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1969 Hartford art school is magnet for exceedingly intelligent over-sensitive under-achievers alluring freaks congenital creeps and anyone who cannot cut it in straight world it is about loners dreamers stoners clowns cliques of posers competing to dress draw act most outrageous weird wonderful classrooms clash in diversity of needs some students get it right off while others require so much individual attention one girl constantly raises her hand calls for everything to be repeated explained creativity is treated as trouble and compliance to instruction rewarded most of faculty are of opinion kids are not capable of making original artwork teachers discourage students from dream of becoming well-known until they are older more experienced only practiced skilled artists are competent to create ‘real art’ defined by how much struggle or multiple meanings weave through the work Odysseus wants to make magic boxes without knowing or being informed of Joseph Cornell one teacher tells him you think you’re going to invent some new color the world has never seen? you’re just some rowdy brat from the midwest with a lot of crazy ideas and no evidence of authenticity another teacher warns you’re nothing more than a bricoleur! Odysseus questions what’s a bricoleur teacher informs a rogue handyman who haphazardly constructs from whatever is immediately available Odysseus questions what’s wrong with that? teacher answers it’s low-class folk junk  possessing no real intellectual value independently he reads Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Message” and “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” he memorizes introductory remark of Leonardo’s “i must do like one who comes last to the fair and can find no other way of providing for himself than by taking all the things already seen by others and not taken by reason of their lesser value” Odysseus dreams of becoming accomplished important artist like Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Andy Warhol he dreams of being in eye of hurricane New York art scene he works for university newspaper and is nicknamed crashkiss the newspaper editor is leader in student movement and folk singer who croons “45 caliber man, you’re so much more than our 22, but there’s so many more of us than you” Odysseus grows mustache wears flower printed pants vintage 1940’s leather jacket g.i. surplus clothes he makes many friends his gift for hooking up with girls is uncanny he is long haired drug-crazed hippie enjoying popularity previously unknown to him rock bands play at art openings everyone flirts dances gets ****** lots of activism on campus New York Times dubs university of Hartford “Berkeley of the east coast” holding up ******* in peace sign is subversive in 1969 symbol of rebellion youth solidarity gesture against war hawks rednecks corporate America acknowledgment of potential beyond materialistic self-righteous values of status quo sign of what could be in universe filled with incredible possibilities he moves in with  painting student one year advanced named Todd Whitman Todd has curly blond hair sturdy build wire rimmed glasses impish smile gemini superb draftsman amazing artist Todd emulates Francisco de Goya and Albrecht Durer Todd’s talent overshadows Odysseus’s Todd’s dad is accomplished professor at distinguished college in Massachusetts to celebrate Odysseus’s arrival Todd cooks all day preparing spaghetti dinner when Odysseus arrives home tripping on acid without appetite Todd is disappointed Odysseus runs down to corner store buys large bottle of wine returns to house Todd is eating spaghetti alone they get drunk together then pierce each other’s ears with needles ice wine cork pierced ears are outlaw style of bad *** bikers like Hell’s Angels Todd says you are a real original Odys and funny too Odysseus asks funny, how? Todd answers you are one crazy ******* drop acid whenever you want smoke **** then go to class this is fun tonight Odys getting drunk and piercing our ears Odysseus says yup i’m having a good time too Todd and Odysseus become best friends Odysseus turns Todd on to Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” and “Ariel” then they both read Ted Hughes “Crow” illustrated with Leonard Baskin prints Todd turns Odysseus on to German Expressionist painting art movement of garish colors emotionally violent imagery from 1905-1925 later infuriating Third ***** who deemed the work “degenerate” Odysseus dives into works of Max Beckmann Otto Dix Conrad Felixmulller Barthel Gilles George Grosz Erich Heckel Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Felix Nussbaum Karl *******Rottluff Carl Hofer August Macke Max Peckstein Elfriede Lohse-Wachtler Egon Shiele list goes on in 1969 most parents don’t have money to buy their children cars most kids living off campus either ride bikes or hitchhike to school then back home on weekends often without a penny in their pockets Odysseus and Todd randomly select a highway and hitch rides to Putney Vermont Brattleboro Boston Cape Cod New York City or D.C. in search of adventure there is always trouble to be found curious girls to assist in Georgetown Odysseus sleeps with skinny girl with webbed toes who believes he is Jesus he tries to dissuade her but she is convinced

Toby Mantis is visiting New York City artist at Hartford art school he looks like huskier handsomer version of Ringo Starr and women dig him he builds stretchers and stretches canvases for Warhol lives in huge loft in Soho on Broadway and Bleeker invites Odysseus to come down on weekends hang out Toby takes him to Max’s Kansas City Warhol’s Electric Circus they wander all night into morning there are printing companies longshoremen gays in Chelsea Italians in West Village hippies playing guitars protesting the war in Washington Square all kinds of hollering crazies passing out fliers pins in Union Square Toby is hard drinker Odysseus has trouble keeping up  he pukes his guts out number of times Odysseus is *** head not drinker he explores 42nd Street stumbles across strange exotic place named Peep Show World upstairs is large with many **** cubicles creepy dudes hanging around downstairs is astonishing there are many clusters of booths with live **** girls inside girls shout out hey boys come on now pick me come on boys there are hundreds of girls from all over the world in every conceivable size shape race he enters dark stall  puts fifty cents in coin box window screen lifts inside each cluster are 6 to 10 girls either parading or glued to a window for $1 he is allowed to caress kiss their ******* for $2 he is permitted to probe their ****** or *** for $10 girl reaches hand into darkened stall jerks him off tall slender British girl thrills him the most she says let me have another go at your dickey Odysseus spends all his money ******* 5 times departing he notices men from every walk of life passing through wall street stockbrokers executives rednecks mobsters frat boys tourists fat old bald guys smoking thick smelly cigars Toby Mantis has good-looking girlfriend named Lorraine with long brown hair Toby Lorraine and Odysseus sit around kitchen table Odysseus doodles with pencil on paper Toby spreads open Lorraine’s thighs exposing her ****** to Odysseus Lorraine blushes yet permits Toby to finger her Odysseus thinks she has the most beautiful ****** he has ever seen bulging pelvic bone brown distinctive bush symmetric lips Toby and Lorraine watch in amusement as Odysseus gazes intently Tony mischievously remarks you like looking at that ***** don’t you? Odysseus stares silently begins pencil drawing Lorraine’s ****** his eyes darting back and forth following day Lorraine seduces Odysseus while Toby is away walks out **** from shower she is few years older her body lean with high ******* she directs his hands mouth while she talks with someone on telephone it is strange yet quite exciting Odysseus is in awe of New York City every culture in the world intermingling democracy functioning in an uncontrollable managed breath millions of people in motion stories unraveling on every street 24 hour spectacle with no limits every conceivable variety of humanity ******* in same air Odysseus is bedazzled yet intimidated

Odysseus spends summer of 1970 at art colony in Cummington Massachusetts it is magical time extraordinary place many talented eccentric characters all kinds of happenings stage plays poetry readings community meals volleyball after dinner volleyball games are hilarious fun he lives alone in isolated studio amidst wild raspberries in woods shares toilet with field mouse no shower he reads Jerzy Kosinski’s “Painted Bird” then “Being There” then “Steps” attractive long haired girl named Pam visits community for weekend meets Odysseus they talk realize they were in first grade together at Harper amazing coincidence automatic ground for “we need to have *** because neither of us has seen each other since first grade” she inquires where do you sleep? Todd hitches up from Hartford to satisfy curiosity everyone sleeps around good-looking blue-eyed poet named Shannon Banks from South Boston tells Odysseus his ******* is not big enough for kind of ******* she wants but she will **** him off that’s fine with him 32 year old poet named Ellen Morrissey from Massachusetts reassures him ******* is fine Ellen is beginning to find her way out from suffocating marriage she has little daughter named Nina Ellen admires Odysseus’s free spirit sees both his possibilities and naïveté she realizes he has crippling family baggage he has no idea he is carrying thing about trauma is as it is occurring victim shrugs laughs to repel shock yet years later pain horror sink in turned-on with new ideas he returns to Hartford art school classes are fun yet confusing he strives to be best drawer most innovative competition sidetracks him Odysseus uses power drill to carve pumpkin on Halloween teachers warn him to stick to fundamentals too much creativity is suspect Todd and he are invited to holiday party Odysseus shows up with Ellen Morrissey driving in her father’s station wagon 2 exceptionally pretty girls flirt with him he is live wire they sneak upstairs he fingers both at same time while they laugh to each other one of the girls Laura invites him outside to do more he follows they walk through falling snow until they find hidden area near some trees Laura lies down lifts her skirt she spreads her legs dense ***** mound he is about to explore her there when Laura looks up sees figure with flashlight following their tracks in snow she warns it’s Bill my husband run for your life! Odysseus runs around long way back inside party grabs a beer pretending he has been there next to Ellen all night few minutes later he sees Laura and Bill return through front door Bill has dark mustache angry eyes Odysseus tells Ellen it is late maybe they should leave soon suddenly Bill walks up to him with beer in hand cracks bottle over his head glass and beer splatter Odysseus jumps up runs out to station wagon Ellen hurriedly follows snow coming down hard car is wedged among many guest vehicles he starts engine locks doors maneuvers vehicle back and forth trying to inch way out of spot Bill appears from party walks to his van disappears from out of darkness swirling snow Bill comes at them wielding large crowbar smashes car’s headlights taillights side mirrors windshield covered in broken glass Ellen ducks on floor beneath glove compartment sobs cries he’s going to **** us! we’re going to die! Odysseus steers station wagon free floors gas pedal drives on back country roads through furious snowstorm in dark of night no lights Odysseus contorts crouches forward in order to see through hole in shattered windshield Ellen sees headlights behind them coming up fast it is Bill in van Bill banging their bumper follows them all the way back to Hartford to Odysseus’s place they run inside call police Bill sits parked van outside across street as police arrive half hour later Bill pulls away next day Odysseus and Ellen drive to Boston to explain to Ellen’s dad what has happened to his station wagon Odysseus stays with Ellen in Brookline for several nights another holiday party she wants to take him along to meet her friends her social circles are older he thinks to challenge their values be outrageous paints face Ellen is horrified cries you can’t possibly do this to me these are my close friends what will they think? he defiantly answers my face is a mask who cares what i look like? man woman creature what does it matter? if your friends really want to know me they’ll need to look beyond the make-up tonight i am your sluttish girlfriend! sometimes Odysseus can be a thoughtless fool

Laura Rousseau Shane files for divorce from Bill she is exceptionally lovely models at art school she is of French descent her figure possessing exotic traits she stands like ballerina with thick pointed ******* copious ***** hair Odysseus is infatuated she frequently dances pursues him Laura says i had the opportunity to meet Bob Dylan once amazed Odysseus questions what did you do? she replies what could i possibly have in common with Bob Dylan? Laura teases Odysseus about being a preppy then lustfully gropes him grabs holds his ***** they devote many hours to ****** intimacy during ******* she routinely reaches her hand from under her buns grasps his testicles squeezing as he pumps he likes that Laura is quite eccentric fetishes over Odysseus she even thrills to pick zits on his back he is not sure if it is truly a desire of hers proof of earthiness or simply expression of mothering Laura has two daughters by Bill Odysseus is in over his head Laura tells Odysseus myth of Medea smitten with love for Jason Jason needs Medea’s help to find Golden Fleece Medea agrees with promise of marriage murders her brother arranges ****** of king who has deprived Jason his inheritance couple is forced into exile Medea bears Jason 2 sons then Jason falls in love with King Creon’s daughter deserts Medea is furious she makes shawl for King Creon’s daughter to wear at her wedding to Jason  shawl turns to flames killing bride Medea murders her own sons by Jason Odysseus goes along with story for a while but Laura wants husband Odysseus is merely scruffy boy with roving eyes Laura becomes galled by Odysseus leaves him for one of his roommates whom she marries then several years later divorces there is scene when Laura tells Odysseus she is dropping him for his roommate he is standing in living room of her house space is painted deep renaissance burgundy there are framed photographs on walls in one photo he is hugging Laura and her daughters under big oak tree in room Laura’s friend Bettina other girl he fingered first night he met Laura at party is watching with arms crossed he drops to floor curls body sobs i miss you so much Laura turns to Bettina remarks look at him men are such big babies he’s pitiful Bettina nods

following summer he works installing displays at G. Fox Department Store besides one woman gay men staff display department for as long as he can remember homosexuals have always been attracted to him this misconception is probably how he got job his tenor voice suggesting not entirely mature man instead more like tentative young boy this ambiguous manifestation sometimes also evidences gestures thoroughly misleading after sidestepping several ****** advances one of his co-workers bewilderingly remarks you really are straight manager staff are fussy chirpy catty group consequently certain he is not gay they discriminate against him stick him with break down clean up slop jobs at outdoor weekend rock concert in Constitution Plaza he meets 2 younger blond girls who consent to go back to his place mess around both girls are quite dazzling yet one is somewhat physically undeveloped they undress and model for Odysseus radio plays Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” both girls move to rhythm sing along he thinks to orchestrate direct decides instead to let them lead lies on bed while curvaceous girl rides his ******* slender girl sits on his face they switch all 3 alternate giggle laughter each girl reaches ****** on his stiffness later both assist with hands mouths his ****** is so intense it leaves him paralyzed for a moment

in fall he is cast as Claudius in production of Hamlet Odysseus rehearses diligently on nights o
RAJ NANDY Aug 2018
THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE: PART TWO
Dear Friends, having introduced ‘The Enigma of Time in Verse’ in Part One, along with few selected poetic quotes, I now mention what some of the important Philosophers thought about Time down the past centuries. But while doing so, I have tried my best to simplify some of those early concepts for better understanding and appreciation of my readers. If you like it, kindly re-post the poem. Thanks,  – Raj Nandy of New Delhi.

          THE ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE : PART TWO
   I commence by quoting Sonnet 60 of Shakespeare about Time,
   Hoping to seek some blessings for this Part Two composition of
   mine!
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
  So do our minutes hasten to their end;
  Each changing place with that which goes before,
  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
  Nativity, once in the main of light,
  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
  Crooked elipses ’gainst his glory fight,
  And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
  And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
  Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.”

              PHILOSOPHY OF TIME
Animals are said to live in a continuous present,
Since they have no temporal distinction of past, future,
or the present.
But our consciousness of time, becomes the most
distinguishing feature of mankind.
Though we are mostly obsessed with objective time, -
As the rotation of our Earth separates day from night.
With the swing of the pendulum and the ticking of clocks,
Which regulates our movements, while we try to beat the clock!
But the ancient theologians and philosophers of India and
Greece,
Who were among the first to ponder about the true nature
of all things,
Had wondered about the subjective nature of time;
Was time linear or cyclic, was time endless or finite?

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS ON TIME:
I begin with Heraclitus, the Pre-Socratic philosopher of 6th Century BC born in Ephesus.
He claimed that everything around us, is in a constant state of change and flux.
You cannot step into the same river twice Heraclitus had claimed,
Since water keeps flowing down the river all the while and never
remains the same.
This flow and change in Nature is a process which is ceaseless.
The only thing which remains permanent is impermanence!
Here is a quote from poet Shelley reflecting the same idea:
“World on world are rolling ever
  From creation to decay
  Like the bubbles on a river
  Sparkling, bursting, borne away.”

Now Heraclitus was refuted by Parmenides, born in the Greek colony of Elea,
On the western coast of Southern Italy, as his contemporary.
Parmenides said that our senses deceive us, since all changes are mere illusory!
True reality was only eternal and unchanging ‘Being’, which was both indivisible and continuous - filling up all space.
Zeno, a pupil of Parmenides, through his famous ‘Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise’ had shown, that when the tortoise was given a head start,
Swift footed Achilles could never catch up with the tortoise,
Since the space between the two were infinitely divisible, resulting in the impossibility of movement and change in motion!
Now the Greeks were never comfortable with the Concept of Infinity.
They preferred to view the universe as continuous existing ‘Being’.  
However, unlike Heraclitus’ ‘world of change and flux’,
Both Parmenides and Zeno have presented us, with a static unchanging universe!
Thus from the above examples it becomes easy for us to derive,  
How those Ancient Greeks had viewed Time.
Time has been viewed as a forward moving changing entity;
And also as an illusory, continuous and indivisible Being!
To clarify this further I quote Bertrand Russell from his ‘History of Western Philosophy’;
“Creation out of nothing, which was taught in the Old Testament, was an idea wholly foreign to Greek philosophy. When Plato speaks of creation, he imagines a primitive matter, to which God gives form as an artificer.”

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE ON TIME:
For Plato, time was created by the Creator at the same instance when he had fashioned the heavens.
But Plato was more interested to contemplate on things which lay
beyond the sway of time and remained unchangeable and eternal;
Like absolute Truth, absolute Justice, the absolute form of Good and Beauty;
Which were eternal and unchangeable like the ‘Platonic Forms’, and were beyond the realm of Time as true reality.
Plato’s pupil Aristotle was the first Greek philosophers to contemplate on reality inside time, and provide a proper definition as we get to see.
He said, “Time is the number of movement in respect to before and after” - as a part of reality.
To measure time numerically, we must have a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, and also notice the difference objectively.
Therefore, time here becomes the change which we see and experience.
Time takes on a linear motion moving from the past to the present;
And to the unknown future like a moving arrow travelling straight.
Aristotle had developed a four step process to understand everything inside of Time and within human experience:
(a) Observe the world using our senses,
(b) Apply logical rules to these observations,
(c) To go back and consult past authorities, if your logic agrees with their logic,
(d) Then only you can come to a logical conclusion.

No wonder in our modern times, experiments conducted by the LDC or the Large Hadron Collider, located 100m underground near the French-Swiss border,
By going back in time simulates the ‘Big Bang’ conditions, that moment of our universe’s first creation.
The scientists thereby, study the evolution of our universe with time, which  resulted in the  finding of the Higgs Boson !  (On 4thJuly 2012)

NOTES :  All elementary particles interacting with the Higg's Field & obtain Mass, excepting for photons & gluons which do not interact with this field. Mass-less photons can travel at the
speed of light with a mind boggling 186,000 miles per second! Now this LDC is a Particle Accelerator 27 kms long ring-shaped tunnel, made mostly of superconducting magnets, inside which two high-energy particle beams are made to travel close to the speed of light in opposite directions, and the shower of particles resulting from the collision is closely examined, presuming that these similar shower of particles must have been produced at the time of the ‘Big Bang’ some 13.8 million years ago, at the time of Creation! Sound like fiction? Well, Prof. Peter Higgs got the Noble Prize for Physics, for locating the particle called ‘Higgs Boson’ among those shower of particles, on 10th Dec. 2013.

NOW TO LIGHTEN UP MY READERS MIND, FEW TIME QUOTE I NOW PROVIDE :

“TIME WASTES OUR BODIES AND OUR WITS,
  BUT WE WASTE TIME, SO WE ARE QUITS!” – Anonymus.

‘Time is a great Teacher, but unfortunately it kills its Pupils!’ – HL Berlioz

“Lost , yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two
   golden hours,
   Each set with sixty diamond minutes.
   No reward is offered, for they are gone forever!” – Horace Mann


PLOTINUS & ST. AUGUSTINE ON TIME:
Now getting back to our Philosophy of Time, there was Plotinus of the 3rd Century AD,
The founder of the mystical Neo-Platonic School of Philosophy.
He had followed Plato’s basic concept of Time as “the moving image of eternity.”
Mystic Plotinus tried to synthesize both Aristotle and Plato by saying that the entire process of cosmic creation,
Flows out of the ONE  through a series of emanation!
This ONE gave rise to the ‘Divine Mind’ which he called the ‘Realm of Intelligence’ and is an aspect of reality,
When everything is understood in terms of Platonic Forms of Truth, Justice, the Good, and Beauty.
However, the later Christian theologians had interpreted this ONE of Plotinus, -
As the Christian God, the Divine Creator of the Universe.
For God is eternal, in the sense of being timeless, in God there is no before or after, but only a timeless present.

Now this lead St. Augustine, to formulate a very admirable relativistic theory of Time!
St. Augustine, the greatest constructive teacher of the Early Christian Church, had written in Book XI of his ‘Confessions’ during  5th century AD, -
His thoughts about the enigma of Time which had perplexed the Greek philosophers of earlier centuries.
To simplify St. Augustine’s thoughts, I now paraphrase for the sake of clarity.
Time can only be measured while it is passing, yet there is time past, and time future in reality.
To avoid these contradictions he says that past and future can only be thought of as present: ‘past’ must be identified with memory, and ‘future’ with expectation.
Since memory and expectation being both present facts, there is no contradiction.  
“The present of things past is memory, the present of things present is sight; and the present of things future is expectation,” - wrote St. Augustine.

This subjective notion of time led St. Augustine to anticipate Rene Descartes the French philosopher the 17th Century,
Who proclaimed “Cogito, ergo sum” in Latin, meaning “I think, therefore I am”, and is regarded as the Father of Modern Philosophy.

Now cutting a long story short I come to Sir Isaac Newton, well known for his Laws of Motion and Gravity.
Newton speaks of ‘Absolute Time’ which exists independently, flowing at a consistent pace throughout the universe, which can only be understood mathematically.
Newton’s ‘Absolute Time’ had remained as the dominant concept till the  early years of the 20th Century.
When Albert Einstein formulated ‘Theory of Space-time’ along with his Special and General Theory of Relativity.

Now the German philosopher Leibniz during 17th century, had challenged Newton with his anti-realist theory of time.
Leibniz claimed that time was only a convenient intellectual concept, that enables to sequence and compare happening of events.
There must be objects with which time can interact or relate to as ‘Relational Time’ he had felt.
Ernst Mach, like Leibniz towards the end of 19th Century, said that even if it was not obvious what time and space was relative to,
Then they were still relative to the ‘fixed stars’ i.e. the bulk of matter in the universe.

CONCEPT OF TIME AS 'SPECIOUS PRESENT' :
During late 19th century, Robert Kelley introduced the concept of ‘spacious present’, which was the most recent part of the past.
Psychologist and philosopher William James developed this idea further by describing it as ‘’the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’’
William James also introduced the term “stream of consciousness” into literature as a method of narration,
That described happenings in the flow of thought in the mind of the characters, - likened to an internal monologue!
This literary technique was later used by James Joyce in his famous novel ‘Ulysses’.

TIME CONCEIVED AS DURATION: HENRI BERGSON (1859 -1941)
Next I come to one of my favourite philosopher the French born Henri Bergson.
The Nobel Laureate and author of ‘Time and Free Will’ and ‘Creative Evolution’.
Will Durant in his ‘Story of Philosophy’ says Bergson was ‘the David destined to slay the Goliath of materialism.’
It was Bergson’s ‘Elan Vital’ that life force and impelling urge, Which makes us grow and transforms this wandering planet into a theatre of unending creation.
For Bergson, time is as fundamental as space; and it is time that holds the essence of life, and perhaps of all reality.
Time is an accumulation, a growth, a duration, where “duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances.
The past in its entirety is prolonged into the present and abides there actual and acting.
Duration means that the past endures, that nothing is lost.
Though we think with only a small part of our past; but it is with our entire past that we desire, will, and act.”
“Since time is an accumulation, the future can never be the same as the past, -
For a new accumulation arises at every step, and change is far more radical than we suppose…the geometric predictability of all things, Which is the goal of a mechanistic science, is only a delusion and a dream!”  
Bergson goes on in his compelling lyrical style:            
“For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature,
to mature is to go on creating one’s self endlessly. Perhaps all reality is time and duration, becoming and change.”
Bergson differed with Darwin's theory of adaptation to environment, and stated;
“Man is no passively adaptive machine, he is a focus of redirected force, a centre of creative evolution.”

Martin Heidegger, the German thinker in his ‘Being and Time’ of 1927, had said:
“We do not exist within time, but in a very real way we are time!”
Time is inseparable from human experience, since we can allow the past to exist in the present through memory;
And even allow a potential future occurrence to exist in the present due to our human ability to care, and be concerned about things.
Therefore we are not stuck in simple sequential or linear time, but can step out of it almost at will!

CONCLUDING  PART  TWO OF ENIGMA OF TIME IN VERSE
In this part I have tried to convey what the Ancient Greek Philosophers had felt about Time in a simplified way.
Also some thoughts of Medieval and Early Modern philosophers and what they had to say.
Where Sir Isaac Newton stands like a colossus with his Concept of Time, Laws of Motion, and Gravity.
Not forgetting Henri Bergson, one of my favourite philosopher, of the mid-19th and the mid-20th Century.
All through my narration I had tried to hold the interest of my readers, and also educated myself as a true knowledge seeker.
In my concluding Part Three I will cover few Modern Philosophers along with the relativistic concept of time.
Certainly not forgetting the space-time theory of our famous Albert Einstein!
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy of New Delhi.
  *ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY
listen here and listen close
I’ll tell you the story of a musical ghost
Ernst the composer, with a lifelong dream
of becoming a genius, a composition king

he was born on a day
like any other man, i'd say,
into a jewish family
where he studied the melody

a melody that protruded
from pianist hands
throughout the symphonies
from germany to england

He was known far and wide
in a land without pride
as a musical guide
where the ****’s reside

Great misfortune mounted upon
great toils, soiled by a life on the run
this was his fate, to be cast out, and away
like a broken, old picture frame

and upon a new dawn
to the westward and on
he sought to find a home
when there was nowhere to roam.

He packed up his bags
as he had little more than rags
to flee to the free
and away...from the **** regime

and made it to america…

so soon sorry
for he faintly did fair
the world was weary
yet his book he still shared

and he passed on his knowledge
of his music, sublime
his artistic ability
to tame tone and time

and from the day he was born
to the day he passed on
we’ll remember those teachings
and those beautiful songs

1887 to 1964
ernst we still remember you
and all that you lived for
Poem about Ernst Toch, a composer during world war 2
teaching a wild creature to feed from your hand is a feat maybe maybe not Mom taught me from a young age then never let go in June 2013 the estate will cease all the coats hats shoes scarves skirts dresses blouses belts purses from Ultimo Saks Neimans wherever steaks from Gene and Georgetti’s Gibsons whatever will be consumed and she will be forced by the bank to resign her condo on lake shore drive and go live with her sister and i will be left with nothing

nothing feels better than fighting back gathering the strength courage to do that to fight until there is no daylight

the world is a mysterious place it is Sunday December 26th 2010 6AM pitch dark outside in several months daybreak will come earlier a remarkable surprise yet always been this way in several minutes firmament turns light i open eyes stretch legs look out window pink blue gray blue morning skies tree tops mountains watch flock of birds maybe 30 or 40 flying back and forth east west why do they do that how would you like to be one of those birds flapping around searching from above at the earth hmmm what if everyone had a ***** and ****** feathered wings fin distinctive tail floppy or pointed ears what if you could share breakfast or lunch with Kim Gordon Patti Smith work on poem with e. e. cummings James Joyce William Faulkner paint with Mark Rothko Anselm Kiefer play football with Payton Manning Drew Breeze jam with Jimi Hendrix Keith Richards race with Secretariat sniff with Lassie mix with Max Ernst Georgia O'Keefe Donald Judd meet with Gandhi and J.F.K. make love with Charlotte Gainsbourg Kate Moss dinner with John Lennon Friedrich Nietzsche dance with Albert Einstein Isadora Duncan share a smoke with Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) Sam Shepard last drink with Sylvia Plath Virginia Woolf then go to sleep next to Sphinx Pyramids wake with Cleopatra Mata Hari on Bali beach look up at tiny puffy clouds that resemble strange script do you understand the possibilities mysteries of everything

old is lecherous but i’m still trapped in childhood hurting wanting to be grown-up

i think i said i don’t know how to talk i was speaking to this **** greedy landlord trying to negotiate between 2 different spaces long distance and i meant to say i can’t talk right now i’m in a restaurant or shop but instead what came out was i don’t know how to talk he was insulting me bullying hollering at me on cell phone accusing me of dickering about price lease and it slipped out my terror from Dad my childhood fears repression inability to negotiate i froze fumbled finally uttering i don’t know how to talk then disconnected

i’m running scared gasping for breath heart pounding yearning praying crying for love beauty happiness success i’m smart creative powerful yet inept too shy or fearful to know how to properly spontaneously speak in person

what if consumerism is realized as a mental disorder a method to suppress genuine hunger with fetish products

what if money is identified as disease actual legal tender found to source fatal viruses

what if humanity is discovered to belong to an alien predatory race independent from Adam and Eve or monkeys

what if all knowledge is found to be deceptive invention concealing real world truth

what if existence is a chess game or trial enacted by higher forces and your every thought feeling recorded in eternity

what if progress is the enemy and primitivism the remedy

my whole life i’ve learned about infidelity my mom sister dad uncle i don’t understand i’ve never been unfaithful to a girlfriend (one is enough one is more than i can handle) why do people speak those vows then get married only to violate themselves their mates maybe that’s why i am afraid to ever get married infidelity is the most painful betrayal to find out your partner with all your shared secrets compromises them with someone else oh god

April 19th 1995 a bomb explodes in Federal building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people injuring 759 what are Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols thinking did they act alone there are so many lunatics running around out there so much misunderstanding disenfranchisement in America

Arlington Street Asheville North Carolina June 1995 Odysseus and his dog Farina keep mostly to themselves something is wrong with his voice he sounds hoarse when he speaks it is uncomfortable to talk he goes to free clinic and waits half a day elderly doctor attempts to stick long metal instrument down Odysseus’s throat Odysseus gags coughs elderly doctor becomes irritable he warns Odysseus to quit smoking Odysseus wonders what it would be like to be loved possibly married in loving positive relationship to know all the endearing enduring connections between caring couples other people manage it why can’t he? he thinks i’ve never been a good provider nor placed enough value in money i believe in freedom and love i chose to make art and pursue a life of self-discovery experiment dang i am wrong from the moment one’s work hangs in a gallery the artist’s integrity is compromised individuality becomes commodity typically people who buy paintings have so much money they scatter a trifle on art the artwork provides the consumer with a look of ‘soul’ to be shown off to their envious friends the artist becomes needy pet of dealer and client maybe converting one’s spirituality into commercial merchandise is like making deals with the devil he thinks about Native American artists whose work is immediately esteemed and utilized in their culture he has spent his whole life seeking validation in art world he wonders how many other unknown artists feel similarly useless discarded he considers i’m forty-five years old now and i don’t have a penny to show for all my troubles i still believe i have much to give insights to reveal but no practical plan for survival i don’t know how i’m going to get through this existence the world wants young promising talent not some older painter striving for another chance women want nothing to do with an impoverished aging dreamer my dog loves me she knows who feeds her i’ve got academic degrees a long resume of legitimate shows i know how to use a computer solve problems fix toilets sinks strip and paint serve food and liquor but i can’t land a decent job i never learned how to properly market or barter my work and i’m not interested in the position of sacrificial lamb i want a home and female partner like other men have i want to be needed respected loved a creative member of a community instead of an expendable outsider working menial jobs for minimum wage what good are paintings if no one looks at them what good are noble values in a corrupt society the world runs on money and greed not freedom and love
During 1950 after many years of research, a dedicated biochemist by the name of Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr., isolated a new vitamin that he numbered B17 and called 'Laetrile'. As the years rolled by, thousands became convinced that Krebs had finally found the complete control for all cancers, a conviction that even more people share today. Back in 1950 Ernst Krebs could have had little idea of the hornet's nest he was about to stir up. The pharmaceutical multinationals, unable to patent or claim exclusive rights to the vitamin, launched a propaganda attack of unprecedented viciousness against B17, despite the fact that hard proof of its efficiency in controlling all forms of cancer surrounds us in overwhelming abundance.
In his brilliantly researched 1974 book World Without Cancer, researcher and author G. Edward Griffin explains the trophoblastic theory of cancer proposed by Professor John Beard of Edinburgh University, which states that certain pre-embryonic cells in pregnancy differ in no discernible way from highly-malignant cancer cells. Edward Griffin continues:
"The trophoblast* in pregnancy indeed does exhibit all the classical characteristics of cancer. It spreads and multiplies rapidly as it eats its way into the ****** wall preparing a place where the embryo can attach itself for maternal protection and nourishment."
The trophoblast is formed in a chain reaction by another cell that Griffin simplifies down to the 'total life' cell, which has the total capacity to evolve into any ***** or tissue, or a complete embryo. When the total life cell is triggered into producing trophoblast by contact with the hormone estrogen, present in both males and females, one of two different things happens. In the case of pregnancy the result is conventional development of a placenta and umbilical cord. If the trophoblast is triggered as part of a healing process however, the result is cancer or, as Edward Griffin cautions: "To be more accurate, we should say it is cancer if the healing process is not terminated upon completion of its task."
Stunning proof of this claim is readily available. All trophoblast cells produce a unique hormone called the chorionic gonadotrophic (CGH) which is easily detected in *****. Thus if a person is either pregnant or has cancer, a simple CGH pregnancy test should confirm either or both. It does, with an accuracy of better than 92% in all cases. If the ***** sample shows positive it means either normal pregnancy or abnormal malignant cancer. Griffin notes: "If the patient is a woman, she either is pregnant or has cancer. If he is a man, cancer can be the only cause." So why all of the expensive, dangerous biopsies carried [out] to 'detect' cancerous growths? One can only assume that medicare pays doctors a larger fee for biopsies than pregnancy tests.
So how is it that any of us gets cancer in the first place. Is it exposure to cigarette smoking, intense sunlight or perhaps the effect of toxic food additives? Dr. Krebs thinks not. All of the hard biochemical evidence points to the fact that cancer is a simple deficiency disease of vitamin B17, long ago removed from our highly refined, western diets. Krebs postulates that the so-called 'carcinogens' are merely stress triggers that finally expose the B17 deficiency with devastating effect.
The proof Krebs has presented over the years to support his claim is impressive. Centuries ago we used to eat millet bread, rich in B17, but now we chew our way through wheat which has none at all. For generations our grandmothers used to carefully crush the seeds of plums, greengages, cherries, apples, apricots and other members of the botanical family Rosaceae, and diligently mix them with their home made jams and preserves. Grandma probably didn't know why she was doing it, but the seeds of all these fruits are the most potent source of B17 in the world. In the tropics, large quantities of B17 are found in cassava, also known as tapioca. When did you last eat some?
Independent research has also proved that a Himalayan tribe known as the 'Hunza' [more correctly Hunzakut] never contract cancer of any kind so long as they stick to their native diet which is exceptionally high in both apricots and millet. However, once exposed to western diets they become as vulnerable as the rest of us.
The implications of these findings are staggering of course. If we managed to control Scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) centuries ago, how is it we cannot do the same for cancer today? The fact of the matter is that we could if our respective governments would allow it. Unfortunately most governments have buckled under the pressure exerted by the pharmaceutical multinationals, the American Food & Drug Administration, and the American Medical Association. All three have mounted highly successful 'scare' campaigns based on the fact that vitamin B17 contains quantities of 'deadly' cyanide; conveniently forgetting that vitamin B12 also contains significant quantities of cyanide, and has long been available in health food shops world-wide.
Dr. Krebs' B17 Laetrile was derived from apricot seeds and then synthesized into crystalline form using his own unique process. Suddenly, the American FDA bombarded the media with a story about an unfortunate couple who had poisoned themselves by eating raw apricot seeds in San Francisco. The story made headline news across the U.S.A. although several suspicious journalists never managed to establish the identity of the unfortunate couple, despite many determined attempts. But the multinational pharmaceutical/FDA boot had been put in with a vengeance. From that point onwards eating apricot seeds or B17 Laetrile became synonymous with committing suicide...
Back in the fifties Dr. Ernst Krebs proved beyond doubt that B17 was completely harmless to humans in the most convincing way possible. After testing the vitamin on animals, he filled a large hypodermic with a mega-dose which he then injected into his own arm! Drastic perhaps, but the adventurous Dr. Krebs is still alive and well today.
The vitamin is harmless to healthy tissue for a very simple reason: Each molecule of B17 contains one unit of cyanide, one unit of benzaldehyde and two of glucose (sugar) tightly locked together. In order for the cyanide to become dangerous it is first necessary to 'unlock' the molecule to release it, a trick that can only be performed by an enzyme called beta-glucosidase. This enzyme is present all over the body in minute quantities, but in huge quantities (up to 100 times as high) at cancerous tumour sites.
Thus the cyanide is released only at the cancer site with drastic results, which become utterly devastating to the cancer cells because the benzaldehyde unit also unlocks at the same time. Benzaldehyde is a deadly poison in its own right, which then acts synergistically with the cyanide to produce a poison 100 times more deadly than either in isolation. The combined effect on the cancer cells is best left to the imagination.
But what about danger to the rest of the body's cells? Another enzyme, rhodanese, always present in larger quantities than the unlocking enzyme beta-glucosidase in healthy tissues has the easy ability to completely break down both cyanide and benzaldehyde into beneficial body products. Predictably perhaps, malignant cancer cells contain no rhodanese at all, leaving them completely at the mercy of the cyanide and benzaldehyde.
Any physician reading this article will probably be shaking with self-righteous indignation at this stage, muttering to himself: 'Yes, but where is the PROOF???'
Right here! Most people have heard of 'spontaneous remission', where the cancer simply goes away, hopefully never to reappear. Spontaneous remissions are exceedingly rare and vary from one form of cancer to another. One virulent variety known as testicular chorionepithelioma has never been known to produce a single spontaneous remission. Perhaps for that precise reason, Dr. Krebs singled it out for special attention when proving the effectiveness of B17 Laetrile in providing total control for cancers. As Edward Griffin recounts:
"In a banquet speech in San Francisco on November 19, 1967, Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr., briefly reviewed six such cases. Then he added:
Now there is an advantage in not having had prior radiation, because if you have not received prior radiation that has failed, then you cannot enjoy the imagined benefits of the delayed effects of prior radiation. So this boy falls into the category of the ‘spontaneous regression... ‘
And when we look at this scientifically, we know that spontaneous regression occurs in fewer than one in 150,000 cases of cancer. The statistical possibility of spontaneous regression accounting for the complete resolution of successive cases of testicular chorionepithelioma is far greater than the statistical improbability of the sun not rising tomorrow morning."
Wisely perhaps, Griffin notes that because of the adverse publicity against B17 Laetrile, and because of the difficulties in obtaining the 'banned' substance, most cancer sufferers turn to the vitamin as a last resort, long after they have been burned by radiation therapy, and/or poisoned by chemotherapy. He points out that once the body organs have been savagely damaged in this way, there is little if any chance of B17 Laetrile being able to effect a cure. The body is simply too far gone.
When World Without Cancer was written back in 1974, B17 Laetrile was freely available in Australia. It is not now. A recent check with the Australian Cancer Foundation and health authorities revealed that nowadays Canberra considers each individual case on its merits, then decides whether the patient should be allowed to import sufficient of the material for his or her own personal use. If he or she manages to jump that hurdle, it is then his or her own responsibility to find a doctor prepared to inject it. Seemingly the multinational pharmaceutical lobbyists managed to get to our politicians before Dr. Krebs could get to the Australian public. Radiation and chemotherapy are highly profitable, and oncologists have to make a decent living...
Only a few months ago Australian nationwide television carried the delightful information that two out of every three Australians can expect to suffer skin cancer at least once during their lifetimes. On the massive evidence provided by Dr. Ernst Krebs, Jr. and G. Edward Griffin, that figure could be crushed to a tiny percentage of the anticipated numbers if Australians were allowed freedom of choice where B17 Laetrile is concerned. It is time for Australians to take a stand on this lethal issue.
eph you see kay etouffee if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hound hog dog crossed bayou levee last night all right what did you say if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hog dog crossed the levee last night all right i heard what you said the first time why you got to repeat eph you see kay you ******* ****** **** what? what did you say you ******* ****** **** heard you the first time you **** a **** a ***** a ***** hello stop end begin believe conceive create no thank you i already ate what? what did you say begin believe conceive create no thank you i already ate quit ******* repeating yourself  you ******* ******* hello stop end begin believe conceive create eph you see kay etouffee if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hog dog crossed the levee last night all right

the renown physicist dressed in brown wool suit brown leather laced shoes white shirt burgundy knitted tie wild curly graying hair climbed the stairs walked across the stage stood at the lectern adjusted narrow support pole height reached down into brown leather briefcase retrieved his thesis concerning the relative theory of everything tapped microphone composed his posture made a guttural sound clearing his throat looked out at packed full auditorium it became evident to the distinguished audience the renown physicist’s fly was open and his ***** hanging out it was unanimously dismissed as a case of professorial absent-mindedness

all the creatures of the earth (excluding humans) convened for an emergency session the bigger creatures talked first grizzly bears stood upright explaining demand for gallbladders bile paws make us more valuable dead than alive sharks testified Asian fisherman cut off our fins for soup then throw us back into the sea to die elephants thumping heavy feet stepped forward yeah poachers **** us for our tusks rhinos concurred yes they **** us for our horns wild Mustang horses neighed about violent round-ups then slaughtered processed for cat food whales complained of going deaf from submarine sonar tests then sold for meat many dolphins sea turtles tuna swordfish sea bass smaller fish swam forward pleading about getting caught in long line nets barbed baited hooks over-fished colonies chimpanzees described nightmares of being stolen from their mom’s when they are very young then used in research labs for horrible tests song birds chirped about loss of their habitats land tortoises spoke in gentle voices about being wiped out for housing developments saguaro cactuses dropped their arms in discouragement masses of penguins solemnly marched in suicidal unison to edge of melting icebergs polar bears and seals wept honey bees buzzed colony collapse disorder bats flapped about white nose syndrome coyotes and wolves howled lonesome prairie laments the session grew gloomy with heart-wrenching unbearable sadness sobbing crying then a black mutt dog spoke up my greyhound brothers and sisters and all my family of creatures i sympathize with your hurt but it is important to realize there are people who care love us want to protect us not all humans are ravenous carnivores or heartless profiteers a calico cat crept alongside black dog and rubbed her head against his chest an old gray mare admitted her love for a race horse jockey who died years ago a bluebird sang a song suddenly lots more creatures advanced with stories of human kindness Captain Paul Watson Madeleine Pickens Jane Goodall a redwood tree named Luna testified about Julia Butterfly Hill the winds clouds sky discussed concerns by Al Gore lots and lots of other names were mentioned and the whole tone of the meeting changed every one agreed they needed to wait and see what the next generation of people would do whether humans would acknowledge the cruelties threats of extinction and learn grow figure out ways to sustain mother earth father sky then the meeting let out just as the sun was rising on a new day

there is a cemetery in Paris named Père Lachaise buried there are the remains of Jim Morrison Oscar Wilde Richard Wright Karl Appel Guillaume Apollinaire Honoré de Balzac Sarah Bernhardt the empty urn of Maria Callas Frédéric Chopin Colette Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Nancy Clara Cunard Honoré Daumier Jacques-Louis David Eugène Delacroix Isadora Duncan Paul Éluard Max Ernst Suzanne Flon Loie Fuller Théodore Géricault Yvette Guilbert Jean Ingres Clarence Laughlin Pierre Levegh Jean-François Lyotard Marcel Marceau Amedeo Modigliani Molière Yves Montand Pascale Ogier Christine Pascal Édith Piaf Marcel Proust Georges Seurat Simone Signoret Gertrude Stein Louis Visconti Maria Countess Walewska and many other extraordinary souls it is rumored at late dusk their ghosts climb from graves gather drink fine brandy from costly crystal glasses smoke fragrant cigars and once a year on November 2 party hard all night culminating in deliriously promiscuous ****** **** it’s difficult to know what the truth is since the dead don’t talk or do they
Westley Barnes Mar 2016
Each time I attempt to conclude
this equation,
I arrive at the same intersection of doubt,
as if fate sees me coming.

1) Highway ****** Crash
2) The Evasive Goings-on in The Puppy Court
3) A Picture of Susan Howe in a Man's Grey Overcoat

These sequences of event all appeared to me in dreams. The same dream, repeated, over a succession of winter nights. The first few sober, the last an alert blur, wherein the images seemed to make the most sense.

All I can be assured of is this:
because the police officer in the dream was a police officer
Not a garda síochana or police inspector
the dream was definitely set in one of the Midwest United States
where I've never been, yet oddly interests me more than Canada,
where the same applies. It was definitely  freezing
(perhaps the blanket had been pulled off me in sleep?)
and the police officer definitely spoke English and said
"Highway" Hence: American.

The first night the dream arrived
It was that time of year when the night sky
subtly tricks you into believing that
morning is imminently about to break.

Those nights
A reminder that nature
was the first coy tease of suspended disbelief
the first pay-per-view special that took its time
getting going and then ended all too soon.

Two trucks had split in two a mid-size saloon-
That was the first of the dream's episodes-
But a voice arrived like a roll call of ice before an avalanche
-whispering that it was "a setup"-
which I presumed meant "collusion."
So I had a ******, at hand, in my dream-
speaking to the mustachioed Midwestern police detective afterwards-
as mutually understanding as if we had been in the same all-boys Catholic secondary school.
He had the suspects-so we then presided unto-

"THE PUPPY COURT"

Which was-yes, a court whose racial make-up consisted of young Dogs-
(This being a dream ; Dreams which are often the dictionary definition of Surreal and often don't mean anything)
The more I consider it, the Puppies were also most likely Puppets
Acted out by humans who had fists shoved up their *****.
Perhaps this court was a speculative court-it was, most certainly,
A "Kangaroo" court
With no justice being presided over, as such.
Heckles sounded throughout most of the exhibits,
A sternly yapping Yorkshire Terrier banged the gavel to no avail-
He was consistently rudely interrupted by a cocksure Golden Retriever-
who seemed to have as his boyos most of the bench and the jurors.
I never did find out who was responsible
for the horrific collision that spelled the end for the saloon driver,
as at this point I would usually exit the court in disgust
and for some reason found myself reading a poem in front of
an audience of one-
the acclaimed Irish-American L=A=N==G=U=A=G=E (that's how they spell it..) poet Susan Howe.

Yes, she was indeed wearing a Man's gray Overcoat
Resembling herself in the picture I held in my hand
Next to my own text
And as I looked toward her
The room's low lighting seem to reflect
the sparse "Black and White" filter of the photograph
and she was also wearing what looked like
the same Man's gray (Houndstooth maybe?
She Looked ALL filtered through "Black and White")

So the intention seemed to be that I was reading,
or perhaps presenting, maybe even pitching?
to Susan Howe. ("And how!"-might have been the before-or-after gag I might have used to anyone who new how it was going to go or how it happened-what gamey fun, these puns be...)
Susan looked on with penitence, as if prematurely unimpressed...
I look down to the poem I was expecting myself to read, and realised...
why the ******* did I choose that?

It was a poem I had written several years ago (well, if several means seven, lets say six)
Its subject was a young Canadian (possible Motorway Crash Link? Perhaps I misremembered her as midwestern?..) Muslim student whom I had shared a class on Hellenistic philosophy with back in the first or second year of my undergrad in Dublin (oh the hedonistic, sunsplashed, affordable Dublin of those days) and whom I had shared a flirtatious rapport with, innocent enough of course but always backdropped by a underscored leitmotif that instilled the threat of a problematic outcome across religious and possibly less so cultural divides

(Breath)

Nevertheless, she laughed at my jokes and self-deprecation and would squeeze my arm tightly when particularly amused , would hug me enthusiastically at the end of every class and although I never saw the full profile of her under that headscarf her ****** features Vogue beach fashion shoot stunning and after the module ended I never saw her again oh but how rare and strangely puritanical the lust...

Regardless, the poem began as such:

A Stir in Yemen/ must have been the catalyst for the smokey condensation/ in your gaze/ the mocha swirl in your pupils/ and the vex in your smile/ alluding to double meanings/innuendo that treads together like an Ernst canvas/ a blessed triptych/thrillingly

This poem was typed onto a model of Nokia phone which I have been made aware has since gone out of fashion, like it's producer.

Max Ernst-the surrealist painter, of course. A manual in style for most of us.

In response to my reading, Susan Howe merely nodded silently, seemingly all knowingly, as if she had thought the poem written for her or contained an interpretation that I had unintended (or, if asked by the real-life Susan Howe, would pretend to have intended all along.)

And there the Dream Triptych always ended.

As I said at the beginning I dreamt it twice more that same week, once intoxicated. It always followed the same sequence, and I don't read books on dreams so I have no idea what it meant, why it had three distinct parts or whether if most likely it was all a bit of nonsense. But at least it was INTERESTING.

Make the rest up for yourself.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2020
i was expecting: a bothersome sobering stiffness -
in that: a tongue more rigid and less
maniable - to the extreme of: no less rigid
than rigidity itself implies -

but: this is it, die neu es -
   split second blues for some deviating
pedantry et al.: how many definite articles
are there in deutsche?
   herrman hier: das die der... den -
            pointing definitely at a distance
using the complexity of a telescope:
a horizon of the flattest of all possible flat:
Flanders.

- lately, drinking became intolerable:
    an iron maiden no less, no more...
               that listening to music was...
beside the sound of a crashing piano...    ?
the scratching of a fork and knife
on a porcelain plate... a nail on a blackboard?
believe me when
i say: a thin glass of water and a wet
index circling the edge -
               virulent humming of agitated
atoms...

beside: i begin where i left off...
    from the cinema calender of the abstract heart...
if there is sense to be made:
ex-dada it is...
               it's not hard but it is still
a cluster-**** of wording to have
either the cabaret voltaire in the background
while the trenches to the fore -
or the reverse -
                      
  this neu and the perfect litany
(ja, für jetzt): ernst... schlicht...  nüchtern...
to play on the antonyms:
rasch! bissig!
          like an aporte for a dog...

     neu ernst                /                  alt blau...

because i guess that's the beauty of english
and it's dish of the most succulent: sächsisch...
how it can be woven into a "hiding something"
sort of tartan -
                           on that unconscious
level: coming out of the trenches
               for a game of foos b'ah ah a'loon...
      
it's this cherry: and all around this sea of
clotted cream:
                          or rather: what came "borrowed"
when mingling with the gingerbread men
of a celtic persuasion -
remains on a roman garrison -
yadda yadda blues...
                                      
- no need to reread unless... reading it like
one might read a ted berrigan sonnet,
i.e.
      purgatory announces the grand festival
      the devil's water weeps on my reason
      the love policeman who ****** so quickly
      towards the bells of the white aorta dawn
      **** and ice go to bed under an amorous gaze
      rue st-jacques the pretty boys set off

and how we meet in the middle:
                   large lamp stomachs ****** mary...

   how else to reread a dadaist poem?
                    write anew: cut enough tabloid press
and find a top hat or simply settle for
a bucket?

it's not like i haven't gone through
the similarities... closest (of) kin...  
                              or however you want to look at it,
i.e. "mutated"...
             take away the consonants...
leave yourself five breaths...
            and have yourself a quasi-sputnik fun'oh...
      (e-i-e-e) towing along b, l & v
                      while (a-u-e) is towing along
                                         g, l, b & n

it's hardly a trick or a question or a trick-question
or some "reverse psychology" dynamic...
a verb: nonetheless...

             it is 10:06am and i am almost
done... a coffee has been drank, a cigarette smoked
and a mince pie ate:
caffeine nicotine sugar...
    and the wintry snap! of morning air...
nothing better to wake up... not even a shower...
caffeine nicotine sugar
    and the wintry snap! of morning air...
even i like the sound of that: hence...
                  on repeat...

   about 5 poems read and more importantly
ślicznie, pięknie: prozaicznie...
   something prosaic... to balance the poetics...
after all: i don't know which would
give me more constipation and which
    indigestion - the digestive system aside:
i'm implying... that fat sponge of
spaghetti herr Brian Eez...
                          
eine zunge
zwei zunge
drei zunge            auster
                               ohne ein schale
                               auf a hölzernFußboden

one tongue
two tongue
three tongue         oyster
                               without a shell
                               on a wooden floor!

vier? veer into fwench and... oh my... my my, my...
'nee bother...
aye?
that would ruin the most advantageous
morning: and there's still all that prior to noon
take on: in strife with calculated stride:
most certainly with airy / spacious trousers...

the dust settles...
alternatively: the sum of animation escapes,
the soft pouches and livery of Eden
slowly too... a shamelessness from peace...
best not cremated:
             for the shadow entertaining bone.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
a.

227.9 million years away
                   (mars)                   heliocentric model
i.e. away from coordinates (0,0), i.e. the sun

b.

149.6 million years away
                      (earth)                         "               "
etc.

c.

    standard metric system, alternatively
                        this is the geocentric model emerging
i.e.        one day on earth is equivalent
           of a day and forty minutes on Mars...
  we don't have access
                     to a heliocentric model for this
primarily because of the coordinate of the sun
being (0,0), in Kantian symbolism 0 = denial,
therefore the sun cannot encompass day,
or night, hours or minutes...
                             you cannot apply
the relativity of days comparatively being different
on Mars or on Earth using the heliocentric model...
              
      and to think, all it took was for nautical directions
being blessed by the movement of constellations,
        and that phrase of mine: where's Copernican east?

            we're all shouting at the ****** project,
it's either who write the best concentrated plagiarism
of the masses for the visual effects,
          the glued together parts of iron and oxygen
tanks... or who can write the words behind the images
well enough to capture the imagination
        and shift it elsewhere...
oh believe me, i am living in a 48 hour week,
    i'm not writing science fiction,
                       i'm on earth, but this isn't earth,
it doesn't require a measure of distance,
   but still the figures stand... so i might as well
toy with them and get some bogus answer...

d.

what does life constitute on a "planet" that consists
of 48 hours?
                     today i put on something warm,
the cold finally got to me,
                          i'm the butterfly while a hurricane
rages on elsewhere,
                              quantum humanism some call it,
because the physics never really inclined itself
to treat human emotions well enough -
                    just today,
as i peered into the day's sky -
                     the moon and the sun shared the same
blue horizon -
                           in the summer the moon has the
tides - and keeps them at bay, calm,
         but when autumn and winter come,
and the earth tilts - the moon looses the grip on
the tides in the northern hemisphere -
hurricanes in the west, tsunamis in the east,
              storms at Greenwich meantime -
the time of day? when the moon engages in
profane acts with day, appearing and stunning
insomniacs into coherency, as if asking:
            so if i am being given a very quick
and less romantic sunrise, and esp. a less
romantic sunset, by seeing the moon closely aligned
to the sun during the day:
                 am i seeing the nightly delights of
the southern hemisphere, and if so,
            is that to the east, or is that to the west?
i am guessing it's to the east... for i am seeing
the night in the southern Pacific continent -
              i am seeing their night
                          for the moon has transgressed
its boundaries, and left the northern waters
ready to rebel under the polytheistic guise
complimenting the spacious orbs -
                       when order and monotheism of
the north during spring and summer...
         then Poseidon's upheavals with the watery
rebellious graves during autumn and winter:
or how Hades persuaded his two brothers to
pay due and meet with the Titans in Tartarus:
to thus form a pact against the monotheistic concept:
for the soul of the ancient Greeks said:
                shame be unto you, brats,
for shunning the religion of your forefathers!

e.

indeed the 48 hour day, two days and two nights,
or more precisely: three nights and one day -
sooner or later they'll push the clocks back,
a man will go to sleep in the dark,
   and catch but a glimmer of a day - then too
thrown into the darkness: a 48 hour day on a planet
involves three periods of darkness, and one
period of daylight - and if they said Alaska was
torture... here is a man engulfed alone in it.

f.

strange to think that 78.3 million years between
Mars and Earth only add 40 minutes more to a day...
           as ever, the non-uniform suggestion of gravity,
take but one step on that soil,
                           the curse of the astronauts on the moon:
and then invite the poets of the cult of the moon,
the emblem of the moon that's Islam...
                              an then wait for the consequences
and the ***** dreams of those people and their children...
               even the Atom Bomb seems to have
been forgiven by comparison -
                                but never the moon: or the death
of childhood - lunar crown shattered -
                              death of storytelling for children
some might say: 1001 minutes of advertisement
before Cyrus starts weaving a web of entrenched
consumerism - not even the Belgian fields
and their world war 1 trenches could have provided
such a status quo to continue...
            to continue...

g.

so do i multiply that figure by something?
78.3 million years disparity -
                        times the time difference?
i.e. 78.3 multiplied by 40 and added to
the distance from earth?
            λoγος - no!
                                 what's the distance from
starting coordinate (0,0) to the earth? 149.6 million...
      and mars?
227.9 million...
                                      which means 78.3 multiplied
by taking away the negation symbol due
to the double-negation coordinate that the sun is
(timeless and without space-affirming
                  timing to our necessary comprehension
of the day to day) - meaning the distance
of the planet with 48 hour days (three nights and one
day) is 313.2 million years away from the sun...
               Jupiter stands at being 778.5 million years...
and that's a kept in ****... a gaseous giant...
                 so the distance is plausible...
but like i said before: first comes logic,
which splits into rationality and irrationality -
                      but irrationality still uses logic -
      we all know that irrationality is not reasonable -
          but it is ably-reasoned-with
           or can succumb to some variation
                     of the illogical -
                                              namely illogical rationality:
as in passing Platonic theories down the ages,
or succumbing to the Freudian psychoanalysis -
fashion is simpler, cruder -
                                               it cuts off the missing
points, it desecrates the shrines of famous names
and does the grand thing of keeping everyone
hooked in, rather than out of it nostalgic -
       no one is really winning either side of this point.

h.

and this is really what two beers can do to you
to relax after living on plant H-48 -
                     no yoga teacher can tell you that ***
gets better when you pay alms to this world -
         the yoga fakes are making enough dosh laughing:
*** is good, where there's a billion of them,
not a scattering of what i call the real reason
why we evolved to be so numerous:
     cancerous libidos, or overblown libidos,
   and a knack at ******* each other off - which just
says: keep 'em coming!
                                    and they expect people to really
be awe-stricken when you have such nice names
in biology: chlorophyll and enzyme and hydro and
aqua... and for all life to begin with a big bang?
    i thought you couldn't hear astronauts scream
in space?        or maybe that big bang was just
       a big boo - because aren't we **** scared?

i.

American politics has cracked with this presidential
election, the real dynamic is out...
           it reminds me of
the trinity of ******, the brown-shirts
(Sturmabteilung) thugs leader Ernst Röhm
and the man that replaced him:
               Heinrich Himmler of the
less thuggish and more professional murderers'
brigade the (Reichsführer Schutzstaffel) -
you see, i actually have a better attention span
when i live on H-48... did you notice
that neither of the presidential candidates mentioned
the literature in their debates?
one said: tax evasion, the other said: emails!
but these two sly foxes are toying with the whole
process... they're citing the literature...
   tim kaine and mike pence are the geniuses behind
the scenes... you have to give credit to them...
                it's the ingrained discussion -
the gospels -           it subconsciously will even convince
black voters (of a certain age) to vote for Trump,
regardless of his blunders... which are like ******'s
blunders even though Eva Braun has Jewish heritage
(as seen in one documentary on channel 4) -
                    and you know they're running the show
because they only have one debate...
         that's how important they are...
                       did you ever care to watch a
Ingram Bergman film twice? or three times?
i don't think so. once... and then the butterfly is gone,
gone gone. i'm not here for the entertainment -
American protestant-ism isn't European,
                          it's ultra-Catholic -
                    oddly enough, not in terms of all
the iconic symbolism - that's scaled down -
       but the message is profoundly Catholic -
the two men cited the literature - they're
not thugs, they're not blundering rhetoricians like
the two puppets in their hands...
                        they're the power brokers
or what in England we call the kingmakers -
   i'm not into conspiracies, just the obvious things -
****** had a funny moustache,
          Trump has a funny haircut -
J F K was handsome L B J wasn't and was furious
when Marilyn sang the birthday blues...
                   Gerald Ford is the founder of the Mafia...
Nixon wanted in... oops... didn't happen...
                    ever since Ford it's been playtime after
playtime and no one doing the arithmetic on lives -
               well you know, a washing machine
breaks down, you get a new one...
                  but something came up at the turn
of the 21st century, no one expected it -
this is where i only ascribe one conspiracy:
                                         you can't miss it,
it's blatantly there on the geographical map,
S.A. and that beautiful ornament flag with a pretty
sword and Arabic calligraphy...
                             i'm not wetting my appetite with
these words... it's just common sense -
                money is something that provides the
trans-valuation of all things: it's what the alchemists
were always hoping to find, but it was found
so long ago that it didn't matter how childish they
thought they could be: thanks for paracetamol
though...
                                     what's actually the most
mystifying aspect of this is how there's an ingrained
desirability of a status quo:
      you can have a coin with Rex's head on it,
and no matter what the base metal is,
it will still devalue something more precious
                     and increase value of something more
precious...               it happens in the art world
with the artist being recognised posthumously
                                for the object of his work,
but nothing beyond that...
                                              and since it is painfully
obvious... the question is...
                     do you challenge the status quo
                                          or do you consider yourself
a unit of qua                 -
                                   and that's an open question,
if a question at all...
                                        it's because i have left the
exciting part of this poem,
                                    gravity pulled me down to
planet H-24 (otherwise known as earth), and i see
all this ****** misery...
                                       and i think...
even though my life on planet H-48 can sometimes
feel like torture - i know that i'm in control of
certain perks on it...           and all because i decided
to travel there, with one missing clue as to
why it took me 2 years to escape Heidegger's Alcatraz -
            and why i decided to go back in...
      after reading the previously mentioned book
i realised i was given the key into something else,
           kaleidoscopic even -
worded physics, worded chemistry, worded biology,
  not the physics of equations, or chemistry
of electron-migration diagrams in organic reactions,
or biology and its oops after oops and
a boxing match with theology -
                                           i even considered
buying the Alcatraz in English... but that would
make no sense...
                         given the already bilingual dynamic
being established...
                                     as Dante chose Virgil
to wade through hell... you too must also choose
the one companion, and reject all others...
               and if Heidegger chose Aristotle
i must choose Heidegger - and would i say that
my grandfather was a bad man for being a
communist party member? do you think
a small town boy gets sold the highest form of
Versailles intrigue that culminates in
the Siberian gulag? they got you spinning that old
housewives' tale like a dodo doing dodo
                                           rather than being dodo.
LJW Jul 2014
The Top Ten Epigrams of All Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



collected in
collection
A Poet’s Glossary
Each week we feature a new term from Academy Chancellor Edward Hirsch’...
Lieber, ist dies für Sie.
Ich möchte Sie , stark zu bleiben , und ich weiß, dass eine schwierige Aufgabe ist . nur daran erinnern, dass ich hier bin für dich, und ich werde immer hier sein. Wenn Sie das Bedürfnis verspüren, zu sterben , denken Sie daran , dass ich mit dir bin. Ich hoffe, dass Sie mich ernst nehmen , und meine Liebe ernst. Ich gehe nicht weg, und ich hoffe, Sie werden auch nicht.
Guten Morgen,
Gute Nacht.
my lover Mädchen
Von,
Bluten- Diamanten
Bonjour
buon giorno
guten morgen
despabílate amor y toma nota:
sólo en el tercer mundo mueren cuarenta mil niños por día
en el plácido cielo despejado flotan los bombarderos y losbuitres
cuatro millones tienen sida
la codicia depila la amazonia
buenos días good morning
despabílate
en los ordenadores de la abuela onu no caben más cadáveres de ruandalos fundamentalistas degüellan aextranjeros
predica el papa contra los condones
havelange estrangula a maradona
bonjour monsieur le maire
forza italia buon giorno
guten morgen ernst junger
opus dei buenos días good morning hiroshima
despabílate amor que el horror amanece
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2019
.note to self: to make the perfect hungarian goulash, for ever capsicum pepper used, use a romano (sweet) pepper... bay leaf, allspice... pristine pork... no need for chicken stock... decently sizzled lard trimmings (from the pork)... a generous amount of garlic to balance the onions... chilli... and... a 2 : 1 ratio of paprika to smoked paprika powder: cooked generously for an hour+ having poured water into the mixture and some tomato purée... a decent cut of carrot and root parsley... and then... only then: the chopped tomatoes... salt to taste... fresh parlsey on top; yes, served on a massive hash brown (raw potatoes, grated, egg, flour, salt), with a sidedish of coleslaw... come to think of it: no... why would you add nutmeg to the sauce?

                                              nicht ist mehr?
              nicht ist noch -

                       a cough of Ernst Bloch:
    and there i was thinking:
where does Franz Marc (blues horses)
                        and Kandinsky ever begin?
precursor to:
      postcard poetry -
        i'll watch me a painting and invent,
rather, succumb to: phenomenalism -
               what with the senses already dimmed,
blunted to b & w and bad deutzsche grammar?


walking through the mess of yesterday's town,
i couldn't but succumb to the allure
of a thought:

   a thought that resurfaced just about
when i finished my going-to-bed-routine:
smoked a cigarette,
did the no. 1 & the no. 2 &
    ****** off on the toilet,
             smoked another cigarette,
drank a glass of water with
     the prescription,
                     dressed myself in pajamas,
     closed the blinds,
   closed the window,
    put on the headphones -
      put on a horror movie soundtrack,
switched off the light,
       lay myself in bed:
   toiled in it for an hour...
hyper-excited by the prospect of
heading to central London
        to pick out a cabbage vinyl..
     ate a piece of chocolate in the dark,
followed by a decent gulp of water...
fell asleep...

  but prior: in between - the allure of
the thought:

       self-worth attached to certains
jobs...
         and... how else to expand on this?
i reckon i'll write as much a decent
verse in the morning with
a coffee: than i will ever
           (constipated) get out of a nightly
session with a bottle of amber-glug...

if only i was so desperate as to have
written some of this prior to
closing my eyes:
                                 exposing my eyes
to the insomnia glue
       of a brightly lit screen of
                            a brain-harvester...

comparison:
    no one would really care to think
of a street cleaner as important...
     well... for me:
                            if i could be a street
cleaner: i could have all the legs
   and recycling heavens' wheels of
fortune to: blah-blah this sort of
wordings...
                       walking yesterday
through town i noticed two of them...

clean streets...
    what could be more important than
clean streets?
           ***** streets for rats...
            
         but i could never...
never count a barista to be a barrister:
yet both could cite you
some sort of philosophy:
  one would cite you something from
jurisprudence,
   the other something from
       what pedants discuss in an opera
prior to the curtain fall...

yet with a barista?
   a strange hyper-inflated membrane
of self-worth:
  noticed in a supermarket cashier,
noticed in a ekspedientka (saleswoman)
  ekspedient (salesman)...
the more trivial the job becomes:
the more self-worth buds under
the surface: with no ulterior outlet beyond
the role...
   like this shawl of glass full of
water: having more water poured into it...

(god, this looked better in my head):

            how much self-worth permeates
from the face of a street-cleaner?
                zilch...
                    ah..­. but how much of "something"
permeates from you walking
down a clean street:
    indifferently -
                you'll hardly think yourself
as garbage: staring at the blank canvas
of pavement...
             yet the barista?
              it's as if he knows:
i've just put on a kettle, boiled some water,
squeezed some coffee...
   ergo? i have to "look" important!
the street cleaner?
    do i really have to "look" important?
i know this is important:
what? whatever the hell i'm doing.

or at least that's how the narrative goes...
in my little head on my little planet
of cycling upside-down apes...

the more trivial a job:
   the more self-worth needs to permeate
from the person given
a function, which, otherwise:
would conscript disdain...
        the camouflaged workforce...
self-evident:
   walking past a bank...
wait... weren't there 6 cubicles
here with cashiers?
                em... self-service?
imagine that!
           sooner or later
                there will be talk of
                             the                   self-:
not being a philosophical curiosity,
rather a study of the past,
or the reaching out attachment prosthetic
of revealing a dead someone
  a dead former profession...

                   crux hyphen:
                       i'm already part employed
as a supermarket cashier,
  i'm already a bank cashier...
               nothing new: auto-cue:
propagandist line, skewed news...
    
but there's still the blatant glare of
the staring match (and the missing E
starring - and the missing macron
on top of A in the latter) -

                  a láte(!) lātte -
rhythm (caffèlat) - cough-la-la-'t:
   hey, scribble here, scribble there,
you hear it in English all the time,
the ever pertinent question:
how do you say that?
  measure metres in inches
in: metric syllables no good...
   'ave to *** beck tou d' imperial...
yes: and because Dickens...
really really, wrote just any better
   schlang than anglo-saxon Idaho...

self-worth: volumptous in certain
instances in public:
   the same self-worth attached to...
would you really want
to have your shoes-polished
with your feet in the shoes?
i wouldn't...
                      trivial *******,
i know... but such is the beast of
self-worth disguising the trivial
nature of certain professions...
   where would be the Wall St. broker
without a shoe-shiner?
boy oh boy: on the same dirt road:
        shoeshine is that thick splodge
of canvas worth a twinkle 'ere,
           a twinkle o'      'er...

airy-fairy: bottom's up and
flaky in the visage of the pompous
boston alto horn of
              a Parisian kelner...
bulging mass: bloated larynx:
puff ****: the three piglets and
the asthmatic bad wolf...

quick... untangle me from this language!
i have a no-nonsense person
to speak to later:
and i can't be bound to
  this metaphor Dali allure;
literally a square is a square,
red is red,
     and escapism only in
              a prosaic paragraph;

this hardly compensates
even the bare scraps of what is
a work of ethic of...
                                                an ant.
Donall Dempsey Dec 2015
HEART GALLERY

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!
Waitherero Jun 2013
ich danke dir
ich dank dir nicht
ich hoffe,...
doch möchte ich es nicht

ich denke
heißt das ich bin

alles kommt mal ans Licht
Schicht für Schicht
entfaltet die Wahrheit sich

wie ein Kartenhaus bricht alles in sich
und alles endet in einen Haufen nichts

wenn das geschieht
stehen wir vor dem Gericht
allein und ohne nichts

in dir kommen Gedanken
nichts mehr ist zum Lachen

Ernst ist gefragt
und wenn du versagst
liegt es allein in deiner Hand

das wird die Zeit sein
in der du dir sagst...

von nichts kommt nichts
ich bin ich
und du bist der der du bist

alles was ich will
ist ein lächeln im Gesicht
und ein schönes Gedicht
#ich bin ich #ich #bin #Licht #hoffe #Hoffnung #Deutsch #Denken #sein
irinia Jul 2023
The true poem is not the work of the individual artist, it is the universe itself, the one work of art which is forever perfecting itself.

Ernst Cassirer, from "An essay on Man"
ConnectHook Apr 2019
I.

evolving, thunder-struck

amino eventualities

and bio-potentialities

in the muck

re-group, protoplasmic and joyful

singing in the proverbial soup

of circumstances

and random cosmic chances

a song of differentiation

loose ends / ragged strands / loose lines

of poetry: DNA spiral dances

Precambrian time, period of time extending from about 4.6 billion years ago (the point at which Earth began to form) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, 541 million years ago. Precambrian time encompasses the Archean and Proterozoic eons, which are formal geologic intervals

II.

the wriggling one-celled poet decides

to become complex

takes its time:

geologic / astral eons

twitching and failing

into the fabled tadpole of adaptation

to a godless universe, diverse

in its variegated futility

this idea has been summarized in the mouthful, ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’, which means the development of the individual embryo repeats its alleged evolutionary history. The first thing to say about this dictum, is that ‘law’ it is not!

III.

our fish, now fowl,

proclaims its Archaeopteryx manifesto

standing on Precambrian banks

demanding a return on its investment

in sedimentary overlays:

Ernst Haeckel !  shrieks the avian jokester

The Imaginary Monera: the eating habit and reproductive cycle of an alleged Moneron to which he gave the scientific name, Protomyxa aurantiaca 73 pages of his speculations more important than facts and evidence.

IV.

into the long long corridors

of time’s bad poetry

sleeping off the tadpole nightmare

sprouting flippers, legs, digits, wings

deciding to fly, smashing antediluvian cedars with trilobite tail

upright biped sporting body-hair

you shall prevail

descending from trees in African dreams

misanthropologically *****

gracile / robust (that’s us)

Hey turn that **** up ! yells Piltdown Man

from his evolutionary window

He believed that the only major difference between man and the ape was that men could speak and apes could not. He therefore postulated a missing link which he called Pithecanthropus alalus (speechless apeman) a woman with long lank hair suckling a child.

V.

falling for the lies

of the Lord of the Flies

Zinjanthropus asks quizzically

How much more of this

are you prepared to take
?

misbegotten centuries glimmer:

light years of bad poetry

captive eons of incoherent free verse

as we wait

for the Bronze Age Myths

to begin
PROMPT #3: a poem that takes time. It takes its time getting where it’s going,
and the action of the poem itself takes place over months.
[…] a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time.

Honestly, this is the type of modernist poetry I dislike.
I wrote it in about 25 minutes, edited and formatted it
with found text & images for about 40 minutes and VOILÀ:
cutting-edge modern dullness. It was still fun though.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2020
alongside the songs herr mannelig
             and herr holger -
  garmarna...

     would you believe it...
i couldn't... holger: juniperus squamata...
juniper...
i don't quiete remember what's
it used for...

to have little ol' me bothered about...
view counts...
perhaps i'm being lazy...
    perhaps i'm... what's already available...

but i have a contender...
   hammock - ketonic... 2005...

and... godspeed you! black emperor...
F♯ A♯ ∞ -
       by god i still can't fathom
that this ever took place in 1998!

having to invest in 100 years...
as a sidenote: hopefully i do not come
out as a plagiarism within
the confines of your: gratefully... anonymous...

better things have come out
of canada than... rush or pearl jam...
if you can sieve half an hour...
F♯ A♯ ∞ is an album for you...

what is post-punk or post-rock...
  post-rock from radiohead?
    postponed prog-rock?
        godspeed you! black emperor...
the album came out in 1998...
i was still young and busying myself
with fan boy teen angst and tool...
i discovered...

              so mentioned...
a good... 18 years later...
                big things have happened in the world...
little things also...
greater things with a world-as-solo...
lesser things this these greater things
of so little... concern: for the greater world...

i want to mind them...
confine myself to: borrow from...
the grand arch of nouns...
call for a seamstress sophie...
and her love of... the breaking
of urns... and her shadow twin...
pandora...
           but... i can only think of...

Ernst Zimmer...
                  who kept... Hölderlin...
                in a room in a tower...
  overlooking the Neckar river in Tübingen...
freely...
           in light of both giving
some variation of consent...
i too would give all the world:
to be this... given this: ghastly cage(d)...
21st century hopes... hyperion?
to write new: new...
burn the old? to ask the same questions:
what's new is what's revised...

the spanish might have conquered
the "lesser" people of south america...
but at the same time...
the mongols: the lesser people...
clearly no affiliation with african
mothers and tatas...
conquered india... china... the muslim
empire... and teased christendom...
so... who's ode or what **** wits' boor
to baron the sodden crisp of...
moving... forward?
                       once upon a time...
all might kneel before the cruficix...
but before a converted brownie point count
so... glorious in his imaginary whip...
holding...

Eswatini will not... dream big...
the vatican of the continent: some might add...
will only welcome... easily converted...
castrato guards of the quasi-zulu king's harem...
big-****-para-bongo...
like... you hear it... and you're like...
'i'm pretty ******* sure...
some consonants are missing...'
the vowels might all be there...
but... thereafter?

                i don't even want to bother...
invade... india...
with latin script... you will get the sanskrit
backlash...
invade china... you'll get back...
your letters eaten by ideograms...
invade saudi arabia... giggles-and-squiggles...
invade greece: they'll spit cyrillic back
at you...
invade anywhere with latin...
you'll get all you want...
until judgement day...
when the leeches will answer back...
and drag you back to... where you belong
with "them" having found "them"...

well... it was truly nice of you to give
us the 20th century...
mighty nice of you...
too bad... you won't be... culturally...
exporting anything new...
into the current century...
beside... the overlooked library;
which is doubly nice!
time will seem to extend beyond...
what smells nice in a boquet of
flowers and will start to...
be scented with broths and...
what you brought back from Rajastan
and the like.
          
don't fake it... you didn't bring back
the dough from Nepal...
the idea... you might have...
but the Nepalese lamas weren't throwing
a big think stink over... eating...
uncooked cookie dough...
of course minus the caribbean sugar: dodo!
so don't ben & jerry my ***...

very nice... fun nice...
               100 years from now...
               looking for a tomorrow is suicide.
WEB: During 1950, after many years of research, a dedicated biochemist by the name of Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. (1912-1996), isolated a new vitamin that he numbered B17 and called “Laetrile.”
  As the years rolled by, thousands became convinced that Krebs had finally found the complete control for all cancers, a conviction that even more people share today.
  Back in 1950 Ernst Krebs could have had little idea of the hornet's nest he was about to stir up.
  The pharmaceutical multinationals, unable to patent or claim exclusive rights to the vitamin, launched a propaganda attack of unprecedented viciousness against B17, despite the fact that hard proof of its efficiency in controlling all forms of cancer surrounds us in overwhelming abundance.
   In his brilliantly researched 1974 book World Without Cancer, researcher and author G. Edward Griffin explains the trophoblastic theory of cancer proposed by Professor John Beard of Edinburgh University, which states that certain pre-embryonic cells in pregnancy differ in no discernible way from highly-malignant cancer cells. Edwards Griffin continues: "The trophoblast in pregnancy indeed does exhibit all the classical characteristics of cancer. It spreads and multiplies rapidly as it eats its way into the ****** wall preparing a place where the embryo can attach itself for maternal protection and nourishment."
   The trophoblast is formed in a chain reaction by another cell that Griffin simplifies down to the “total life cell,” which has the total capacity to evolve into any ***** or tissue, or a complete embryo. When the total life cell is triggered into producing trophoblast by contact with the hormone estrogen, present in both males and females, one of two different things happens.
  In the case of pregnancy the result is conventional development of a placenta and umbilical cord. If the trophoblast is triggered as part of a healing process however, the result is cancer or, as Edward Griffin cautions: "To be more accurate, we should say it is cancer if the healing process is not terminated upon completion of its task." Stunning proof of this claim is readily available. All trophoblast cells produce a unique hormone called the chorionic gonadotrophic (C.G.H.) which is easily detected in *****. Thus if a person is either pregnant or has cancer, a simple C.G.H. pregnancy test should confirm either or both. It does, with an accuracy of better than 92% in all cases. If the ***** sample shows positive it means either normal pregnancy or abnormal malignant cancer.
  Griffin notes: "If the patient is a woman, she either is pregnant or has cancer. If he is a man, cancer can be the only cause."
   So why all of the expensive, dangerous biopsies carried to “detect” cancerous growths? One can only assume that Medicare pays doctors a larger fee for biopsies than pregnancy tests.
Donall Dempsey Dec 2018
!HEART GALLERY!

You step forth
from your bath

as if you were
a Bonard

come alive

spread yourself
across crisp cool sheets

as sensationally
sensuous

as a Modigliani
****

or a Noguchi
sculpture.

Here, you
Matisse

if only
for a brief

moment now so
Ernst!

Now so
playfully Picasso...ish!

I smile
as you Vermeer!

"Come here
& kiss me!"

You my Magritte!

You my Dali!

You my laughing walking talking
'art gallery!
WEB: During 1950, after many years of research, a dedicated biochemist by the name of Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. (1912-1996), isolated a new vitamin that he numbered B17 and called “Laetrile.”
  As the years rolled by, thousands became convinced that Krebs had finally found the complete control for all cancers, a conviction that even more people share today.
  Back in 1950 Ernst Krebs could have had little idea of the hornet's nest he was about to stir up.
  The pharmaceutical multinationals, unable to patent or claim exclusive rights to the vitamin, launched a propaganda attack of unprecedented viciousness against B17, despite the fact that hard proof of its efficiency in controlling all forms of cancer surrounds us in overwhelming abundance.
   In his brilliantly researched 1974 book World Without Cancer, researcher and author G. Edward Griffin explains the trophoblastic theory of cancer proposed by Professor John Beard of Edinburgh University, which states that certain pre-embryonic cells in pregnancy differ in no discernible way from highly-malignant cancer cells. Edwards Griffin continues: "The trophoblast in pregnancy indeed does exhibit all the classical characteristics of cancer. It spreads and multiplies rapidly as it eats its way into the ****** wall preparing a place where the embryo can attach itself for maternal protection and nourishment."
   The trophoblast is formed in a chain reaction by another cell that Griffin simplifies down to the “total life cell,” which has the total capacity to evolve into any ***** or tissue, or a complete embryo. When the total life cell is triggered into producing trophoblast by contact with the hormone estrogen, present in both males and females, one of two different things happens.
  In the case of pregnancy the result is conventional development of a placenta and umbilical cord. If the trophoblast is triggered as part of a healing process however, the result is cancer or, as Edward Griffin cautions: "To be more accurate, we should say it is cancer if the healing process is not terminated upon completion of its task." Stunning proof of this claim is readily available. All trophoblast cells produce a unique hormone called the chorionic gonadotrophic (C.G.H.) which is easily detected in *****. Thus if a person is either pregnant or has cancer, a simple C.G.H. pregnancy test should confirm either or both. It does, with an accuracy of better than 92% in all cases. If the ***** sample shows positive it means either normal pregnancy or abnormal malignant cancer.
  Griffin notes: "If the patient is a woman, she either is pregnant or has cancer. If he is a man, cancer can be the only cause."
   So why all of the expensive, dangerous biopsies carried to “detect” cancerous growths? One can only assume that Medicare pays doctors a larger fee for biopsies than pregnancy tests.
trf May 2018
I herd these sheep in the silence of the lambo
I process trees into paper, smokin' ammo
A solo man on a mission like I'm rambo
Ernst and Young's got my ***** laundry handled.

I can tell you ride high
In Telluride skies
As the crow flies
From a perch with wide eyes

Pour out a fifth of Bacardi
When you're surrounded by lies
Flush them out like John Gotti
Ice picks their demise.

Yea, rest in peace
You heard me twice, I didn't blink
Counting sheep
Your contract's ceased, I signed the ink
Time to sleep
I raise a glass to have a drink
I kissed your cheek
Rats don't have time to think.

I can tell you ride high
In Telluride skies
As a crow flies
From a perch with wide eyes

Pour out a fifth of Bacardi
When you're surrounded by lies
Flush them out like John Gotti
Ice picks their demise.
Ya gotta love the lyrical stew of poetry in rap songs sometimes. Throw humble out the window and ball till ya fall. Hahahaha. This fun had to be done
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
ich bin nein sympathisant,
bin ernst betreffen (verb without
adjective modulation):
                  https://goo.gl/h0VEjA.

as the solid red partisans' plague
brought a censor to emerge from a
politico volcano -
dehumanised with the plucking
of petted eyes of cats out to engage
dehumanisation of man against man -
should it be a lessened esteem -
then iron swastikas may be readied now -
SALUTE! SALUTE! AVE HERR EMPEROR
CHARLIE CHAPLIN!
i love comedy, the last refinement
teasing the lineage of what's taboo;
and the last survivor of the tank dubbed
fury* was a coward -
in death as in coordinate we came to press
a bleeding wound with our hand -
but not a retreat of hopes,
as the soldiery faction came to revise
a return to the everyday,
once in the ***** of Mars, forever in
the twin wombs of Mars's quest for continual war
in the eyes, for once in the ***** of Mars
a homosexual in the hands of Venus,
bruderschaft die für immer -
but as said... die Eisen Hakenkreuz...
the iron ******* with India sleeping
into a populace of over one billion -
the Roma beggar playing the Accordion
while the ᛋᛋ men marched to a drumbeat of
wo wir sind da geht's immer vorwärts,
und der teufel der lacht nur dazu!
aha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

insomniac buggers, with amphetamine injections
while the opposing side tamed a lack
of courage with alcohol; these beggars
with the amphetamines like the Luftwaffe
and the caliphate soldiers of twins Syria and Iraq
among the bookmarks of the 21st century,
conspiracy theories and 24 years without sleep
after the Vietnam war - ingesting serotonin tablets
to provide the natural equilibrates of sleeping.
Dan Jul 2019
This
Is
Ragnarok
The violent end of worlds you’re pagan ancestors feared
Watch as the strikes from Thor steal your comrades from you
No Valkyries to guide you
No Valhalla to welcome you
Ankle deep in mud and rats and **** you load your rifle begging the God you believe in that you won’t have to **** another man

How did you find yourself here?
An Englishman fighting Germans in France
Because a Serbian killed an Austrian in Bosnia
Or an Italian, 43 years after your country was unified
Or a Serbian, longing to free your countrymen from Austro-Hungarian oppression
Or maybe your a Russian, a Frenchman, a Turk

Hear the whistle blow
Now is your time to storm from the trenches into razor wire and the the hail of bullets
You will likely be slaughtered
Like the 40,000 French soldier during one week of the war
This is a tragedy
But this is also a holy experience
Like for T E Lawrence
Fighting for a cause he never thought he would believe in
Or Ernst Jünger
Surviving bullet after bullet
Endless bombardments
This is the heroes journey
Do not let your children’s children take away from your sacrifice
When they say you died for nothing
You believed in your nation and you believed in yourself

Do not let them take that away from you
You who returned home and were ignored if not simply forgotten
Who returned home missing limbs, missing homes, missing loved ones
You who were traumatized shell shocked
Who could not return home
Who returned to what was supposed to be home
But life went on without you
So you found those who fought with you
From your bonds you formed brotherhoods
Formed paramilitaries

But that all comes later
Right now you look death in the eyes and can’t help but laugh
Laugh to keep yourself from crying
Laugh because you have never felt more alive than in this moment and never will again
And in this moment you can’t help but cry out
AVANTI
ARDITI
Dr Peter Lim Jan 2021
Thick evening mist
  spreads blanket over village
  lone figure walking

— The End —