the silver donkey.

But even then,
the obsessions were there,
one substituted for another:

the ceaseless gushing
of the soap pump
and dizzying rotation
of the faucet taps.

Could barely hold literature
between my palms
without aggravating
the rosettes of eczema
that had sprout
along my hands,
scoured clean and raw.

Eventually,
I outgrew these harrowing baptisms.

Am still waiting to outgrow
the laborious nature of my readings.

My only antidote poetry,
for it heals me in
every way
fiction could not
[cannot].

The poems do not trouble me,
do not burden me
with overwhelming arrangements
of ink and letters.

Instead,
I confront the English language
line by line,
sedated by the simple
fragmentation
of each stanza.

Because even when fragmented,
these stanzas offer up to me
the written word
like it is ambrosia
when I am starving
for intellect
but cannot feast.

I am spoon-fed words
until I am full--
am reminded that
I am not the stupid girl
I believe I am,
courtesy of my
obsessive, compulsive short circuits.

I do not relate to the cohesion of prose,
cannot deny the brilliant likeness
that exists between the reader
and her enjambment--
both fractured mosaics of metaphor.

I am
as broken
as these verses.

But

it is only as
I shatter
that I am freed.

where are my ugly people?
shuffling with holed shoes,
defunct ****** organs,
crossed eyes.
those whose strides echo their
genetic abnormalities,
a leg an inch longer than the other (like me),
arms fat with blood,
skin resplendent with eczema
boils on eyelids,
dilated pupils,
escaping from the mirror with
horse tranquilizer
and enough ***** to sink
the state of California.
where are my ugly people,
too long under the delusion of
"finding inner beauty"
by the pretty ones;
straight teeth,
combed and styled hair,
brown and ivory skinned
drowning the streets with their
cackling and condescension.
we should scar their faces
with buckshot,
carve those empty smiles across
their high cheekbones
to be an omnipresent companion.
show them a bit of our own
benevolence;

where are my ugly people
like me?