ever read an existential comic?
i love that jokes
are necessary in them,
when all thinking can become comical,
but as i found out:
too many jokes and... too many jokes,
but it's not the sort of comedy
you get to play out with
spontaneity and excessiveness,
the spontaneity and excessiveness of
laughter at no apparent reason -
well, reason being a bunch of reasons
in the realm of too many to handle
a vector narrative -
philosophy, not so much "choose
a narrative", but become comfortable
with a vocabulary,
like a billionaire with a bit of his wealth
stashed in the vaults of Switzerland
of bonds, some wealth it bit-coin,
some in paperwork under the mattress
sleeping uneasy, some in shares on the
stock market, some in a bank debit account;
me? i too want a stable vocabulary,
high heels a purple corset and a red evening
dress, vis-à-vis a well tailored suit
and worn leather shoes expanded to a
comfortable fit by someone else -
as they say: make a footprint on the sand,
make the foot mould the shoe making the
footprint... but as i said, too many jokes,
it almost makes philosophy a futility,
but it only becomes futile
as the futility to live on when a depressive
agent of will decides that thinking per se
is a futility: because thinking per se is the self;
people can make you feel idiotic when
they incorporate you into their use of language,
they do so because they haven't really
bothered to itemise a comfortable vocabulary -
they've itemised something for sure,
but when you deviate from the art of making good
jokes to feeling comfortable with a vocabulary
as if it's a tailored suit, you avoid the dictionary;
i actually thought the dictionary was a holy book once,
but i realised it's a book you do rubrics with,
until you simply unlearn it...
i could go on and on, but it's worthwhile to use
it for a period of time, choose the words
you're comfortable with, words you can use
without question, without that existential
tactic of "god", transcendental "ego", "meaning",
you know that chance to create a sixth meaning
of the word or dig a tunnel of synonymity...
plus all these existential comic strips always leave
me begging the question: did we just have
a Bohemian-style ****, or did we simply sit down
to get a haircut?

I don't cut my skin for 24 hours, then 48
Then a week
Then two.
Practise abstinence in all forms
No drink, no drugs.
I don't stop my body from jittering and convulsing.
I let myself cry in the shower
Shave my legs without thinking off bleeding
Rest my nose between my mothers worried eyebrows
Kiss her scarred palms
Rub ointment into her feet
And go to bed smelling of lavender and love.
I wake up early, walk round the greenery. I don't open my mouth for 5 hours,
Plant seeds in my mamas garden and meditate where they'll bloom.
I refrain from eating meat. I drink a glass of milk when I wake
A glass before sleep.
I listen to Beyoncé. I watch French films without the subtitles.
Plan holidays.
I whisper prayers into my sleeping boyfriends neck
I go a whole day without thinking about our dead baby.
Walk to the train station and read the newspaper and never once think about jumping in front
Of my oncoming train.

My estranged father posts a status on Facebook, a joke, about choking dominant woman.
I wake up drunk, my arm sticking to a puddle of dried blood.
Cut chunks of flesh out of my forearm and leave a trail from the liquor store to my fathers gambling shop.
The next day I have a sore head, a sore arm. I starve myself for three days and let myself throw up watery bile into the toilet.

I start again.
I don't pick the scabs from my arm. I let red circular scarred skin form
Draw badly designed tattoos and make empty plans to cover them.
I call my friends, tell them how much I adore them, how beautiful and special they are,
How I never want to live a day without them
They call me cheesy. We laugh and make plans but we're all so busy. We hang up.
I practise excessiveness. Make my boyfriend ******. Laugh loudly. Put on too much makeup and spend £50 to eat out alone.
I call my aunties in Guyana. Let them speak for hours about a 'home' I've never been too.
Listen to stories about my mother, and her mother.
They ask me hushed voices if I'm still ill, tell me my mother has spent hours crying to them over me.
I tell them my plans.
Tell them I have a boyfriend.
I am studying. I am working, and loving and laughing.
They sound glad. They put me on to my dying grandmother and she prays for me
Tells me in strong accent that her children show her pictures of me on the computer
She tells me I am beautiful, so beautiful, she tells me I look just like my father.
We pause.
Her voice cracks and she praises Jesus for my health.
We say goodbyes. I promise to make more of an effort. Tell her I will visit her soon. Send my love to everyone and hang up.
I start reading two chapters of a book before bed.
Revisit old poetry. Write new words.
Dream in colour again, sing in the shower again.
I drink a glass of wine with my sisters and fall asleep being held by them.
I mute my father on Facebook.
Now we can start again.

This morning as I walked along the road,
The winter’s shadow hung about the air;
And casted out its gloom.  It was so cold;
But yesterday was spring like and so fair.

A flock of geese I watched the other day,
Perplexed they were as sure as I could tell;
Disoriented like they’d lost their way.
They soared in circles until evening fell.

What have we done to our sweet Mother Earth;
With our excessiveness and sins of greed?
And now that we’ve created this great dearth,
What will we do to rectify our deed?

We must act now before it is too late.
I hope we haven’t sealed our childrens' fate.

of this earth i will cursor with octopus
suction a lung in spring
to tame the readied earth
for harvest,  should i fail
blotch with soaked feet
in ink a followed route readied
for future grime
known as generational gaping
a form of yawn -
but never leave poetry singled-out
worded with only one word -
craft more syllables to mind -
at least enough syllables to rhyme,
i know that haiku does not rhyme,
but excessiveness of knowing so
will leave poetry without technique altogether...
at least keep what pop music decided
to make of poetry: rhyme -
at lest keep rhyme, at least write enough
syllables to craft a rhyme!
curating syllable usage to make
identifiable a poetic technique -
without enough syllables no poetry -
because of lost technique stressed via
syllable rubric spoken of
no rhyme to be multiplied into echo
for a coercion to mitigate:
i.e. rhyme -e- with please & ease -
mitigated meaning a lessening
with the echoing rather than the rhyming
resound -
for indeed in optics the words rhyme,
but in practice we care for echo rather than rhyme:
i rhyme we eat
                          and we seat -
but in fact opting for echo to be the curator.

The time has passed
in which the twig could bend;
awaken uplifted to a bright-eyed sun;
lay claim to its full legacy
with the comfort of nature's backing
and, at day's end,
caressed by tender winds,
frolic in a moonlit garden of blossoms.

I have heard it said:
if only I knew then what I know now,
how different I would have been.

Yet, I often think:
if only I had not been afraid
to partake of the things which I did know then,
how different I would now be.

For from a distance,
desire can breed obsession,
weakness can encourage excessiveness,
and regret can induce passivity.

I have read:
"Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind."

Yes, the twig is now brittle,
but I will no longer bemoan this state.
Instead, I will gain inspiration
from its determined posture.

For no distance is so great that
homage cannot be borne from desire,
nor strength from weakness,
nor action from regret.

And, even in the worst of times,
the Muses will appear,
the senses will rejuvenate
and the heart will beat heavily.

Swirl of bitter smoke as smooth as a scent.
Richness, indulgence.
Why deny the body corporal pleasures?
What more is there to living
than cake, creamy coffee, scents, softness-
excessiveness in excess.
Finding meaning in knowing that
it's all Absurd.
When the pang of wanting arises,
do not deny. There are no rules.
Willpower will not follow you beyond the grave.

Brass bed posts, tainted and smoothed
by touch, casual grazes,
as the feet touch the cold floor,
the breath creaks out.
A wooden table, round and stained
that softly accepts the heavy mug.
That gives the fingers something
roughly smooth to touch
when there's nothing-
or when there's everything, it's all too much-
the sensory.
A window with an eroded sill.
Or better yet- a balcony.
A purple sky, the air humid and warm.
A chance to breathe.

Is it selfish? Is it how true life should be?
Lazy, gluttonous, pointless, boring.
Tell me I don't know what's good for me.

Sleep, wake,
bed, sheets soft and hugging
tugging on a duvet to cover from the
breeze- an open window with curtains dancing.
Is it time clocks or is it days and feelings?
11:30 is not too early for lunch because
lunch is when you're hungry.
My body calls for
blueberries, tobacco, dozy sleeps on and off for 3 hours,
dark chocolate squares to excite my tongue,
outdoors, fresh air, being naked in the day time.
A shirt with a joke on it that only you understand.

Secured in the music an averse sympathetic note creating poetry. A soft emotion so violently felt it bled the eyes to strain the fingers. Such an aversly complicated flow, tears slowly stained the soul, saturating the heart in warmth, wrapping the withered body in a comforting blanket of forgotten harmonies singing some mystic hymn of a Lost belief, before the massacres before the greed of Christianity. A belief in natures songs, love. Ignorance erected churches, greed. Knowledge was born in the the silence of the mountains, enlightenment from within without excessiveness. Flesh and bone, forced through the eyes of vulnerability we measure success within the confusion of wealth. The innocence of feeble eyes absorb the contradiction plaquing our eggshelled minds throwing our soul into a tortured world of confusion, questioning question with questions